Entertaining such views of the direction which might be given to the juvenile mind, I mourn over those weak parents, who are nursing their children with effeminate fondness, not allowing the _winds to visit them too roughly_, pampering their wishes, instead of teaching them to repress them: and rather striving to ward from them all pains and privations, than teaching them that they must encounter innumerable sorrows and disappointments, and disciplining them to breast the ills of life with a conquering fortitude. Opulence generally gives birth to this injudicious plan of parental education. Penury, as little directed by sound views, but impelled by the stern teaching of necessity, imparts to the children of the poor, a much more salutary discipline, and they ordinarily come forward with a more robust spirit, with more vigor, power and elasticity; and it is in this way, that providence adjusts the balance of advantages between these different conditions. We have all admired the practical philosophy of the man, who, when sick of a painful disease, thanked God that he was not subject to a still more painful one; and when under the pressure of the latter, found cause for cheerfulness, that he was not visited with both diseases at the same time. Akin to this was the noble fortitude of the mariner, who, when a limb was carried away by a cannon-ball, congratulated himself that it was not his head. I do not say that any one can find cheerfulness in contemplating such Spartan spirits, but that a philosophy of this sort would disarm the common ills of life of much of their power, and would even enable the sufferer to find enjoyment in the midst of them. It would be no disadvantage even to the ambitious and aspiring to abstract, from the toils of their pursuit, the bitter and corroding spirit of rivalry and envy, and in its stead to cultivate sentiments of kindness, complacency and moderation. Let their ends be so noble, as to give an air of dignity to the means that they employ, and they will throw a splendor of self-respect over their course. Let the aspirant say, ‘I struggle not for myself, but to procure competence for aged parents, to gild their declining years with the view of my success. It is for dependent relatives, orphans, the poor and friendless, whom Providence has given particular claims on me, that I struggle. It is to benefit and gladden those who are dearer to me than life, and not for my own sordid vanity and ambition, that I strive to toil up the ascent of fame.