the dread of being thought singular, submit to the evil. These
persons may be very well received, and very well liked in the world:
they must content themselves with this reward; they must not expect to
succeed in education, for strength of mind is absolutely necessary to
those who would carry a plan of education into effect. Without being
tied down to any one exclusive plan, and with universal toleration for
different modes of moral and intellectual instruction, it may be
safely asserted, that the plan which is most steadily pursued, will
probably succeed the best. People who are moved by the advice of all
their friends, and who endeavour to adapt their system to every
fashionable change in opinion, will inevitably repent of their weak
complaisance; they will lose all power over their pupils, and will be
forced to abandon the education of their families to chance.

It will be found impossible to educate a child at home, unless all
interference from visiters and acquaintance is precluded. But it is of
yet more consequence, that the members of the family must entirely
agree in their sentiments, or at least in the conduct of the children
under their care. Without this there is no hope. Young people perceive
very quickly, whether there is unanimity in their government; they
make out an alphabet of looks with unerring precision, and decipher
with amazing ingenuity, all that is for their interest to understand.
When children are blamed or punished, they always know pretty well who
pities them, who thinks that they are in the wrong, and who thinks
that they are in the right; and thus the influence of public opinion
is what ultimately governs. If children find that, when mamma is
displeased, grandmamma comforts them, they will console themselves
readily under this partial disgrace, and they will suspect others of
caprice, instead of ever blaming themselves. They will feel little
confidence in their own experience, or in the assertions of others;
they will think that there is always some chance of escape amongst the
multitude of laws and law-givers. No tutor or preceptor can be
answerable, or ought _to undertake to answer for measures which he
does not guide_. Le Sage, with an inimitable mixture of humour and
good sense, in the short history of the education of the robbers who
supped in that cave in which dame Leonardo officiated, has given many
excellent lessons in education. Captain Rolando's tutors could never
make any thing