Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/139

Rh tradesman may not be the most good-for-nothing fellow that ever existed, merely because it was impossible for him to execute in an hour an order which required a week;" a lady may not be "the most hideous fright the world ever saw," though the make of her gown may have been obsolete for a month; nor may one's young friend's father be a monster of cruelty, though he may be a quiet gentleman who does not choose to live at watering places, but likes to have his daughters at home with him in the country.

We are in the habit of looking on the youth of our grandmothers as a time of subjection, but we find that Hannah avers that "among the improvements of modern times, and they are not a few, it is to be feared that the growth of filial obedience cannot be reckoned," and proceeds to dwell on the lack of discipline and obedience just as she might do in the present day. She is very anxious to persuade mothers to educate their children themselves, and to promote innocent pleasures. "'To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven,' said the wise man, but he said it before the invention of baby balls; an invention which has formed a kind of era, and a most inauspicious one, in the annals of polished education. This modern device is a sort of triple conspiracy against the health, the innocence, and the happiness of childhood."

One strong chapter was on "Sensibility," a fashion