law, and
respect for authority.

There are, in our day, comparatively few mothers who are qualified to do
this. But what they can and should do is to see that they have a better
and more thorough system of education for their sons, but especially for
their daughters--a system of education that specially adapts them to the
destiny of their sex, and prepares them to find their happiness in their
homes, and the satisfaction of their highest ambition in discharging
its manifold duties, so much higher, nobler, and more essential to the
virtue and well-being of the community, the nation, the society, and to
the life and progress of the human race, than any which devolve on king
or emperor, magistrate or legislator. We would not have their generous
instincts repressed, their quick sensibilities blunted, or their warm,
sympathetic nature chilled, nor even the lighter graces and
accomplishments neglected; but we would have them all directed and
harmonized by solid intellectual instruction, and moral and religious
culture. We would have them, whether rich or poor, trained to find the
centre of their affections in their home; their chief ambition in making
it cheerful, bright, radiant and happy. Whether destined to grace a
magnificent palace, or to adorn the humble cottage of poverty, this
should be the ideal aimed at in their education. They should be trained
to love home, and to find their pleasure in sharing its cares and
performing its duties, however arduous or painful.

There are, as I have said, comparatively few mothers qualified to give
their daughters such an education, especially in our own country; for
comparatively few have received such an education themselves, or are
able fully to appreciate its importance. They can find little help in
the fashionable boarding-schools for finishing young ladies; and, in
general, these schools only aggravate the evils to be cured. The best
and the only respectable schools for daughters that we have in the
country are the conventual schools taught by women consecrated to God,
and specially devoted to the work of education. These schools, indeed,
are not always all that might be wished. The religious cannot,
certainly, supply the place of the mother in giving their pupils that
practical home-training so necessary, and which can be given only by
mothers who have themselves been properly educated; but they go as far
as is possible in remedying the defects of the present generation of
m