vocation. If this be generally true in point of fact, there is no good reason why it should be so, and we know indeed many exceptions to the rule. Almost any vocation, in this country, if pursued with industry and skill, results in wealth, and a man may as well display those qualities which claim the respect of mankind in one profession as another. Parents may, therefore, have little solicitude as to the particular vocation they may select for their sons, provided these are imbued with good moral principles, trained to industrious habits, and possessed of cultivated minds. There are two cautions, however, which it may be well to subjoin: first, that young men be thoroughly warned against that greedy appetite for wealth, which has led so many persons, in this country, unduly to expand their business, or engage in flattering speculations, and which have finally resulted in bankruptcy and ruin; and, second, that they be also warned against a thirst for political preferment. If a man's fellow-citizens, unsolicited, confer upon him a public trust, he may properly accept it, and take to his heart the gratification which the bestowal of such confidence is calculated to excite. But there is no species of ambition, in our country, so universally repaid by disap

pointment, self-reproach and conscious degradation, as that which leads a man to depart from his proper pursuits, and court, with a shifting sail, the breezes of popular favor.

There is one point that may need to be enforced upon the attention of parents, in planning out the path of life for their children, and that is, that happiness usually depends less upon one's vocation and upon the success with which it is pursued, than upon a proper balance of responsibility. If a man is so situated as to hope for nothing and to fear nothing, he is of course miserable. The father who toils to place his child beyond care, toils for his child's wretchedness. We all need to be hoping or fearing, and this cannot be but by taking upon ourselves some risk or some responsibility, so that by exertion we may attain the good desired or escape the evil threatened. It is the just balance of this responsibility that constitutes good fortune; a balance which excites us to steady action, with cheerful hopes of success and moderate fear of failure. Whoever is thus situated, be he rich or poor, in the vale of obscurity or the temple of fame, is as happy as the lot of humanity permits. He who is called upon to exercise neither of the great passions of the soul, hope or fear, whether he is above

or below the stirring breath of fortune, usually becomes the subject of ennui, despondency, or hypochondria; his bosom engendering "vile thoughts and creeping miseries," as the depths of a stagnant lake become infested with reptiles of every form. It is he who is wrought into activity by the gentle force of changeful passions, whose breast is like the flowing wave, reflecting bright images on the surface, and holding fair forms within.

CONCLUSION.

"Is duty a mere sport, or an employ ?
Life an intrusted talent, or a toy?"

In coming to the close of this work, I cannot but feel an apprehension that these pages may fail of producing the good results I could desire. Enlightened parents have heard so much on the subject of education, that they may be weary of the subject, and therefore turn away with disgust. On the other hand, those who, like the untutored animals, regard their offspring with interest only so long as they require protection and while the instincts of nature impel them to watch over them, will never be reached and roused from their insensibility by so humble a voice as mine. But I am still cheered by remarking the spirit of improvement that is abroad. The dreary clouds of a long dark age are drifting by, and the light of a better day is dawning through upon society. The recent shock in the commercial affairs of the world has checked mankind in the headlong pursuit of wealth, and called them to reflect whether it is wise to invest the whole interest of the immortal mind, in those goods, which so easily take to themselves wings and fly away. There is an ancient Greek story of several persons, who, in making a voyage on the Mediterranean, were cast away and thrown upon an

island, having lost all their goods. Among them was a
scholar, who remarked to his fellow-voyagers, whose entire
wealth was invested in merchandise, and which was now
sunk in the sea, that his treasures, being stored in the
mind, had survived a calamity which had proved fatal to
theirs. The pith of this anecdote has come home to the
bosom of a whole nation within the last few years; and there
is no doubt that the recent impulse given to the cause of edu-
cation, throughout this country, has in part arisen from the
wholesome reflections which have been suggested by the ad-
versities of trade. At such a moment, in the current of such
a movement as is now making, even humble efforts may not
be without effect-as a feeble oar, when the boat speeds with
a flood tide, may contribute something to its onward pro-
gress. I therefore give my book to parents, far as it falls
short of my desire and my design, and will still venture to
hope that it may not prove wholly vain. If, as is asserted
by the poet,

"Man is a soil which breeds

Or sweetest flowers, or vilest weeds--
Flowers lovely as the morning's light,
Weeds deadly as the aconite-

Just as the heart is trained to bear

The poisonous weed or floweret fair,”—

I will entertain a confidence that there are many reflecting
parents disposed to admit the full force of the obligation
which rests upon them, and who, therefore, will not turn a
deaf ear to the appeal which have here made in behalf of
their children,-and not of theirs only, but those of parents
who are dead to the consideration that they who give life to
a human being, are likely also to give shape and color to the
destinies of an immortal spirit. Let me say, then, at part-
ing, to reading, thinking parents, if charity begins at home,
let it not stop at home. When you have provided for the
careful education of your own offspring, consider the needy
thousands whose parents think not of the minds or souls of
their children; and as Heaven tempcrs the wind to the shorn
lamb, imitate this godlike charity, by doing what you may to
raise the common schools to such a condition as to extend
the benefits of good instruction to those children who would
otherwise be left to all the evil chances of ignorance.

Library of the Maternal Association

of the Amity St. Baptist Ch. VN/1).