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THE YOUNG LADY'S FRIEND.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

THE GREAT MISTAKE.-LEAVING SCHOOL.-USE OF SCHOOL STUDIES.-MISS EDGEWORTH'S OPINION.-FALSE VIEWS. -ADDRESS TO GIRLS LEAVING SCHOOL.-RELIGION THE FOUNDATION OF EXCELLENCE.-SINS OF IGNORANCE.

"Now that I have quite left school, I shall be my own mistress, and can do as I please all day long. I can walk out in the morning, when the shops and streets are full of people, and having now no lessons to learn, I can go out visiting every evening, if I choose. I mean to keep up my music, and read a little French; but as to history and geography, grammar and philosophy, I have done with them for ever. There are so

many really good novels coming out every day, which one ought to be acquainted with, that they will take up all the time I have for reading, so that I shall have employment enough, and that of the most interesting kind. How happy I shall be, now that I have done going to school!"

Such are the feelings and opinions with which a great many girls regard that epoch of their life, when they cease to attend school, and begin their career as young ladies. Many who read this soliloquy will find in it the echo of what they themselves thought and felt

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on that occasion. But if such are their views, their school-education has failed in what ought to be regarded as its chief purpose, and the years thus spent have been wasted. The great business of early education is to form habits of industry, to train the mind to find pleasure in intellectual effort, and to inspire a love of knowledge for its own sake. If you have attended school merely because it was expected of you; if you have learnt your lessons well for the sake of ranking high among your school-fellows; if you have regarded your studies as daily tasks to be performed till a certain period, when you will be released from them, you are still uneducated; what you have toiled to commit to memory will soon be forgotten, and your intellectual powers, in consequence of having never been properly called into action, will dwindle away, till it will be matter of wonder to yourselves how you ever performed your school-tasks.

This utter waste of the precious morning of life is sometimes the fault of the teacher, sometimes of the scholar; in many cases both are wholly unconscious of the sad mistakes they are making. As the business of education comes to be better understood by parents, by guardians, and by children themselves, such fatal errors cannot be persisted in; and there are already some honourable exceptions. There are schools which the scholar leaves with regret, where a true thirst for knowledge has been given, where habits of intellectual labour have been formed, where the principle of emulation never enters, and knowledge is its own reward. The teachers of such schools are worthy of all praise; they should be regarded as the benefactors of their race; the rich and powerful should delight to do them honour; their profession should rank with the other learned ones; and, inasmuch as the influence of mothers is greater than that of fathers in forming the characters of their children, the office of wisely developing

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the minds of young women should be ranked among the most honourable employments in the land.

But schools the best conducted, and teachers the most competent and beloved, must at last give place to other discipline; a girl cannot always go to school; the time of quitting her daily tasks must come; and when it does, it is an important era in her life. If she belong to the class whom I have first described, it is a season full of danger and temptation; if to the more fortunate class of well-educated girls, it is still a critical period. The salutary influence of the much-loved and honoured teacher is withdrawn; the pupil must now depend more on herself than formerly in prosecuting her studies. Self-education begins where schooleducation ends; and with this additional responsibility, she is placed in new circumstances of temptation and trial.

A young lady, on leaving school, is expected to take a more important place in her father's house; she must go into society; she must perform her part towards the poor, the sick, and the afflicted; she must assist her mother in domestic affairs; and, with all these added duties, she must continue her own education. When that has been properly begun, the pupil feels that it can never end but with life; she will also feel, that what has been done at school is but furnishing her with instruments for carrying on the work. If she has there learnt the French, Italian, and Latin languages, she will consider them as the means by which she is to enrich her mind with the literature of France and Italy; if she has there read a few abridged histories of various countries, they are to be regarded as a mere introduction to that study of history, which is to enlarge her views of human nature, and give her an insight into the policy of nations and the progress of civilization ; if she has read in school the Lives of Plutarch, they are to serve as standards of comparison for other biogra

phies, and to be recurred to in reading the history of the times in which those characters lived; if she has there committed to memory pages of geography, it is that she may have in her mind sketches of countries, which she is ever after to be filling up with additional details; and so on of all other school-exercises; they lay the foundation, on which she must be ever after building.

Miss Edgeworth has done much, in her admirable writings for the young, to inculcate this idea, that education must continue all through life. In her “ Early Lessons," she ends with this conversation between a brother and two sisters.

"How much reason," said Rosamond, 66 we have to be grateful to our parents, Godfrey, for giving us strong moral principles, with a steady foundation of religion; and for making us really good friends, instead of what are called great friends.”

"Very true," said Godfrey; "but who would have expected such a really wise and really good reflection, at least from Rosamond?"

"Everybody who knows her as well as I do," said

Laura.

"Well," said Godfrey, "I could tell you, and I could tell Rosamond something."

"Pray tell me, brother; you must," said Rosamond. "Then if I must, I will tell you, that there is nobody living, not even yourself, my dear Laura, who has higher expectations of Rosamond's sense and goodness than I have; though I agree, I own, with old Lady Morral, that Miss Rosamond's education has been going on a great while, and that it begins to be time to think of finishing it. The day after we go home, she will arrive with her old question, Ma'am, when will Miss Rosamond's education be finished?" "

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"And you, I hope, will answer," said Rosamond, 'Never while she lives.""

ADDRESS TO GIRLS LEAVING SCHOOL.

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To the young person who does not take this view of intellectual culture, but considers that so many quarters spent at school, and so many books committed to memory, is the termination of the business, that on quitting school she has "finished her education," to use a common phrase, this period is one of great moment and of great danger. Between these two extremes of well and ill-educated girls, there are those of every shade of difference. Some, though very imperfectly trained, have yet been put in the right way; others have laboured long and hard without being so drawn out as to find pleasure in intellectual effort; some have occasionally relished the feast of the wise, but have been called away from it by the voice of pleasure, or the stern command of necessity.

However various the causes that interfere with the grand business of education, all young persons are aware, that at a certain period of their lives they must cease to attend school, and take upon themselves the duties and pleasures of grown women; and it is to this class, at this critical juncture, that I would now offer some assistance in the important task of self-government and self-instruction which then devolves upon them.

Addressing myself, therefore, to girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty, I would say, You are now old enough to reflect upon your own characters, to consider in what respects you are weak, in what you are strong; to perceive your own deficiencies, and to wish to supply them. You are about to enter into society; you naturally wish to make an agreeable impression on those with whom you associate; you have more time than formerly at your own disposal; you are inclined to make rules for yourselves, and wish for some advice as to the arrangement of your occupations; you find yourselves in new circumstances and under new temptations, and you need all the aid and light you

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