directed, contracted notions of things-an ignorant simplicity, which, far from being their safeguard in after life, does but expose them to deception and danger an engrossing selfishness, which is ever seeking to advance its own interests-an undue estimate of self importance, which is ever urging its claims on the at tention and regard of others? Now these are the

evils, which it is the part of social intercourse to correct. It is not as members of a privileged and happy family, but as members of society at large, that we shall learn rightly to estimate our relative importance. There is a knowledge to be gained, and an experience to be acquired, which is not unfrequently dearly bought from the mistaken notions of the solicitous, but misjudging guardians of youth.

By general, we do not mean, promiscuous society; it is not for that we are pleading. Select, yet varied, may be the intercourse, which pious solicitude may sanction. The term is rather used in opposition to that very restricted intercourse, which the notions of some Christian parents enjoin. They imagine their children should see nothing wrong, lest they should imitate it; they should hear nothing wrong, lest they should adopt it; and every possible influence, which in the least degree militates, not only against the opinions they maintain, but the precise system which they have observed, must be forbidden to approach the entrenched ground. But it should be remembered by such parents, that whatever be the influences of society, and however undesirable, they are such as must be met, at some time or other; and would it not be the part of wisdom, to seek to nullify their anticipated ill effects, not by shunning, but by meeting and opposing them? Would not the superior influence of the parent, his discrimination, his disapprobation, and his approval, be the best possible correctives to this undesirable influence? But a reference to facts will be more satisfactory than all the reasoning that can be urged on the subject, and

those who have had most to do with the young, and have been most accustomed to read the early history of the mind, know best how to estimate the effects of this seclusive anxiety.

I have been intimately acquainted for many years with a family, in whom has been very apparent the evils of restricted intercourse. They are now deprived of a mother's care, and their surviving parent, partly from a disinclination for general society, and partly from a conviction of its undesirable influence, has kept them almost entirely secluded. They have been educated at home, under a mother's watchful eye, by governesses of re'spectable attainments, and approved manners. Their education has been conducted much on the system that home instruction generally furnishes. They have not been unusually indulged, nor subjected to unnecessary restraint, during the years of infancy and childhood, and they are moreover possessed of respectable mental endowments. It was expected in the sequel, that the method of my friend would furnish a good specimen of the superiority which a home education can command; 'for, though many did not approve of the utter seclusion which characterized his plan, yet all imagined that great advantages must be connected with a system, which had its origin in so much solicitude, and was adhered to with such inflexible pertinacity. It seemed too much the result of thought and design, to fail of securing its end. The children seemed to improve; and, as children, were superior to many of their age, and promised fair to be an interesting family. For six years, circumstances divided our habitation, and suspended our intercourse. When we again met, though I recognized in my friend the same affectionate and solicitous parent, yet I looked in vain for the pleasing and interesting group I had left. Six years, at their age, I was aware, were sufficient to produce many changes. My renewed intercourse with them, soon gave me the means of detecting the cause, and the result of a few observations shall be subjoined.

Frivolous remarks, unmeaning talk, were exhibited among them. They turned upon each other that power of observation, which should have been exercised upon society at large, and which would have brought thence its disapproving opinions as a self-corrective; but now it was employed to discern, to magnify, and to ridicule, not only the faults and follies, but the little failings, and peculiar habits of each; each was possessed of her own little set of opinions and prejudices, fashioned according as the influences of education had met the bias of her mind. Those which the enlargening effects of society would have dispelled, were but food for sarcasm. Whatever each said or did, was sure to be the subject, directly or indirectly, of trifling remark. And yet they were far -very far, from being a disunited or unhappy family. They were too independent of each other fully to act up to the endearing relationship of brother and sister; but the voice of discord and angry opposition was rarely heard among them.

Another evil effect of this seclusion was, a disability and disinclination to do good. Contracted opinions will assuredly lead to contracted feelings; and the heart which is shut out from social sympathies will not be familiar with the glow of benevolence. This was evident in their The claims of their fellow-creatures were rarely presented to them, and then they obtained not ready admission to their hearts.

case.

In one I perceived great indolence of mind, which needed excitement. The monotony and vapidness of the life she led, so adverse to the character of youth, had weakened powers, which required a stimulus; and which, if roused and well directed, would have produced a very different character. Another, of a more gay and lively turn, was deeply tinctured with enthusiasm. Extravagant expectations of life and happiness filled her mind; unfitting her for present duties, and laying up for her a store of disappointment hereafter. Works of fiction were her delight, and thence, aided by her imagination,

she drew such a picture of ideal happiness, as the past has never realized, nor the future will ever reveal. But untaught by knowledge, and untamed by experience, these restless anticipations of the future are too frequently indulged in, till they have destroyed the vigour of the mind, and sapped the very foundation of contented enjoyment. A third, entrenched in the high opinion she entertained of herself, was inaccessible alike to advice and reproof. Her actions, her words, and even her looks, seemed to intimate, that she was right, whoever was wrong; and therefore their disapproval was of little consequence: her self-importance was unbounded. Whatever she wanted, was to be done, and done immediately; she never seemed to remember that there might be many other claims, opposed to her own, and all equally strong but no, all must give way to hers; and this, her looks expressed, when her tongue was not permitted to utter it.

These are some of the defects I observed in my young friends, and which I found but little difficulty in tracing to their source. Errors these, which reason may in vain set herself to correct, unaided by experience: and who will say that these are slight errors, undeserving of serious regard?

But this paper has already run to a greater length than was intended, so with your readers I will leave the application, and subscribe myself, Madam,

There are some portraits of which one is ready, immediately on seeing them, to exclaim, "What a good likeness!"-forgetting that we do not know the original. So of the above-it seems so just to nature, I could fancy I too was listening where my correspondent heard it. And I believe the deformities of the picture are ascribed to the right cause. The cultured hot bed has weeds peculiar to itself; and without caution, will as cer

tainly produce them as the neglected waste; and though not the same they may be equally pernicious. I give place with much satisfaction to this paper: and of the remarks upon my former Listenings, have only to answer, that I assent to them entirely. In speaking of schools, it is the system I purpose to condemn. That some children must from circumstance be placed at school, is without doubt; and I have as little doubt that very good schools are to be found: but if they are good, it is because they have departed from the school system-that remains ever bad. In my sketch of home education, I purposely painted the extreme, that none but those who do really leave their children to others, might feel themselves attacked in those remarks. I can image no system of education so near to perfection as that of a divided charge between the parent and the governess: but I am compelled to own, I seldom have seen it as I can imagine it. I should like to see in every pious family an inmate, more or less endowed as the circumstances of the family would allow, chosen from among the children of misfortune, the friend, the agent, and as it regards the children, the entire confidant of the mother, treated as an equal, trusted as a sister, and beloved as a partner and companion in the same important charge. And while she shared the cares, she should share the interests and enjoyments of the home she so fully earns. Born an alien, she should as it were be naturalized in the family, and become a member of it; and she should have, as in such case she could have, no divided interest and no separate purpose. But this is an imagination wide of the existing system. The governess, treated as a hireling, acts as one-the most isolated and generally the most unhappy being in the house, a party to nothing in the family but its cares, she cannot identify herself with the interests or the feelings of her employers, to which her own interests and feelings are thus forced into perpetual opposition. And then we hear mothers complain that governesses are so bad and so troublesome. So in truth