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    THE -GBNEBAIi EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 81

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    A Y By Way Of Fixing 1 The Whereabouts O...

    could listen and run off to the saucepan that was "boiling" over , with heart all the b big a " tears touching in her story eyes or which a sermon he had . pressed She accompanied out of her m in eltin her g

    devotion y the Sunday hymns , -which , echoed loudly from the neighbouring * artmentsand in the midst of a verse she would interweave

    ap , the prosaic question , * What shall I warm up for supper ? ' and he could never banish from his remembrance that once , when she was

    quite touched , and listening to his cabinet discourse upon death and eternity , she looked at him thoughtfully , but towards his feet , and at

    length said— Don't put on the left stocking to-morrow , I must first '"darn it .

    Surely not without reason does Hichter add : — - It is devoutly to "be wished tnat the author of this history , in case he marry , may get

    a wife who will not introduce his stocking's just at the moment when lie is carried away by his enthusiasm . But he would be content , even

    if one should fall to his lot who were less gifted , but who would , neverthelessbe able to fly with him as far as he went ; into whose

    expanded eye , and heart the blooming earth , and the bright heavens do not enter innnitesimally , but in sublime masses ; for whom the

    universe is something more than a nursery and a ball-room , and who , with a feeling that is at once tender and delicate , and with a heart

    that is at once pious and large , continually improves and hallows the man she weds . "

    It is enough here to allude to the educational influence of mothers . I know the confusion so frequently made between the constitutional

    and the educational influences of the mother ; but the latter is of vastif of secondary importanceand both are here alike concerned .

    Strangers , may instruct the child , ; the mother must educate its early years , and education comprehends instruction . What she knows not ,

    that she cannot teach . The child thirsts for knowledge and teems with queries . Foolish answers , or petulant evasions , or stern

    discouragements crush the spring of the young intellect , and go far to induce a listless , self-conceited ignorance through life . Nor is it in

    parts that the mind can be formed , as pins are made by the subdivision of labor ; she who rightly teaches the elements the must know

    the highest applications . The formation of character , building up of intelligence , can have no unity or breadth of purpose without comprehensiveness of view in her in whose hands is mainly this vital

    and solemn task . And it is the children of both sexes , not girls onlybut boys alsowhom the mother must chiefly train . To her

    , , the boy turns in all his troubles and perplexities and little griefs : " Happy is he" says Hichter" whose own mother has made to him

    ,, all mothers venerable ; " and woe to that boy whom parental unfitness , or a false shame , inspired by others , has alienated from the

    natural fountain of the purest good and the warmest love . Whether , thenwe look to ¦ womanabsolutely or relatively ; in herself

    con-, , sidered as a rational , moral , responsible , and immortal being , or regard her in her relations to man himself , we come to the same

    conclusion in favor of culture , high , and wide , and deep .

    The -Gbnebaii Education Of Woman. 81

    THE _-GBNEBAIi EDUCATION OF WOMAN . 81

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1860, page 81, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041860/page/9/