tation, by explaining to her, that this part, even in her best estate, will probably consist in a succession of petty trials, and a round of quiet duties, which, if wel! performed, though they will make little or no figure in the book of fame, will prove of vast importance to her in that day when another book is opened, and the judg. ment is set, and every one will be judged according to the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad.' a primrose path of dalliance.' Do what we will we cannot cheat children into learning, or play them into knowledge, according to the conciliating smoothness of the modern creed, and the selfish indolence of the modern habits There is no idle way to any acquisitions which really deserve the name. And as Euclid, in order to repress the impetuous vanity of greatness, told his sovereign that there was no royal way to geometry, so the fond mother may be assured that there is no short cut to any other kind of learning; no privileged by-path cleared from the thorns and briars of repulse and diffi Say not that these just and sober views will cruelly wither her young hopes, blast her budding prospects, and deaden the innocent satisfactions of life. It is not true. There is, hap-culty, for the accommodation of opulent inacpily, an active spring in the mind of youth which bounds with fresh vigour and uninjured elasticity from any such temporary depression. And though her feelings, tastes and passions, will all be against you, if you set before her a faithful delineation of life, yet it will be something to get her judgment on your side. It is no unkind office to assist the short view of youth with the aids of long-sighted experience; to enable them to discover spots in the brightness of that world which dazzles them in prospect, though it is probable they will after all choose to believe their own eyes, rather than the offer ed glass. CHAP. VIII. On female study, and initiation into knowledge. -Error of cultivating the imagination to the neglect of the judgment.—Books of reasoning recommended. As this little work by no means assumes the character of a general scheme of education, the author has purposely avoided expatiating largely on any kind of instruction, but as it happens to be connected, either immediately or remotely with objects of a moral or religious nature. Of course she has been so far from thinking it necessary to enter into the enumeration of those popular books which are used in general instruction, that she has purposely forborn to mention any. With such books the rising generation is far more copiously and ably fur. nished than any that has preceded it; and out of an excellent variety the judicious instructor can hardly fail to make such a selection as shall be beneficial to the pupil. tivity or feminine weakness. The tree of knowledge, as a punishment, perhaps, for its having been at first unfairly tasted cannot now be claimed without difficulty; and this very circumstance serves afterwards to furnish not only literary pleasures, but moral advantages. For the knowledge which is acquired by unwearied assiduity, is lasting in the possession, and sweet to the possessor; both perhaps in proportion to the cost and labour of the acquisition. And though an able teacher ought to endeavour, by improving the communicating faculty in himself (for many know what they cannot teach) to soften every difficulty; yet in spite of the kindness and ability with which he will smooth every obstruction, it is probably among the wise institutions of Providence that great difficul ties should still remain. For education is but an initiation into that life of trial to which we are introduced on our entrance into this world. It is the first breaking into that state of toil and labour to which we are born, and to which sin has made us liable; and in this view of the subject the pains taken in the acquisition of learning may be converted to higher uses than such as are purely literary. Will it not be ascribed to a captious singu. larity, if I venture to remark that real knowledge and real piety, though they may have gained in many instances, have suffered in. others from that profusion of little, amusing, sentimental books with which the youthful library overflows? Abundance has its dangers as well as scarcity. In the first place may not the multiplicity of these alluring little works increase the natural reluctance to those more dry and uninteresting studies of which, after all, the rudiments of every part of learning must consist? And secondly, is there not some danger (though there are many honourable excep. But while due praise ought not to be withheld tions) that some of those engaging narratives from the improved methods of communicating may serve to infuse into the youthful heart a the elements of general knowledge; yet is there sort of spurious goodness, a confidence of virtue, not some danger that our very advantages may a parade of charity? And that the benevolent lead us into error, by causing us to repose so actions with the recital of which they abound, confidently on the multiplied helps which facili. when they are not made to flow from any source tate the entrance into learning, as to render our but feeling, may tend to inspire a self-compupils superficial through the very facility of placency, a self-gratulation, a stand by, for I acquirement? Where so much is done for them, am holier than thou! May not the success with may they not be led to do too little for them- which the good deeds of the little heroes are selves? and besides that exertion may slacken uniformly crowned; the invariable reward which for want of a spur, may there not be a moral is made the instant concomitant of well doing, disadvantage in possessing young persons with furnish the young reader with false views of the notion that learning may be acquired with the condition of life, and the nature of the diout diligence, and knowledge be attained with-vine dealings with men? May they not help to out labour? Sound education never can be made suggest a false standard of morals, to infuse a THE WORKS OF HANNAH MORE. love of popularity and an anxiety for praise, in, the place of that simple and unostentatious rule of doing whatever good we do, because it is the will of God? The universal substitution of this principle would tend to purify the worldly morality of many a popular little story. And there are few dangers which good parents will more carefully guard against than that of giving their children a mere political piety; that sort of religion which just goes to make people more respectable, and to stand well with the world; a religion which is to save appearances without inculcating realities; a religion which affects to da preach peace and good will to men,' but which forgets to give 'glory to God in the highest.'* There is a certain precocity of mind which is much helped on by these superficial modes of instruction; for frivolous reading will produce its correspondent effect, in much less time than books of solid instruction; the imagination being liable to be worked upon, and the feelings to be 2 set a-going, much faster than the understanding can be opened and the judgment enlightened. A talent for conversation should be the result of instruction, not its precursor; it is a golden fruit when suffered to ripen gradually on the tree of knowledge; but if forced in the hot-bed of a circulating library, it will turn out worthless and vapid in proportion as it was artificial and premature. Girls who have been accustomed to devour a multitude of frivolous books will converse and write with a far greater appearance of skill as to style and sentiment at twelve or fourteen years old, than those of a more advanced age, who are under the discipline of severer studies: but the former having early attained to that low standard which had been held out to them, become stationary; while the latter, quietly progressive, are passing through just gradations to a higher strain of mind; and those who early begin with talking and writing like women commonly end with thinking and acting like children. I would not however prohibit such works of imagination as suit this early period. When moderately used they serve to stretch the faculties and expand the mind: but I should prefer works of vigorous genius and pure unmixed fable to many of those tame and more affected moral stories, which are not grounded on Christian principle. I should suggest the use on the one hand of original and acknowledged fictions: and on the other, of accurate and simple facts; so that truth and fable may ever be kept separate and distinct in the mind. There is something that kindles fancy, awakens genius and excites new ideas in many of the bold fictions of the east. And there is one peculiar merit in the Arabian and some other Oriental tales, which is, that they exhibit striking, and in many respects faithful views of the manners, habits, customs, and religion of their respective An ingenious (and in many respects useful) French Treatise on Education, has too much encouraged this political piety, by considering religion as a thing of human invention, rather than of divine institution; as a thing creditable, rather than commanded; by erecting the doctrine of expediency in the room of Christian simplicity; and wearing away the spirit of truth, by the substitution of occasional deceit, equivocation subter. fuge and mental reservation. countries; so that some tincture of real local The swarms of Abridgments, Beauties, and swallow and digest such strong meat as Watts's or Duncan's little book of Logic, some part of Mr. Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, and bishop Butler's Analogy. Where there is leisure, and capacity, and an able friend to comment and to counsel, works of this nature might be profitably substituted in the place of so much English sentiment, French philosophy, Italian love-songs, and fantastic German image. ry and magic wonders.-While such enervating or absurd books sadly disqualify the reader for solid pursuit or vigorous thinking, the studies here recommended would act upon the constitu tion of the mind as a kind of alterative, and, if I may be allowed the expression, would help to brace the intellectual stamina. Besides, the taste, thus pampered with deli. | after a proper course of preparatory reading, to cious morsels, is early vitiated. The young reader of these clustered beauties conceives a disrelish for every thing which is plain, and grows impatient, if obliged to get through those equally necessary though less showy parts of a work, in which perhaps the author gives the best proof of his judgment by keeping under that occasional brilliancy and incidental ornament, of which these superficial students are in constant pursuit. In all well-written books, there is much that is good which is not dazzling; and these shallow critics should be taught, that it is for the embellishment of the more tame and uninteresting parts of his work, that the judicious poet commonly reserves those flowers, whose beauty is defaced when they are plucked from the garland into which he had so skilfully woven them. The remark, however, as far as it relates to abridgments, is by no means of general application; there are many valuable works which from their bulk would be almost inaccessible to a great number of readers, and a considerable part of which may not be generally useful. Even in the best written books there is often superfluous matter; authors are apt to get enamoured of their subject, and to dwell too long on it: every person cannot find time to read a longer work on any subject, and yet it may be well for them to know something on almost every subject; those, therefore, who abridge voluminous works judiciously, render service to the community. But there seems, if I may venture the remark, to be a mistake in the use of abridgments. They are put systematically into the hands of youth, who have, or ought to have, leisure for the works at large; while abridgments seem more immediately calculated for persons in more advanced life, who wish to recall something they had forgotten; who want to restore old ideas rather than acquire new ones; or they are useful for persons immersed in the business of the world; who have little leisure for voluminous reading: they are excellent to refresh the mind, but not competent to form it; they serve to bring back what had been formerly known, but do not supply a fund of knowledge. This suggestion, is, however, by no means in tended to exclude works of taste and imagination, which must always make the ornamental part, and of course a very considerable part, of female studies. It is only intimated, that they should not form them entirely and exclusively. For what is called dry, tough reading, independent of the knowledge it conveys, is useful as an habit, and wholesome as an exercise. Serious study serves to harden the mind for more trying conflicts; it lifts the reader from sensation to intellect; it abstracts her from the world and its vanities; it fixes a wandering spirit, and fortifies a weak one; it divorces her from matter; it corrects the spirit of trifling which she natu rally contracts from the frivolous turn of female conversation and the petty nature of female employments; it concentrates her attention, assists her in a habit of excluding trivial thoughts, and thus even helps to qualify her for religious par. suits.-Yes, I repeat it, there is to woman a Christian use to be made of sober studies; while books of an opposite cast, however unexceptionable they may be sometimes found in point of expression, however free from evil in its more gross and palpable shapes, yet from their very nature and constitution they excite a spirit of relaxation, by exhibiting scenes and suggesting ideas which soften the mind and set the fancy at work; they take off wholesome restraints, diminish sober-mindedness, impair the general powers of resistance, and at best feed habits of improper indulgence, and nourish a vain and visionary indolence, which lays the mind open to error and the heart to seduction. Perhaps there is some analogy between the mental and bodily conformation of women. The instructor therefore should imitate the physician. If the latter prescribe bracing medicines Women are little accustomed to close reasonfor a body of which delicacy is the disease, the ing on any subject; still less do they inure their former would do well to prohibit relaxing read-minds to consider particular parts of a subject; ing for a mind which is already of too soft a texture, and s ould strengthen its feeble tone by invigorating reading. By softness, I cannot be supposed to mean imbecility of understanding, but natural softness of heart, and pliancy of temper, together with that indolence of spirit which is fostered by indulging in seducing books, and in the general habits of fashionable life. I mean not here to recommend books which are immediately religious, but such as exercise the reasoning faculties, teach the mind to get acquainted with its own nature, and to stir up its own powers. Let not a timid young lady start if I should venture to recommend to her, they are not habituated to turn a truth round, and view it in all its varied aspects and positions, and this perhaps is one cause (as will be observed in another place*) of the too great confidence they are disposed to place in their own opinions. Though their imagination is already too lively, and their judgment naturally incorrect; in educating them we go on to stimulate the imagination, while we neglect the regulation of the judgment. They already want ballast, and we make their education consist in continually crowding more sail than they can carry. Their intellectual powers being so little strengthened by exercise, makes every petty business appear * See Chapter on Conversations. Another, and another, and another! a hardship to them: whereas serious study would be useful, were it only that it leads the Is a lady, however destitute of talents, educa. mind to the habit of conquering difficulties. But tion, or knowledge of the world, whose studies it is peculiarly hard to turn at once from the in-have been completed by a circulating library, in dolent repose of light reading, from the concerns of mere animal life, the objects of sense, or the frivolousness of female chit chat; it is peculiarly hard, I say, to a mind so softened, to rescue itself from the dominion of self-indulgence, to resume its powers, to call home its scattered strength, to shut out every foreign in trusion, to force back a spring so unnaturally bent, and to devote itself to religious reading, to active business, to sober reflection, to self-examination. Whereas to an intellect accustomed to think at all, the difficulty of thinking seriously is obviously lessened. Far be it from me to desire to make scholastic ladies or female dialecticians; but there is little fear that the kind of books here recommended, any distress of mind? the writing a novel sugDoes she labour under any depression of cirgests itself as the best soother of her sorrows! cumstances? writing a novel occurs, as the readiest receipt for mending them! And she solaces her imagination with the conviction that the subscription which has been extorted by her importunity, or given to her necessities, has been offered as an homage to her genius. And this confidence instantly levies a fresh contribution for a succeeding work. Capacity and cultivation are so little taken into the account, that the only sure resource which the idle and the writing a book seems to be now considered as illiterate have always in their power. among us. if thoroughly studied, and not superficially sion while she remarks, though rather out of May the author be indulged in a short digresskimmed, will make them pedants or induce its place, that the corruption occasioned by these conceit; for by showing them the possible pow-books has spread so wide, and descended so low, ers of the human mind, you will bring them to as to have become one of the most universal, as see the littleness of their own; and surely to get acquainted with the mind, to regulate, to in-well as most pernicious sources of corruption Not only among milliners, mantuaform it; to show it its own ignorance and its own nature, does not seem the way to puff it makers, and other trades where numbers work up.-But let her who is disposed to be elated together, the labour of one girl is frequently sawith her literary acquisitions, check the rising mischievous books to the others; but she has crificed, that she may be spared to read those vanity by calling to mind the just remark of Swift, that after all her boasted acquirements, the fact, that they are procured and greedily been assured by clergymen who have witnessed a woman will, generally speaking, be found to read in the wards of our hospitals! an awful possess less of what is called learning than a hint, that those who teach the poor to read, common school-boy.' should not only take care to furnish them with Neither is there any fear that this sort of reading will convert ladies into authors. The principles which will lead them to abhor corrupt direct contrary effect will be likely to be pro- with such books as shall strengthen and confirm books, but that they should also furnish them duced by the perusal of writers who throw the their principles. And let every Christian regenerality of readers at such an unapproachable member, that there is no other way of entering distance as to check presumption, instead of exciting it. Who are those ever multiplying au truly into the spirit of that divine prayer, which thors that with unparalleled fecundity are over-ed,' that his kingdom (of grace) may come,' petitions that the name of God may be 'hallowstocking the world with their quick succeeding and that his will may be done on earth as it is progeny? They are NOVEL-WRITERS; the easiin heaven,' that by each individual contributing ness of whose productions is at once the cause of their own fruitfulness, and of the almost infi- according to his measure to accomplish the nitely numerous race of imitators to whom they work for which he prays; for to pray that these give birth. Such is the frightful facility of this *The above facts furnish no argument on the side of species of composition, that every raw girl, while those who would keep the poor in ignorance. Those she reads, is tempted to fancy that she can also who cannot read can hear, and are likely to hear to write. And as Alexander, on perusing the Iliad, worse purpose than those who have been better taught. And that ignorance furnishes no security for integrity found by congenial sympathy the image of either in morals or politics, the late revolts in more than Achilles stamped on his own ardent soul, and one country, remarkable for the ignorance of the poor felt himself the hero he was studying; and as fully illustrate. It is earnestly hoped that the above Corregio, on first beholding a picture which ex-superintending the instruction of the poor, and of mak facts may tend to impress ladies with the importance of hibited the perfection of the graphic art, pro-ing it an indispensable part of their charity to give them phetically felt all his own future greatness, and The late celebrated Henry Fielding (a man not likely cried out in rapture, And I too am a painter!' to be suspected of over-strictness) assured a particular so a thorough-paced novel-reading miss, at the friend of the author, that during his long administration close of every tissue of hackneyed adventures, of justice in Bow-street, only six Scotchmen were feels within herself the stirring impulse of corThe remark did not proceed from any national partiality in the magistrate, but was proresponding genius, and triumphantly exclaims, duced by him in proof of the effect of a sober and reli And I too am an author! The glutted imagi-gious education among the lower ranks, on their morals nation soon overflows with the redundance of and conduct. cheap sentiment and plentiful incident, and by a sort of arithmetical proportion, is enabled by the perusal of any three novels, to produce a fourth; till every fresh production, like the prolific progeny of Banquo, is followed byVOL. I. · moral and religious books. brought before him. See farther the sentiments of a still more celebrated cotemporary on the duty of instructing the poor. We great objects may be promoted, without contri- | from the medium between his best and his worst buting to their promotion by our exertions, our money, and our influence, is a palpable inconsistency. CHAP. IX. On the religious and moral use of history and geography. WHILE every sort of useful knowledge should be carefully imparted to young persons, it should be imparted not merely for its own sake, but also for the sake of its subserviency to higher things. All human learning should be taught, not as an end, but a means; and in this view even a lesson of history or geography may be converted into a lesson of religion. In the study of history, the instructor will accustom the pupil not merely to store her memory with facts and anecdotes, and to ascertain dates and epochs: but she will accustom her also to trace effects to their causes, to examine the secret springs of action, and accurately to observe the operations of the passions. It is only meant to notice here some few of the moral benefits which may be derived from judicious perusal of history; and from among other points of instruction, I select the following:* The study of history may serve to give a clearer insight into the corruption of human nature: It may help to show the plan of Providence in the direction of events, and in the use of unworthy instruments: It may assist in the vindication of Providence, in the common failure of virtue, and the frequent success of vice: It may lead to a distrust of our own judg. ment: It may contribute to our improvement in self. knowledge. characters; without acquiring a just notion of that prevalence of evil; which, in spite of those few brighter luminaries that here and there just serve to gild the gloom of history, tends abundantly to establish the doctrine. It will indeed be continually establishing itself by those who, in perusing the history of mankind, carefully timid irruption of an evil thought, to the fearless mark the rise and progress of sin, from the first accomplishment of the abhorred crime in which that thought has ended: from the indignant question, Is thy servant a dog that he should do this great thing?'* to the perpetration of that very enormity of which the self-acquitting de linquent could not endure the slightest sugges tion. · In this connexion may it not be observed, that young persons should be put on their guard against a too implicit belief in the flattering ac counts which many voyage writers are fond of exhibiting of the virtue, amiableness, and be nignity, of some of the countries newly discovered by our circumnavigators; that they should learn to suspect the superior goodness ascribed to the Hindoos, and particularly the account of the inhabitants of the Pelew Islands? These last indeed have been represented as having almost escaped the universal taint of our common nature, and would seem by their purity to have sprung from another ancestor than Adam. We cannot forbear suspecting that these pleas ing, but somewhat overcharged portraits of man in his natural state, are drawn with the invidious design, by counteracting the doctrine of human corruption, to degrade the value and even destroy the necessity of the Christian sacrifice; by insinuating that uncultivated man is so disposed to rectitude as to supersede the occasion for that redemption which is professedly designed for sinners. That in countries professing Christianity, very many are not Christians will be too readily granted. Yet to say nothing of But to prove to the pupil the important doc- the vast superiority of goodness in the lives of trine of human corruption from the study of those who are really governed by Christianity, history, will require a truly Christian commen-is there not something even in her reflex light tator in the friend with whom the work is perused. For, from the low standard of right established by the generality of historians, who erect so many persons into good characters who fall short of the true idea of Christian virtue, the unassisted reader will be liable to form very imperfect views of what is real goodness; and will conclude, as his author sometimes does, that the true idea of human nature is to be taken It were to be wished that more historians resembled the excellent Rollin in the religious and moral turn given to his writings of this kind.-But here may I be permitted to observe incidentally (for it is not immediately analogous to my subject) that there is one disadvantage which attends the common practice of setting young ladies to read ancient history and geography in French or Italian, who have not been previously well grounded in the pronunciation of classical names of persons and places in our own language. The foreign termination of Greek and Roman names are often very different from the English, and where they are first acquired are frequently retained and adopted in their stead, so as to give an illiterate appearance to the conversation of some women who are not really ignorant. And this defective pronunciation is the more to be guarded against in the education of ladies who are not taught quantity as boys are. which guides to greater purity many of those who do not profess to walk by it; I doubt much, if numbers of the unbelievers of a Christian country, from the sounder views and better habits derived incidentally and collaterally, as it were from the influence of a Gospel, the truth of which however they do not acknowledge, would not start at many of the actions which these heathen perfectionists daily commit without hesitation. The religious reader of general history will observe the controlling hand of Providence in the direction of events; in turning the most unworthy actions and instruments to the accomplishment of his own purposes. She will mark infinite Wisdom directing what appears to be casual occurrences, to the completion of his own plan. She will point out how causes seemingly the most unconnected, events seemingly the most unpromising, circumstances seemingly the most incongruous, are all working together for some final good. She will mark how national * 2 Kings, viii. 13. |