The knowing faculties enable you to apprehend the objects of knowledge, whether generals or particulars, present or absent; and also to classify, extend, and generalise these judgments, and express them in the form of propositions. These mental operations indicate a high region of thought, and give a wide range of view. The study of the abstract terms and phrases of language, arithmetic, geometry, and grammar cultivate these powers. But natural science in its various branches is the grandest instrument for the development of the understanding. It should form a part in the education of every human being; yet it is almost entirely neglected in our schools, and our colleges have rarely given it an adequate place in their curriculum. Let us hope that, in the improvements contemplated in the whole system of education, this lamentable deficiency shall be remedied. Meanwhile, let every woman try to educate herself as best she can. Owing to the inordinate use of pseudo-classical phraseology, this fascinating study has too long been considered as a profession restricted to a favoured few, and interdicted to the many. By means of books written in a simple and popular style, and the application of your own faculties, you may become acquainted with the laws, creatures, and forms of the material universe—supply your educational deficiency, and acquire the power of levying from everything in nature a store of happiness.
The reasoning faculties methodise the materials of thought and investigate truth according to certain definite principles. With a penetrating and comprehensive glance they examine all the processes of thought, and not merely seek knowledge, but endeavour to discover its sources. They are less likely to manifest themselves than the other intellectual groups; but in well regulated minds they hold all the other faculties in subjection, and harmonise and regulate their operations. No part of your nature is more susceptible of cultivation than this; and it ought to be cultured most assiduously, for it lies at the basis of all practical application of knowledge and experience. How can these crowning powers be developed? By inductive and deductive reasoning. Analyse, compare, draw conclusions, and search for causes. Weigh well the validity of your arguments, or, it may be, the accuracy of your processes of investigation. Never contend for opinions which you do not believe; false reasoning distorts and warps the soul, and confounds the distinction between right and wrong. Remember that you are as responsible for your opinions and judgments as for your actions and conduct.
“Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come,
Her sister Liberty will not be far.”
From what has been advanced, it will be seen that in our view intellectual education does not consist in the amount of knowledge acquired, but in the due exercise of all the faculties. Education is an art; the art, namely, of qualifying human beings for the functions for which they are destined. Now, in order to the perfection of an art, it must be founded on a corresponding science. But so far is such a science from being yet constructed, that the necessity for it has only been recently pointed out. Notwithstanding the lack of scientific foundation, the practical art has lately undergone great improvement in almost all its details. The method of nature is the archetype of all methods; and had educators followed her teachings, we should never have heard of the once universal practice of learning by rote, nor of the forcing system now happily falling daily into more discredit, nor of the old system of rule teaching, instead of teaching by principles; that is, the leaving of generalisations until there are particulars to base them on. As regards formal intellectual development, you labour under disadvantages, but need not despair. If the proudest princess may not become a scholar in an English, Scotch, or Irish university on the same conditions as the other students, the humblest domestic servant may matriculate in the university of nature, and enter upon studies more exalted and varied than can be pursued anywhere else. Ladies’ medical colleges are springing up, by means of which you may enter upon a lucrative occupation, most womanly in its character, and unrivaled in scope, variety, or usefulness by any other female employment. Mechanics’ institutes and lyceums have their female classes, where you may get valuable instruction, have access to books of every description, and thus at pleasure hold intercourse with the best and wisest of your species; hear all the wit, and serve yourselves heir to all the wisdom, which has entertained or enriched successive generations. By-and-by we hope to see working women’s colleges established in all our great cities and manufacturing centres, where special education shall be given about all that a maiden ought to learn, a wife to know, and a mother to practise. National organisations for being taught, examined, and diplomatized are not absolutely necessary. Many great minds have been educated without them. The essential elements of mental development are within your reach. You want no more than the will. Resolve therefore to make yourselves equal to the important duties you are called upon to fulfil.
MORAL DISCIPLINE.
Britain has been called the “paradise of women.” As regards moral position, this is certainly true. Mighty is your power in this respect. A virtuous woman in the seclusion of her home, breathing the sweet influences of virtue into the hearts and lives of her beloved ones, is an evangel of goodness to the world. The instinctive and disinterested love of a mother consecrates every lesson which she may give to her children. “There is a love of offspring,” says the eloquent author of the “Natural History of Enthusiasm,” “that knows no restrictive reasons, that extends to any length of personal suffering or toil; a feeling of absolute self-renunciation, whenever the interests of children involve a compromise of the comfort or tastes of the parent. There is a love of children, in which self-love is drowned; a love which, when combined with intelligence and firmness, sees through and casts aside every pretext of personal gratification, and which steadily pursues the highest and most remote welfare of its object, with the determination at once of an animal instinct and of a well considered rational purpose. There is a species of love not liable to be worn by time, or slackened, as from year to year children become less and less dependent upon parental care; it is a feeling which possesses the energy of the most vehement passions, along with the calmness and appliancy of the gentlest affections; a feeling purged, as completely as any human sentiment can be, of the grossness of earth; and which seems to have been conferred upon human nature as a sample of emotions proper to a higher sphere.” Mothers have no business with children until they are prepared to train them up in the way they should go. If you would discharge this high function, you must discipline all the moral faculties. Your opportunities are eminently favourable.
The moral powers of your nature are divided by Dr. Reid and Mr. Stewart into appetites, desires, affections, self-love, and the moral faculty. They call those feelings which take their rise from the body, and which operate periodically, appetite. By desires, they mean those feelings which do not take their rise from the body, and which do not operate periodically. Under the title of affections, they comprehend all those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication of joy or pain to your fellow creatures. According to them, self-love is an instinctive principle in the human mind, which impels you to preserve your life and promote your happiness. The moral faculty they define to be an original principle of your nature, whereby you distinguish between right and wrong. To treat this subject adequately, or to give all the rules and maxims by which your active and moral powers may be stimulated and regulated, would belong to a treatise on ethics. Your moral nature may be classed under two great principles, the self-seeking, and the disinterested; and the most important part of moral discipline is to depress the former, and exalt the latter.
The control of the selfish feelings is essential to moral growth. To live to gratify the flesh, or to become rich, or to be distinguished in places of fashion and amusement, is to be less than women. Destitute of the high power of which we are speaking—if no predominant passion has yet gained the ascendancy—you will yield to the pressure of the multitude, and be fashioned by your companions. But if the passions be strong, by-and-by you will become the slaves of vice. The noblest endowments will not save from such a catastrophe; indeed, the danger of being seduced is greatest to minds of high sensibility. We could name not a few, of the largest sympathies, the noblest sentiments, the most splendid genius, who have been degraded and destroyed, because they failed in the maintenance of self-control.
“Reader, attend: whether thy soul