hest social and
intellectual circles. If there have been any single error in the
training of this sex, more prominent than all others, it has been this,
that they were prepared for one station, or for one event only, and that
every influence was deemed quite unimportant, save those which tended to
qualify them for that station or relation alone.

But it was not surely for marriage _alone_ that God fashioned this
associate and moral equal of man. Neither was it for high life, or low
life, or middling stations, for east, west, north, or south, that she
was made in the sacred image of her Creator. For all these
circumstances, if Providence so appoint, should she be prepared. In one
word, her whole nature, physical, intellectual and spiritual, should be
fully developed; then is she truly educated.

Especially should the school-room give personal Virtue. It should train
the conscience, the heart and its affections aright, and guide to
consistency of character. "Want of perseverance," says Madam Necker, "is
the great fault of woman, in every thing, morals, attention to health,
friendship, &c." Her intellect is cultivated too exclusively, in our
times. It is to be feared that her education now gives her little moral
energy. This is a grievous error. Instead of being more frail in body,
and less firm in mind, or thorough in morals and piety, than in past
ages, she should be endowed with new force of character. Amid the
increased dangers of society, what is to protect her, and lift her from
feebleness and degradation, if not personal character? Man is to be
educated for a vigorous encounter with the world; in him the stronger
qualities, tempered by sensibility and affection, should predominate.
Woman should be prepared to co-operate with him in the station he may
fill, not openly and directly, but by a wise, gentle, and steady,
domestic influence. In her, love should be the ruling star; but that
love will avail him comparatively little, unless joined to a well
trained intellect, a cultivated mind, and sound judgment. Amid the
darkness, and tempestuousness, and growing perils of these latter ages,
she should be a Pharos-tower, giving light and life to tempted man. If
her moral culture do not correspond to her literary acquirements, they
will prove but dangerous weapons in the hand of the lawless. Catharine
de Medici was renowned, like her family, for talent and learning. She
possessed unbounded influence over her son, the prince