If a lady feels herself unequal to the management of her family, she can call in the aid of nurses, governesses, and schools; and thus her defects may in some measure be made up by assistance from without. But who or what is to step in between the poor mother and her children? If she cannot train them during the first few years of infancy, they remain untrained; and not only are the wise man’s words proved true, that “a child left to itself bringeth its mother to shame,” but it is found that the multiplication of these families thus left to themselves, bringeth a nation to shame. When we look honestly at things as they are, we have no right to be much surprised at such a result: it is unreasonable to expect to reap what has never been sown. Seven years of careful training is not thought too much for those who are to be employed in the making of our shoes, our coats, or in the building of our houses. The education of the men of this country is generally, from a very early age, adapted to their future employment. Hence, as might be expected, there is no lack of clever artisans, who have indeed a higher character for cleverness than for goodness. But the girl, who is to grow up to exercise an influence upon persons more than upon things, is left to scramble on as best she can, generally content to do as badly as those who have preceded her; and yet, in the words of one who has thought and written much upon the subject—“It is to the poor man’s wife that we must chiefly look, when we indulge the hope of reducing that frightful amount of crime which, with all our inventions, discoveries, and improvements, sometimes awakens a fear that we may not really be in so prosperous a condition, socially and nationally, as our rapid progress in what is called civilisation would lead a superficial observer to suppose.”