public education, it leaves us all its advantages. Your pupil will escape the apathy of solitary studies, and the ennui of a monotonous life. You give exercise to his body and activity to his soul; other young people work and play with him; he has companions, rivals, a friend; and this without leaving his family, without losing for a day the caresses of his mother; he makes the trial of life with the generation among which he is to advance himself in the world.

Thus all would be obtained, the safety of the child, and the liberty of the family. Fulfil your duties as a man and a citizen,―be a magistrate, soldier, merchant, or agriculturist, represent in our Chambers the interests of the country, labour to improve your fortune,-these labours, these duties, far from disturbing your family, serve it as lessons and examples. There is only vice, disorder, extreme misery, all that blasts or dishonours, which is incompatible with the sacred duty of cultivating yourselves the souls of your children. But if you make your house a hell, if you introduce into it disorder and terror, insolent servants, a husband brutal, passionate, a gamester, a drunkard, or a libertine! a wife, either frivolous and coquettish, or else a victim always in tears! What a picture is this to exhibit to innocent creatures! Then hasten to remove them from this school of grief; plunge them into the rust of colleges; let your children at least be rather corrupted by others than by yourselves. They will one day Greek and Latin,

be sent back to you crammed with without principles, without religion, without love for their parents; but you will at least have gained this, that their indifference will be less painful to you than their contempt.

The idea of instructing and elevating the masses belongs to modern times: it opens out new doctrines to the world. The ancient legislators would not have comprehended it; the legislators of the middle ages would only have seen in it an impiety, as they considered that knowledge ought to belong only to the church. Consequently, no people, up to the present time, has produced all that it might produce. I do not say in wisdom or in virtue; but merely in intelligence. This is a sublime spectacle which was wanting on the earth, and which is now preparing for future generations.

Happy will the people be if, thus regenerated, they learn to subject their intelligence to morality. This is the highest point of perfection to which man can attain; and in order to attain it, what is required? A single evangelical principle. All that moves us in the beautiful, all that transports us in virtue, all that is generous, all that is heroic, is comprised in these divine words! Love God and man! God has placed morality in love, in order that it may be within the reach even of the least intelligent. The intelligence may be more or less developed; but the soul shall be great. Sublime doctrine! which seeks its disciples in the lowest as well as in the highest grade. And thus this inert crowd, these sterile masses, may raise themselves even to the wisdom of a Socrates by means of the charity of Jesus Christ. It is their religion which is to vivify the people. They will be just before God, if they love men; and powerful among men, if they love God.

Here woman's mission reveals itself. Placed among all classes and every people, out of the sphere of political laws, exempt from our fatal conflicts, alone in the bosom of society, women have remained true to the laws of nature. The worry of affairs does not absorb

their thoughts; they are neither warriors, magistrates, nor legislators; they are wives and mothers-they are what the Creator has willed they should be. They form one-half of the human race, which, on account of its very weakness, has escaped the corruptions of our power and of our glory. Oh, let them cease to regret that they have no share in these fatal passions; let them leave to us legislation, the political arena, armies, war; were they to partake of our fury, who would there be on earth to appease it? Herein lies their influence; here is their empire. As they bear in their bosoms future generations, so likewise do they carry in their souls the destinies of these generations. Let them cause to be heard over the whole world the words of humanity and liberty; let them excite the single sentiment of the love of God and men, and their mission will be accomplished. Armies are required to conquer nations, a moral sentiment alone is required to civilize and to save them.

E

BOOK II.

EDUCATION OF THE SOUL.

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE MOTHER OF A FAMILY.

CHAPTER I.

STUDY OF THE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL.

"Nous ne travaillons qu'a remplir la mémoire, nous laissons l'entendement et la conscience vides."

MONTAIGNE.

"L'Education doit mettre au jour l'idéal de l'individu."

JEAN PAUL RICHTER.

THIS book comprises the first elements of the education of the soul, and in as far as it depends upon us, the two following books shall develope and complete its exposition.

Let us not be alarmed at the apparent dryness of these studies. If the words be severe, the science is divine; it is exercised by ourselves, and in ourselves, in the depths of our souls-that immortal sanctuary, where all announces to us that we have to meet a God.

And we will dare to promise it: every woman, who, with the fervour of a mother and a wife, will accompany us, with the eyes and the heart, in the search of truth, will revive, as if by enchantment, to a new and a more comprehensive life-to loftier ideas-to a love more pure. She will feel what she has never felt; she will be what she has

never been; not that these studies can add anything to what she is, but they can make her enjoy all that she is. They can vivify in her the sense of the beautiful, and bestow on her that supreme reason which our educations deny her.

To develope the soul of woman, in order that woman should be something more than the plaything of our coarse passions; to develope the soul of woman, in order that woman may become in reality that heavenly creature of which we dream in our youth; to develope the soul of woman, in order that that soul may renew our own. Such is the object and the aim of this book.

But we can acquire nothing without labour, not even thought. The intellect sleeps if it be not awakened; the functions of the body rust if it be not exercised; even the soul, which exhibits itself with so many charms during infancy, falls into apathy, if it be not repeatedly called to the performance of new works. Its life being derived from God, it is silent when not occupied about God. Then it is that intellect, which becomes expanded among the things of earth, seeks to usurp its empire. It begins by calumniating reason, that bright ray of the soul, and then finishes by substituting for it argumentations, those aberrations of thought. It goes so far as to deny the soul, in order to take its place, and proudly relying upon the perfectness of the arts, the discoveries of science, the progress of mind and matter, it exclaims, "These are my works: man owes every thing to me: I am the queen of the universe."

It is amidst this chaos that we must seek for, and find the soul, in order to raise it: raise the soul—the logical reason of this phrase is full of depth! To raise or elevate : to restore man to his true place, whence the isolation of his intellect has caused him to descend.

What would happen, for instance, if, after having con