that in which her lot was cast. So far did the spirit of rebellion against circumstances carry this young woman that she abandoned herself to a young Oxford graduate of good birth who charmed and dazzled her by the superiority of his culture and bearing. We get a glimpse of another family in which a young wife and mother, also brought up in a pretentious fashion, neglects every duty of her position and leads her husband such a life that, taking his child with him, he turns his back upon her, leaving her, with such an allowance as he can afford, to her own devices. It may be said, and has been said, that this author draws with too dark a pencil; but this need not prevent us from discerning the truth to which he calls attention. We learn from his pages, not that a "little knowledge is a dangerous thing," but that superficial knowledge, all unconscious of its superficiality, is a dangerous thing. We learn that a mind clogged with undigested information may lose the power of spontaneous judgment and become the sport of accidental influences. We learn that education may be so bestowed as to minister to vanity rather than to self-respect, to a spirit of reckless and selfish ambition rather than to a sense of responsibility, to habits of weak self-indulgence rather than to any strengthening of the moral powers. The question may then be asked, How are these dangers to be avoided? We answer, by making the building up of character the constant aim of educational work, and the guiding principle in the selection of courses of study. The forcing of uncongenial studies upon unwilling minds is a process that can not be too strongly deprecated, inasmuch as it inevitably tends to the creation of an unnatural atmosphere for the individual, to the confusing of his intellectual perceptions and the destruction of that sense for reality which it is above all things important to preserve. We are strongly of opinion that very serious dangers of the nature already indicated will attend our systems of education until the secret has been found of making all education contribute not less to the right development of character than to the sharpening of the intellectual faculties. That the thing can be done we have not the shadow of a doubt; and to say that it can be done is to say that it must be done.
The author to whom we have referred seems to be of the opinion that an unwise education shows its worst results upon the female sex. In this we think he is right. Contact with the world of which most men have early experience tends to correct the errors, repair the omissions, and cancel the superfluities of their scholastic training; whereas women whose minds have been injured by their school training do not, to anything like an equal extent, enjoy the means of throwing off the faults they have imbibed. It is, therefore, of special importance that young women should not be made the victims of false systems of education. Their intellectual food should be of the purest and most nutritious, so that the effects of their education may be seen, not in a blaze of evanescent accomplishments, but in a steady glow of rational thought and generous emotion. We have not yet learned to make the best of life, and many are the evils we suffer in consequence; but if once it can sink into the consciousness of the community that education for both sexes should be regarded not as a preparation for a career of mere self-seeking, but as an introduction to all the possibilities of higher mental and moral life, a most important step in the progress of the race will have been won.
