e in Philadelphia and Baltimore,
and I have heard bitter complaints made by the married people concerning
it. Here is _control_. Mr Sanderson, in his "Sketches of Paris,"
observes:--

"They who give a tone to society should have maturity of mind; they
should have refinement of taste, which is a quality of age. As long
as _college beaux and boarding-school misses_ take the lead, it must
be an insipid society, in whatever community it may exist. Is it not
villainous in your Quakerships of Philadelphia, to lay us, before we
have lived half our time out, upon the shelf! Some of the native
tribes, more merciful, eat the old folks out of the way."

However, retribution follows: in their turn they marry, and are ejected;
they have children, and are disobeyed. The pangs which they have
occasioned to their own parents are now suffered by them in return,
through the conduct of their own children; and thus it goes on, and will
go on, until the system is changed.

All this is undeniable; and thus it appears that the youth of America,
being under no control, acquire just as much as they please, and no
more, of what may be termed theoretical knowledge. Thus is the first
great error in American education, for how many boys are there who will
learn without coercion, in proportion to the number who will not?
Certainly not one in ten, and, therefore it may be assumed that not one
in ten is properly instructed. [See note 6.]

Now, that the education of the youth of America is much injured by the
want of control on the part of the parents, is easily established by the
fact that in those states where the parental control is the greatest, as
in Massachusetts, the education is proportionably superior. But this
great error is followed by consequences even more lamentable: it is the
first dissolving power of the kindred attraction, so manifest throughout
all American society. Beyond the period of infancy there is no
endearment between the parents and children; none of that sweet spirit
of affection between brother and sisters; none of those links which
unite one family; of that mutual confidence; that rejoicing in each
other's success; that refuge, when they are depressed or afflicted, in
the bosoms of those who love us--the sweetest portion of human
existence, which supports us wider, and encourages us firmly to brave,
the ills of life--nothing of this exists. In short, there is hardly
such a thing in America as "H