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through sixteen editions in less than three years, affording a sufficient proof of the interest which the subject has latterly excited

"By far the greater portion of the young ladies (for they are no longer women) of the present day, are distinguished by a morbid listlessness of mind and body except when under the influence of stimulus, a constant pining for excitement, and an eagerness to escape from everything like practical and individual duty.

"The grand error of the day seems to be that of calling themselves ladies, when it ought to be their ambition to be women-women who fill a place, and occupy a post, members of the commonwealth, supporters of the fabric of society, the minor wheels and secret springs of the great machine of human life and action, which cannot move harmoniously, nor with full effect, to the accomplishment of any great or noble purpose, while clogged with the lovely burdens, and impeded by the still-life attitudes," &c.

"There is an appearance amongst the women of the present day, of being too eager for an immediate tribute of admiration to wait for the development of moral worth, and thus they cultivate those more shining accomplishments which dazzle and delight for the moment, but leave no materials for agreeable reflection behind. Like the conductor of an exhibition of fireworks, they play off their splendid combinations of light and colour, but the magazine is soon expended, and the scene closes with weariness and vacuity, and the darkness of night."

"What a waste of time, and means, and application, for such a result, what an expenditure of thought and feeling to have produced this momentary display! Surely no philanthropist can behold unmoved the pitiful objects for which women who court the incense of admiration are

spending their lives. Surely none of the patriot sons of Britain can look on and see with indifference, the sisters, the wives and mothers of our English homes perpetually employed, even in a world of care and suffering, of anxiety and disappointment, in administering to the momentary gratification of the eye and the ear, while the heart is left unsatisfied, and the drooping soul uncheered."

"The great question with regard to modern education is, which of these two classes of feelings does it instil into the mind? Does it inspire the young women of the present day with an amiable desire to make everybody happy around them, or does it teach them only to sing and play, and speak in foreign languages, and consequently leave them to be the prey of their own disappointed feelings, whenever they find it impossible to make any of these qualifications tell upon society?"

One of the most popular authors of the day, says on the same subject, "It seems odd enough to me, that while young ladies are so sedulously taught all the accomplishments that a husband disregards, they are never taught the great one he would prize. They are taught to be exhibitors; he wants a companion."

"And here I invoke the reader's graver attention. The fate of women in all the more polished circles of society is eminently unnatural and unhappy. The peasant and his dame are on terms of equality-equality even of ambition; no career is open to the one and shut to the other; equality even of hardship, and hardship is employment; no labour occupies the whole energies of the man, but leaves those of the woman unemployed. Is this the case with the wives in a higher station? The wives of the lawyer, the senator, the merchant, the noble? There the men have their occupations, and the women (unless, like poor Fanny, workbags and parrots can employ them)

none. They are idle; they employ the imagination and the heart, they fall in love and are wretched, or they remain virtuous, and are either wearied by an eternal monotony, or they fritter away intellect, mind, and character, in the minutest frivolities; frivolities being their only refuge from stagnation. Yes, there is one very curious curse for the sex, which men don't consider. Once married, the more aspiring of them have no real scope for ambition; the ambition gnaws away their content, and never finds elsewhere wherewith to feed on.'

Dr. J. Johnson, than whom few have had more extensive opportunities of witnessing, in his professional capacity, the consequences of the prevailing methods of education as regards health, observes-" Female education is indeed. more detrimental to health and happiness than that of the male its grasp, its aim, is at accomplishments rather than acquirements, at gilding rather than gold; at such ornaments as may dazzle by their lustre, and consume themselves in a few years by the intensity of their own brightness, rather than those which radiate a steady light till the lamp of life is extinguished." +

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"Few are acquainted," says the same author, in another of his works, (Change of Air,) "or are capable of becoming acquainted with the baneful consequences of this system, but many are doomed to feel them. The poisoned arrow in this case leaves no wound, but the venom meanders slowly through the veins, and effects its destructive work unseen and unknown. What but evil can be expected from a system of education which enervates the mind and enfeebles the body; which polishes the external senses, and leaves the intellect a prey to rust and moth; which excites the imagination, and obtunds the judgment; which,

* Bulwer's Godolphin.

Economy of Health.

to speak out plainly, fosters mere animal feeling, and discourages moral sense?"

A late eminent French practitioner observed, with reference to the consequences which the education and mode of life of young females are calculated to produce-“ Inactivity of the muscular system, the excessive cultivation of music, frequent parties, balls, and public entertainments, the understanding unemployed, or books read which only excite certain feelings and nourish illusions contrary to the actual state of society-such are often the different influences to which girls are subjected at an age when the powers of the mind should have quite a contrary direction. The end answers to the means: one order of faculties alone is exercised, and this will become predominant over the reasoning faculties, occasioning a host of vaporous, hysterical, hypochondriacal, and maniacal disorders." *

The above is quoted in the "Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine," (art. Hysteria,) the able author of which continues: "And even in England, where an acute sensibility is less desired for young women than accurate powers of calculation, the improper expectations, the vain rivalries, the restless and frivolous pleasures of fashionable life, are but too well calculated to produce all the varieties of nervous disorders in young persons whom an affected refinement has debarred from active and natural exercises, and whose minds have never been subjected to the influence of self-control."

Whilst the want of all love of literature or acquaintance with science, and consequently of all companionable qualities of a higher kind, diffuses an ennui over society that every one feels without thinking of its source, and by which the whole moveable community is driven about from one place of public resort to another, without useful objects,

* Georget, Physiologie du Système Nerveux.

without attachments, without duties, leading to the habitual neglect of all self-government and the creation of much domestic wretchedness."

"An immoderate desire of pleasing," observes the French author, from whose work I have already extracted some observations, "is, in fact, the dominating passion among women; and it must be said the education which they receive seems to have no other aim than to give rise to and develope it. It is for them that the word coquetry has been created. Physical cares, regimen, exercises, customs, manners, all concur to make the triumphs of coquetry the predominating object of their activity. All concurs to teach them that their mission upon earth is to please; that the admiration which they excite is the criterion of the gifts which they have received from nature and from education. Nature has certainly done much that the desire of pleasing should animate the youth of women; but if this desire become an absorbing passion, if it become excessive, exceeding all bounds, imperious, and even ridiculous, it is to education that the blame must be ascribedto education forgetful of a riper age, which seems only to consider the youth of woman, as if, when no longer young, she should cease to live."*

Thus, the preceding extracts from male and female, medical and non-medical authors, will suffice to convey a more correct idea of the effects so generally consequent upon the prevailing methods of female education, which are not only felt by the individuals themselves, but also-though perhaps not to the same extent-by those who are connected with them by the ties of relationship. Thus, also, we may perceive how the too exclusive reliance upon qualifications calculated merely to captivate the senses tends to produce the mesalliances which are of such frequent occurrence,

* Dr. Cerise, Des Fonctions, et des Maladies Nerveuses, &c.

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