The education of accomplishments, (especially as conducted in this country,) would be a risible, if it were not a painful subject of contemplation.  Intense labour; immense sums of money; hours, nay, days of valuable time!  What a list of sacrifices!  Now for results.  Of the many who thus sacrifice time, health, and property, how few attain even a moderate proficiency.  The love of beauty, the power of self-amusement (if obtained) might, in some degree, justify these sacrifices; they are valuable ends in themselves, still more valuable from contingent advantages.  There is a deep influence hidden under these beautiful arts,—­an influence far deeper than the world in its thoughtlessness, or the worldly student in his vanity, ever can know,—­an influence refining, consoling, elevating:  they afford a channel into which the lofty aspirings, the unsatisfied yearnings of the pure and elevated in soul may pour themselves.  The perception of the beautiful is, next to the love of our fellow-creatures, the most purely unselfish of all our natural emotions, and is, therefore, a most powerful engine in the hands of those who regard selfishness as the giant passion, whose castle must be stormed before any other conquest can be begun, and in vanquishing whom all lawful and innocent weapons should, by turns, be employed.

Let us consider how we employ this mighty ally of virtue and loftiness of soul.  Into the cultivation of the arts, disguised under the hackneyed name of accomplishments, does one particle of intellectuality creep?  Would not many of their ablest professors and most diligent practitioners stare, with unfeigned wonder, at the supposition, that the five hours per diem devoted to the piano and the easel had any other object than to accomplish the fingers?  The idea of their influencing the head would be ridiculous! of their improving the heart, preposterous!  Yet if both head and heart do not combine in these pursuits, how can the cultivators justify to themselves the devotion of time and labour to their acquisition:  time and labour, in many cases, abstracted from the performance of present, or preparation for future duties,—­this is especially applicable to the middle classes of society.

Let us now turn to the issues of this education!  The accomplishments acquired at such cost must be displayed.  To whom? the possessor has no delight in them,—­her immediate relatives, perhaps, no taste for them;—­to strangers, therefore.  It is not necessary to make many strictures on this subject; the rage for universal exhibition has been written and talked down:  in fact, there are great hopes for the world in this particular; it has descended so low in the scale of society, that we trust it will soon be exploded altogether.  The fashion, therefore, need not be here treated of, but the spirit which it has engendered, and which will survive its parent.  This, as influencing the female character—­especially the maternal—­bears greatly upon the point