WE assemble to-day under new and interesting circum- О HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by LEAVITT, LORD & Co., in the Office of the Clerk of the Southern District of New-York. West & Trow, Prs. DEDICATION. To MADME LOUISE S. W. BELLOC, AND MADLLE ADELAIDE DE MONTGOLFIER, OF FRANCE. To you, sisters in affection, united in your efforts to promote human virtue and improvement, and associated with the friend and benefactor of America, the good Lafayette, in the important care of selecting a national library for your beloved country, the following pages are respectfully inscribed by one, who is proud to have been acknowledged by you as a friend, and a fellow-laborer in the cause of education. For this distinguished honor, and the affection manifested by you for my sister, during her residence in France, permit me, thus publicly, to express my gratitude. May the friendship which, in so interesting a manner, has been commenced between us, be elevated and permanent in its nature, as the objects which have given rise to it are noble and imperishable. ALMIRA H. LINCOLN PHelps. Mont Cervus, Guilford, Vermont. Trials of women. ness. Enjoy, then, this spring time of your existence, this morning of life; but enjoy with moderation, and spare something from the exuberance of your emotions, to soften and cheer the sober and pensive season, which, should your lives be spared, will as assuredly follow, as evening follows morning, or as spring is succeeded by autumn. Should you see a group of happy children, sporting near the border of some dreadful precipice, which they in their childish glee heeded not, would you think it unkind to check them in their mirth, in order to point out their danger? Or, if one should chance to have strayed to the verge of the precipice, would you hesitate to seize him even somewhat roughly, in order to save him from destruction? Think it not, then, my dear girls, unkind in those, who by the light of experience, see dangers to you invisible, if they raise a warning voice, if they give a temporary check to your gayety, in order to avert evils which they see impending over you. The eye of experience sees before you trials of virtue, affliction, pain, and death; and "after death cometh the judgment." In view of these solemn and momentous interests, I cannot but watch with deep anxiety and solicitude, even your slightest actions; these, though individually of little consequence, appear of vast importance when considered as indications of future character. All human beings must suffer pain, and sorrow: but on woman do the evils incident to human existence fall with peculiar force. Her heart is sensitive, and her spirits are easily elated or depressed: the delicacy of her nervous system subjects her to agitations to which man, favored by greater physical strength, and more firmness of nerve, is exempt. Subject to caprice, she needs the balance of intellectual discipline; and, above all, does she require the aid of religious principles to enable her to overcome the |