Should young girls have masters or mistresses?  I cannot say; I wish they could dispense with both; I wish they could learn of their own accord what they are already so willing to learn.  I wish there were fewer of these dressed-up old ballet masters promenading our streets.  I fear our young people will get more harm from intercourse with such people than profit from their instruction, and that their jargon, their tone, their airs and graces, will instil a precocious taste for the frivolities which the teacher thinks so important, and to which the scholars are only too likely to devote themselves.

Where pleasure is the only end in view, any one may serve as teacher—­father, mother, brother, sister, friend, governess, the girl’s mirror, and above all her own taste.  Do not offer to teach, let her ask; do not make a task of what should be a reward, and in these studies above all remember that the wish to succeed is the first step.  If formal instruction is required I leave it to you to choose between a master and a mistress.  How can I tell whether a dancing master should take a young pupil by her soft white hand, make her lift her skirt and raise her eyes, open her arms and advance her throbbing bosom? but this I know, nothing on earth would induce me to be that master.

Taste is formed partly by industry and partly by talent, and by its means the mind is unconsciously opened to the idea of beauty of every kind, till at length it attains to those moral ideas which are so closely related to beauty.  Perhaps this is one reason why ideas of propriety and modesty are acquired earlier by girls than by boys, for to suppose that this early feeling is due to the teaching of the governesses would show little knowledge of their style of teaching and of the natural development of the human mind.  The art of speaking stands first among the pleasing arts; it alone can add fresh charms to those which have been blunted by habit.  It is the mind which not only gives life to the body, but renews, so to speak, its youth; the flow of feelings and ideas give life and variety to the countenance, and the conversation to which it gives rise arouses and sustains attention, and fixes it continuously on one object.  I suppose this is why little girls so soon learn to prattle prettily, and why men enjoy listening to them even before the child can understand them; they are watching for the first gleam of intelligence and sentiment.

Women have ready tongues; they talk earlier, more easily, and more pleasantly than men.  They are also said to talk more; this may be true, but I am prepared to reckon it to their credit; eyes and mouth are equally busy and for the same cause.  A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please; the one needs knowledge, the other taste; utility should be the man’s object; the woman speaks to give pleasure.  There should be nothing in common but truth.