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PREFATORY ADDRESS.

THE education of women has been at all times, an object of the most sedulous attention among the more enlightened nations of Europe. It is pleasing to remark, as it exhibits the least dubious proof of our progress in refinement, that this very important subject has, of late, excited scarcely an inferiour degree of interest in our own country. All our large cities can now claim a seminary for the instruction of fems, in which the system of education is no longe rowed by puritanical illiberality, or vitiated by the interference of any vulgar prejudices. It may be truly affirmed, that the women of the present age, in the United States, are not excelled by those of any country, whether we look to purity of morals, delicacy of deportment, or those delightful embellishments which give splendour to the face of society.

The only cardinal defect in the education of our females, which strikes us, is, perhaps, an undue appropriation of time to the acquisition of those light accomplishments, which serve - well to enliven and decorate the early season of

life, but which are attended with no durable advantages. The arts of painting, of music, of dancing, are expensively and most tediously taught in our schools, but how seldom are they practised, after the lapse of a few years, even by those who have reached the greatest proficiency.

We mean not however to detract from the value of personal accomplishments-they are, on the contrary, in our estimation, very essential features to every scheme of liberal and polite education. But there are other objects to which, we think, they ought to be subordinate, and, especially, that they should never be allowed to encroach on the more important cultivation of the intellectual powers. As we elevate the mind, we enlarge the sphere both of female utility and female happiness-with an intect invigorated by discipline, and properly abued with the love of letters, a woman has resources on which she may perpetually draw in every emergency, or vicissitude of fortune.

Thus accomplished, she moreover becomes better fitted to discharge, with success, the various complicated, and interesting duties incident to her condition, and the pilgrimage of her existence is rendered not only smooth and easy, but dignified and useful.

Convinced, therefore, of the importance of encouraging a fondness for elegant literature, in the period of childhood, and not less of the necessity of guiding the immature judgment of

girls in the selection of a proper species of reading, the editor has, with some labour, and no small care, prepared a work which he trusts will be found subservient to these ends.

Of the value of COMPILATIONS, like the one now offered to the public, little need be said. Elegant extracts from the purer sources of literature present us, (as has been happily expressed by one of the first classical writers of our country,) "with wisdom in a nut shell, and the quintessence of sweets in the acorn bowl of the fairies." They, at least, supply at a moderate expense, the place of many books, and insinuate a taste for reading which often lays the foundation of very extensive improvements in subsequent life.

THE

AMERICAN

LADY'S PRECEPTOR.

THE VALUE OF TIME.

MET with a quotation from an old author, whose name was not mentioned, on this subject; the beauty and truth of the passage struck me so mucs to induce me to lay it before my read

"Hours have wings, and fly up to the author of time, and carry news of our usage. All our prayers cannot entreat one of them either to return or slacken its pace. The mispense of every minute is a new record against us in heaven. Sure, if we thought thus, we would dismiss them with better report and not suffer them, either to go away empty, or laden with dangerous intelligence.How happy is it that every hour should convey up, not only the message, but the fruits of good, and stay with the Ancient of Days to speak for us before his glorious throne."

This most solemn and serious exhortation must awaken, within the breasts of the most unconcern

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