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FEMALE EDUCATION.

BY REV.  S. W. FISHER.

The second and special object of education, is the preparation of youth for the particular sphere of action to which he designs to devote his life.  It may seem at first, that this general education of which I have already spoken, as it is most comprehensive and reaches to the highest range of subjects, so it should be the only style of training for an immortal mind.  If we regarded man simply as spiritual and immortal, this might be true; but when we descend to the practical realities of life; when we behold him in a mixed nature, on one side touching the earth, on the other surveying the heavens, his bodily nature having its necessities as well as his spiritual, we find ourselves limited in the manner of education and the pursuit of knowledge.  The division of labor and of objects of pursuit is the natural result of these physical necessities in connection with the imperfection of the human mind and the constitution of civilized society.

This division of labor constitutes the starting point for the diverse training of men, and modifies, in part, all systems of instruction that cover childhood and youth.  This is, at first, an education common to all.  The general invigoration of the intellect, and the preparation of the mind for the grand, the highest object of life on which I first dwelt, embrace all the earliest years of youth.  There are elements of power common to all men, and instruments of knowledge effective for both the general pursuits of a liberal education, and the limited pursuits of physical toil.  The education of the nursery and school are equally useful to all.  But when you advance much beyond this, far enough to enable the youth to fix upon his probable line of life, then the necessity of an early application to that pursuit at once modifies his course of education.

When we pass from the diverse professions into which the growth of civilized society has divided men, to the distinctions which exist between man and woman, we enter upon a still clearer department of our subject.  The differences which are here to give character to education, are not incidental and temporary, but inherent and commensurate with life itself.  The physical constitution of woman gives rise to her peculiar life.  It determines alike her position in society and her sphere of labor.

In all ages and climes, celebrated by travelers, historians, poets, she stands forth as a being of better impulses and nobler affections than him, of whom she is the complement.  That which is rugged in him, is tempered by softness in her; that which is strong in him, is weak in her; that which is fierce in him is mild in her.  Designed of God to complete the cycle of human life, and through a twofold being present a perfect Adam, she is thus no less different from man than essential to his perfection.  Her nature at once introduces her into a peculiar sphere