such private and social revolutions, as there appears every reason to anticipate.
It is urged by some women, that they have their evening parties, and their morning calls, to attend to; by others, that they have their domestic arrangements; by a vast number, that they have not health to contend with children; and by still more, that they have not ability. To ask such women why they happened to get married, is an impertinence one is rather tempted to commit; for if attending to morning calls, or even visiting, be the paramount duty of life, a single woman might certainly discharge this duty, with more propriety, and with less hinderance, than a married one. If the management of a house be urged as more important than the management of an immortal mind, the situation of a housekeeper would have been more suitable than that of a wife or mother to the woman who offers this excuse. The plea of want of ability is a strong condemnation to her who did not find this out in time; and that of want of health, though, unlike the others, deserving tenderness and sympathy, affords no reason for entire exemption except in extreme cases; because a mother's influence, if once established, is often known to operate beneficially, even when she herself is confined to a couch of sickness.
There is in reality scarcely anything which ought to stand in the way of a mother's constant and strict attention to the training of her children; because she is in reality the person whose influence over them is the most powerful; and whatever school she may select for them, whatever teachers she may choose, she is the person into whose hands their mental and spiritual welfare is placed.
Since, then, there is no escape from this imperative duty, let us ask what are the particular advantages and facilities for discharging it, which the mother enjoys beyond others? In the first place, she begins with the unbounded affection of her children—an affection which sees her beautiful, and believes her perfect; which questions not the wisdom that flows from her lips, and still less can doubt the truth of what she tells. What other teacher of youth, I would ask, can begin the process of education with these advantages? Instead, then, of leaving it to
