23
practices of her companions, and we know there are some things which no young lady can listen to or behold without pollution.
- <smaller>"Vice is a creature of such hideous mien,
- That, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
- But, seen too oft, familiar with her face,
- We first endure, then pity, then embrace."</smaller>
Thus a bad education impresses upon the whole moral nature a false and vicious direction, and that exquisitely frail and delicate organization, all made of nerves and sensibility, the most impressionable and sensitive being of living nature, is thus early placed in the very conditions most calculated to enervate and destroy her. All medical authorities agree that nothing is more calculated to exalt sensibility, to sensualize the heart, and expose the nervous system to the most fatal perturbations than a luxurious and voluptuous education. This, remember well, O parents! is the concentrated wisdom of the experience of every age and country; not the unsupported opinion of any one man however brilliant his genius, and that, in science, there is no difference whatever on this topic. The remedy is less obvious. He would be rash indeed, who would enter a crusade against the dominion of fashion so far as to prohibit the cultivation of those arts which are really innocent, and even ennobling, in themselves, and which lead only indirectly to pernicious results. It is in the abuse of good things that evil generally consists, and we would, therefore, compromise with the demands of the age by requiring that lessons in both dancing and music should begin early in life, and be made tasks rather than pleasures, and that all occasions in which these accomplishments can conduce to dissipation or excitement, be scrupu-
