By education the mind is improved, and the understanding becomes enlightened. It is a quality that adorns the mind, and the advantages we receive from it, are innumerable.¹

After granting this prize, we are led to view the objects of nature in a different light, the mind is capable of comparing the works of different authors, and meditating on the heavenly ladies, which send forth rays of light for the benefit of man. The female sex especially realize its influences, a young lady without education is awkward in her manners, unrefined in taste, and destitute of judgement. If deprived of friends and thrown on this world of trouble, she might pursue the path that leads to inevitable destruction. It is thus that many are ruined. While young they refuse to listen to the voice of instruction, and in more mature age they look back with sorrow to those periods, which might have been improved, and rendered them useful in society.

Education cannot be too highly prized, we may be deprived of many earthly enjoyments, but education will always be our friend. The ignorance by which some nations are surrounded, should be a sufficient argument for us to improve our time in laying up stores of useful knowledge. Education helps to strengthen the memory, as well as to form the mind. This great pearl of inestimable treasure is neglected, and frequently we put by things of importance until they become excluded from our memory.

There is no country in the world, where the people enjoy so extensive collection of books, and knowledge is so generally diffused as in this. Instead of being confined and treated as slaves, we are allowed to preserve the characters which belongs to us, and the society that is best suited to our situation in life. How thankful then should we be to God, the creator of all things visible and invisible, who maketh them for our good, that we may improve by them, and foresee our future state of existence.

Margarette B. Lerned

Adams Female Academy,

Londonderry, August 28, 1824,

2nd sheet

¹ At this time Margarette is attending Adams Female Academy which had just opened in April of 1824 and was one of the first women’s colleges in the United States. See Footnote to W1100 for a note on the college, and for a brief bio. of Margarette Barker Lerned.