The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-31 00:00:00

GOVERNESSES, or MODERN EDUCATION.

Authoress, 22, lirewman-street,-oVord-strcct:
Guided by the canons of pure reason, and
basing her system of instruction upon the new
and enlightened principles that distinguish the
Kantesian school, Madame 8.. Riofrey has
effected great service to the heads of the educa-
tional world by her publication of this work.
Swayed by the belief that to be a gOod governess
it is necessary to enter into the feelings of the
mother, and that as the infant mind with its
deli Cate faculties should be, in its early years,
carefully rendered a recipient of only the purest
intuitions, our authoress, in fashioning her book,
has been studious to lay down, in a series of
clearly-written chapters, the elevated truths and
refined morality which every female. teacher of
youth should possess. In these pages, such will
see, as in a glass, the loveliness of the duties
which devolve upon them to inculcate, as pre- • '
ceptors of their species, and in the advocacy of
which the authoress .labotirS - with praiseworthy
solicitude and earnestness. Believing the mind
to be a rich seed-garden, which, according to
the seed sown in it by the handS of the sower, is
destined thereafter to produce' the golden fruits
of good, or the opposite of evil, Madame Riofrey
enforces the fact, with candour andfirmness, that
the governess who exercises influence over so
valued and precious a possession, must be her-
self a highly moral and religious character. Man,
it has been observed, is an imitative animal, and
the soul is said to be so passive and unresisting in
its primitive years, that, like a stream, it reflects
within its depths whatever virtues or whatever
vices may casually overshadow it in its rising
source. Truly, said the philosopher—" derriere
l'education est cache le mystere du perfectionne-
Meld et du 'bonheur de l'humanite." In these
early years, when impressions of the good, the
beautiful, and the religious write themselves in-
effaceably upon the mind; so vice, more strong
than virtue, if it only gain an exercise of its
powers, burns deeper than a scaring-iron. Care-
ful, therefore, should all men be in the choice of
the guardians of youth, and reciprocally wary
should teachers be to set before them-
selves such high models of moral come-
liness as are recommended in this book,
dedicated to their use and service. Better
than brilliant external accomplishments, our
authoress o recommends interior mental vir-
tue : in her estimation the finished touch of the
harp-strings 'is fur less worthy
of commendation
in a youthful. lady, than a simple development
of some sweet moral feeling, or the practice of'
Some ingenuous virtue. Subversive this may be
-in a great measure of the present method of edu-
cation,but itis the only healthful view that ought
to insure acceptation. The pearl of mind has
hitherto been put in -a false setting but it is to
be hoped that the. " mental gem," under Ma-
dame ltiofrey's new plan of tutelage, will de-
quire in the next generation a fairer lustre than
it has customarily gained under the old. The
papers which constitute the volume are admir-
ably calculated to work out the ends proposed.
Petrarch, Wordsworth, Tiraboschi, Lamartine,
and others, need only be mentioned to stamp its
choicely-written lessons in different languages
as worthy selections; while no less than forty