So, in human education the first attention should be given to bringing out the broad, healthy powers of human nature, not to increasing any peculiar attributes. "How much of life," asked Margaret Fuller, "is the life neither of man or of woman, but of Humanity?" Every mother should seek to lay a firm foundation in this common ground of Humanity, out of which the special flowers will grow more rich and abundant. Especially should all premature recognition of sex be avoided; nature should be allowed to develop slowly and quietly. Sex must be recognized; the names of brother and sister, the slight difference in costume are sufficient, but in play and work, and especially in dress and manners, the early distinctions between the sexes tend to produce mannishness on one side and effeminacy on the other. The girl's dress may be a little different in form, but why should the boy wear stout gingham or warm flannel, and she be clothed in fragile muslin, or expensive silk? Why should he be able to climb fences or leap ditches without risk to his clothes, and she be kept in perpetual bondage by her ribbons and her ruffles? Look at a boy's simple round straw or felt hat, with a plain band about it, and pity the little girl with her delicate chip and a wreath of artificial flowers. Is it because the girl's physique is more delicate and complicated, that she is thus denied the natural and healthy exercise of her powers, and burdened with a load of finery under which the strong man would halt and stagger? The more delicate the organization, the smaller the lungs, the more absolutely important is perfect freedom of dress and motion, and the more essential is life in the open air. If we must keep any of the children in-doors let it be the boys; they will have out-door life afterwards, but let girlhood have its free play before custom and fashion fetter it forever. So, too, in manners; how many mothers apologize for their unendurable little ruffians by saying, "You know boys will be rude!" Why should boys be rude? Is not _gentleman_ our highest term for all that is honorable and manly? The physical power that is not under the control of higher qualities is rude, but rudeness is not evidence of power, only witness to the want of culture. A sadly pathetic vein runs through Miss Edgeworth's children's stories, especially _Frank_, in the difference she makes in the life of man and woman. The children make a list of the virtues which should be cultivated by men and women, and courage is put down very low on the woman's side and first on the man's. But there is no sex in morals, and until courage is deemed essential to woman and purity to man there can be no moral perfection in either.