most serviceable arts; and that even when it sought to be most ornamental, it was employed in the service of family love and domestic religion. The day of quadrilles and waltzes had not come. Few women had the ambition to learn foreign languages. Happy she, who could read and write English correctly, without aspiring to French or Italian.

Such are some of the features of the old-fashioned system of education, as it flourished in the days of our grandmothers. It had many excellencies, and some defects. Its sins, however, were rather of omission, than commission. The excellent household training, which was the pride of olden times, is worthy all praise. The happy homes of Old and New England in former days speak its worth, while many a degenerate race now shames the memory of its ancestors. Yet this education was deficient in the higher culture. It did not enough to refine the tastes and the manners, not enough to expand, and enlighten, and invigorate the mind. It is needless, however, to dwell upon the defects of the ancient system, for the present age is exposed to far other dangers. There are, indeed, not a few sticklers for the old-fashioned ways; not a few, who stoutly condemn the modern mania for accomplishments; who would banish harp and piano, and reinstate the spinning-wheel; honor the kitchen and dairy far before the drawing-room; close their houses to the dancing-master, as to a pestilence, and think money worse than thrown away, when given for instruction in French or Italian. Some there are, who seem to think even a thorough English education needless to a woman, believing it to be her sole business to be the drudge of her household, and servant of her husband. A friend, who taught school in a distant town, once told us, that when he urged upon a very bright scholar the importance of studying grammar, her zeal for the study was rebuked by the father, who refused to provide the requisite book, and said, that grammar was a mess of nonsense,

it was nothing, but "he loved and she loved," and would not make his daughter a bit the better wife. Such cases are almost solitary in our country.

II. The great tendency of late has been to a new system of education, just the reverse of the old. This modern system despises utility, and favors only the graceful and ornamental. It insists solely upon accomplishments. It finds no fault, if girls are ignorant of household duties, and are as little skilled in preparing a cup of coffee, or making a loaf of bread, as in

In

finding the philosopher's stone, or concocting the elixir of im mortality, so long as they can dance and sing and play on an instrument, and prate a little French or Italian. This notion of education has wrought much evil in the world, and nowhere more than in our own country. It has made the mothers and daughters of a great many good middling families discontented with their lot, negligent of their duties, and aping elegance, when they ought to be studying utility. It has done much to destroy the genuine domestic virtues in all conditions of life. This system may well be called the French. France, it most prevails; and it has extended with the progress of French influence. It is making fearful inroads in all countries, and giving to France an empire mightier, than was ever won by the armies of Napoleon. The march of her hosts has been arrested; but not the triumphs of her arts. Russia struck the first deadly blow at Napoleon's empire; but Russia is gradually adopting French tastes and manners; and Moscow itself is paying homage to a mightier power in the fashions of Paris, than that, which her flaming palaces drove to a ruinous retreat, Old England is hardly England any longer, and is fast giving up to French influences that sceptre of independence, which was so nobly defended at Trafalgar and Waterloo. The English writers on female education speak in most decided terms of the evils of French influences, upon the homes and the women of the land. We find strong condemnations of this prevailing tendency in writers otherwise so little alike, as Maria Edgeworth and Hannah More. The best work that has lately appeared upon female culture in our mother country, the work of Mrs. Ellis, on the " Women of England," is a vindication of the good old domestic virtues and pursuits against the attacks of foreign vanities and laxity.

No one can have given the least observation to the state of things in our own land, without deploring the present tendencies of female education here. Perhaps the worst is now over; and the better ideas, as presented by such women, as Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. Farrar, and Mrs. Sigourney, are henceforth to take the lead. But the present generation hardly practises those ideas. Many a city mansion, and many a plain farmer's home, has been lost to all true comfort and happiness, by the inroads of Parisian and boarding-school ideas. There is no fear that our young women will have too much elegance or refinement. The fear is, they will have too little. There is about as much

vulgarity of soul and manner in what is called fashionable life, as in what is called low life. Pretence is always vulgar, and arrogance always 'unladylike. "What a catalogue of miseries," says Mrs. Ellis, "might be made out, as the consequences of this mistaken ambition of women to be ladies! Gentlewomen they may be, and refined women too; for when did either gentleness or true refinement disqualify a woman for her proper duties? But that assumption of delicacy, which unfits them for the real business of life, is more to be dreaded in its fatal influence upon their happiness, than the most agonizing disease, with which they could be afflicted." How selfish such women are, and how sensible of the least pain! "Not the most exquisite creation of poetic fancy was ever supposed to be more susceptible of pain, than is now the highly educated young lady, who reclines on a couch in an apartment slightly separated from that in which her father sells his goods, and but one remove from the sphere of her mother's culinary toil."

The author of the work before us has stated better than any one else the evils of the modern system of Education in his own country, while he is well aware of its redeeming graces. He sketches the history of female culture in France, and eloquently describes its present state.

ers.

According to him, Descartes prepared the way for the regeneration of women in France, by his doctrine of the dignity of the individual mind, and the tendency of that doctrine to lead each one to think for himself, and to respect the minds of othRousseau was earnest to apply this thought to the condition of women, and to rebuke their too common neglect of their offspring, and to insist upon the duty of each mother being the nurse of her own child. But Rousseau's system was defective, because it took the child from the mother after infancy, and entrusted its education to a preceptor.

Fleury and Fenelon also are names, that deserve to be mentioned among those, who have contributed to women's elevation. Fleury brought forward what then seemed a great parodox, in maintaining, that girls ought to learn something besides the catechism, sewing, singing, dancing, dressing, speaking civilly, and making a courtesy. "And what," asks our author, "was this new instruction, which was so to scandalize the Sevignés, the Coulanges, the La Fayettes? It was the knowledge of reading, writing, and accounts, sufficient acquaintance with business to procure good counsel, and of medicine enough to

take care of the sick." Yet the Abbé also insisted on moral and religious education.

To the religious teachings of Fleury, Fenelon added his heavenly voice. The simple doctrines of his beautiful work on the education of girls is inspired by the love of Jesus Christ for little children. Although writing at an age, when the reign. of woman was omnipotent at court, Fenelon's ideas were in advance of the age, and were much scandalized. Woman, although adored as an idol, was not respected as a living soul; and he seemed to say strange words, who spoke of her solemn duties and immortal destiny. Fenelon's principles are not very well recognized in this somewhat better day of French principles.

Passing from Descartes, Rousseau, Fleury, and Fenelon, Aimé Martin thus characterizes the present condition of female education in France :

"Since Fenelon and Rousseau, there has been progress among men, and the education of women has gained by it. It is no longer a disputed question, whether it is good to instruct them, and to what extent their instruction should go; it is allowed that their understanding should be developed; the talents of artists and masters of languages are given them; they skim over the circle of the sciences; but in these studies, nothing calls them to think their own thoughts; the lessons of the school are merely stamped on their brains; thus when the passions come on, those passions, to which it is not too much to oppose both the habits of virtue and the principles of religion, they find hands skilful upon the piano, a memory, that repeats, and a soul, that sleeps. Such is the woman, saving some rare exceptions, whom our age affords, with her petty devotions, her boardingschool morality, her mechanical talents, her love of pleasure, ignorance of all matters of life, and the need of loving and being loved.

"Not that this education has not also its brilliant side; it introduces into society the tastes and manners of artists, much grace, much originality. The duchess and the citizen's wife, if indeed there are any longer such distinctions, rival each other in the saloons in the exercise of the highest talents; some make poems, which are sold in aid of the Greeks and Poles; others compose pictures, the price of which is devoted to pious enterprises; all write with grace and accuracy, and the pens

of

а

Sevigné and a La Fayette have almost become vulgar. Thus education is gradually levelling society; its uniformity is the mightiest democracy, and I do not think myself uttering a paro

dox in saying, that the talents of women have done more for the equality of ranks, than all the decrees of our national assembly.

"Enter one of our most fashionable saloons: see that crowd of men of all ages standing together, and who seem clad in the same cloth: one is a banker, the other a marquis, this one is a virtuoso, that a magistrate. Yet notwithstanding the uniformity of their dark dress, there is in their language, in their air, a mark, which distinguishes and classifies them. It is not so with the women by the grace of their attitudes, by the elegance of their manners, you would think them all of equal birth and of the same rank; there is the same information, the same charm, the same taste for the arts; no means of distinguishing the daughters of a notary from those of a courtier, a capitalist, or a general. Behold that charming group at the piano; it is executing together a choice piece from Rossini, with as much accuracy as Italian actors; there are the wife of a physician, the wife of a peer of France, a marchioness, the daughter of a man of business. Nothing separates them except difference of talent.

"Now turn your eyes to that lady, whose toilette, so simple and yet so elegant, has fixed attention for a moment; it is one of our most beautiful duchesses. What an amiable smile she exchanges with the young person, who has just seated herself next her! Two truly remarkable women! the duchess teaches her sons Latin, and writes romances; the other writes poetry; a poet and beautiful, she is the very Corinne of her age; her fame, that is her nobility! Thus in this elegant assembly, where all is confounded, birth, fortune, titles, condition, there is no distinction; beauty attracts attention, talent marks place, and education levels all.

"Surely if the life of women were to be confined to the studio and the ball; if their object were merely to dazzle and please, the great problem would be resolved by this education of the soirée; but the hours of pleasure are short, and the slow hours of reflection succeed them. The internal life, the moral life, the duties of the mother, and the duties of the wife, all this comes, and all this has been forgotten, Then they return to the void in the bosom of their family, with romantic passions, imagination uncontrolled, and ennui, that great destroyer of female virtue. The sad consequences of this state of things, lamentations on account of it strike our ears; it is the cry of all mothers, the complaint of all husbands; and in those grievous straits, where each is agitated and desperate, the worst is that indifference is usually the result.

"To get a just idea of the improvidence of our systems of VOL. XXVIII. 3D s. VOL. X. NO. 1.

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