to live, never to put off, for a single moment, a thing which ought to be done immediatelyif it be no more than the cleaning or changing of a garment.

When I see a young woman neglecting, from day to day, her correspondents-her pile of letters constantly increasing, and her dread of putting pen and thoughts to paper accumulating as rapidly-I never fail to conclude, at once, that whatever other excellent qualities she may possess, she is a stranger to the one in question. She who cannot make up her mind to answer a letter when she knows it ought to be answered— and in general a letter ought to be answered soon after it is received-will not be likely to manifest decision in other things of still greater importance. The same is true, as I have said already several times, in regard to indecision in other things of even less moment than the writing of a letter. It is manifest especially in regard to the matter of rising in the morning. She who knows it is time to get up, and yet cannot decide to do so, and consequently lies yawning a little longer, "and yet a little longer still," can never, I am bold to say, while this indolence and indecision are indulged, be decided in any thing else—at least, habitually.

She may, indeed, be so by fits and starts; but the habit will never be so confirmed as to be regarded as an essential element of her char

acter.

Nearly all the habits of modern female education-I mean the fashionable education of the family and school-are entirely at war with the virtue I am endeavoring to inculcate. It would be a miracle, almost, if a young woman who has been educated in a fashionable family, under the eye of a fashionable mother, and at a fashionable boarding school, under the direction of a teacher whose main object is to please her patrons, should come out to the world, without being quite destitute of all true decision of character. If it were the leading object of our boarding schools to form the habit of indecision, they could not succeed better than many of them now do. They furnish to the world a set of beings who are any thing but what the world wants, and who are more likely to do almost any thing else, than to be the means of reforming it.

CHAPTER X.

"

SELF-DEPENDENCE.

Fashionable education. Why there is so little self-dependence in the world. Why orphans sometimes make out well in the world. Error corrected. What young women once were. What they are now. The best character formed under difficulties. Cause of the present helpless condition of females. Three or four to get breakfast. Modes of breaking up these habits. Anecdote of an independent young woman. Appeal to the reader.

HERE, again, our fashionable modes of education are wrong; and here, too, almost every young woman who is determined on improvement, has a great work to perform.

It is one of the most difficult things in the world-perhaps it is one of the impossibles-to bring up children amid comforts and conveniences, and yet at the same time to cultivate in them the habit of self-dependence-or, as some would call it, the habit of independence.

And yet nothing is more true, than that human character has always, with few. if any

exceptions, been most fully developed and most harmoniously and healthfully formed, amid difficulties. Mr. M'Clure, the distinguished geologist, whose opportunities for observation in the world have been very great, says that orphans, as a general rule, make their way best in the world. Without claiming for myself so many years of observation, by thirty or forty, as this distinguished veteran in natural science, I should be glad to make one modification of his conclusion, before adopting it as my own. I would say, that the misfortune of having no parents at all, is scarcely greater than that of having overindulgent ones; and that the number of those who are spoiled by indulgence, is greater than the number of those who are spoiled by being made orphans.

It cannot be that an institution ordained by Heaven as one of its first laws, should so completely fail in accomplishing its design-that of blessing mankind-as Mr. M'Clure represents. It cannot be that parents, as a general rule, are a misfortune. Such a belief is greatly

erroneous.

The truth is, that when we look about us and see so many spoiled, who appear to be well bred, our attention is so exclusively directed to

these strange, but, in a dense population, frequently occurring cases, that we begin, ere long, to fancy the exception to be the general rule. And again, when we see here and there an orphan-and in a population like ours, quite a multitude in the aggregate-making her way well in the world, we are liable to make another wrong conclusion, and to say that her success belongs to the general rule, when it is only an exception to it.

Nevertheless-and I have no wish to conceal the fact it is extremely difficult, if not dangerous, to attempt to form good and useful character in the lap of ease and indulgence. There needs privation and hard struggle, to develope the soul and the body. Even Zion, the city of our God, is represented in Scripture as recruiting her inhabitants only by throes and agonies.

Let it not be thought, then, that our young women in New England-a land of comparative ease, quiet and affluence-can be brought up as they ought to be, without much pains-taking. A century ago, things were, in this respect, more favorable. Then there were struggles; and these were the means of forming a race of men and women, of whom the world might have