You may likewise make excellent use of the _historical catechism_ before-mentioned. Let the person you are forming to educate your children read it over so often, that it may be familiar to herself, and that she may enter into the spirit of this method of teaching. It must be acknowledged, however, that persons of even moderate talents for such services, are rarely to be met with; and yet nothing is to be done in education, without a proper instrument for the business; the commonest things cannot be done of themselves, and they are always ill done by improper people.--Choose therefore either out of your own family, or among your tenants, or friends, or from some well-ordered society, some young woman you think capable of being taught: apply yourself early to the forming of her for this employment: have her near you for some time, to make trial of her before you commit to her so important a trust. Five or six governesses trained in this manner, would soon be able to instruct a great number of others; many of these would probably fail, but out of a great number, we might always repair the loss, and not be so wretchedly compelled, as we continually are, to be seeking for a variety of teachers.
But though the difficulty of finding governesses is great; it must be confessed there is another yet greater, which is the _irregularity of parents_. All the rest will signify nothing, if _they_ do not co-operate in the business: the foundation of every thing is giving their children _right notions_ and _edifying examples_: and yet this is only to be found in very few families; in most, one sees nothing but confusion, perpetual changes, a heap of servants, who are not only quarreling with one another, but are the cause of disagreement among their masters and mistresses. What a woeful school is this for young children! The mother who passes her time in gaming, at plays, and in indiscreet conversations, very gravely complains that she cannot find a governess capable of bringing up her children; but what good can the best of educations confer on children, with the example of such a mother before them? One frequently sees parents who themselves carry their children to public diversions, and other amusements,[19] which cannot fail of giving them a disrelish for that serious and orderly course of life, in which these very parents wish to engage them: thus they mix poison with wholesome diet: they talk indeed of nothing but discretion, but at the same time they are agitating the flighty imagination of their children, by the violent impressions of music, and of passionate theatrical representations, which indispose them for application, give them a taste for what is passionate, and thereby make them think _innocent_ pleasure _insipid_; and after all this still expect that the business of education shall go on well, and consider it as an irksome and austere thing, if it will not admit of _this mixture of good or evil_. Thus are they fond of the reputation of being anxious for the good education of their children, and yet are unwilling to be at the pains of complying with the most indispensable rules of it.