By the aid of the stereoscope, M. Foucault and Dr. | piano, and an empty room is the only machmery required. Regnault have shown that when the two retinas are simul- Failing this help from the relations of ther employers, let the taneously acted upon by two different colours, there is a per- young operative women whom I address be brave enough to ception of a single mixed colour. But they acknowledge that set about this matter for themselves. Though of course it the aptitude in forming a composition of two colours into one would be much better managed under the care of an educated Taries remarkably in different individuals, and may be gentlewoman. extremely feeble and even altogether absent in some. Say thirty or forty combine and arrange to give a penny a On luminating two white discs at the bottom of the stereo-lesson. Two lessons a week, the number being forty, would scope with two pencils of complementary colours, and looking give the weekly sum of six shillings and eightpence, and say at each coloured disc with each eye, we see only a single white that an employer, or alternately the friends of the young people, disc, which proves that the sensation of white light may arise wonld spare a room, and the cost of light and small extras from two chromatic complementary impressions made simul- was put at eightpence weekly, surely in any large town a taneously upon the two retinas, dancing master might be found who for this fee would give the needful instruction in the steps, in the figures of the ordinary quadrille, in the minut de la cour (a capital old dance in respect to teaching gracefulness, the curtsey, the walk, and the manner of entering and quitting a room. No boys, no men, ought or should be admitted into the room during these lessons; this should be made as strict a law as it was with the ancient priestesses of Greece whilst they performed the religious rites of the sacred temples.

FEMALE EDUCATION.—Nɔ, IV.

BY SILVERPEN.

is

This method of teaching failing, let the Female Dancing School be managed thus. When the weekly contributions have reached a fair sum, let two of the elder and most graceful of the girls be selected from the rest, and sent to take lessons of some good dancing master or mistress for three or four months. In that time they ought to acquire sufficient knowledge to enable them, at its close, to become teachers to the rest; and the weekly sum paid by those they teach would serve to give them some slight remuneration, and to pay for a piano or violin player, and the hire of a room if needial. Those thus taught could in their turn teach, and thus the Dancing School would be self-supplying to its own needs; care, however, being taken that the teachers were graceful and efficient.

This will be as far as it is needful to go. Fashionable dances and fashionable steps may be left to those who have time to acquire them. I only ask as much practice and knowledge as will enable young women, if their employers give a holiday dance to join in it with ease and gracefulness, to open to them an occasional source of innocent and rational amusement after the day's hard labour, but more especially to teach them to walk as women ought to walk, with grace and ease. So few English women walk well, that our feminine defect is almost a proverb; but this I am sure is more owing to a bad manner than to any physical deficiency.

LANG and exercises calculated to form and improve the igure should be made a branch of the education of all classes, and will be, I am certain, when education is better understood that it seems to be at present. I daresay many good folks We are at my opinion that young men and women, in mills, inctorum, and scope, ought to know how to dance, walk, and enter & room a grundly as any young gentleman or lady born to a fortune fares d'avri. Yet such is my deliberate og man, here an 1 xsow, yoqonly paxing, that this human bray of care is very worry of who yo reverence; and Lawn & More was on you by each one of us to beastly it, stregan a pronk it in grace. And Why has the not sn sower Way masca not be taken wind working was and women of tout terriones maunaise-hoste SWLWEIGJARE, wat wet t se.f-command, ut, wore a tu yar fay which more than any older crownetence vratila na vm of caste, and is the superate barrier squat far. Tune with the more educated classes It must be done, and it will be done! A new and great era in the wocial history of this country opening ited to the educated, thoughtful working man; and why shall not he in the parliament he may address, in the deputation to government he may head, in his lecture to college and school, in the home he will govern-partly in love, partly austerely-more wisely than heretofore, do so with grace and in the dignity of manhood? Why shall his words and To this amount of dancing I would add a careful and conearnest thoughts lose half their worth through a coarse, provincial, awkward, vulgar manner? Why shall not he, who tinuous practice of what are called Calisthenic Exercises to morally has nothing to fear from any man, say what he has to improve the figure. I need not enter here into the matter, as Bay to statesman or to noble with respect for respect to it will have attention in the Popular Educator. In the meanothers is one of the best portions of our own self-respect-yet while, however, great advance in these matters might be made, unabashed and fearlessly? And why shall not woman in her if, whilst practising a slow marching walk with the foot home sow the seeds of a taste for and an appreciation of beauty lifted up and the step made from toe to heel, a heavy book, in the minds and habits of her little children, through comely or other proportionate weight were carried on the headmanners and acts which in due time shall show their fruit in a the arms, in the meanwhile, hanging gracefully down. This new development of the plastic, textile, fictile, mechanical arts should be practised till the weight can be carried for a conat which they labour? Yet, these things must and will be siderable time without falling or moving-the spine in such effected. What is spiritual and aristocratic in culture is case, in order to balance the weight, assuming a most erect destined to change the whole aspect of common life. And and graceful posture. It was partly owing to their habit being so, let me point out what is first needful amongst the of carrying jars of water on their heads, that the women of people-what are some of the first steps in the cultivation of ancient Greece were so renowned for extraordinary gracefulness; and at this day the women of many parts of the East, of the mountainous districts of Spain and Italy, and of Connemara in Ireland, owe to this same custom much of their exquisite loveliness of figure and movement. I have myself seen a rustic Welch woman carry a pail of milk up a mountain with the grace of a goddess.

manners.

The little which has yet been done in this direction is rather to be lamented than otherwise. The "Dancing Schools of the manufacturing towns, where both sexes herd together not so much for rational amusement and improvement us for more sensual purposes, cannot be but baneful, and in connexion with "penny theatres," protested against as one of the main causes of juvenile delinquency and crime. What I mean is something very different. It is this.

In those departments of social education where the means of culture are so terribly deficient, I have long, wanted the ladies of the superior middle class to take a part. some one of them take the initiatory step, and teach a class of Will not these young women in her father or husband's warehouse or ill-dancing and deportment? An hour's lesson twice a week wenty or thirty girls would be invaluable. A riddle, or a

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physical culture of the body is, that it in a degree necessitated What is, however, best amongst other noble effects of this conceive that any young woman who has thus learnt to danceh proportional moral improvement. I cannot for a moment who walks well, who practises the same simple means which race of sculptors the world has ever known, can be otherwist made women nigh 3,000 years ago models for the greatest than modest in demeanour and gentle in speech. I cannot fancy her making as she did when she slouched in her the and hailed pone male companion from the opposite side of the

street, with a "Well, 'Bill, my lad, how be'st 'ee?" But waiting and vegetables, or whatever else the dinner may consist of, for, or crossing to him, if he must be addressed, has a kind taking salt with the salt-spoon, not with her knife, as I have word and a kind look, and the plain name of "Bill" or "Jack," seen people do; laying bread, if bread she eat, on the right if need be, for, as I have before said, I want nothing affected, hand side of her plate, which is broken and lifted to the ridiculous, or out of place with every-day life—but only to rid mouth by the hand and not bitten, she proceeds with her it of its coarseness and vulgarity-and then she passes dinner, carving it with her knife and fork, but conveying it modestly on; the only difference between the old recognition to her mouth with her fork only-as no one with the remotest and the new being the absence of the vulgar voice, the vulgar pretension to good breeding ever lifts the knife to the mouth, step, the vulgar slap on the shoulder, the leer and its appro-its office is to cut and separate the food, not to serve as a priate jest. And think what a difference between the two! spoon. If more meat or vegetables be wanting, the knife and Then if she meet her employer, Mr. Ashford, of the mill, or fork are laid side by side on the plate, which is then handed Mr. Hayworth of the warehouse, and either are good men and to those who serve the dish or dishes, as no one should be notice those they employ, instead of being ashamed and permitted, children especially, to help themselves, thrusting awkward and ready to sink into the ground, or to run into the here and there their fork or spoon, but those only who at the nearest court to hide herself, she makes her pretty graceful beginning of dinner have taken upon themselves the office of curtsey of respect and passes on. And the good gentleman carver or helper. I mention this latter point particularly, as probably thinks of the matter after she has passed, and is in some humble homes where I have incidentally been present quite proud of the visible improvements in the manners of his during the dinner hour, I have seen all helping themselves, young people. What is likely, too, Commissioners who are just as inclination or need prompted, sometimes three or four sent by parliament or newspapers to look into the condition knives or spoons in a dish at once, to the utter destruction of of the operative classes, write and say, "We observe an extra- all order, and to those kindly habits of self-denial which thus ordinary improvement in the habits of the young people of learnt and practised in the small things of daily life, are likely this class. Formerly when they came out of the mill or to shine out in the larger and diviner ones of human action. warehouse, what a different scene it was! What running, A young woman, if mother and mistress of her little household, what shouting, what vulgar familiarity and coarse jesting can casily bring these small yet important habits, these needtook place between the two sexes. Now the young women ful manners, into daily use; whilst if only a daughter or a pass on like well-bred gentlewomen-modest in speech and lodger in the household where these coarse, selfish manners manner. We asked the cause of so marked a change. Many prevail, she may through gentleness and firmness, and through were stated; but as regarded the nice walk, the graceful the constant example of her own refinement, cause, though manner, and the modest demeanour, our attention was directed by slow degrees, an obvious change in the apathetic coarseness to the Female Dancing Schools, which those young women of those who surround her. When she has finished her carry on and support through their own laudable efforts." dinner, say of meat and potatoes, she lays her knife and fork How to walk with ease and grace, how to curtsey, how to close together, obliquely across the plate; if pudding succeed it enter and quit a room, being thus acquired by lessons in is eaten with fork or spoon, sometimes with both, but never dancing, and the other means of self-help I have advocated, it with the knife; and if the dinner be one of fish, it is eaten becomes necessary not only to make the practice of these with the fork and a piece of bread held in the left hand. habitual, but also to carry out this physical refinement in Like pudding, it is never touched with the knife. Before many other ways. To walk with a graceful modest step drinking, the mouth (should be wiped; and though she may through the streets, and then to be found at home, ten minutes herself have dined, the young woman, if there be time, will afterwards, in some outrageously vulgar attitude, to have courteously remain at table till the rest have finished. There made respectful return to the employer's kindly recognition, are many other small duties connected with the dinner table, or womanly acknowledgment of the young friends' familiar which will become apparent and be brought into action if greeting, and then to be gross and bad-mannered at the thought be exercised, and a kindly deference to the feelings humble dinner-table, are inconsistences which can never run of others be paid; for much which is of worth in the graceful side by side in any true advance of moral life. For one manners of daily life may be said to be rather the result of improvement presupposes and leads to another, in all which heart, than of formal teaching.

concerns what a fine old writer calls 'the sweet holiness of our behaviour;' and this behaviour, this modest, quiet, selfpossessed manner of performing the ordinary acts of daily life, is so lovely, so to be desired in the life of all women, especially the women bound up with the interests of the present earnest, intelligent artisan class of this country, that I cannot conceive any pains too great for its acquirement.

A graceful habit in sitting is worthy of care. A gentlewoman, when she sits, does not spread her hands separated upon the knees, nor lean forward and place the arms upon the thighs, nor crosses them so as to place the elbows in the opposite hands, or throws them back too much. All such actions are vulgar. But when she sits she generally keeps the feet but little apart, or even crossed one over the other, the right perhaps over the left reclining on the toe and side; she, also, in general lowers the gown and covers the heel so as to show little more than half the foot. It is unfeminine to sit with the knees crossed, the gown half up the leg, the elbows on the table, or the arms akimbo. These last actions are intensely low, intensely underbred. They hint at the pothouse, and the brawl, and the low evil tongue.

At table a young woman, whether married or single, should strive to be the goddess of her home. Of the table-cloth, clean, if coarse and old, of the pretty shaped saltcellar (remembering my maxim that beauty is as cheap as ugliness), of Britannia metal forks instead of the old-fashioned two or three pronged steel ones, and of the neat arrangement of the plates and dishes, I shall speak in a future paper; but it is to her neatness whilst dining or tea drinking that I would have young woman direct her care. Taking her place quietly at the dinner-table, she should, if not mistress of it, wait patiently till her turn comes to be served; then being helped to meat

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At the breakfast table, at the tea table, the same courtesy of manners should prevail; one, and one alone, should preside at it; "Joe and Jane, and Fan and Bill" should not help themselves just how and when they like, to the discomfort of everybody else. If the young woman, as mother or elder daughter preside, let her neatly arrange the cups and saucers, the tea-pot, milk-jug, and slop-basin before her-if at breakfast on the table cloth without a tea-tray, if at tea on a tray-and then proceed to pour out the tea without slop or disorder, helping husband, or father and mother first, then her little ones, or her brothers and sisters according to seniority, replenishing each cup when needful, and seeing that the bread and butter is kindly helped and cut by those who have undertaken the duty. Of course there will be no throwing the slops from the tea-cups into the fire-place or on the floor-no "shoving" the cups across the table instead of nicely handing them-no turning the cups upside down in the saucers when tea is done. No, no barbarities of this sort!

Such manners constantly practised will soon form themselves into habits. For it is a great mistake to suppose, that good manners like our best clothes are only for wear on holidays., The more they are worn, the more is their worth increased; and it is this mistake which lies at the root of the awkwardness, the mauvaise honte, the stiff uneasy manners of even those who.count themselves well-bred; whereas if in the pride of reverence to our own bodies and souls we always honoured both by nice manners and behaviour, we should be easy and graceful, let us go into whose presence we might. This constant practice of good manners, till at last they become unconscious habits, is the secret, almost the only secret, of the vast difference between the manners of the upper and

lower classes; but let good manners be made habitual-and In intellectual power, in depth, and grasp, and versatility this, as I before said, on the noble ples of the self-reverence of mind, as well as in all the splendid and brilliant parts which and the self-dignity of the human being, and let what is captivate and adorn, Hamilton was greatly, not to say immeamerely personal be forgotten, and the manners will be surably, Jay's superior. In the calm and deeper wisdom of perfectly easy, natural, and well-bred, let us enter into what-practical duty,-in the government of others, and still more soever society we may. in the government of himself,-in seeing clearly the right, and following it whithersoever it led, firmly, patiently, selfdeniedly, Jay was again greatly, if not immeasurably, Hamilton's superior. In statesmanlike talent, Hamilton's mind had in it more of "constructive" power, Jay's of "executive."-Hamil. ton had GENIUS, Jay had WISDOM. We would have taken Hamilton to plan a government, and Jay to carry it into execution; and, in a court of law, we would have Hamilton for our advocate, if our cause were generous, and Jay for judge, if our cause were just.

Another thing should be remembered in regard to manners. Never be too familiar. It stands good as a golden rule in respect to many other things, but especially in this of manners. It is one of the tremendous barriers between caste and caste; but whether at home in domestic relation, in the mill, in the shop or the street, "a hail fellow, well met," sort of manner is intensely, grossly vulgar, Nothing so repulses educated persons as an address of this character; however desirous of being kind, they are at once necessitated to act upon the defensive by assuming an outwardly cold manner they do not feel. Never have this manner; be as loveable and kind with your young female friends as you please, as courteous at the mill, at the shop, at the school as you may, as thoughtful and as good a wife or daughter as you can be, but never let those relations descend into gross familiarity; it takes away from our own self-respect as well as that of others, and is sure in the end, like over confidences and over intimacies with persons we know little of, to lead to evil.

Equally as we should avoid this one great sign of low breeding, should we that of thrusting ourselves into people's houses or rooms unannounced. It is barbarous. People who live from day to day in the intimate relation of labour or of friendship, do not require to use the formalities of a more artificial class of society; still to knock gently at either house or room door, and to wait a few seconds before opening it, unless told to walk in, is a courtesy we should never lay aside.

The fame of Hamilton, like his parts, we deem to shine brighter and further than Jay's, but we are not sure that it should be so, or rather we are quite sure that it should not, For, when we come to examine and compare their relative course, and its bearing on the country and its fortunes, the reputation of Hamilton we find to go as far beyond his practi cal share in it, as Jay's falls short of his. Hamilton's civil official life was a brief and single, though brilliant one. Jay's numbered the years of a generation, and exhausted every department of diplomatic, civil, and judicial trust. In fidelity to their country, both were pure to their heart's core; yet was Hamilton loved, perhaps, more than trusted, and Jay trusted, perhaps, more than loved.

Such were they, we deem, in differing, if not contrasted, points of character. Their lives, too, when viewed from a distance, stand out in equally striking, but much more painful, contrast. Jay's, viewed as a whole, has in it a completeness of parts, such as a nicer critic demands for the perfection of And then as to gentle womanly manners, they are the finest an epic poem, with its beginning of promise, its heroic middle, part of holiday costume. A great improvement has taken and its peaceful end, and partaking, too, somewhat of the same place within the past few years; and will make still further cold stateliness,-noble, however, still and glorious, and ever progress with the advance of education, for that and refine-pointing, as such poem does, to the stars, Sie ita ad astra." ment go ever hand in hand; and it is my belief that with The life of Hamilton, on the other hand, broken and fragmentthe growth of appreciation in men, women will not lessen ary, begun in the darkness of romantic interest, running on their efforts to win sweet, modest, and gentle manners. These into the sympathy of all high passion, and at length breaking with the low sweet voice, which poets love, must be no longer off in the midst, like some half-told tale of sorrow, amid tears the prerogative of one class of women, but of all, as far as and blood, even as does the theme of the tragic poet. The circumstances will give permission, for they are theirs, if name of Hamilton, therefore, was a name to conjure with,nature and nature's intuition be done justice to. that of Jay's to swear by. Hamilton had his frailties, arising out of passion, as tragic heroes have. Jay's name was faultless, and his course passionless, as becomes the epic leader, and, in point of fact was, while living, a name at which frailty blushed, and corruption trembled.

LESSONS IN READING AND ELOCUTION.
No. XXII.

HAMILTON AND JAY.

Ir were, indeed, a bold task (to venture to draw into comparison the relative merits of Jay and Hamilton, on the fame and fortunes of their country,-a bold task,-and yet, bold as it is, we feel impelled, before closing, at least to venture on opening it. They were undoubtedly, “par nobile fratrum," and yet not twin brothers,-"pares sed impares,"-like, but unlike. In patriotic attachment equal, for who would venture therein to assign to either the superiority; yet was that attachment, though equal in degree, yet far different in kind: with Hamilton it was a sentiment, with Jay a principle, with Hamilton enthusiastic passion, with Jay duty as well as love,-with Hamilton patriotism was the paramount law, with Jay a law. "sub graviori lege."* Either would have gone through fire and water to do his country service, and laid down freely his life for her safety,-Hamilton with the roused courage of a lion,-Jay with the calm fearlessness of a man; or rather, Hamilton's courage would have been that of the soldier,-Jay's that of the Christian. Of the latter it might be truly said,

"Conscience made him firm,

That boon companion, who her strong breastplate
Buckles on him that fears no guilt within,
And bids him on, and fear not."

• Un ler a wightier law.

If we ask whence, humanly speaking, came such disparity of the fate between equals, the stricter morals, the happier life, the more peaceful death, to what can we trace it, but to the healthful power of religion over the heart and conduct? Was not this, we ask, the ruling secret? Hamilton was a Christian in his youth, and a penitent Christian, we doubt not, on his dying bed; but Jay was a Christian, so far as man may judge, every day and hour of his life. He had but one rule, the gospel of Christ; in that he was nurtured,-ruled by that, through grace he lived,-resting on that, in prayer he died. Admitting, then, as we do, both names to be objects of our highest sympathetic admiration, yet, with the name of Hamil ton, as the master says of tragedy, the lesson is given," with pity and in fear." Not so with that of Jay; with him we walk fearless, as in the steps of one who was a CHRISTIAN, as well as a PATRIOT.—Dr, Hawks,

A PSALM OF LIFE.

[What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist.]
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.