Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/32

 Family training possesses a spring of diversity; it will be spontaneous in its modes of proceeding, various in its results, as well as in its measures; and will, on these accounts, impart a marked character to those who come under its influence.

And yet, were the worst to come—or the worst in this particular view of our subject, and were public education to prevail still more extensively than it does, as necessary for boys, we should nevertheless have much to rely upon in counteraction of the evils thence resulting, so long as female instruction were, in a good proportion of instances, conducted beneath the paternal roof. But what idea can be more gloomy than that of a community which, Spartan-hearted, should denounce as "weak and unpatriotic," the parental fondness that detains daughters at home, and should hold in contempt every sentiment that endears privacy as the scene of the gentle affections! In England we do not wish to see the "Female Gymnasium."

The reasons that impel us to admit the desirableness, and often the necessity of sending boys to school, apply very partially, if at all, to the education of girls; nor do I hesitate to profess the decided opinion that, for these, home education is always to be preferred, unless, from the circumstances of a family, there be some special difficulty in the way of carrying it into effect. And let but the home education of girls be amended a little in system, and be more generally adopted than it is, and then the influence of the sister, the wife, the mother, as well as of women in society at large, will directly tend to supply what has been lost of right feeling, and to repair what has been injured in the course of the public education which boys have passed through.

Girls should then be educated at home with a constant recollection that their brothers, and the future companions of their lives, are, at the same time, at school, making