tunity of witnessing
the brilliant results of Mrs. Destructive's system, in the case of my
charming little neighbor, Fanny Carroll. She has lately returned from a
stay of one year under that fashionable roof. In most respects, I was
assured, the results of the school were all that could be desired; the
mother informed me, with delight, that the child now spoke French like
an angel from Paris, and handled her silver fork like a seraph from the
skies. You may well suppose that I hastened to call upon her; for the
gay little creature was always a great pet of mine, and I always quoted
her with delight, as a proof that bloom and strength were not
monopolized by English girls. In the parlor I found the mother closeted
with the family physician. Soon, Fanny, aged sixteen, glided in,--a pale
spectre, exquisite in costume, unexceptionable in manners, looking in
all respects like an exceedingly used-up belle of five-and-twenty. "What
were you just saying that some of my Fanny's symptoms were, Doctor?"
asked the languid mother, as if longing for a second taste of some
dainty morsel. The courteous physician dropped them into her eager palm,
like sugar-plums, one by one: "Vertigo, headache, neuralgic pains, and
general debility." The mother sighed once genteelly at me, and then
again, quite sincerely, to herself;--but I never yet saw an habitual
invalid who did not seem to take a secret satisfaction in finding her
child to be a chip of the old block, though block and chip were both
wofully decayed. However, nothing is now said of Miss Carroll's
returning to school; and the other day I actually saw her dashing
through the lane on the family pony, with a tinge of the old brightness
in her cheeks. I ventured to inquire of her, soon after, if she had
finished her education; and she replied, with a slight tinge of satire,
that she studied regularly every day, at various "short intervals,
which could not easily be explained."

Five hours a day the safe limit for study, Dolorosus, and these terrible
schools quietly put into their programmes nine, ten, eleven hours; and
the deluded parents think they have out-manoeuvred the laws of Nature,
and made a better bargain with Time. But these are private, exclusive
schools, you may say, for especially favored children. We cannot afford
to have most of the rising generation murdered so expensively; and in
our public schools, at least, one thinks there may be some relaxation of
this tremendous stra