every member of it for his sublime vocation, the training of the immortal mind. Who can despair of the progress of correct principles and free institutions, who can despair of the prospects of the race, when we behold so many men, and so many women, of gifted minds, penetrated with a sense of the responsibilities of the office, and profoundly versed in the laws by which the forming and expanding character is affected either for good or evil, giving themselves to the work of training the rising generation to the knowledge of truth, the love of virtue and a sense of the divinity? Gentlemen, I congratulate you on the part which you are called to take in this holy enterprise. I congratulate you on the opportunity put into your hands of rearing a monument to your useful services more imperishable than brass or marble, in the living and immortal spirits which you may be the means of delivering from the dungeon of their own ignorance, and crowning with the light and liberty of the sons of God. EDUCATION OF FEMALES. THE subject of the education of females embraces, in its widest extent, whatever relates to physical, moral and intellectual education, with the exception only of what belongs to an education strictly professional. Into this broad field it is not my intention to enter, except so far as to inquire what are the subjects to which it is most important that the early attention of females should be directed, and to what extent their education should be carried. Education is a preparation for the future; and we shall best learn what preparation should be made, by inquiring what that future must be, what are the relations which will arise, and what duties will follow from them. Woman, the daughter and sister, is destined to become the companion, the friend and wife. These social relations belong to her equally with man, and her interest in them is greater. Removed from the agitations of ambition and business, they constitute a larger and more important portion of her life. But she has a higher destiny; she is to be a mother, and to form the heart, the character and the mind of her children. These are the relations which are usually taken into consideration, in regarding the life of a woman. But independently of and previously to these relations, let us consider woman as she is in herself, as a solitary, intelligent being. It is possible that she may sustain few relations to others, that her life will be spent in complete seclusion. Shall she therefore make no preparation for life? Because it is of little importance to others, is it of no consequence to herself? Shall she know nothing of the powers that are within, and of Him who is above and about her? Shall the earth utter no voice, and the heavens be silent to her?-Were it possible for a woman to be thus set apart from all others, she would still have sufficient reason to prefer the existence of a thinking being to a mere animal existence. But the advantages of intelligence and thought cannot be possessed any where, and still less in solitude than elsewhere, without the materials, the power and the habit of thought. The materials are as vast and various as the visible creation and the events of providence can suggest. But the elements of the natural sciences must be communicated, the susceptibility of receiving agreeable impressions from beautiful objects must be excited, and the taste must be cultivated, before the charms of external nature can be felt and comprehended, and its objects furnish fit materials for thought. Except in a few of the most highly gifted minds, the habits of observation and of thought must be formed by the gradual process of discipline. The savage seems to derive little pleasure from the examination of the most curious object of nature, which to the cultivated child, would be a source of admiration and delight; and in proportion to his ignorance, each person approaches the condition of the savage. In our country it rarely happens that any individual spends her life in this isolated state. But every female must spend a portion of her time in solitude, and by many a large portion must be thus spent. She is always not only a social being, but a contemplative one, whose mind is to be stored with high and pure thoughts, a fund for happiness and elevating meditation in those hours which are devoted to the retired and silent duties of her station. But we return to the social relations. The first and necessary relation of woman is that of daughter. From this relation numerous duties arise, for the performance of which every woman should be educated. A daughter is the natural companion, friend and stay of her parents. A man leaves his father and mother, and marries into |