desert where no water is; and that if we wish to fill or satisfy the immortal longings of our souls, and obtain a true and lasting happiness, we must look for that "city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." For truly in the beautiful language of the Poet,

"There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides,
And never-with'ring flowers;
Death, like a narrow sea, divides
This heavenly land from ours."

There, too, the Christian looks for that "rest which remaineth for the people of God;" and there, too, all his hopes and expectations will be realized, when "this mortal shall have put on immortality," and "death be swallowed up in victory."

That which is pleasing still may please, Where doth hope end, and where begin And care be thrust away.

But on that forehead God has set
Indelibly a mark,
Unseen by man, for man, as yet,
Is blind and in the dark,

The confines of despair?

An answer from the skies is sent;

"Ye that from God depart! While it is called to day, repent, And harden not your heart."

Translated from the German by the Senior Editor.

DEFECTS IN THE EDUCATION OF DAUGHTERS.*

BY DR. FREDERICK JOACHIM GUENTHER.

MY HONORED FRIEND! You have laid a heavy task upon me. You request me to give you my views on the most important points involved in the education of Daughters, and especially your own daughters.

To say anything to the point in relation to the education of daughters, is itself difficult-still more difficult is it to speak faithfully and without reserve to a Mother, especially when we find it necessary, in many points, to differ from the prevailing views of the times: but how much more vastly still are difficulties increased when I am asked to speak to a Friend who is already well acquainted with all the best treatises on this subject and finds them for the most part unsatisfactory!

You are right-a Treatise on the subject of Education generally reads well, and much is to learned from it; it contains many good general rules, warnings, and encouragements, and yet, in regard to the principal questions which come up in practice, a mother is frequently in great perplexity. Whither, now, shall she look? "To her Husband!" "To her Husband!" This is easier recommended than carried out. I know what it is, when the wife, perhaps after supper in the evening, would speak with her husband on training and education, when he has spent the day in the toil and care of business, and now seeks refreshment and comfort in the circle of his family-and, alas! so good are not even all husbands that they are satisfied to spend their evenings in the house and with their families. The most distressing thing of all is, as you have often remarked to me, that the most frequent occasions for such interviews and consultations, are some instances of bad conduct, or at least unpleasant manifestations with which the wife, from motives of tenderness, docs not choose to disturb or destroy the only joyful hours of her husband. Is it not so? Yes; and then, too, men are often not at all disposed or able to enter into these things with such minuteness of detail, as alone can be of use to a mother: that is, which will enable her to express all her great and small scruples in a way to have them met and allayed by her husband. Then, too, the education of daughters is so peculiarly the sphere

The rest of this excellent series shall follow in future numbers of the Guardian. The whole is in the form of familiar letters to a Mother. These letters themselves, which have never yet appeared in English, are worth double the amount of the subscription price of this Magazine, We are glad to meet something in this form so well suited to the interests of our Monthly.

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and business of the mother, that it seems almost odd for her to depend always on seeking for counsel; and then could proceed still farther to enumerate the difficulties and embarrassments, which I have for the most part first learned from you, and which have given you occasion to invite me to continue those to me ever memorable-consulations on the educational duties of wife and mother, which have, on former occasions, so much engaged our attention.

You think, as you are pleased to say in your kind letter, that I have, by my experience, gathered a treasure of very peculiar, and as it seems to you, quite original ideas on the subject, which you desire me to communicate to you. O yes, one who as a Teacher, with zeal and delight to teach and to learn, has passed through different Female Schools, of the common, middle, or as they are now called, higher class: one who, in addition to this, has for years, day after day passed his happiest hours in the circle of so excellent a family, having the opportunity of speaking daily with such a finely cultivated, pious, and loving mother, in the greatest minuteness and detail, in regard to the education of her five daughters, and, above all, having learned from her to seek out the deepest ground of these little manifestations and to feel a tender concern in reference to them: one, also, who is acquainted with life in its most diversified spheres, with its deep pains and little joys: and one, finally, who has raised children in most difficult and critical circumstances, and is still raising others; such an one has at least had some opportunity, from the multitude of his experience, to attain to some independent views on this subject. But sorry, very sorry indeed would I be, if these ideas had in truth to be denominated "original and quite peculiar." This would be the best proof of their unsuitableness. Not even new should I desire them to be. The most that may be said of them is, that they stand opposed to the spirit of the age. But whether we may or must come in conflict with the spirit of the age, is a matter that we will not discuss; I will, in a simple way, address myself to your reason, and if you, from this point, find nothing to oppose to the views I shall present, you will easily see why both of us cannot agree with the manners and modes which are at present becoming popular, and how even it may be a holy duty to resist them with all our power.

You would be pleased if I would write a large volume on the education of daughters! You perhaps would read it, perhaps also many an anxious mother would do the same; but the greatest number would think otherwise, and even though nothing other or better, could be found, would leave it unread. Let us,

therefore, be satisfied with a smaller range, and grant that I treat only on those points, which are connected with peculiar difficulties, and in which a mother needs counsel; especially permit me to exhibit those defects which I believe are discoverable in the prrsent mode of educating females.

It is peculiar to us, men, that we in all cases must first of all have a foundation, upon which we may build our thoughts and reflections. How could I do otherwise? It is necessary, then, that we first address ourselves to the preliminaries, and lay a foundation for all our future considerations. What, therefore, claims our attention first of all is-THE END TO WHICH THE WIFE AND THE DAUGHTER IS DESTINED. This stands first in all books on education, and hence I will also begin my Letters with it.

The most of those who treat on this subject, say that woman is destined for a MOTHER, and that the whole of her education, physically and spiritually, should be directed towards fitting the daughter to fill this sphere. Do you remember how Jean Paul exhibits and explains this point in his Levanna? O yes, and many educators have even been so consequent as in public institutions to deliver lectures on training children, to young maidens, and such as were scarcely out of the years of childhood! That you, my honored friend, do not expect of me to show farther zeal against this practice, I know full well. Moreover, it is plain that nothing can well be more unnatural, senseless, and injurious to all the delicacy and tenderness of female feeling, than openly or repressed, to say to a female: "You are to be a mother! and then you must train your children so or so, etc!" We might also reply to this idea of the destiny of woman, that not all females become mothers, either because they do not all become wives, or because the divine grace of maternal honor is denied them. Tutors by profession, that is, Authors on this subject, can easily dispose of this reply by saying that such a woman has missed her destiny!

Now, I ask suppose a mother educates all her daughters with a view of their filling the sphere of mothers, and awakens thus in their hearts a multitude of representations and sensations, (which-so nature has ordered it-are always only to be dark adumbrations until their fulfilment,) and awakens their expectations in reference to the fulfilment of the true end of life in the highest degree, and misfortune will so have it that none of them ever enters the maternal ranks, will not now the natural misfortune, which is already in itself sufficiently heavy, be yet

infinitely increased, when it is associated with the consciousness that the whole end of life is missed ?-and missed, too, without the person's own fault! I say, it is cruel in the extreme in a mother, to fix so uncertain a point as the end toward which to determine the education of her daughter; and, if she is sincere, cause herself to live in the painful uncertainty whether one or the other of her daughters, might not, by disappointment, inherit the whole sum of sorrow thus treasured up for her through the whole course of her education.

After all, this book-wisdom is not so bad a thing. You, yourself, my honored friend, were for some time enthusiastic in this direction, reading and thinking over all of it, and resolved to aim at such ideals as are there presented: and what did it amount to? You proceeded in your training in the same way as before, trusting in all cases to your judgment and feelings at the moment; if in any cases you applied what you had learned, it was introducing new plays, or in otherwise improving and directing old ones; upon the whole, however, you felt unsatisfied when you compared your mode of procedure with the mechanical rules of books, and discovered a wide difference between them. Be of good cheer, the warm heart of a mother has taught you better than that which is written in books; and only when you sought to improve that, did you go amiss, and render yourself unsatisfied. Nature does not suffer itself to be excluded or annihilated-it can only for a time, be disturbed and led astray. How is it; did you ever discover that your mother made it her aim and end to educate and train you for a mother? And yet you are one, and truly-this is shown by the blessing which. you have thus far had in your children-no ordinary mother! It is true, then, mothers did not yet study so much in books or training, or rather at that time this book-wisdom was just coming into fashion, and your father was so sensible a man as to save his wife from such things. It gives me still the greatest pleasure, when I chance to read in such perverted books, to know, that in general their influence is small; for they are rendered comparatively harmless by the correct feelings and natural sense of mothers. For this reason I am satisfied that such authors shall continue to philosophize into the air, teaching that young women must be educated for mothers, and that this end and destination of their lives, must not for one moment be left out of view; they will do no injury, if only they do not in public schools, draw such consequences from their principles, as those to which reference has just been made. As not every daughter becomes a wife, and as not every wife becomes a mother, there