Arduous is the undertaking-the first abilities are requisite-and it is impossible to rate too high the worth of those who are thus suitably accomplished.
But then they should be persons unquestionably qual|ified for their office, and entitled beyond all contro|versy to the approbation of their country. As|tronomy too may lend its aid the blazing fire may represent the sun, and the little bird revolving to its flame, on which they so impatiently wait to feast, un|der the direction of the well informed and judicious tutoress, may gradually account for light and heat, the grateful vicissitudes of night and day, with the alternate succession of the seasons and thus would the task of the future preceptor be rendered easy, a thirst for knowledge created, and the threshold of wisdom strewed with flowers.īut children commonly pass from the hands of their parents to that of their tutors at a very early period and was I invested with the powers of legisla|tion, or was the gift of conferring honours mine, there is no order of citizens which I would so liberally en|dow, and raise to such distinction, as those individuals who devote themselves to the education of youth. They move, has received the form of that orange which so pleasingly regales their palate, would, ere they were aware, be ushered to the avenues of instruction. Geography also might be introduced, and the little prattlers, by information that the great globe whereon An acquaintance with history would capacitate mothers to select their nursery tales from those transactions which have actually taken place upon our globe, and thus useful knowledge would su|persede fairy legendary witches, and hob-goblins. Surely then, it is politic to bestow upon the educa|tion of girls the most exact attention: Let them be able to converse correctly and elegantly, (in their native strains) with the children they may usher into being and, since the pronunciation is best fixed in the early part of life, let them be qualified to give the little pro|ficients a pleasing impression of the French language nor, it is conceived, ought it to be considered as unsexual, if they were capacitated to render the rudiments of the Latin tongue familiar. Much, in this momentous department, depends on female administration and the mother, or the woman to whom she may delegate her office, will imprint on the opening mind, characters, ideas and conclusions, which time, in all its variety of vicissitudes, will never be able to erase. Well then, there remains but one remedy-Let the cultivation of the minds of the man and woman, in miniature, be of that description which will, in future, enable them to assume with advantage, the guardianship of their descendants. Yet, against this arrangement, the authority derived from the Father of the universe, forcibly pleads! The feel|ings of the parent indignantly revolt and my right to direct my own child, is, in my own estimation, unques|tionable. When we consider how few parents are endowed by nature, or qualified by im|provement, for the judicious as discharge of duties so es|sential, we are almost ready to give our voice in favour of that plan, which, in a certain celebrated communi|ty, placed their youth under the tutelage of the State, commiting their education to persons deliberately cho|sen, and properly qualified for their high office. Is in their gift, and the peace or anarchy of society must result from them. The trust reposed in parents and preceptors, is in|deed important the character of the rising generation There is a freedom of access, and a chas|tized familiarity, which is very compatible with a due spirit of government but mild dignity is an association too little known, and too rarely exemplified in the pres|ent order of things.
Men and women are too haughty, and form too ele|vated conceptions of the distance between them and the little race of mortals who are, for a season, their dependants. Let her stay, let her stay she is a stranger in our world, and she has a right to make her inquiries relative to the manners and cus|toms of the people, among whom, the probability is, she has many years to sojourn.
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