f both countries much upon a par;
although, from the system abroad of never debasing a child by corporal
punishment, I give the foreign schools the preference even in that
point.

I consider, then, that boys are better educated abroad than in England,
and acquire much more correctly the living languages, which are of more
use to them than the classics. So much I can say in favour of the
Continent; but in every other respect I consider the advantage in favour
of England. Young women who have been brought up abroad I consider,
generally speaking, as unfitted for English wives; and that in this
opinion I am not singular, I know well from conversation with young men
at the clubs and elsewhere. Mothers who have returned with their
daughters full of French fashions and ideas, and who imagine that they
will inevitably succeed in making good matches, would be a little
mortified and surprised to hear the young men, when canvassing among
themselves the merits of the other sex, declare that "such a young lady
may be very handsome and very clever, but she has received a
_Continental education_, and that won't do for them." Many mothers
imagine, because their daughters, who are bold and free in their
manners, and talk and laugh loud, are surrounded by young men, while the
modest girl, who holds aloof, is apparently neglected, that their
daughters are more admired; but this is a great mistake. Men like that
boldness, that coquetry, that dash, if I may use the term, because it
amuses for the time being; but although they may pay attention to women
on that account, marrying them is quite another affair. No: the modest
retiring girl, who is apparently passed by, becomes the wife; the others
are flattered before their faces, and laughed at behind their backs. It
certainly is unmanly, on the part of our sex, to behave in this manner,
to encourage young women in their follies, and ruin them for their own
amusement; as Shakespeare says:--

"Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking."

But so it is, and so it will be so long as the world lasts, and mankind
is no better than it is at present.

If then, as I have asserted, there is so little to be gained by leaving
a comfortable home, what is the inducement which takes so many people
abroad to settle there? I am afraid that the true reason has been given
by the author whom I now quote. Speaking of the French metropolis, she
says--

"I have been la