importance to be happily removed, it would become a primary object of solicitude to the Christian and the patriot, to raise the female mind to a sense of the dignity of a situation, which enables it not only to effect the happiness or misery of individuals, but to influence the character of nations, and ameliorate the condition of the human race. When we observe how ineffectually, throughout all ages, wisdom has laboured by her instructive lessons, to restrain the passions, which in infancy might have been subdued; to awaken the affections, which in infancy might have been cherished; and to invigorate those intellectual energies, which ought in infancy to have been exercised, it will not seem hyperbolical to assert, that if mothers were universally qualified for the proper performance of these important duties, it would do more towards the progressive improvement of the human race, than all the discoveries of science, and researches of philosophy!

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LETTER II.

Use of the Term Association.-Associations productive of Aversion.-Their Tendency to Malevolence, illustrated by Examples.

ON the first publication of these letters, I found that many of my learned friends were greatly alarmed at the familiar use I had made of the term association. They assured me, it was only by the learned that my book could be understood; and as it was certainly not for the learned that it was intended, I could not avoid being vexed and mortified by the assertion. At length, however, I ventured to trust to my own observation, which soon convinced me that my learned friends had greatly over-rated the distance, in respect of understanding, between them and the less informed; and

that the ideas expressed by the term asso ciation, were as easily comprehended by every person of plain sense, as by the scholar and metaphysician.

A mother who pays the least attention to what passes in the minds of her children, will perceive that the sight of the cup which has been appropriated to the bitter draughts of the apothecary, produces instant symptoms of aversion, and that the box which holds the favourite comfit is no sooner produced than the eye sparkles with delight. She knows that these opposite effects are produced by the opposite ideas of pain and pleasure; and when told that the principle which connects with the cup the idea of what is nauseous, and with the box the idea of what is palatable, is termed association, she becomes mistress of the subject at a glance.

Instead, therefore, of wasting time in unnecessary explanations, I shall proceed to show that early associations have always

a powerful, and often a permanent influence on the mind; and that, according to the nature of the passions they excite, and of the affections they produce, the character will be formed to vice or virtue; prepared for the enjoyment of happiness, or for the pursuit of selfish indulgence.

When we consider that the strength of every passion depends on its connection with the selfish principle, and that every passion which is directly selfish tends to produce malignity, we must perceive that the control of the passions ought, in education, to be the first object of our care. But in proportion as we endeavour to check the malign influence of the passions, we must endeavour to produce and to cherish the generous and benevolent affections; for we may rest assured, that where these are habitually exercised, the baleful influence of the passions will be unknown.

"But the passions of children," you will

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say, are only momentary, and consequently

harmless. Besides, how, until they acquire the use of reason, can we teach them to control them?"

Permit me to ask in my turn, if the impressions received in early life have no permanent effect in promoting the passions, why do you warn your servants against terrifying your children by tales of ghosts and hobgoblins? In this instance you will allow the influence of early impressions to be formidable; for you know that many persons are unfortunately, to the latest period of their lives, slaves to the terrors of darkness, in consequence of those associations which connected the ideas of darkness with objects that were terrifying to the imagination.

And is the fear of ghosts and hobgoblins the only false and permanent association of which the mind is in infancy susceptible? Alas! a thousand others, of no less fatal tendency, are often then received, engendering prejudices no less dangerous and indelible.