feelings of benevolence, but be kept as long as possible in ignorance of the melting sensations of what is called in pre-eminence "the tender passion. A young reader soon finds out by the tenor of novel history, that love is an unconquerable passion, that every fine mind is subject to its infection, and that individuals are paired by some power of sympathy to which they are so absolutely subjected, that the most obdurate heart must yield when the destined object comes in view.-Macaulay.

The best method I believe that can be adopted to correct a fondness for novels is to ridicule them, not indiscriminately, for then it would have little effect; but if a judicious person, with some turn for humour, would read several to a young girl, and point out, both by tones and apt comparisons, with pathetic incidents and heroic characters in history, how foolishly and ridiculously they caricatured human nature, just opinions might be substituted instead of romantic sentiments.-Wollstonecraft.

If the objectionable passages from which few books of imagination are totally exempt, were expunged, it might raise curiosity and induce young people to examine different copies of the same work, and to seek for other improper books themselves. It is therefore perhaps better when these books are read to a governess, that she should in a plain quiet way express disapprobation of such passages, rather than to expunge

them. This would give a feeling of dislike to the pupil, and confirm her delicacy rather than give impurity to her ideas.

As long as young ladies read under the eye of a judicious monitor, no real harm could probably arise from their seeing human nature in all the classes of life, not only as it should be, or as it may be imagined to be, but as it really exists, since, without comparison, there can be no judgment, and consequently no real knowledge; and if young ladies do not mix much with men, how can they form any judgment of them, if they are not assisted by such books as delineate characters?-Darwin.

It

All parents who are anxious for the happiness of their family, or desirous to improve the art of education, will feel it to be their duty to look over every page of a book, before it is trusted to their children; as few books can safely be given them without the previous use of the pen, the pencil, and the scissars. And here one general caution may be necessary. is hazarding too much to make children promise not to read parts of any book which is put into their hands; when the book is too valuable, in a parent's estimation, to be cut or blotted, let it not be given to children when they are alone: in a parent's presence there is no danger, and the children will acquire the habit of reading the passages that are selected without feeling curiosity about the rest.

When young people have established their character for truth and exact integrity, they should be entirely

trusted with books as with every thing else. A slight pencil line at the side of every page will then be all that is necessary to guide them to the best parts of any book. Suspicion would be as injurious, as too easy a faith is imprudent: confidence confirms integrity, but the habits of truth must be formed before dangerous temptations are presented.

With respect to sentimental stories and books of mere entertainment, they should be sparingly used, especially in the education of girls. Stories are the novels of childhood, and they lower the tone of the mind, and unfit it for more instructive reading. Besides this species of reading diminishes instead of increasing the sensibility of the heart. Those who are accustomed to read of scenes of elegant distress, will fly from distress when surrounded by dirt and rags. Parents would do well to select papers or passages out of our best English authors, which may exactly suit the taste, age, or temper of the child they permit to read it, and by thus seizing the happy moment for instruction, children will improve more than by running regularly through a great number of volumes. custom of reading aloud for a great while together, is extremely fatiguing to children, and hurtful to their understandings; they learn to read on without the slightest attention or thought. Children should never be permitted to read out what they do not understand, and tutors may find out by their manner of reading whether a sentence is intelligible to them or not. Children should also be permitted to put down the book as soon as they are tired; but an attentive tutor will perceive when they ought to be stopped, before the utmost point of fatigue.

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Though a book may not interest a child at one time, it may at another; the child is always the best judge of what is suited to his present capacity. If he says, "Such a book tires me, I do not understand it," the answer should be, "You are very right not to read what tires you, my dear, and I am glad you have sense enough to tell me this book does not entertain you, though it is written by one of the best authors in the English language. I do not think at all the worse of your taste and understanding; probably the day may come when it will entertain you; put it by till then I advise you.”

Children should also be permitted to give their own opinions on the books they read, instead of being first told which are beauties and which are faults, which passage they should admire and which they should dislike; as it takes off from the pleasure of reading and attending to their own sensations.

With a little care, preceptors may manage so as to teach mythology without the least injuring their pupils. They may be familiarized to the strange manners and strange personages of ancient fable, and may consider them as a set of beings who are not to be judged by any rules of morality, and who have nothing in common with ourselves.-Edgeworth.

The swarms of abridgments, beauties, and compendiums, which form too considerable a part of young ladies' libraries, may be considered in many instances as an infallible receipt for making a superficial mind. There seems, if I may make the remark, to be a

mistake in the use of abridgments. They are put systematically into the hands of youth, who have or ought to have leisure for the works at large, while abridgments seem more immediately calculated for persons in more advanced life, who wish to recall something they had forgotten; who want to restore old ideas rather than acquire new ones; or they are useful to persons immersed in the business of the world, who have little leisure for voluminous reading. They are excellent to refresh the mind, but not competent to form it.-More.

Extract from Miss Hamilton's Letters on Education.

It has been lamented by some sensible writers on education, that of the number of books professedly written for children, there should be so few that can be safely recommended to their perusal. The fear of perverting the judgment at that early period, by erroneous or incomprehensible statements of facts or circumstances, has, in my opinion, been somewhat. over-rated; but the danger of inflaming the imagination, and kindling the passions by a detail of fictitious wonders or false and strained representations of supposed events, is deserving of our serious attention. It is not the moral of the tale alone to which a discriminating mother will attend: she will carefully observe its tendency, well knowing that the tendency may be pernicious, even where the moral is unexceptionable. On the minds of children, the