her high calling. That it is a high calling, we have high authority to
show. Dr. Channing says, "No office can compare in importance with
that of training a child." Yet the office is assumed without
preparation.

Herbert Spencer asks, in view of this omission, "What is to be
expected when one of the most intricate of problems is undertaken by
those who have given scarcely a thought as to the principles on which
its solution depends? Is the unfolding of a human being so simple a
process that any one may superintend and regulate it with no
preparation whatever?... Is it not madness to make no provision for
such a task?"

Horace Mann speaks out plainly, and straight to the point. "If she is
to prepare a refection of cakes, she fails not to examine some
cookery-book or some manuscript receipt, lest she should convert her
rich ingredients into unpalatable compounds; but without ever having
read one book upon the subject of education, without ever having
sought one conversation with an intelligent person upon it, she
undertakes so to mingle the earthly and celestial elements of
instruction for that child's soul that he shall be fitted to discharge
all duties below, and to enjoy all blessings above." And again,
"Influences imperceptible in childhood, work out more and more broadly
into beauty or deformity in after life. No unskilful hand should ever
play upon a harp where the tones are left forever in the strings."

In a newspaper I find this amusingly significant sentence:
"Truthfully, indeed, do the Papists boast that the Episcopal Church is
training-ground for Rome. The female mind is frequently enticed by
display of vestments and music; and, if the Ritualists can pervert the