CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



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those who undertake it should he well trained and devoted to their 

 proper objects. Children are at first almost entirely the creatures 

 of sympathy and association ; they take the direction of their pro- 

 pensities and feelings from those with whom they are immediately 

 connected ; not what is said to them, but what is done before them, 

 is of all -importance ; for they can imitate an example before they 

 can understand a precept. Can we, then, be too cautious as to whom 

 we intrust the charge of expanding the young affections, of instill- 

 ing into the new being those principles of piety and benevolence 

 which are to constitute its future happiness? Surely not. Yet to 

 whom, would we ask, is this task usually committed ? Must we 

 not say that, in ordinary cases, nursemaids, grossly ignorant, and 

 with selfish feelings decidedly predominant, are chosen to this im- 

 portant office ? That they are so unfitted is the fault of their edu- 

 cation, or rather their want of it ; yet how frequently do we find 

 that a girl, unfit for any other occupation, is placed as the compa- 

 nion and guardian of a child, to train it up in the way it should go ! 

 If it be granted that our nursemaids are inefficient, do we find that 

 mothers, even amongst the higher classes, are usually adequate to 

 tbe office? If you look but to the education, the training, which 

 young ladies commonly receive — to their course of life at that period 

 of existence, when they ouuht to be qualifying themselves for the 

 important trust which may hereafter devolve upon them — the ques- 

 tion answers itself. What part of their studies or pursuits bears 

 any direct relation to the sacred responsibility they so lightly take 

 upon themselves ? They come to the task ignorant of the anatomy, 

 the physiology, the mental constitution, of the young being whose 

 charge they undertake, and of all the most important provisions for 

 insuring its health and bappiness. Engaged in the frivolous pur- 

 suits of the world, introduced into society at an early age, dressing, 

 dancing, visiting, when they are called to the most momentous du- 

 ties they are obliged to rely upon an ignorant nurse, to trust to old 

 women's tales for what ought to have been correct knowledge. The 

 consequent mass of evil and suffering, of vice and misery, is beyond 

 calculation. Deep and awful, then, is the accountability of those 

 giddy and thoughtless beings who voluntarily immerse themselves 

 in maternal duties, without first seriously and anxiously considering 

 whether tbey be capable of discharging them. If the mother her- 

 self be in no respect fitted for a companion and example to her own 

 child, serious must be the evil ; another and common case is that, 

 however, where the mother has a tolerable share of right feeling 

 and good sense, but from want of knowing or sufficiently appreciat- 

 ing tbe importance of the trust committed to her, is disposed to 

 charge others with the burden and trouble of it, who may be less 

 capable than herself of fulfilling tbe duty. In many families the 

 children seem to belong more to tbe nursemaid than to the mother ; 

 the nursery or kitchen is deemed the proper place for them, and a 

 visit to the parlour is rather an exception to the rule We say no. 

 thing of the folly of < specting a child to behave properly in the par- 

 VOL. rill.. No xxiv. 42 



