notions with regard to our ultimate views in education, may fairly be traced many of those heavy disappointments, of which parents fo often, and fo bitterly, complain.

If, on examining our own minds, we find that we have no other object in education, than to make our children excel in those fashionable accomplishments which will enable them to appear to advantage in the polite world; if, in our apprehenfion, all that is valuable be comprised in the word genteel; much unneceffary trouble may be fpared. The common education of the nurfery may then be considered as a very good preparative for the common education of the boarding-fchool; and as the culture. of the heart and of the understanding would but counteract our defigns, they may fafely be left out of the account. To engage the taste and the imagination in our intereft, will be an easy task. Fashion will be the preceptress of our pupils, and fhe is fo engaging a mistress to young minds, that

they

they will eafily be brought to yield implicit obedience to her authority. Beneath her plastic hand, both fons and daughters will be formed to our wish. will foon be qualified by her

They

precepts

for

all that is required of them.

They will

be prepared

"To frifk their hour upon the ftage,"

perhaps with fome eclat. But if minds. that have been imbued with no folid principles of virtue should become the prey of vice, let us not be astonished. Let us not exprefs the feelings of regret and difappointment at a confequence fo natural. That it is natural, nay, almost inevitable, a little reflection will evince. For though to train them to vice made no part of our defign-fo far from it, that we, perhaps, can call many a weary hour to witness what pains we took to lecture them to virtue-yet we must confefs the early affociations that gave an exclufive preference for whatever was genteel, to have been the

operating

operating principle of their minds. The ideas connected with the word genteel may, in the mind of the mother, comprise all that is elegant, and all that is virtuous, in polished life; but to these may easily be added, in the minds of the children, pride and vanity, luxury and voluptuousness, contempt of all that is ferious and facred, and that selfishness which knows not how to forego present gratification. Would to Gob the fatal confequences of these affociations had only their existence in the teeming brain of a visionary recluse! But, alas, the register of Doctor's-Commons, the coroner's records, and the tears of families overwhelmed with fhame from the mifconduct of once-promifing relatives, leave us no room to doubt of their melancholy truth.

Could we, indeed, reduce the child to a mere automaton; could we teach it to dance, and drefs, and play, and fing, as the only business of exiftence; and while

we did fo, totally arreft the operation of mind, and prevent the affociation of ideas, we might fafely pursue our plan. But fince this is not in our power, fince the everactive principle must proceed in its course, we have no alternative but to direct that course either to truth or error. If the strength of our own prejudices lean towards the latter; if by our conduct, and our expreffions of delight and complacency, we have taught them to affociate the idea of good with what is in its nature evil, and, by our manifeft indifference or contempt, taught them to affociate the ideas of evil with what is in its nature good; we ought not to be surprised, if the affociations thus produced should lead to confequences beyond our calculation: nor need we wonder, if the vehemence of defires thus engendered fhould, according to the predominance of vanity or appetite, either run the full career of folly, or fink into the depths of vice.

To

To expofe the abfurdity of making mere perfonal accomplishments the exclufive object of attention, is an easy task; but it is, perhaps, an error little less fatal in its confequences, to direct the attention solely to the cultivation of the understanding, while we neglect the heart. Whoever confiders the operation of the paffions, and the influence of the affections upon the happipiness of individuals, and of fociety, must be fenfible, that if these do not receive a proper direction in early life, the acquifition of knowledge will never render a man "wife unto happiness or unto virtue more than unto falvation."

If, upon taking these things into confideration, we acquire a proper view of the neceffity of perfecting the intellectual and moral powers of our children, we shall adopt the means beft fuited to views fo comprehenfive. If we confider, with an amiable and enlightened philosopher, the object