Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/23

18 received, as regards intellectual and moral character, their first bias, and often their strongest and their last from the training and the influence of a mother, is a consideration which can Hot be too deeply impressed even upon the minds of the young, for it is the young more especially who have it in their power to profit by such thoughts; and though none could be more unwilling than the writer of these pages, to fill the imagination of a girl with premature ideas of her own importance, in reference to the future, yet I still believe, that a prospective view of their own responsibilities, properly placed before them, would tend very much to counteract the injurious effects of those trifling and vulgar anticipations of courtship and marriage, which too frequently interfere with the intellectual improvement of the young, and effectually destroy the true dignity of woman.

We know that the further a nation advances in civilization, in science, and in general knowledge, the more intelligence, wisdom, and forethought, are required of those who hold the reins of government, and direct the management of institutions for the public good; and what nobler ambition can fill the hearts of British women, than that the next veneration of their countrymen should be better grounded in the principles of true knowledge than the last? But, striking and impressive as this idea justly appears in its immediate, import, that of the education of daughters is at least as much so in its remoter tendency, because it is to women that we still must look for the training of future generations, and the formation of characters whose names may be surrounded by a glory, or stamped with a blot, in the history of ages yet to come.

And are not these profound and stirring thoughts for the mother, in her hours of retirement and repose? The human mind, naturally prone to wander beyond the sphere of actual knowledge, becomes lost in a cloud of vague uncertainties, whenever it takes too bold a flight; but here is a field for noble aspirations, in which it is not only lawful, but perfectly reasonable, to indulge; and not the loftiest ambition that ever fired a hero's breast, could be so ardent or so high as that which it is both natural and right for the fond mother to cherish in her "heart of hearts."