children. Their active
little limbs must be tied down by a well-woven system of politeness. They
run, they jump, turn heels over head, they climb up trees, if they attempt
stillness they are ever on the move, because nature demands that while the
body grows, it shall be freely worked in all its parts, in order that it
may develop into a frame-work vigorous and well proportioned. Nature
really is more obstinate than usual on this point. So restless a delight
in bodily exertion is implanted in the child, that our patience is
considerably tried when we attempt to keep it still. Children, however,
can be tamed and civilized. By sending them unhealthy from the nursery, we
can deliver many of them spiritless at school, there to be properly
subdued. The most unwholesome plan is to send boys to one school, girls to
another; both physically and morally, this method gives good hope of
sickliness. Nature, who never is on our side, will allow children of each
sex to be born into one family, to play together, and be educated at one
mother's knee. There ought to be--if nature had the slightest sense of
decency--girls only born in one house, boys only in another. However, we
can sort the children at an early age, and send them off to school--girls
east, boys west.

A girl should be allowed, on no account, to climb a tree, or be
unladylike. She shall regard a boy as a strange, curious monster; be
forced into flirtation; and prefer the solace of a darling friend to any
thing that verges on a scamper. She shall learn English grammar: that is
to mean, Lindley Murray's notion of it; geography, or the names of capital
towns, rivers, and mountain ranges; French enough for a lady; music,
ornamental needlework, and the "use of the globes." By-the-by, what a
marvel it is that every lady has learned in her girlhood the use of the
globes, and yet you never see a lady using them. All these subjects she
shall study from a female point of view. Her greatest bodily fatigue shall
be the learning of a polka, or the Indian sceptre exercise. Now and then,
she shall have an iron down her back, and put her feet in stocks. The
young lady shall return from school, able to cover ottomans with worsted
birds; and to stitch a purse for the expected lover about whom she has
been thinking for the last five years. She is quite aware that St.
Petersburg is the capital of Ireland, and that a noun is a
verb-substantive, which signifies to be, to do, to suffer.

The