yet a mere
child, at the least greatly confirmed him in it, by the manner of
expressing her surprise at one of his early performances. "My mother's
kiss," on that occasion, said he, "made me a painter." Nor are facts of
the same general character by any means uncommon.

I know a poor mother who, in the absence of her husband at his weekly
or monthly labors, used to detain her eldest boy, then almost an
infant, from going to bed in the evening till her day's work was
finished--because, in her loneliness, she wanted his company--by telling
stories of eminent men, and especially of distinguished philanthropists,
until she had unconsciously kindled in him a philanthropic spirit, which
will not cease to burn till his death.

But it is in forming the predilections of daughters for their destined
employments, that mothers are especially influential. Not so much by
their set lessons or lectures, however, as by the force of continued
example. No mother who sends her child away to be nursed, and
subsequently to her return seizes on every possible opportunity to keep
her out of the way and out of her sight, will be likely to give her any
choice of employment, or indeed any fondness for employment at all.

Nor is it sufficient that she keep her daughter constantly under her
eye, with a view to qualify her for the duties of a housewife, if the
daughter see as plainly as in the light of mid-day, that the mother
dislikes the employment herself. She must love what she would have her
daughter love, and even what she would have her understand. Nor is it
sufficient that she _affect_ a fondness for the employment; her love for
it must be real. Little girls have keener eyes and better judgments than
some mothers seem willing to believe or to admit.

Many persons seem greatly surprised that the young ladies of modern days
have so little fondness for domestic life and domestic duties. How few,
it is often said, will do their own housework, if they can possibly get
a train of domestics around them; even though the care and oversight of
the domestics themselves gear them out more rapidly than bodily labor
would.

But there is a reason for this hostility to domestic employments. It is
because mothers, almost universally, consider their occupations as mere
drudgery, and bring up their children in the same spirit. And what else
could be expected as the result? It would be an anomaly in the history,
of human nature, if the female members of f