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THOUGHTS

FOR PARENTS AND INSTRUCTORS,

ON FEMALE EDUCATION.

IN the education of boys it is generally admitted that effects the most beneficial to the mind are usually produced by the study of such branches of learning as have a tendency to fix the attention, so as to render it impossible for the pupil not to think. The mental labour which these studies require is a good training for the mind, to whatever subjects it may afterwards be turned. The attention and close reasoning which are necessary, materially assist in developing and strengthening the intellectual faculties, and this mental discipline is considered to be the most direct way of producing correctness of judgment and accuracy of perception, not merely as regards learning, but in all which the individual carries with him into the ordinary affairs of life. The intelligent tutor knows that mental exercise will necessarily produce mental cultivation, and he directs his pupil to such studies as not only demand the exercise of the memory, but which also call into play the attention and judgment; feeling assured that he is thus laying a solid foundation for whatever superstructure may be afterwards raised. Why, may we be permitted to ask, is this forgotten in the education of girls? Why are the studies of our female youth

allowed to assume a tone and character so light and trifling as to render mental improvement almost, if not altogether, out of the question? It is sometimes our aim to impart instruction by means of amusement, and overlooking the advantages of that selfcontroul and command of attention which are acquired by mental labour, we eagerly avail ourselves of some of those multiplied helps,-those teachingin-play systems, which are so profusely offered, to facilitate the acquirement of knowledge; forgetting that acquisitions in learning which really deserve the name are not to be obtained without pains and application; and that a certain degree of patience and perseverance is necessary to the attainment even of a mere mechanical aptitude. I have somewhere seen it remarked, and whenever I meet with thoughts more valuable than my own I am glad to borrow them, although I cannot always acknowledge the obligation, that if a man have a landed estate, he can procure labourers and have it cultivated for him, and while lolling in his arm-chair, may have the rich produce brought to his feet: but the cultivation of the mind must be done by self. Whatever. riches such a person may gain from others, he will grow rich in knowledge only as he labours at it himself. It is undoubtedly advantageous occasionally to relieve the tedium of the uninterrupted study of books by bringing forward subjects calculated to amuse, as well as to instruct; for by so doing spirit and variety may be given to those hours which, if we are to believe what we are told by some writers, are unhappily too often considered both by the teacher and the taught as hours of dull and heartless toil. We all can remember the atmosphere of the

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school-room,' says a recent authoress, 'so uncongenial to the fresh and buoyant spirits of youth-the clatter of slates, the dull point of the pencil, and the white cloud where the wrong figure, the figure that would prove the incorrectness of the whole, had so often been rubbed out. To say nothing of the morning lessons before the dust from the desks and the floor had been put in motion; we all can remember the afternoon sensations with which we took our places, perhaps, between companions the most unloved by us of any in the school; and how, while the summer's sun was shining in through the high windows, we pored with aching head over some dry dull words that would not transmit themselves to the tablet of our memories, though repeated with indefatigable industry, repeated until they seemed to have no identity, no distinctness, but were mingled with the universal hum and buzz of the close heated room; where the heart, if it did not forget itself to stone, at least forgot itself to sleep, and lost all power of feeling any thing but weariness and occasional pining for relief. Class after class was then called up from this hot-bed of intellect. The tones of the teacher's voice, though not always the most musical, might easily have been pricked down in notes, they were so universal in their cadences of interrogation, rejection, and reproof. These blending with the slow, dull answers of the scholars, and occasionally the quick guess of one ambitious to attain the highest place, all mingled with the general monotony, and increased the stupor that weighed down every eye, and deadened every pulse. That weariness is the prevalent sensation both with the teachers and the taught, is a fact that few will attempt to deny.' Is

it even so? Let the blame then rest where it ought to rest, with the teacher, and not with the taught. The young are not wont to be thus cold and languid, and inert. The system, and regularity, and mental labour which school duties require, impose, it is true a considerable degree of restraint; still it is the path of duty marked out for the young, and rough and rugged as that path may occasionally appear to be, it is nevertheless a path of pleasantness to the young as well as to the old ; and I must say, I should be extremely slow to admit the competency of an instructress who could not lead her charge to see, and to feel that pleasure of the purest and highest kind will never fail to be associated with the performance of duty. When a school-room exhibits such a scene as that which has been described, I am fully persuaded the fault lies with the instructress alone. The parents have placed their child under the training of one who performs the service with an unwilling mind; the heart is not in the work, and what is to be expected? The child naturally imbibes the teacher's spirit, and with a mind equally unwilling, and a heart equally untouched, goes through the dull mechanical routine. Well may every eye be weighed down, well may every pulse be deadened. We know not how the instructress can remember the feelings of unbounded confidence with which the anxious mother has placed her child under her care, and thus betray the precious trust reposed in her. We know not how she can gaze upon the beaming countenances of those whose minds she is to have so large a share in forming, the daughters, the sisters, the future wives, of our English homes, and grow weary of the task she has undertaken. Greatly, in

deed, does the noble office of an instructor suffer from want of that protection which is afforded to other professions. We do not intrust the management of our property to the direction of every one who may all at once choose to call himself a lawyer; nor do we place the health of ourselves or our children in the hands of every one who may choose to call himself a physician. Would that those who design to fill the important office of an instructor of youth, were also subject to scrutiny and investigation; that so the field might not lie open for every one to enter without preparation; without examination; without some show of fitness for the discharge of its high and arduous duties. We should, then, place our children in the hands of their teachers with confidence and safety, and we might hope for a race of wise and high-minded instructors, who would fearlessly perform their duty, without consulting the taste of the times, when they had good grounds for believing that taste to be incorrect. "The present education of the women of England," says the writer I have quoted, "does not fit them for faithfully performing the duties which devolve upon them immediately after their leaving school, and throughout the whole of their after-lives; does not convert them from helpless children into such characters as all women must be, in order to be either esteemed or admired. Nor are their teachers accountable for this, because they have the taste of the times to consult; and they would obtain little credit for making our young women what they ought to be, if that taste was not correct." I confess I cannot take this view as to the accountability of the teacher. The instructress should have higher aims and nobler purJUNE, 1843.

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