tters should be deemed as important
as their names. All this is the proper work of the female teacher; and,
when she is ignorant or neglects her duty, the evil is usually so great
as to admit of no complete remedy.

Reading is at once an imitative and an appreciative art on the part of
the pupil. He must be trained to appreciate the meaning of the writer;
but he will depend upon the teacher at first, and, indeed, for a long
time, for an example of the true mode of expression. This the teacher
must be ready to give. It is not enough that she can correct faults of
pronunciation, censure inarticulate utterances, and condemn gruff,
nasal, and guttural sounds; but she must be able to present, in
reasonable purity, all the opposite qualities. The young women have not
yet done their duty to the cause of education in these respects; nor is
there everywhere a public sentiment that will even now allow the duty to
be performed.

It is difficult to see why the child of five, and the youth of fifteen,
should be kept an equal number of hours at school. Each pupil should
spend as much time in the school-room as is needed for the preparation
of the exercise and the exercise itself. The danger from excessive
confinement and labor is with young pupils. Those in grammar and high
schools may often use additional hours for study; but a pupil should be
somewhat advanced, and should possess considerable physical strength and
endurance, before he ventures to give more than six hours a day to
severe intellectual labor. It must often happen that children in primary
schools can learn in two hours each day all that the teacher has time to
communicate, or they have power to receive and appropriate. Indeed, I
think this is usually so. It may not, however, be safe to deduce from
this fact the opinion that children should never be kept longer in
school than two hours a day; but it seems proper to assume that, if
blessed with good homes, they may be relieved from the tedium of
confinement in the school-room, when there is no longer opportunity for
improvement.

We are beginning to realize the advantages of well-educated female
teachers in primary schools; nor do I deem it improbable that they shall
become successful teachers and managers of schools of higher grade,
according to the present public estimation. But, in regard to the latter
position, I have neither hope, desire, nor anxiety. Whenever the public
judge them, generally, or in particular ca