Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/286

 Yet all has gone well hitherto, and her mother, three brothers, and her only sister, the young amiable lady at Concord, and many of her friends, expect her with longing and with joy.

22nd.—Yesterday I visited the Female Academy at Brooklyn, an educational institute for five hundred young girls, where they study and graduate as young men do. I admired the arrangement of the establishment, its museum, library, &c., and was especially pleased with the deportment of the young girls; heard their compositions both in prose and verse, liked them and the young ladies who read them. I also heard here a song, with which, to my shame I say it, I have been greeted two or three times in this country, because the words, in which I cannot discover a grain of sense or connection, have been dedicated to me, (they begin, “I dream, I dream of my father-land”) and the music to—Jenny Lind! C'est imprimée! These finishing schools for young girls give unquestionably a deal of finish, various kinds of knowledge, demeanour in society, self-possession, &c. But are they calculated to develop that which is best in woman? I doubt it; and I have heard sensible women in this country, even among the young, doubt also, or rather deny that they are. They may be good as a temporary means of leading women into those spheres of knowledge from which they have hitherto been excluded. Thus these young ladies are universally commended for the progress which they make, and for their skill in mathematical studies, in algebra, and physics. But it is clear to me that the pursuit of these scholastic studies must involve the neglect of much domestic virtue and pleasure. The young girl, in her zeal to prepare her lessons, snubs her mother, and looks cross at her father, if they venture to interrupt her. They call forth her ambition at the expense of her heart. They lay too much stress upon school learning. The highest object of