such or such a party, and hold such or such opinions; but to endow this calm product of reason with the power of the bygone superstition, conscience must come in and hallow convic tion into a duty, and convert theories into principles of action. This is the work of moral education, and that education is in the hands of mothers.

Many, and unfortunately women themselves, will be ready to reply, that these things are beyond their province, but in saying so they deny their own power. It is, as we have again and again repeated, the whole tone of the mother's mind and habits of thought which influences the associations and principles of her children; if, then, men early heard the language of enlight ened patriotism from their mothers, can we believe it would remain without effect? If public motives and public duties had been held up to them from boyhood as things which must earnestly occupy every thinking man, would they not have looked more seriously upon them? The courage of the Spartan and the Roman was kindled by a mother's voice; why, then, should English mothers be incapable of inspiring their sons with the more refined patriotism which belongs to a more enlightened age? Why should they be unable to instil into their children's hearts that generous spirit which will make them feel that each man's labor, and talents, and influence are due to the service of his country; that, whether rich and inheriting the responsibili ties of property, or poor, or laboring in a profession, a career of national usefulness is open to him, which he is bound to pursue with zeal and uprightness; and that he who, in the enjoyment of health and full exercise of his faculties, would shrink from such service, and live for his own pleasures, or his small family circle alone, is as truly a craven from duty as he who would fly from the field of battle. The latter yields to a momentary, base impulse, the former systematically shrinks from bearing his part in the great battle of life, where God himself has appointed him a post to gain, or a standard to defend. If children learnt these things round their mother's knee, and grew up under the influence of such sentiments, surely patriotism would be more earnest, and public views more exalted! But how can women

so teach, whose whole concern for politics is the personal feeling of a partisan, and whose interest is habitually immersed in carpet-work, while questions touching a nation's life or death are hanging in the balance?

We have already alluded to the evil that results in women's intercourse with the poor, from their ignorance of political economy; this subject may also be said to belong to an enlightened study of history. Its principles are of daily application around us, they are illustrated by all the forms of social prosperity or distress that we witness, and afford the key to their meaning, and to the lessons they are destined to teach us. If legislative politics, which women can neither mingle in nor openly influence, claim their interest, still more, then, does political economy, which is connected with their daily business, their expenditure, and their charities; it is especially with regard to the latter that women would be benefited by a familiar acquaintance with the principles of this science. Owing to the neglect of them, vast sums given in the spirit of charity have produced only mischief and suffering; and the intercourse of educated women with the lower classes has scarcely tended to remove one of the prejudices which mar all legislative attempts to ameliorate their condition. We may safely say that, were those principles acted upon, and the knowledge of them spread in any village in England by the two or three ladies who may happen to be there in almost daily communication with their poor neighbors, that village would be found in time nearly a generation in advance of others; and that, were such a course generally pursued wherever there is that kind of intercourse between the different classes, England might in a few years boast, with truth, of leading the van of civilization.

Good works on political economy are common and cheap, and the study, so far as we urge it, presents few difficulties. Mrs. Marcet's excellent outline will do a great deal towards first clearing the notions of those who have never considered the subject; but all who have time and opportunity should go to the

* See Chap. I.

fountain-head; nor, fortunately, is this a matter of difficulty, for Smith's "Wealth of Nations" is in every library, and Jean Baptiste Say's Cours d'Economie Politique is also easily procured in a cheap form.* The latter writer's admirable clearness of explanation, and the happiness of his copious illustrations, bring the subject within the comprehension of any one ' who will give to it a little serious attention; and the wider questions of social welfare into which he carries his inquiries make his work perhaps more interesting to the general reader than Adam Smith's. Either of them, however, although leaving some points in obscurity, and some perhaps in error, will more than suffice to give a knowledge of general principles, and a clew to their application in practical matters.

Having said so much on the importance of national history, and on all subjects connected with it, we must add a few words on the study of history generally, to which, for reasons not easily discerned, the school-room reading of girls is almost exclusively confined, but the value of which depends so entirely on the mode of carrying it on.

Nothing can be more sad or less profitable at first sight than the black catalogue of errors, and follies, and crimes presented by the public annals of every nation; but the study of history is rife also with lessons of deep and even holy import, if pursued in the right spirit. We spoke of the interest of national history principally as regards its bearing on things which affect our daily welfare; but history has also a wider interest, as illustrating on a great scale the truth of principles on which the philosopher can only speculate. The life of individuals affords too narrow and uncertain ground for such illustrations: but the life of nations, spreading over centuries, showing the consequence of good or evil from generation to generation; the gradual triumph of truth over error, too slow to be traced by days or years; the influence of ideas as they pass from the speculations of the learned to ferment in the mass of the people; the value of cer

* We must add, also, as giving the best illustrations of some special points, the writings of M. Bastiat, "Sophismes Economiques," &c.

tain forms of civilization and government; what are the elements of true greatness, and what only hide the seeds of decay, —this life, rightly contemplated, furnishes the triumphant justification of the eternal principles of morals, the exemplification of God's will and ruling Providence in the affairs of men. History, then, as the record of that life, becomes one of the most interesting of human studies. In the words of Dr. Arnold,“Whatever there is of greatness in the final cause of all human thought and action, God's glory and man's perfection, that is the measure of the greatness of history. Whatever there is of variety and intense interest in human nature in its elevation, whether proud as by nature, or sanctified as by God's grace; in its sufferings, whether blessed or unblessed, a martyrdom or a judgment; in its strange reverses, in its varied adventures, in its yet more varied powers, its courage and its patience, its genius and its wisdom, its justice and its love,

measure of the interest and variety of history."*

that also is the

More especially may this study be made the means of impressing important moral truths on the young, who, in their ignorance of life and of the world, cannot appeal to practical experience, and whose sympathies may thereby be enlisted for all that is great and generous, and their indignation excited against baseness, and cruelty, and violence, while the heart is most warm, and the judgment yet untainted by the influence of interested motives, or the excitement of party contention. How much is it, then, to be regretted, that historical reading, on which so much stress is laid in the common systems of female education, is pursued with utter heedlessness of all that makes history a valuable study. Long works, extending, perhaps, over many centuries, are read from end to end, without attention to any thing beyond fixing certain names and dates in the memory, without examination of contemporary biographies, or chronicles, or literature, in which so much of the real character of a period is seen. There is much anxiety about remembering the contemporary sovereigns of Europe, none to search what was the

* Dr. Arnold's Lectures of Modern History. Inaugural Lecture, p. 21.

comparative condition of the people under them, what different forms and degrees of civilization were existing among them, and the causes of such difference. These points are what history itself too often neglects; it makes too little mention even of great men, save statesmen and warriors; or of great facts, save battles and national disasters. In its pages, the printing-press, the compass, or the steam-engine attract less notice than the details of a court intrigue or a ministerial cabal. All the more necessary is it, therefore, if history is to be the text-book of the young, that the teacher should supply the historian's deficiencies; otherwise, instead of pursuing a useful and philosophical study, the young reader is only learning to neglect one of the most essential points in all philosophical investigation, namely, a correct estimate of the due proportions of things, and the relative importance in which they deserve to be held.

The only other study which is deemed of equal importance with that of history, in the ordinary education of women, is that of foreign languages; it may be of use, therefore, to inquire what is the real purpose and advantage of this study.

It has been said that the gain of a new language is the acquisition of another soul; and without going so far, it must be allowed that every language opens a new field of thought by revealing different phases of the human mind. The mere comparison of grammatical peculiarities is in this respect full of interest; and when we consider the wide region of delight and information spread out before us, when the literature of two or three countries is open to our researches, we feel that the pleas ure at least, if not the importance, of acquiring many languages is hardly to be exaggerated. Those who have learned them in childhood are doubly fortunate, not merely because languages are learnt at that age with an ease and perfection never after to be attained, but because they have acquired a precious instrument of future knowledge without that loss of time which is necessarily entailed by learning mere words at a time when we should be learning things. We are far, then, from wishing to decry this fashionable accomplishment, but we think it worth. pointing out that it is of value as an instrument only; that the