It is really not enough for the public to be told that at such and such schools, all arts, sciences, languages and accomplishments are taught _dirt cheap, and in the shortest imaginable time_—admitting the possibility of any such incredible promises being fulfilled. The main points—the great, essential groundwork of all right education, are _the moral discipline—the punishments and rewards—but above all, the motives and inducements to study_, which the teachers inculcate; for _if this part of the process be essentially wrong, no other part can well work rightly_. Into all these particulars, continual, earnest, and diligent inquiries should be made by competent judges—not to expose nor to injure individuals, but to supply what is deficient, and to correct what is wrong in all schools. Teachers themselves would not be long in setting about the work with due diligence, when they found public sentiment opposed to any part of their practice; and the community in general more disposed minutely and judiciously to investigate all such particulars relative to the management of schools, as it is always important, should be thoroughly known and understood. Most persons judge of schools by what they hear—not by what they see, or certainly know; and so little concern is usually felt about them, by any but those who have children there, that none else scarcely ever ask any questions on the subject. The consequence is, that although many will occasionally _talk_, as they do about various other matters which they do not understand, yet they rarely ever _judge_ correctly. Idle gossip—the spirit of detraction—ignorance, and malice—will do infinitely more harm to these establishments, than the partiality of friendship, which is often equally blind, can ever do good; for the work of _pulling down_ is always an easier, and frequently, to many, a much more agreeable task, than _building up_. Another great benefit which would result from so close and accurate a scrutiny as the one recommended, would be, that the investigators, and through them the public, would learn to make somewhat more charitable estimates of the difficulties which all teachers, especially of large schools, have always to encounter from the faults and vices of their scholars, aggravated by the interference of ignorant, injudicious, and immoral parents. All who would open the eyes of their understanding would certainly discover, that not a few of these difficulties infest even female schools, wherein the common opinion seems to be, at least with most parents in regard to their own daughters, that “nothing can in any wise enter that defileth;” or, in other words, that “the beau ideal” of woman—all innocence, purity and loveliness—is the real character of all her female children, and inseparably attaches to them, wherever found, whether at home or abroad. Such a discovery, possibly, might also lead such all-confiding