Now this is all wrong and ruinous.  The mother’s mind should be the lodestar of the daughter’s.  Anything which loosens the bond of filial reverence, of filial resignation, is even more destructive, if possible, to womanhood than to manhood—­the certain bane of both.  And the evil fruits are evident enough—­self-will and self-conceit in the less gentle, restlessness and dissatisfaction in many of the meekest and gentlest; talents seem with most a curse instead of a blessing; clever and earnest young women, like young men, are beginning to wander up and down in all sorts of eclecticisms and dilettanteisms—­one year they find out that the dark ages were not altogether barbarous, and by a revulsion of feeling natural to youth, they begin to adore them as a very galaxy of light, beauty, and holiness.  Then they begin to crave naturally enough for some real understanding of this strange ever-developing nineteenth century, some real sympathy with its new wonders, some real sphere of labour in it; and this drives them to devour the very newest authors—­any book whatever which seems to open for them the riddle of the mighty and mysterious present, which is forcing itself on their attention through every sense.  And so up and down, amid confusions and oscillations from pole to pole, and equally eclectic at either pole, from St. Augustin and Mr. Pugin to Goethe and George Sand, and all intensified and coloured by that tender enthusiasm, that craving for something to worship, which is a woman’s highest grace, or her bitterest curse—­wander these poor Noah’s doves, without either ark of shelter or rest for the sole of their foot, sometimes, alas! over strange ocean-wastes, into gulfs of error—­too sad to speak of here—­ and will wander more and more till teachers begin boldly to face reality, and interpret to them both the old and the new, lest they misinterpret them for themselves.  The educators of the present generation must meet the cravings of the young spirit with the bread of life, or they will gorge themselves with poison.  Telling them that they ought not to be hungry, will not stop their hunger; shutting our eyes to facts, will only make us stumble over them the sooner; hiding our eyes in the sand, like the hunted ostrich, will not hide us from the iron necessity of circumstances, or from the Almighty will of Him, who is saying in these days to society, in language unmistakable:  “Educate, or fall to pieces!  Speak the whole truth to the young, or take the consequences of your cowardice!”

On these grounds I should wish to see established in this College a really entire course of English Literature, such as shall give correct, reverent, and loving views of every period, from the earliest legends and poetry of the Middle Age, up to the latest of our modern authors, and in the case of the higher classes, if it should hereafter be found practicable, lectures devoted to the criticism of such authors as may be exercising any real influence upon the minds of English women.  This, I think, should be our ideal.  It must be attempted cautiously and step by step.  It will not be attained at the first trial, certainly not by the first lecturer.  Sufficient, if each succeeding teacher shall leave something more taught, some fresh extension of the range of knowledge which is thought fit for his scholars.