exhibitor of paltry acquirements ever mature
into the mother of the Gracchi, the tutelary guardian of the rising
virtues of the commonwealth? It is in vain to hope it.

Before making any strictures on intellectual education, it is necessary
to enter into a short explanation; for it is not denied that
rightly-cultivated mental power is a great good. The kind of cultivation
which is here decried is open to the same objections as the last
mentioned. It is the cultivation of power, with a view, not to the
happiness of the individual, but to her fame; not to her usefulness, but
to her brilliancy. We have only to look round society, and see that
intellect has its vanity as well as beauty or accomplishments, and that
its effects are more mischievous. It has a hardening, deadening kind of
influence; the more so, that the so-called mental cultivation frequently
consists only of a pedantic heaping up of information, valuable indeed
in itself, but wanting the principle of combination to make it useful.
Stones and bricks are valuable things, very valuable; but they are not
beautiful or useful till the hand of the architect has given them a
form, and the cement of the bricklayer has knit them together. It is a
fine expression of Miss Edgeworth, in speaking of the mind of one of her
heroines, "that the stream of literature had passed over it was apparent
only from its fertility." Intellectual cultivation was too long
considered as education, properly so called. The mischief which this
error has produced, is exactly in proportion to the increase of power
thereby communicated to wrong principles.

What, then, is the true object of female education? The best answer to
this question is, a statement of future duties; for it must never be
forgotten, that if education be not a training for future duties, it is
nothing. The ordinary lot of woman is to marry. Has any thing in these
educations prepared her to make a wise choice in marriage? To be a
mother! Have the duties of maternity,--the nature of moral
influence,--been pointed out to her? Has she ever been enlightened as
to the consequent unspeakable importance of personal character as the
source of influence? In a word, have any means, direct or indirect,
prepared her for her duties? No! but she is a linguist, a pianist,
graceful, admired. What is that to the purpose? The grand evil of such
an education is the mistaking means for ends; a common error, and the
source of half the moral co