314 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the complement of each other ; but lie will retain his stirring, 

 practical, inventive and mechanical faculties, and she her intui- 

 tive affinities for the true, the beautiful, and the good ; and the 

 great benefit of an equal education will be to them, that the , 

 wife can more understand in gly employ her divine faculty of 

 counsel, her all-pervading influence ; and the husband when dis- 

 couraged by ill success, or unable from his own suggestions to 

 solve the difficulties of the problem of life, may, from her more 

 spiritual perception, receive suggestions which shall enable him 

 to see his way clear. But the great glory of the woman as a 

 thing distinct from that of the man, is her maternity ; her great 

 privilege of nourishing and educating the human race ; for the 

 early education which the child gets at home is the planting of 

 the seed which springs up under all circumstances, and though 

 crowded out for a time by other vegetation, will through life 

 show itself like those bushes and trees which start up after the 

 denuding of forest lands by the axe or fire ; sometimes mere 

 brambles and worthless brush, more often of great lasting value. 

 What more lamentable sight than that of a young mother un- 

 folding a human character committed to her charge, whilst she 

 herself is profoundly ignorant of the phenomena with which 

 she has to deal, knowing nothing of her own, much less of the 

 child's functions, ignorant of the effects that will be produced 

 by this or that treatment, and proceeding with the management 

 of this wonderful specimen of God's handiwork in much the 

 same manner as a quack doctor with his patient, trying all things 

 and in many cases finding the surest remedy for all ills in the 

 churchyard mould ? 



It was a witty and handsome jeer which Aristippus bestowed 

 on a sottish father, by whom being asked what he would take to 

 teach his child, he answered, A thousand drachmas ; whereupon 

 the other crying out, Hercules ! how much out of the way 

 do you ask ! for I can buy a slave at that rate. Do, then, said 

 the philosopher, and thou shalt instead of one, purchase two 

 slaves for thy money ; him that thou buyest for one and thy son 

 for another. Somewhat after this manner is the husband sold 

 who obtains for the mother of his children a wife without edu- 

 cation, and intrusts to her care and almost exclusive attention, 

 their destinies during adolescence, and does it not follow that if a 

 good mental and moral training is necessary for the male adult in 



