be guarded against all evasion and deceit. And it should be well understood, that there is, aside from language, that which is a violation of truth. If children early "go astray, speaking lies," there is one reason for the fact, which ought more frequently to be assigned. It is this: respected and respectable friends, instructers and parents teach them falsehood. Parents teach their children falsehood? Friends and instructers, too? Undoubtedly. Intentionally teach them falsehood? Far from it. But they teach them falsehood in a look, in a forgotten promise, in hasty expressions, in evasive answers, in overwrought civilities, in the use of figurative language, and in rules and instructions given, but violated by their own example. In these, deny it who can, they teach them falsehood. The assertion is capable of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, it is the duty of every teacher, to counteract, as far as she may be able, the bad influences, from whatever cause or quarter arising, which tend to lead the minds and hearts of children from the simplicity, beauty and loveliness of truth. It is her duty, to do what she can to bring the minds and hearts of children into a state so morally transparent, that whatever is operating there may be seen and understood. And her own moral character, as that of every father and mother, should be equally transparent to children. How far the encouragement and exercise of a spirit of emulation, by promised rewards for excellence in scholarship, go to counteract that love and influence of the ingenuous, of the benevolent and the true, whose value is beyond all praise, I shall not now offer an opinion. A teacher should act the part of a judicious parent, in bringing out the child's character, and usefully operating upon it. This, as far as possible, she will do by the presentation of moral motives. With judicious parents, she can thus act in useful concert. And her intercourse with parents, in relation to their children's dispositions and characters, should be open and free. By kindness, consistency, and manifest solicitude for their benefit, she should so secure to herself the confidence of the chil

1

dren, that they will voluntarily disclose to her their tendencies to wrong-doing, as well as their good purposes and inclinations, and unbar to her every avenue to their hearts and characters.

Among their early moral lessons, children should be taught, that they were designed for exertion, improvement and usefulness. From the first, their teachings should directly tend to make them industrious, methodical, benevolent, temperate and pure. They should be early taught to class avarice and selfishness, envy and revenge, slander and uncharitableness, with the enemies of all that is truly good and beautiful in morals. They should be early led to understand what is meant by the worth and loss of principle and character; to understand how important is subordination of the animal part to the spiritual,of the passions to the high powers of their nature. The teacher will find it necessary to apply excitements, checks and balances, to suit the different temperaments, more or less intellectual, moral and animal, on which, in the line of her profession, she is to operate. She will not find in children every thing fitted to her hand, and only the good, the true, and the lovely. She will find the perverse, the false, and the obstinate. She will find, in many, that to be corrected, and that to be supplied, which is necessary to make them what they were intended to be and to become. And children should early be taught what is meant by self-government and the duty of submission to reasonable restraint. Undue indulgence, the resolution to gratify all the imaginary as well as the real wants of children, rarely, I may safely say, never, fails to injure them. In this way, many are taught to be exclusively selfish, and to disregard, as they advance in life, the interests and rights of others. With considerations like these, the duties of female teachers of common schools are connected.

With the law of kindness, in all its applications, children cannot too early be made acquainted; for kindness, rightly understood, is classed high among the virtues. They should receive seasonable lessons relating to their treatment of the

various grades of animals below them. Many are there, in mature years, who are relentless and unfeeling to their own species, because in early life they were unfeeling in their treatment of irrational animals. Children should be taught from infancy never to give unnecessary pain to any beings that have life; never unnecessarily to interfere with their possessions and rights. But, with many, how different is the fact! What an amount of suffering is occasioned to the lower classes of earth's inhabitants, by men in whose minds cruelty to animals was not early associated with feelings of disapprobation and abhorrence! And how many young children, with apparent indifference,—it may be added, with real pleasure,—inflict, on various species of unoffending and inoffensive animals, the severest tortures, because they think not on the subject, as morally wrong; because they think not that such animals have sensibility to pain; or because they have not been taught to consider the cruelty, the criminality of such acts! A female teacher, rightly qualified, will find it among her duties, to give early lessons on this important and too much neglected subject.

Children, as soon as they can understand the thought, should be taught to think on the Author of their being, with reverence, love and gratitude. They should be early led to contemplate and admire the character, to know and obey the moral precepts of Christ. They should exhibit, from the first moments of their moral agency and responsible character, the ornament of a contented, pacific, equitable, benevolent and forgiving temper. They should be taught to consider the present state, with all its advantages and pleasures, as the mere beginning in the progress of mental and moral culture; and to consider the manner of this beginning, and the amount of this culture, immeasurably important, in their relation to the future. Such impressions, it is the duty of female teachers of common schools to be qualified and disposed to imprint deeply on the minds and hearts of children. The want of these, in the teacher and in the taught, cannot be supplied by all the external dec

orations and accomplishments which human ingenuity can devise.

A few words in regard to the discipline to be administered by the female teacher of common schools. In her school, as in all other schools, there must be subordination; the government and the governed. Her discipline should be parental; the discipline of kindness; never dictated by, nor exercised in anger, resentment, or revenge; having always for its object the benefit of the delinquent. Her school-room should not be a penitentiary. She should never require young children so to nail themselves to their seats and prescribed tasks, as to associate, at that time and for ever after, with the words, teacher, school-room, and school-exercise, the feelings of dread or disgust. As a disciplinarian, she should unite mildness with dignity and resolution; patience, discretion and good nature with authority, decision and common sense. There is an influence in the pleasant countenance, persuasive words and kind measures of a teacher, far more rational and efficient, than in repulsive language and frightful tones and gestures; an influence far more useful than those once numerous and celebrated teachers, the Mistresses Fret and Scold, and the Masters Cross and Birch, could ever produce. There are, unquestionably, strong cases, which must be disposed of, as they can, at the discretion of teachers; cases, in which a departure from their general usage will be necessary. Authority and subordination must be maintained. And there must be the infliction of punishment, varied and modified to suit the comparative urgency of the case. The obstinate, the insolent, the rebellious, must be brought to yield to the provisions and restraints of reasonable authority. But the right use of punishment, in all cases, is to administer needful medicine for the mind and character. And the character of the child, to be rightly disciplined, should be understood, in its temperament and predisposing causes; and never should punishment exceed, in kind or degree, the nature and degree of the offence. When administered, it should be

felt by the recipient to be merited; and with the teacher, its infliction should always be accompanied with the feeling of regret, that it is necessary.

Keeping close by the side of fact, and free from all the poetry and philosophy of theorists, we shall find in children, at an early age, and under similar external advantages, great diversity of power and temperament. We shall find among children of the same age, in various degrees of prominence, the gentle, the timid, the docile, the considerate, the contented, the kind, the disinterested, the forgiving; and in equally various degrees, the boisterous, the untractable, the rash, the intrepid, the restless, the selfish, the obstinate, the unfeeling, the vindictive. We shall find many,—I appeal not to theory, but to fact and experience, we shall find many, whose intellectual and moral natures yield, without much resistance, to the counsel and dictation of their passions, and become their slaves. And we shall find many, who, from an early age, keep the passions in check and under correct discipline. In them, the animal and the passionate are in due subordination to "the law of the mind." And this is the discipline devoutly to be desired: self-exercised, if it will be; by the educator, if it

must.

The character, in mature life, is much influenced by the lessons received at the common or district schools. This is a consideration never to be forgotten, especially in a government like ours. Intelligence, with correct principle in the mass of the people, is necessary for the support of invaluable civil as well as religious privileges. Our citizens,―all, without exception,―should be informed as to the nature and importance of the rights of a people, choosing for and from themselves those who are to govern them. It is for the interest of every class in our widely extended community, that useful knowledge should be as far diffused as possible; that prejudice and party views should be prevented or removed, by the prevalence of truth. In a government where "the road to promotion is open