In determining on the proper course of Education for our children, is it not of the highest importance, first to decide in regard to the situations in which they will probably be placed, and the circumstances under which they are most likely to spend their lives, that all the instruction given may have some bearing on such destination--some peculiar aptitude to fit them for the particular stations which they will fill? Until society is organized differently from what it is, all the various honest trades, professions and callings into which it is divided, must have persons specially educated for them. But how can this all essential plan be accomplished, if our children are made too proud for any thing but playing ladies and gentlemen, or following some two or three professional pursuits, distinguished from the rest by the dignified title--"_liberal_?" Ought it to suffice with people in their sober senses, to hear it urged in opposition to so reasonable a scheme as that of adapting early Education to the probable destiny of each individual in after life, that _in our country_ every child ought to be educated for all imaginable conditions in what is called high life, because any, possibly, may be attained by any? Surely this would be the perfection of folly, unless it amounted almost to certainty that a very large majority of our youth of both sexes would reach such elevated situations. But it so happens that there is a moral certainty the other way, and that an infinitely larger portion of mankind will live and die in obscurity, than can ever become conspicuous for the possession of wealth, extraordinary talent, or official station. This obscurity however, would be no bar to the enjoyment of great happiness, provided half the pains were taken to inculcate principles, tastes and habits suitable to the future circumstances in which they would probably be placed, that are very frequently taken to impress their minds with insatiate cravings after all the highest conditions of society. _This world_, and this alone, with all its vanities, follies, and seductive vices, is made the God of their idolatry; and every thing in future life which is calculated to impede their worship, becomes a source of unavailing discontent, if not of actual and lasting misery. To pursue such a course with children is little short of real madness, even on the supposition that there is no other state of existence but the present; unless indeed, this life had been made a scene of uninterrupted enjoyment, instead of one abounding with much unavoidable suffering--a scene in which to escape sickness, pain, and poverty, is among our greatest blessings--a scene whose modicum of happiness consists not in any of those merely selfish, sensual pursuits, so generally deemed the chief good of life, but in the diligent culture and exercise of all the powers of our mind--of all the best affections of our hearts. How is this to be done, especially in our female schools, which in fact are the great laboratories for forming elementary teachers for our whole population,--if nearly, or quite half the time of the pupils be taken up in learning to dance, to draw, to play on musical instruments, and to acquire polite manners, by going at stated times to private assemblies, to plays, and operas, as we have heard is the practice in some city schools. One of two things invariably follows from this course; either the whole stock of accomplishments, (as they are called,) however costly it may have been, is entirely abandoned the moment the girls get married, because the acquisition has always been to them a kind of up-hill work, for which they had not the smallest taste--or, such a passionate fondness is contracted for them, that they can find pleasure in no other occupation. The fatal disease of discontent is the result in both those cases. But suppose the last to be the most common.