THE WORKS OF HANNAH MORE. of course meet every where with those who can, This system however is the fruitful germ, from in some measure appreciate as well as admire which a thousand yet unborn vanities, with all them; for all can see and hear, but all cannot their multiplied ramifications, will spring. A scrutinize and discriminate, External acquire- tender mother cannot but feel an honest triumph ments too recommend themselves the more be- in contemplating those talents in her daughter, 21 cause they are more rapidly, as well as more which will necessarily excite admiration; but visibly progressive; while the mind is led on to she will also shudder at the vanity that admiraimprovement by slow motions and impercepti- tion may excite, and at the new ideas it will ble degrees; while the heart must now be ad- awaken: and, startling as it may sound, the monished by reproof, and now allured by kind- labours of a wise mother, anxious for her daughtness; its liveliest advances being suddenly im- ter's best interests, will seem to be at variance peded by obstinacy, and its brightest prospects with those of all her teachers. She will indeed often obscured by passion; it is slow in its ac- rejoice at her progress, but she will rejoice with quisitions of virtue, and reluctant in its ap- trembling; for she is fully aware that if all posproaches to piety; and its progress, when any sible accomplishments could be bought at the progress is made, does not obtrude itself to vul- price of a single virtue, of a single principle, gar observation.-The unruly and turbulent the purchase would be infinitely dear, and she propensities of the mind are not so obedient to would reject the dazzling but destructive acquithe forming hand as defects of manner or awk-sition. She knows that the superstructure of wardness of gait. Often when we fancy that a troublesome passion is completely crushed, we have the mortification to find that we have 'scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it.' One evil temper starts up before another is conquered. The subduing hand cannot cut off the ever-sprouting heads so fast as the prolific hydra can reproduce them, nor. fell the stubborn Antæus so often as he can recruit his strength, and rise in vigorous and repeated opposition. the accomplishments can be alone safely erected on the broad and solid basis of Christian humility: nay more, that as the materials of which that superstructure is to be composed, are in themselves of so unstable and tottering a nature, the foundation must be deepened and enlarged with more abundant care, otherwise the fabric will be overloaded with its own ornaments, and what was intended only to embellish the building, will prove the occasion of its fall. To every thing there is a season, and a time Hired teachers are also under a disadvantage resembling tenants at rack-rent; it is their in. for every purpose under heaven,' said the wise terest to bring in an immediate revenue of praise man; but he said it before the invention of and profit; and, for the sake of a present rich BABY-BALLS; an invention which has formed a crop, those who are not strictly conscientious, kind of æra, and a most inauspicious one, in do not care how much the ground is impoverish- the annals of pòlished education. This modern ed for future produce. But parents, who are the device is a sort of triple conspiracy against the lords of the soil, must look to permanent value, innocence, the health, and the happiness of and to continued fruitfulness. The best effects children. Thus by factitious amusements, to of a careful education are often very remote; rob them of a relish for the simple joys, the unthey are to be discovered in future scenes, and bought delights, which naturally belong to their exhibited in as yet untried connexions. Every blooming season, is like blotting out spring from event of life will be putting the heart into fresh the year. To sacrifice the true and proper ensituations, and making new demands on its pru- joyments of sprightly and happy children, is to dence, its firmness, its integrity, or its forbear- make them pay a dear and disproportionate Those whose business it is to form and price for their artificial pleasures. They step model it, cannot foresee those contingent situa- at once from the nursery to the ball-room; and, tions specifically and distinctly: yet, as far as by a change of habits as new as it is preposhuman wisdom will allow, they must enable it terous, are thinking of dressing themselves, at to prepare for them all by general principles, an age when they used to be dressing their correct habits, and an unremitted sense of de- dolls. Instead of bounding with the unrestrainAs ed freedom of little wood-nymphs over hill and pendence on the Great Disposer of events. the soldier must learn and practise all his evo- dale, their cheeks flushed with health, and their lutions, though he do not know on what service hearts overflowing with happiness, these gay his leader may command him, by what particu- little creatures are shut up all the morning, delar foe he shall be most assailed, nor what mode murely practising the pas grave, and transacting of attack the enemy may employ; so must the the serious business of acquiring a new step for young Christian militant be prepared by pre- the evening, with more cost of time and pains than it would have taken them to acquire twenty vious discipline for actual duty. new ideas. ance. But the contrary of all this is the case with Thus they lose the amusements which properexternal acquisitions. The master, it is his interest, will industriously instruct his young pu- ly belong to their smiling period, and unnatupil to set all her improvements in the most im- rally anticipate those pleasures (such as they mediate and conspicuous point of view. To at- are) which would come in, too much of course, tract admiration is the great principle sedu- on their introduction into fashionable life. The lously inculcated into her young heart; and is true pleasures of childhood are cheap and natuconsidered as the fundamental maxim: and, ral: for every object teems with delight to eyes perhaps, if we were required to condense the and hearts new to the enjoyment of life; nay, reigning system of the brilliant education of a the hearts of healthy children abound with a lady into an aphorism, it might be comprised general disposition to mirth and joyfulness, even into this short sentence, To allure and to shine. I without a specific object to excite it: like our first parent, in the world's first spring, when all, take off from the merriment of it, as any of the was new and fresh, and gay about him, they live and move, And feel that they are happier than they know. Only furnish them with a few simple and harmless materials, and a little, but not too much, leisure, and they will manufacture their own pleasure with more skill and success, and satis. faction, than they will receive from all that your money can purchase. Their bodily recreations should be such as will promote their health, quicken their activity, enliven their spirits, whet their ingenuity, and qualify them for their mental work. But, if you begin thus early to create wants, to invent gratifications, to multiply desires, to waken dormant sensibilities, to stir up hidden fires, you are studiously laying up for your children a store of premature caprice and irritability, of impatience and discontent. ridiculous and preposterous disproportions in the diverting travels of captain Lemuel Gulliver. Under a just impression of the evils which we are sustaining from the principles and the practices of modern France, we are apt to lose sight of those deep and lasting mischiefs which so long, so regularly, and so systematically we have been importing from the same country, though in another form, and under another go vernment. In one respect, indeed, the first were the more formidable, because we embraced the ruin without suspecting it; while we defeat the malignity of the latter, by detecting the turpi tude, and defending ourselves against its conta gion. This is not the place to descant on that levity of manners, that contempt of the sabbath, that fatal familiarity with loose principles, and those relaxed notions of conjugal fidelity, which While childhood preserves its native simpli- have ofteen been transplanted into this country city, every little change is interesting, every by women of fashion, as a too common effect of gratification is a luxury. A ride or a walk, a a long residence in a neighbouring nation; but garland of flowers of her own forming, a plant it is peculiarly suitable to my subject to advert of her own cultivating, will be a delightful to another domestic mischief derived from the amusement to a child in her natural state; but same foreign extraction; I mean the risks that these harmless and interesting recreations will have been run, and the sacrifices which have be dull and tasteless to a sophisticated little been made, in order to furnish our young ladies creature, nursed in such forced, and costly, and with the means of acquiring the French lan vapid pleasures. Alas! that we should throw guage in the greatest possible purity. Perfec away this first grand opportunity of working tion in this accomplishment has been so long into a practical habit the moral of this impor- established as the supreme object; so long contant truth, that the chief source of human dis-sidered as the predominant excellence to which content is to be looked for, not in our real, but in our factitious wants; not in the demands of nature, but in the insatiable cravings of artificial desire! all other excellencies must bow down, that it would be hopeless to attack a law which fashion has immutably decreed, and which has received the stamp of long prescription. We must, thereWhen we see the growing zeal to crowd the fore, be contented with expressing a wish, that midnight ball with these pretty fairies, we this indispensable perfection could have been should be almost tempted to fancy it was a kind attained at the expense of sacrifices less imporof pious emulation among the mothers to cure tant. It is with the greater regret I animadtheir infants of a fondness for vain and foolish vert on this and some other prevailing practices pleasures, by tiring them out by this premature as they are errors into which the wise and refamiliarity with them. And we should be so spectable have through want of consideration, desirous to invent an excuse for a practice so or rather through want of firmness to resist the inexcusable, that we should be ready to hope tyranny of fashion, sometimes fallen. It has that they were actuated by something of the not been unusual when mothers of rank and resame principle which led the Spartans to intro-putation have been asked how they ventured to duce their sons to scenes of riot, that they might conceive an early disgust at vice! or possibly, that they imitated those Scythian mothers who used to plunge their new-born infants into the flood, thinking none to be worth saving who could not stand this early struggle for their lives; the greater part, indeed, as might have been expected, perished; but the parents took comfort, that if they were lost, the few who escaped would be the stronger for having been thus exposed! To behold Lilliputian coquettes, projecting dresses, studying colours, assorting ribands, mixing flowers, and choosing feathers; their little hearts beating with hopes about partners and fears about rivals; to see their fresh cheeks pale after the midnight supper, their aching heads and unbraced nerves, disqualifying the little languid beings for the next day's task; and to hear the grave apology,' that it is owing to the wine, the crowd, the heated room of the last night's ball;' all this, I say, would really be as ludicrous, if the mischief of the thing did not intrust their daughters to foreigners, of whose principles they knew nothing, except that they were Roman Catholics, to answer, That they had taken care to be secure on that subject; for that it had been stipulated that the question of religion should never be agitated between the teacher and the pupil.' This, it must be confessed, is a most desperate remedy; it is like starving to death to avoid being poisoned. And who can help trembling for the event of that education, from which religion, as far as the governess is concerned, is thus formally and systematically excluded. Surely it would not be exacting too much, to suggest at least that an attention no less scrupulous should be exerted to insure the character of our children's instructor, for piety and knowledge, than is thought necessary to ascertain that she has no thing patois in ner dialect. I would rate a correct pronunciation and an elegant phraseology at their just price, and I would not rate them low; but I would not offer up piety and principle as victims to sounds and furnished with a stock of ideas, and principles, and qualifications and habits, ready to be applied and appropriated, as occasion may demand, to each of these respective situations. For though the arts which merely embellish life must claim admiration; yet when a man of sense comes to marry, it is a companion whom he wants, and not an artist. It is not merely a creature who can paint, and play, and sing, and draw, and dress, and dance; it is a being who can comfort and counsel him; one who can reason, and reflect, and feel and judge, and discourse and discriminate; one who can assist him in his affairs, lighten his cares, sooth his sorrows, purify his joys, strengthen his principles, and educate his chidren. accents. And the matter is now made more easy; for whatever disgrace it might once have brought on an English lady to have had it suspected from her accent that she had the misfortune not to be born in a neighbouring country; some recent events may serve to reconcile her to the suspicion of having been bred in her own. A country, to which, (with all its sins, which are many!) the whole world is looking up with envy and admiration, as the seat of true glory and of comparative happiness! A country, in which the exile, driven out by the crimes of his own, finds a home! A country, to obtain the protection of which it was claim enough to be unfortunate; and no impediment to have been the subject of her direst foe! A country, which, in this respect, humbly imitating the Father of Almost any ornamental acquirement is a good compassion, when it offered mercy to a suppli- thing, when it is not the best thing a woman ant enemy, never conditioned for merit, nor in-has; and talents are admirable when not made sisted on the virtues of the miserable as a preeliminary to its own bounty! 'England! with all thy faults, I love thee still.' CHAP. IV. to stand proxy for virtues. The writer of these pages is intimately acquainted with several ladies who, excelling most of their sex in the art of music, but excelling them also in prudence and piety, find little leisure or temptation amidst the delights and duty of a large and lovely family, for the exercise of this charming talent; Comparison of the mode of female education in they regret that so much of their own youth the last age with the present. was wasted in acquiring an art which can be turned to so little account in married life, and are now conscientiously restricting their daughters in the portion of time allotted to its acquisition. Far be it from me to discourage the cultivation of any existing talent; but may it not be ques tioned of the fond believing mother, whether talents like the spirits of Owen Glendower, though conjured by parental partiality with ever so loud a voice, Yet will they come when you do call for them? To return, however, to the subject of general education. We admit that a young lady may excel in speaking French and Italian; may repeat a few passages from a volume of extracts; play like a professor, and sing like a syren; have her dressing-room decorated with her own drawings, tables, stands, flower-pots, screens and cabinets; nay, she may dance like Sempronia* herself, and yet we shall insist that she may have been very badly educated. I am far from meaning to set no value whatever on these That injudicious practice, therefore, cannot qualifications; they are all of them elegant, and be too much discouraged of endeavouring to many of them properly tend to the perfecting create talents which do not exist in nature. of a polite education. These things in their That their daughters shall learn every thing, is measure and degree may be done, but there are so general a maternal maxim, that even unborn others which should not be left undone. Many daughters, of whose expected abilities and conthings are becoming, but one thing is needful.' jectured faculties, it is presumed, no very ac Besides, as the world seems to be fully apprised curate judgment can previously be formed, are of the value of whatever tends to embellish life, yet predestined to this universality of accom. there is less occasion here to insist on its impor-plishments. This comprehensive maxim, thus tance. ་ But though a well-bred youug lady may law. fully learn most of the fashionable arts; yet, let me ask, does it seem to be the true end of education to make women of fashion dancers, singers, players, painters, actresses, sculptors, gilders, varnishers, engravers, and embroiderers? Most men are commonly destined to some profession, and their minds are consequently turned each to its respective object. Would it not be strange if they were called out to exercise their profession, or to set up their trade, with only a little general knowledge of the trades and professions of all other men, and without any previous definite application to their own peculiar calling? The professions of ladies, to which the bent of their instruction should be turned, is that of daughters, wives, mothers, and mistresses of families. They should be therefore trained with a view to these several conditions, and be * See Cataline's Conspiracy, almost universally brought into practice, at once weakens the general powers of the mind, by drawing off its strength into too great a variety of directions; and cuts up time into too many separate portions, by splitting it into such an endless multiplicity of employments. I know that I am treading on tender ground; but I cannot help thinking that the restless pains we take to cram up every little vacuity of life, by crowding one new thing upon another, rather creates a thirst for novelty than knowledge; and is but a well disguised contrivance to anticipate the keeping us in after-life more effectually from conversing with ourselves. The care taken to prevent ennui is but a creditable plan for pro-moting self-ignorance. We run from one occupation to another (I speak of those arts to which little intellect is applied) with a view to lighten the pressure of time; above all we fly to them to save us from our own thoughts; we fly to them to rescue us from ourselves; whereas we were thrown a little more on our own hands, we might at last be driven, by way of something to do, to try to get acquainted with our own hearts. But it is only one part of the general inconsistency of the human character, that with the person of all others we best love, we least like to converse and to form an intimacy; I mean ourselves. But though our being less absorbed by this busy trifling, which dignifies its inanity with the imposing name of occupation, might render us somewhat more sensible of the tedium of life; yet might not this very sensation tend to quicken our pursuit of a better? For an awful thought here suggests itself. If life be so long that we are driven to set at work every engine to pass away the tediousness of time; how shall we do to get rid of the tediousness of eternity? an eternity in which not one of the acquisitions which life has been exhausted in acquiring, will be of the least use? Let not then the soul be starved by feeding it on such unsubstantial aliment, for the mind can be no more nourished by these empty husks than the body can be fed with ideas and principles. lightest head, nor vanity to the vainest heart, to solace her labours in reflecting how exceedingly the gown she is working will become her mo ther. This suggestion, trifling as it may seem, of habituating young ladies to exercise their taste and devote their leisure, not to the decoration of their own persons, but to the service of those to whom they are bound by every tender tie of love and duty, would not only help to repress vanity, but by thus associating the idea of industry with that of filial tenderness, would promote, while it gratified some of the best affections of the heart. The Romans (and it is mortifying on the subject of Christian education to be driven so often to refer to the superiority of pagans) were so well aware of the importance of keeping up a sense of family fondness and attachment by the very same means which promoted simple and domestic employment, that no citizen of note ever appeared in public in any garb but what was spun by his wife and daughter; and this virtuous passion was not confined to the early days of republican severity, but even in all the pomp and luxury own family this simplicity of private manners. Among the boasted improvements of the pre-of imperial power. Augustus preserved in his sent age, none affords more frequent matter of peculiar exultation, than the manifest superiority Let me be allowed to repeat, that I mean not in the employment of the young ladies of our with preposterous praise to descant on the ignotime over those of the good house-wives of the rance or the prejudices of past times, nor absurdly last century. It is matter of general triumph to regret the vulgar system of education which that they are at present employed in learning rounded the little circle of female acquirements the polite arts, or in acquiring liberal accom- within the limits of the sampler and the receipt plishments; while it is insisted that their forlorn book. Yet if a preference almost exclusive was predecessors wore out their joyless days in then given to what was merely useful, a preadorning the mansion-house with hideous hang- ference almost equally exclusive also is now ings of sorrowful tapestry and disfiguring tent- assigned to what is merely ornamental. And it stitch. Most cheerfully do I allow to the reign- must be owned, that if the life of a young lady, ing modes their just claim of boasted superiority, formerly too much resembled the life of a confor certainly there no piety in bad taste. Still, [fectioner, it now too much resembles that of an granting all the deformity of the exploded orna- actress: the morning is all rehearsal, and the ments, one advantage attended them, the walls evening is all preformance. And those who and the floors were not vain of their decorations; are trained in this regular routine, who are inand it is to be feared, that the little person some-structed in order to be exhibited, soon learn to times is. The flattery bestowed on the obsolete feel a sort of impatience in those societies in employments, for probably even they had their which their kind of talents are not likely to be flatterers, furnished less aliment to selfishness, brought into play; the task of an auditor beand less gratification to vanity and the occu- comes dull to her who has been used to be a pation itself was less likely to impair the deli- performer. Estcein and kindness become but cacy and modesty of the sex, than the exqui- cold substitutes to one who has been fed on site cultivation of personal accomplishments or plaudits and pampered with acclamations: and personal decorations; and every mode which the excessive commendation which the visiter keeps down vanity and keeps back self, has at is expected to pay for his entertainment not least a moral use. For while we admire the only keeps alive the flame of vanity in the artist rapid movement of the elegant fingers of a young by constant fuel, but is not seldom exacted at a lady busied in working or painting her ball price which a veracity at all strict would grudge. dress, we cannot help suspecting that her alac-The misfortune is, when a whole circle are obrity may be a little stimulated by the animating idea how very well she shall look in it. Nor was the industrious matron of Ithaca more soothed at her solitary loom with the sweet reflection that by her labour she was gratifying her filial and conjugal feelings, than the industrious but pleasure-loving damsel of Britain is gratified by the anticipated admiration which her ingenuity is procuring for her beauty. : Might not this propensity be a little checked, and an interesting feeling combined with her industry, were the fair artist habituated to exercise her skill in adorning some one else rather than herself? For it will add no lightness to the liged to be competitors who shall flatter most, it is not easy to be at once very sincere and very civil. And unfortunately, while the age is become so knowing and so fastidious, that if a young lady does not play like a public performer, no one thinks her worth attending; yet if she does so excel, some of the soberest of the admiring circle feel a strong alloy to their pleasure, on reflecting at what a vast expense of time this perfection probably must have been acquired.* That accurate judge of the human heart, madame de Maintenon, was so well aware of the danger resulting from some kinds of excellence, that after the young 1 THE WORKS OF HANNAH MORE. The study of the fine arts, indeed, is forced ments, do not neglect to infuse religious knowon young persons, with or without genius (fa-ledge into the minds of their children; and shion, as was said before, having swallowed up having done this, are but too apt to conclude that distinction) to such excess, as to vex, fa- that they have done all; and have fully acquitted tigue, and disgust those who have no talents, themselves of the important duties of education. and to determine them, as soon as they become For having, as they think, sufficiently grounded free agents, to abandon all such tormenting ac- their daughters in religion, they do not scruple quirements. While by this incessant compul- to allow them to spend almost the whole of their sion still more pernicious effects are often pro- time exactly like the daughters of worldly peoduced on those who actually possess genius; for ple. Now, though it be one great point gained, the natural constant reference in the mind to to have imbued their young minds with the best 'What do ye more than that public performance for which they are se- knowledge, the work is not therefore by any dulously cultivating this talent, excites the same means accomplished. passions of envy, vanity, and competition in the others?' is a question which in a more extenddilettanti performers, as might be supposed to ed sense, religious parents must be prepared to stimulate professional candidates for fame and answer. profit at public games and theatrical exhibitions. Is this emulation, is this spirit of rivalry, is this hunger after public praise the temper which prudent parents would wish to excite and foster ? Besides, in any event the issue is not favourable 1 if the young performers are timid; they disgrace themselves and distress their friends; if courageous, their boldness offends still more than their bad performance. Shall they then be studiously brought into situations in which failure discredits and success disgusts ? Such parents should go on to teach children the religious use of time, the duty of consecrating to God every talent, every faculty, every possession, and of devoting their whole lives to his glory. People of piety should be more peculiarly on their guard against a spirit of idleness, and a slovenly habitual wasting of time, because this practice, by not assuming a palpable shape of guilt, carries little alarm to the conscience. Even religious characters are in danger on this side; for not allowing themselves to follow the world in its excesses and diversions, they have consequently more time upon their hands; and instead of dedicating the time so rescued to its true purposes, they sometimes make as it were compensation to themselves for their abstinence from dangerous places of public resort, by an habitual frivolousness at home; by a superabundance of unprofitable small-talk, idle reading, and a quiet and dull frittering away of time. Their day perhaps has been more free from actual evil: but it will often be discovered to have been as unproductive as that of more worldly characters; and they will be found to have traded to as little purpose with their master's talents. But a Christian must take care to keep his conscience peculiarly alive to the unapparent, though formidable perils of unprofitableness. May I venture, without being accused of pedantry, to conclude this chapter with another reference to pagan examples? The Hebrews, Egyptians, and Greeks, believed that they could more effectually teach their youth maxims of virtue, by calling in the aid of music and poetry; these maxims, therefore, they put into verses, and these verses were set to the most popular and simple tunes, which the children sang; thus was their love of goodness excited by the very instrument of their pleasure; and the senses, the taste, and the imagination, as it were, pressed Dare I into the service of religion, and morals. appeal to christian parents, if these arts are commonly used by them, as subsidiary to religion, and to a system of morals much more worthy of every ingenious aid and association, which might tend to recommend them to the To these, and to all, the auther would earyouthful mind? Dare I appeal to Christian parents, whether music, which fills up no trifling nestly recommend to accustom their children to portion of their daughter's time, does not fill it pass at once from serious business to active and without any moral end, or even without any animated recreation; they should carefully prespecific object? Nay, whether some of the fa-serve them from those long and torpid intervals vourite songs of polished societies are not amatory, are not Anacreontic, more than quite become the modest lips of innocent youth and delicate beauty? CHAP. V. between both, that languid indolence and spiritany characters of active less trifling that merely getting rid of the day without stamping on goodness or of intellectual profit, that inane drowsiness which wears out such large portions of life in both young and old. It has, indeed, passed into an aphorism, that activity is necessary to virtue, even among those who are not apprised that it is also indispensable to happiness. So far are many parents from being sen On the religious employment of time.-On the manner in which holydays are passed.-Self-sible of this truth, that vacations from school are ishness and inconsideration considered.-Dan- not merely allowed, but appointed to pass away in wearisome sauntering and indeterminate idlegers arising from the world. ness, and this is done by erring tenderness, by way of converting the holydays into pleasure! Nay the idleness is specifically made over to the child's mind, as the strongest expression of the fondness of the parent! A dislike to learning is thus systematically excited by preposterously erecting indolence into a reward for application' THERE are many well-disposed parents, who, ladies of the court of Louis Quatorze had distinguished |