Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/36

24 which the mental faculties either languish, or become perverted; the mind losing at once it spring and its equipoise. Scarcely a half of that invigorating treatment of the reasoning powers, or of that refined culture of the tastes, which we shall in the end have to speak of, could be carried into effect in a family liable to the gloom and the storms, the harsh measures and the vexations, that attend moral disorganization, misrule, and the prevalence of malign dispositions. l{oreover, as the carrying fully into effect a system of home education, involves not a litfie toil, and must impose many restraints tipon parents, they will find the need of notives to animate their endeavours more vivifying than a mere sense of duty. Home must be a sanctuary of exhila rating enjoyments, as well as an abode of peace. The labours of every day must be relieved by the constant return of tranquil pleasures, and heartfelt delights. But the actual felicity realized at home, and the consequent success of the various processes of instruction, will urn very much upon the DE which, from the first, parents entertain of it. Consistently with a sober regard to the inevitable conditions of human life, the brighter is the conception which, at the commencement, we have formed of family happiness--the more happiness shall we be likely to secure, and so much the more prosperous will be our course in conducting the duties and labours of a 'domestic system.'

The adage--O too happy! did you but know it, might often be applied to a family. The essential and the incidental means of enjoyment actually within our reach, are frequently lost sight of, or are but poorly improved; and it so happens that those who might have tasted, year after year, the highest felicity which earth admits of, have been less happy in fact than some, deemed by the world unfortunate. It may not then be out of place to adduce certain considera