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the former feems not only to remove obftacles to the operations of the latter, but even to communicate to its powers an acceffion of ftrength. Wholefome food, early hours, pure air, and bodily exercife, are inftruments not of health only, but of knowledge. Of these four indifpenfable requifites in every place and mode of education, the two first are seldom overlooked; in schools the two which remain frequently do not awaken the folicitude which they deserve.

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pure air to be found in the heated atmosphere of low and crowded rooms? Is it exercife to pace once in a day in proceffion down a ftreet or round a fquare; or in regular arrangement to follow a teacher along the middle walk of a garden, forbidden to deviate to the right hand or to the left? Pale cheeks, a languid afpect, and a feeble frame, anfwer the queftion; and prognofticate the long train of nervous maladies which lie in wait for future years. It is not neceffary that girls fhould contend in the hardy amufements which befit the youth of the other

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fex. But if wish that they should poffefs, when women, a healthful conftitution, fteady spirits, and a strong and alert mind; let active exercife in the open air be one of their daily recreations, one of their daily duties (x).

(z) For the purpose of encouraging a propenfity to falubrious exercise in the open air, it seems defirable that girls fhould be allowed, when educated at home, and if poffible, when placed in schools, to poffefs little gardens of their own, and to amuse themselves in them with the lighter offices of cultivation. The healthinefs of the employment would amply compensate for a few dagged frocks and dirtied gloves. Befides, an early relish for domeftic amusements lays the foundation of a domeftic character. The remembrance of delights experienced in childhood difpofes the mind in riper years to purfuits akin to those, from which the recollected pleasures were derived.

CHAP. V.

ON THE MODE OF INTRODUCING YOUNG

WOMEN INTO GENERAL SOCIETY.

WE

HEN the business of education, whether conducted at home or at a public feminary, draws towards a conclufion, the next object that occupies the attention of the parent is what she terms the introduction of her daughter into the world. Emancipated from the shackles of instruction, the young woman is now to be brought forward to act her part on the public stage of life. And as though liberty were a gift unattended with temptations to unexperienced youth; as though vivacity, openness of heart, the consciousness of personal accomplishments and of perfonal beauty, would ferve rather to counteract than to aggravate those temptations; the change of fituation is not unfre

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unfrequently heightened by every poffible aid of contraft. Pains are taken, as it were, to contrive, that when the dazzled ftranger fhall step from the nursery and the lecture-room, she shall plunge at once into a flood of vanity and diffipation. Mewed up from every prying gaze, taught to believe that her first appearance is the fubject of universal expectation, tutored to beware above all things of tarnishing the luftre of her attractions by mauvaise bonte, ftimulated with defire to outfhine her equals in age and rank, fhe burns with impatience for the hour of displaying her perfections: till at length, intoxicated beforehand with anticipated flatteries, the is launched, in the pride of ornament, on fome occafion of feftivity; and from that time forward thinks by day and dreams by night of amusements, and of dress, and of compliments, and of admirers.

I believe this picture to convey no exaggerated representation of the state of things which is often witneffed in the higher ranks.

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of fociety. I fear, too, that it is a picture to which the practice of the middle ranks, though at prefent not fully corresponding, bears a continually increafing resemblance. The extreme, however, which has been de fcribed, has, like every other extreme, its oppofite. There are mothers who profess to initiate their daughters, almoft from the cradle, into what they call the knowledge of life; and pollute the years of childhood with an inftilled attachment to the card-table; with habits of flippancy and pertness, denominated wit; with an "eafiness" of manners, which ought to be named effrontery; and with a knowledge of tales of scandal unfit to be mentioned by any one but in a court of juftice. Both thefe extremes are moft dangerous to every thing that is va luable in the female character; to every thing on which happinefs in the present world and in a future world depends. But of the two the latter is the more pernicious. In that system war is carried on almoft from infancy, and carried on in the most detest

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