the intellectual faculties to the emotive powers, as allows the latter to exercise an influence, and when properly regulated, a controlling influence, in the operations of her mind. Such studies therefore as demand purely abstract thinking and a high degree of it, furnish a regimen wholly unadapted to woman's mental constitution. They are entirely out of place and have no direct relation to her intellectual capacities. And as well might it be thought to be a suitable course to restore blindness by merely affording light to the eye, as to expect to improve and elevate woman by studies such as these. The truth is, they are unsuited to her nature; they only serve to confuse, to distract and to destroy the healthy action and tone of those faculties she does possess.

The assumption of their propriety proceeds upon the false idea of the need of such a mind as these studies are calculated to develope; for no one will contend that the mere knowledge they afford can have any possible relation to the appropriate duties of woman. But this abstract thinking power; this capacity for dry intellectual analysis and generalization. can never harmonize with a constitution in which the operations of mind must blend with the influence of the emotive nature. Indeed, its tendency is necessarily destructive of all such power, in the exercise of thinking and in the formation of opinion, as come out from the affections.

The true theory of female education looks to the reception of ideas by a system of oral communication from without, as furnishing the only proper method for the improvement of the intellectual powers. The intellect of woman, acting as it always should, in co-operation with the affections, is not formed for origination or for discovery. It is its natural action to receive ideas, to absorb them from sources which have already evolved them, and then, by a process of her own to assimilate them to her own modes of thought and to the uses of her own peculiar nature. Her mind, true to her own passive nature, improves, not by origination, but by receiving; not by its own spontaneous action, but by being acted upon. The education of the two sexes therefore proceeds upon two dis

tinct and somewhat opposite principles. In the one, the idea of discipline predominates; in the other, the idea of acquisition. While, therefore, in the intellectual training of males, the exhibitions of the teacher are strictly secondary and subordinate to the student's own self-discipline and culture, in that of the other, the teacher's own communications, as constituting the principal sources of improvement, become a paramount consideration. The lecture system, therefore, as best adapted to the communication of ideas, is most appropriate to the wants of the female mind. From the earliest periods in primary schools, through all the successive stages of the educational course, it is an indisputable fact, that girls improve more from oral communications, from reading, from association and observation, than by any processes of mere mental application and discipline, involved in the preparation of lessons. But in these higher schools, the members of which are supposed to have sufficient cultivation and maturity to constitute a preparation profitably to receive a higher class of ideas, this lecture system is of special applicability. It furnishes a mode of acquiring knowledge in accordance with the constitution of the female mind, and consequently, the most efficient and successful mode. It consults the peculiarities of her mind as to the mode of furnishing it, and hence secures the kind of discipline best adapted to her faculties. It is the only system by which the knowledge she gains, may be restricted to such kinds as are suited to her wants and circumstances. For, by a process of eclecticism, it gives opportunity to teachers to adapt their communications, may be restricted, to such ideas and facts as are relevant to her; a result, no system of text books, however well arranged, can ever fully reach. Moreover, this system, implying a more universal reliance upon the teacher for sources of improvement, necesssarily brings him into more universal relation to all modes of improvement possible to her. He looks not merely to the recitation room, as affording the only place for contact with her mind, but, feeling the increased responsibility of his position, seeks the direction of it in all its modes of cultivation and development.

Her reading is appointed and directed by him, her intellectual tendencies are sought to be properly controlled, her tastes and predilections are turned to their appropriate channels. The medium of private converse possible in all the various intercourse between teacher and pupil, is employed; and error is corrected, faults are removed, and right sentiments inspired. A system thus tending to bring the teacher into the closest and most intimate relation to the mind, gives him great power, not only in the proper direction of it, but in its suitable furniture a consideration in female culture of weighty value. But more, in the opportunities it affords of infusing his own zeal and earnestness of spirit, it engenders in her mind a love of learning, developes her latent powers, and springs her to industry and enterprise. And yet further, by these advantages of communion with her nature, of constant affinity with all her pursuits and tastes thus opened up, and the result of this system, only greater facilities are afforded to reach and to direct all her emotive nature, while the system itself, eschewing that rigid and protracted application of the powers involved in that other system, which gives the idea of discipline chief prominence, and in which all else is sacrificed to the improvement of the mere intellect, harmonizes with, and positively provides for that great principle of supreme reference to the affections properly controlling the whole subject of female education.

The kinds of knowledge sought to be imparted in these higher schools, ought to be such as have distinct reference to her peculiar nature and destined sphere of life. There are many departments of knowledge which are properly adapted to male minds, and appropriate to a system of education designed for them, which have no relevancy to the nature or the wants of females. Woman's most important duties, whether considered in her relations of wife, mother or neighbor, the threefold position which embraces the entire sphere of her being, are mainly of a moral character, and look to moral results. The great prevailing influence she is to exert, the peculiar power she is to have in the movements of society,

all refer directly to the moral interests of the world. And correspondingly with these, her paramount responsibilities, she has peculiar capabilities of moral influence, and a nature which finds its most appropriate exercises in the region of the moral world. That great department of knowledge, therefore, which refers to morals, or the true principles of right and wrong, in their applications to the details of life, which refer to Christian duties, to the rules of propriety and prudence, in the various circumstances of actual life, furnishes the grand staple in that system of learning which should be inculcated in these higher female establishments. This is the knowledge suited to her nature, and which her future position in life will most demand. The wide field of morals, therefore, of Christian morals, and so much of a knowledge of mental science, not of the higher abstractions of metaphysics, but of that which is concrete and practical, a specimen of which is found in Dr. Watts' Treatise on the Mind, as may be necessary to a full appreciation of the principles of morals, and of the proper modes of conforming to the mind's laws, must constitute the principal department in a proper course of female education.

But while woman is thus related to the moral world in respect of the widest section of her duties, she likewise has responsibilites which require for their performance a knowledge of physical law, embraced in chemistry, and of the general subject of medicine, embraced in a knowledge of the human system and of the remedies affecting it. To these departments, therefore, special prominence should be given. Adapted as she is to the great offices of ministering to the sick from position, the most constantly present with her family in seasons of sickness, the subject of disease in her own person, which from the want of proper skill in her own sex, has often been permitted to result in permanent infirmity or premature death, a course of medical training ought to constitute a prominent department in the higher female seminaries of the country. The deep principles of the science may not be VOL. VII.-18

brought out. For these there is not the requisite time, nor is she the best suited to their apprehension, but such knowledge may be imparted of the general subject, such directions given, as will facilitate improvement from experience in future, and qualify her more fully to meet the various exigencies of life in this important field of her duties.

Education of this kind, looking to the actual duties of life, will be to her of practical value, will aid her in the discharge of real duties, will relieve her in emergencies, and making life more easy, will contribute to her real happiness. While such education as is common in our times, which merely looks to the improvement of the literary tastes, to the mere promotion of general intelligence, and to the accomplishments of the mind, though it may make its possessors more attractive to the fancy, more interesting in occasional social intercourse, and better fitted for all that pertains to the external glare and embellishments of life, will yet furnish but little qualification for the actual home bred duties of life, and will only contribute to discontent in that, while it entails a consciousness of ignorance and unfitness for what necessarily cannot be avoided, it creates tastes and aspirations which their inevitable situation is unfitted to gratify, and only tends to disappoint and disgust. The greatest part of woman's life, and that on which, from the nature of her predominant feelings, her real happiness depends, is that which belongs to the home circle, to her condition in the relation of wife and mother. Her external contact with society is but occasional, and is capable, at best, to influence but very slightly the real sources of her happiness. But the education of modern times is made to refer mainly to this relation. How unwise to sacrifice that which is permanent and necessary, to that which is minor and only occasional. But the system we propose, looks to an impartation of knowledge, to an intellectual training and furniture, with reference to the great mass of duties necessarily awaiting woman, and on which, whatever else she may be, her real happiness depends. Nor do we discard a suitable provision for the cultivation of whatever