of the human being at the out-start of life, and is prolonged by
virtue of the powerful influence which every good mother exercises
over her children through life. When launched into the world,
each to take part in its labours, anxieties, and trials, they
still turn to their mother for consolation, if not for counsel, in
their time of trouble and difficulty. The pure and good thoughts
she has implanted in their minds when children, continue to grow
up into good acts, long after she is dead; and when there is
nothing but a memory of her left, her children rise up and
call her blessed.

It is not saying too much to aver that the happiness or misery,
the enlightenment or ignorance, the civilisation or barbarism of
the world, depends in a very high degree upon the exercise of
woman's power within her special kingdom of home. Indeed, Emerson
says, broadly and truly, that "a sufficient measure of
civilisation is the influence of good women." Posterity may be
said to lie before us in the person of the child in the mother's
lap. What that child will eventually become, mainly depends upon
the training and example which he has received from his first and
most influential educator.

Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the
brain, but woman is the heart of humanity; he its judgment, she
its feeling; he its strength, she its grace, ornament, and solace.
Even the understanding of the best woman seems to work mainly
through her affections. And thus, though man may direct the
intellect, woman cultivates the feelings, which mainly determine
the character. While he fills the memory, she occupies the heart.
She makes us love what he can only make us believe, and it is