would be occupied about things which will be of no value
to her in _eternity_. I need not tell you that we are carefully
communicating to every one of them that general knowledge which should
be common to all gentlewomen.

"In unrolling the vast volume of ancient and modern history, I ground on
it some of my most useful instructions, and point out how the truth of
Scripture is illustrated by the crimes and corruptions which history
records, and how the same pride, covetousness, ambition, turbulence, and
deceit, which bring misery on empires, destroy the peace of families. To
history, geography and chronology are such, indispensable appendages,
that it would be superfluous to insist on their usefulness. As to
astronomy, while 'the heavens declare the glory of God,' it seems a kind
of impiety, not to give young people some insight into it." "I hope,"
said Sir John, "that you do not exclude the modern languages from your
plan." "As to the French," replied Mr. Stanley, "with that thorough
inconsistency which is common to man, the demand for it seems to have
risen in exact proportion as it ought to have sunk.[4] I would not,
however, rob my children of a language in which, though there are more
books to be avoided, there are more that deserve to be read, than in all
the foreign languages put together."

[Footnote 4: See an ingenious little treatise entitled Latium Redivivum,
or the modern use of the Latin language, and the prevalence of the
French.]

"If you prohibit Italian," said Sir John, laughing, "I will serve you as
Cowper advised the boys and girls to serve Johnson for depreciating
Henry and Emma; I will join the musical and poetical ladies in tearing
you to pieces, as the Thracian damsels did Orpheus, and send your head
with his

"Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore."

"You remember me, my dear Belfield," replied Mr. Stanley, "a warm
admirer of the exquisite beauties of Italian poetry. But a father feels,
or rather judges differently from the mere man of taste, and as a
father, I can not help regretting, that what is commonly put into the
hands of our daughters, is so amatory, that it has a tendency to soften
those minds which rather want to be invigorated.

"There are few things I more deprecate for girls than a poetical
education, the evils of which I saw sadly exemplified in a young friend
of Mrs. Stanley's. She had beauty and talents. Her parents, enchanted
with both, left her entirely to her ow