the discussion of persons by the investigation of principles, to escape from the prejudices and parties of the present into the neutral ground of the past?

There is a prejudice against learned women, I am aware, but not against educated women. It is the surest sign that a woman is not well educated, if her learning or her knowledge is made obtrusive and disgusting. A woman is not well educated who makes a show of her learning. In nothing does a good education show itself more than in the absence of all pretension, and the most perfect simplicity and unconsciousness.

Woman has a right to a good education, because it is expedient for all parties concerned that she should have it. She ought to be educated because home is the great school of humanity, and because the mother is the first, the principal, and the most influential teacher. Her mind is the storehouse from which her children derive their ideas. She cannot open her mouth without teaching them something, either correct and elevated conceptions, or weak, silly, childish prejudices and superstitions. The child learns more from the conversation of the mother than from any

other source. How fortunate that child, whose mother's mind is a mine of wisdom, a perennial fountain of knowledge? Most distinguished men have attributed their greatness to the influence and instructions of their mothers. As life advances and temptations increase, the safest refuge against the multitudinous corruptions of the world, is the sanctuary of home. The greatest attraction of home is always an intellectual and accomplished mother. She will draw around her the gifted and refined among the young, and use the talents of all for the entertainment and instruction of each. Nothing contributes more to keep the sons of a family from low vices and dissipated companions than sincere respect for the understanding and the principles of the mother. Nothing is so sure a preventive of vanity and frivolity in the daughters, as true culture and real refinement in her whom nature has conIstituted their model and adviser.

Those who regard themselves as the religious part of society, commit, as it seems to me, a fundamental error in the light in which they view amusements. Some overlook the fact that they are a constitutional want of human nature, others appear to esteem them

as essentially immoral, others as below the attention of rational beings and wholly inconsistent with the religious character. The consequence is, that being an instinctive and indestructible want of human nature, they will always prevail in some form; and in communities where they are forbidden as a sin, they will be practised as a sin, and no discrimination being made between innocent and immoral amusements, both will be practised without distinction, and those who become accustomed to break over an unnatural, artificial and absurd rule of conduct, without compunction, will plunge headlong into all manner of vicious indulgence.

The capacity for amusement is one of the constituent elements of the human constitution. It is intended to fill up with innocent pleasure, the morning of life, when the powers are too immature for serious employment. The education of the senses and the training of the muscles, are carried on amidst the sports of infancy and childhood. This capacity of perpetual amusement, is one of the strongest evidences of the Creator's goodness.

When the body arrives at its perfection and the mind at its maturity, this capacity for

amusements does not die out, as it would do were it intended to extend no further than childhood and youth. It continues not as a constant, but as an occasional inclination. It alternates with the desire of serious enterprise and laborious occupation. By constant application, the animal spirits become exhausted, the nerves unstrung, the mind fatigued. In that condition, the greatest refreshment is not absolute rest, but amusement. There springs up then, if I may so speak, an appetite for amusements, which cannot be satisfied with any thing else. Under their influence the animal spirits rise and regain their natural level, the mind recovers its elasticity, the temper, before irritable and exasperated, is soothed, and labor, which had begun to be a burden, again becomes a pleasure. Amusement at such seasons seems to have the same effect upon the mind, that we might conceive of as accompanying a return to the scenes of infancy and childhood, when we ran on green lawns or played in the plashy brook, or wandered among the forest trees.

From such recreation, there is a positive increase of strength to encounter the troubles, and endure the trials and vexations of life;

Sympathy is the

and these moral and physical effects leave no doubt as to the design of the capacity for amusement in the constitution of our nature. Nor are its social influences any less evident and benign. To partake of innocent pleasures together, does more to open the hearts of mankind than any thing else. Sympathy is the great means which God himself employs to cultivate the affections. great bond of the domestic affections. No less than the ties of blood, it makes families one. Social amusements extend the bonds of sympathy. They counteract the cold selfishness, in which solitude and isolation are too apt to terminate. They smooth the asperities which arise in the rude collisions of business or ambition, and knit again the friendships which have been shaken by the hourly rivalries and competitions of life.

Such being the facts, to forbid amusements is exceedingly unwise. It is far better to regulate them by the measures of prudence and experience. It is the only way to prevent their abuse. To debar the young from them will always seem unreasonable, and tend rather to undermine than confirm parental authority. Austerity is never a good government. Nothing