Year: 1872

LIZ SHEET.


plishments Not long since dowager school
mistress or something of the kind went sailing
over Europe and to the Nile with q dozen
young ladies in her trail, seeing sights. She
probably had the lot on speculation, and found
30 much profit in it that others viii initiate
the example, and Europe win soon be trav-
ersed with floating companies of maidens,
conveyed by dowager schoolmistresses, seeing
all that is to be seen. III


Inc danger, the folly, we may say the sin
and crime of this may be seen in the disaster
tnat has fallen upon this American family in
Switzerland Our correspondent accurately
shows the extent Of it in his letter. It is well
to visit Europe. Education is cheaper than
with u.s. and perhaps more thorough. One
learns how to live--for instance, the economies
OF life that centuries Of experience and the
necessities Of large population have
taught the older and denser countries.
To those Of fine tastes there is
an education such as we cannot give in the
splendid galleries of Madrid and Dresden,
rich with the works of Raphael and velasquez
and Titien, in the cathedrals of Cologne and
Seville in the sculpture and architecture and
painting and music of Rome The practical
man may see what industry can do in Belgium,
what patience has achieved in Holland,
what free trade and enterprise have made out
OF the little island of England. There are po-
litical and financial problems in Germany,
France Spain, that may we'll excite the keen
est study of the statesman. We can understand,
therefore, the drift of the cultivated and eager
American mind to Europe the desire to drink
in the old knowledge at the fountain head,
and to see the mother nations as they are.
There is no true American who does not come
home better patriot from what he sees
abroad. He has greater, broader, more cos
mopolitan views, He learns that America is q
greater eountry in some respects and not so
great in others. But life in Europe is
full of temptations. The family relation,
the discipline of which is so sacred with us,
cannot be relaxed when abroad without the
greatest danger. Europe swarms with adven.
turers, exiles from home society and duty,
fortune-hunters, devotees Of Baden-Baden,
beggarly counts who hawk around title for
an income There is freedom also in social
relations foreign to our habits and which may
have dangerous result upon young minds
unless they are zealously guarded by the
parent or guardian.


The family discipline which every true man
cherishes in his own home--that his sons and
daughters may be comfort to his old age and
a blessing to society-this same discipline
should be taken to Europe. To send young
maidens abroad in the care of 50 competent
governess" who has five or six to manage, or
in charge Of school mistress who proposes to
march with 50 select party" of dozen or SO
through the cheap hotels of Europe, to drop
them promiscuously into the society Of Dres-
den or Paris, is to invite danger to their
peace Of mind and the home of their family
which we cannot exaggerate The duty of the
father and the mother, 80 sacred and impera-
tive at home, is no less so abroad for there
are restraints Of custom and association here
which are not found in Europe. This sad
business at Lucerne would never have oc-
CURED had the head of the family shown pru-
dence and firmness in time. The way to
avoid the Niagara leap is to keep your boat out
of the current, and those of our readers who
think of visiting Europe or of sending their
children thither for study, must consider well
the solemn responsibilities it involves.