essed during my sojourn in the country.

It may be inquired, how is it that such is the case at present, when the
obedience to parents was so rigorously inculcated by the puritan
fathers, that by the blue laws, the punishment of disobedience was
_death_? Captain Hall ascribes it to the democracy, and the rights of
equality therein acknowledged; but I think, allowing the spirit of their
institutions to have some effect in producing this evil, that the
principal cause of it is the total neglect of the children by the
father, and his absence in his professional pursuits, and the natural
weakness of most mothers, when their children are left altogether to
their care and guidance.

Mr Sanderson, in his Sketches of Paris, observes:--"The motherly
virtues of our women, so eulogised by foreigners, is not entitled to
unqualified praise. There is no country in which maternal care is so
assiduous; but also there is none in which examples of injudicious
tenderness are so frequent." This I believe to be true; not that the
American women are really more injudicious than those of England, but
because they are not supported as they should be by the authority of the
father, of whom the child should always entertain a certain portion of
fear mixed with affection, to counterbalance the indulgence accorded by
natural yearnings of a mother's heart.

The self-will arising from this fundamental error manifests itself
throughout the whole career of the American's existence, and,
consequently, it is a self-willed nation _par excellence_.

At the age of six or seven you will hear both boys and girls
contradicting their fathers and mothers, and advancing their own
opinions with a firmness which is very striking.

At fourteen or fifteen the boys will seldom remain longer at school. At
college, it is the same thing; (note 6) and they learn precisely what
they please, and no more. Corporal punishment is not permitted; indeed,
if we are to judge from an extract I took from an American paper, the
case is reversed.

The following "Rules" are posted up in New Jersey school-house:--

"No kissing girls in school-time; no _licking_ the _master_ during holy
days."

At fifteen or sixteen, if not at college, the boy assumes the man; he
enters into business, as a clerk to some merchant, or in some store.
His father's home is abandoned, except when it may suit his convenience,
his salary being sufficient for most of his wants. He frequents the
b