After observing sallies of this kind, I have been led into a

melancholy train of reflection respecting females, concluding that

when their first affection must lead them astray, or make their

duties clash till they rest on mere whims and customs, little can

be expected from them as they advance in life. How, indeed, can an

instructor remedy this evil? for to teach them virtue on any solid

principle is to teach them to despise their parents. Children

cannot, ought not to be taught to make allowance for the faults of

their parents, because every such allowance weakens the force of

reason in their minds, and makes them still more indulgent to their

own. It is one of the most sublime virtues of maturity that leads

us to be severe with respect to ourselves, and forbearing to

others; but children should only be taught the simple virtues, for

if they begin too early to make allowance for human passions and

manners, they wear off the fine edge of the criterion by which they

should regulate their own, and become unjust in the same proportion

as they grow indulgent.

The affections of children, and weak people, are always selfish;

they love others, because others love them, and not on account of

their virtues. Yet, till esteem and love are blended together in

the first affection, and reason made the foundation of the first

duty, morality will stumble at the threshold. But, till society is

very differently constituted, parents, I fear, will still insist on

being obeyed, because they will be obeyed, and constantly endeavour

to settle that power on a Divine right, which will not bear the

investigation of reason.

CHAPTER 12.

ON NATIONAL EDUCATION.

The good effects resulting from attention to private education will

ever be very confined, and the parent who really puts his own hand

to the plow, will always, in some degree be disappointed, till

education becomes a grand national concern. A man cannot retire

into a desert with his child, and if he did, he could not bring

himself back to childhood, and become the proper friend and

play-fellow of an infant or youth. And when children are confined

to the society of men and women, they very soon acquire that kind

of premature manhood which stops the growth of every vigorous power

of mind or body. In order to open their faculties they should be

excited to think for themselves; and this can only be done by

mixing a number of children together, and making them jointly

pursue the same objects.

A child very soon contracts a benumbing indolence of mind, which he

has seldom sufficient vigour to shake off, when he only asks a

question instead of seeking for information, and then relies

implicitly on the answer he receives. With his equals in age this

could never be the case, and the subjects of inquiry, though they

might be influenced, would not be entirely under the direction of

men, who frequently damp, if not destroy abilities, by bringing

them forward too hastily: and too hastily they will infallibly be

brought forward, if the child could be confined to the society of a

man, however sagacious that man may be.

Besides, in youth the seeds of every affection should be sown, and

the respectful regard, which is felt for a parent, is very

different from the social affections that are to constitute the

happiness of life as it advances. Of these, equality is the basis,

and an intercourse of sentiments unclogged by that observant

seriousness which prevents disputation, though it may not inforce

submission. Let a child have ever such an affection for his

parent, he will always languish to play and chat with children; and

the very respect he entertains, for filial esteem always has a dash

of fear mixed with it, will, if it do not teach him cunning, at

least prevent him from pouring out the little secrets which first

open the heart to friendship and confidence, gradually leading to

more expansive benevolence. Added to this, he will never acquire

that frank ingenuousness of behaviour, which young people can only

attain by being frequently in society, where they dare to speak

what they think; neither afraid of being reproved for their

presumption, nor laughed at for their folly.

Forcibly impressed by the reflections which the sight of schools,

as they are at present conducted, naturally suggested, I have

formerly delivered my opinion rather warmly in favour of a private

education; but further experience has led me to view the subject in

a different light. I still, however, think schools, as they are

now regulated, the hot-beds of vice and folly, and the knowledge of

human nature, supposed to be attained there, merely cunning

selfishness.

At school, boys become gluttons and slovens, and, instead of

cultivating domestic affections, very early rush into the

libertinism which destroys the constitution before it is formed;

hardening the heart as it weakens the understanding.

I should, in fact, be averse to boarding-schools, if it were for no

other reason than the unsettled state of mind which the expectation

of the vacations produce. On these the children's thoughts are

fixed with eager anticipating hopes, for, at least, to speak with

moderation, half of the time, and when they arrive they are spent

in total dissipation and beastly indulgence.

But, on the contrary, when they are brought up at home, though they

may pursue a plan of study in a more orderly manner than can be

adopted, when near a fourth part of the year is actually spent in

idleness, and as much more in regret and anticipation; yet they

there acquire too high an opinion of their own importance, from

being allowed to tyrannize over servants, and from the anxiety

expressed by most mothers, on the score of manners, who, eager to

teach the accomplishments of a gentleman, stifle, in their birth,

the virtues of a man. Thus brought into company when they ought to

be seriously employed, and treated like men when they are still

boys, they become vain and effeminate.

The only way to avoid two extremes equally injurious to morality,

would be to contrive some way of combining a public and private

education. Thus to make men citizens, two natural steps might be

taken, which seem directly to lead to the desired point; for the

domestic affections, that first open the heart to the various

modifications of humanity would be cultivated, whilst the children

were nevertheless allowed to spend great part of their time, on

terms of equality, with other children.

I still recollect, with pleasure, the country day school; where a

boy trudged in the morning, wet or dry, carrying his books, and his

dinner, if it were at a considerable distance; a servant did not

then lead master by the hand, for, when he had once put on coat and

breeches, he was allowed to shift for himself, and return alone in

the evening to recount the feats of the day close at the parental

knee. His father's house was his home, and was ever after fondly

remembered; nay, I appeal to some superior men who were educated in

this manner, whether the recollection of some shady lane where they

conned their lesson; or, of some stile, where they sat making a

kite, or mending a bat, has not endeared their country to them?

But, what boy ever recollected with pleasure the years he spent in

close confinement, at an academy near London? unless indeed he

should by chance remember the poor scare-crow of an usher whom he

tormented; or, the tartman, from whom he caught a cake, to devour

it with the cattish appetite of selfishness. At boarding schools

of every description, the relaxation of the junior boys is

mischief; and of the senior, vice. Besides, in great schools what

can be more prejudicial to the moral character, than the system of

tyranny and abject slavery which is established amongst the boys,

to say nothing of the slavery to forms, which makes religion worse

than a farce? For what good can be expected from the youth who

receives the sacrament of the Lord's supper, to avoid forfeiting

half-a-guinea, which he probably afterwards spends in some sensual

manner? Half the employment of the youths is to elude the

necessity of attending public worship; and well they may, for such

a constant repetition of the same thing must be a very irksome

restraint on their natural vivacity. As these ceremonies have the

most fatal effect on their morals, and as a ritual performed by the

lips, when the heart and mind are far away, is not now stored up by

our church as a bank to draw on for the fees of the poor souls in

purgatory, why should they not be abolished?

But the fear of innovation, in this country, extends to every

thing. This is only a covert fear, the apprehensive timidity of

indolent slugs, who guard, by sliming it over, the snug place,

which they consider in the light of an hereditary estate; and eat,

drink, and enjoy themselves, instead of fulfilling the duties,

excepting a few empty forms, for which it was endowed. These are

the people who most strenuously insist on the will of the founder

being observed, crying out against all reformation, as if it were a

violation of justice. I am now alluding particularly to the

relicks of popery retained in our colleges, where the protestant

members seem to be such sticklers for the established church; but

their zeal never makes them lose sight of the spoil of ignorance,

which rapacious priests of superstitious memory have scraped

together. No, wise in their generation, they venerate the

prescriptive right of possession, as a strong hold, and still let

the sluggish bell tingle to prayers, as during the days, when the

elevation of the host was supposed to atone for the sins of the

people, lest one reformation should lead to another, and the spirit

kill the letter. These Romish customs have the most baneful effect

on the morals of our clergy; for the idle vermin who two or three

times a day perform, in the most slovenly manner a service which

they think useless, but call their duty, soon lose a sense of duty.

At college, forced to attend or evade public worship, they acquire

an habitual contempt for the very service, the performance of which

is to enable them to live in idleness. It is mumbled over as an

affair of business, as a stupid boy repeats his task, and

frequently the college cant escapes from the preacher the moment

after he has left the pulpit, and even whilst he is eating the

dinner which he earned in such a dishonest manner.

Nothing, indeed, can be more irreverent than the cathedral service

as it is now performed in this country, neither does it contain a

set of weaker men than those who are the slaves of this childish

routine. A disgusting skeleton of the former state is still

exhibited; but all the solemnity, that interested the imagination,

if it did not purify the heart, is stripped off. The performance

of high mass on the continent must impress every mind, where a

spark of fancy glows, with that awful melancholy, that sublime

tenderness, so near a-kin to devotion. I do not say, that these

devotional feelings are of more use, in a moral sense, than any

other emotion of taste; but I contend, that the theatrical pomp

which gratifies our senses, is to be preferred to the cold parade

that insults the understanding without reaching the heart.

Amongst remarks on national education, such observations cannot be

misplaced, especially as the supporters of these establishments,

degenerated into puerilities, affect to be the champions of

religion. Religion, pure source of comfort in this vale of tears!

how has thy clear stream been muddied by the dabblers, who have

presumptuously endeavoured to confine in one narrow channel, the

living waters that ever flow toward God-- the sublime ocean of

existence! What would life be without that peace which the love of

God, when built on humanity, alone can impart? Every earthly

affection turns back, at intervals, to prey upon the heart that

feeds it; and the purest effusions of benevolence, often rudely

damped by men, must mount as a free-will offering to Him who gave

them birth, whose bright image they faintly reflect.

In public schools, however, religion, confounded with irksome

ceremonies and unreasonable restraints, assumes the most ungracious

aspect: not the sober austere one that commands respect whilst it

inspires fear; but a ludicrous cast, that serves to point a pun.

For, in fact, most of the good stories and smart things which

enliven the spirits that have been concentrated at whist, are

manufactured out of the incidents to which the very men labour to

give a droll turn who countenance the abuse to live on the spoil.

There is not, perhaps, in the kingdom, a more dogmatical or

luxurious set of men, than the pedantic tyrants who reside in

colleges and preside at public schools. The vacations are equally

injurious to the morals of the masters and pupils, and the

intercourse, which the former keep up with the nobility, introduces

the same vanity and extravagance into their families, which banish

domestic duties and comforts from the lordly mansion, whose state

is awkwardly aped on a smaller scale. The boys, who live at a

great expence with the masters and assistants, are never

domesticated, though placed there for that purpose; for, after a

silent dinner, they swallow a hasty glass of wine, and retire to

plan some mischievous trick, or to ridicule the person or manners

of the very people they have just been cringing to, and whom they

ought to consider as the representatives of their parents.

Can it then be a matter of surprise, that boys become selfish and

vicious who are thus shut out from social converse? or that a mitre

often graces the brow of one of these diligent pastors? The desire

of living in the same style, as the rank just above them, infects

each individual and every class of people, and meanness is the

concomitant of this ignoble ambition; but those professions are

most debasing whose ladder is patronage; yet out of one of these

professions the tutors of youth are in general chosen. But, can

they be expected to inspire independent sentiments, whose conduct

must be regulated by the cautious prudence that is ever on the

watch for preferment?

So far, however, from thinking of the morals of boys, I have heard

several masters of schools argue, that they only undertook to teach

Latin and Greek; and that they had fulfilled their duty, by sending

some good scholars to college.

A few good scholars, I grant, may have been formed by emulation and

discipline; but, to bring forward these clever boys, the health and

morals of a number have been sacrificed.

The sons of our gentry and wealthy commoners are mostly educated at

these seminaries, and will any one pretend to assert, that the

majority, making every allowance, come under the description of

tolerable scholars?

It is not for the benefit of society that a few brilliant men

should be brought forward at the expence of the multitude. It is

true, that great men seem to start up, as great revolutions occur,

at proper intervals, to restore order, and to blow aside the clouds

that thicken over the face of truth; but let more reason and virtue

prevail in society, and these strong winds would not be necessary.

Public education, of every denomination, should be directed to form

citizens; but if you wish to make good citizens, you must first

exercise the affections of a son and a brother. This is the only

way to expand the heart; for public affections, as well as public

virtues, must ever grow out of the private character, or they are

merely meteors that shoot athwart a dark sky, and disappear as they

are gazed at and admired.

Few, I believe, have had much affection for mankind, who did not

first love their parents, their brothers, sisters, and even the

domestic brutes, whom they first played with. The exercise of

youthful sympathies forms the moral temperature; and it is the

recollection of these first affections and pursuits, that gives

life to those that are afterwards more under the direction of

reason. In youth, the fondest friendships are formed, the genial

juices mounting at the same time, kindly mix; or, rather the heart,

tempered for the reception of friendship, is accustomed to seek for

pleasure in something more noble than the churlish gratification of

appetite.

In order then to inspire a love of home and domestic pleasures,

children ought to be educated at home, for riotous holidays only

make them fond of home for their own sakes. Yet, the vacations,

which do not foster domestic affections, continually disturb the

course of study, and render any plan of improvement abortive which

includes temperance; still, were they abolished, children would be

entirely separated from their parents, and I question whether they

would become better citizens by sacrificing the preparatory

affections, by destroying the force of relationships that render

the marriage state as necessary as respectable. But, if a private

education produce self-importance, or insulates a man in his

family, the evil is only shifted, not remedied.

This train of reasoning brings me back to a subject, on which I

mean to dwell, the necessity of establishing proper day-schools.

But these should be national establishments, for whilst

school-masters are dependent on the caprice of parents, little

exertion can be expected from them, more than is necessary to

please ignorant people. Indeed, the necessity of a master's giving

the parents some sample of the boy's abilities, which during the

vacation, is shown to every visiter, is productive of more mischief

than would at first be supposed. For they are seldom done

entirely, to speak with moderation, by the child itself; thus the

master countenances falsehoods, or winds the poor machine up to

some extraordinary exertion, that injures the wheels, and stops the

progress of gradual improvement. The memory is loaded with

unintelligible words, to make a show of, without the

understanding's acquiring any distinct ideas: but only that

education deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of mind,

which teaches young people how to begin to think. The imagination

should not be allowed to debauch the understanding before it gained

strength, or vanity will become the forerunner of vice: for every

way of exhibiting the acquirements of a child is injurious to its

moral character.

How much time is lost in teaching them to recite what they do not

understand! whilst, seated on benches, all in their best array, the

mammas listen with astonishment to the parrot-like prattle, uttered

in solemn cadences, with all the pomp of ignorance and folly. Such

exhibitions only serve to strike the spreading fibres of vanity

through the whole mind; for they neither teach children to speak

fluently, nor behave gracefully. So far from it, that these

frivolous pursuits might comprehensively be termed the study of

affectation: for we now rarely see a simple, bashful boy, though

few people of taste were ever disgusted by that awkward

sheepishness so natural to the age, which schools and an early

introduction into society, have changed into impudence and apish

grimace.

Yet, how can these things be remedied whilst schoolmasters depend

entirely on parents for a subsistence; and when so many rival

schools hang out their lures to catch the attention of vain fathers

and mothers, whose parental affection only leads them to wish, that

their children should outshine those of their neighbours?

Without great good luck, a sensible, conscientious man, would

starve before he could raise a school, if he disdained to bubble

weak parents, by practising the secret tricks of the craft.

In the best regulated schools, however, where swarms are not

crammed together many bad habits must be acquired; but, at common

schools, the body, heart, and understanding, are equally stunted,

for parents are often only in quest of the cheapest school, and the

master could not live, if he did not take a much greater number

than he could manage himself; nor will the scanty pittance, allowed

for each child, permit him to hire ushers sufficient to assist in

the discharge of the mechanical part of the business. Besides,

whatever appearance the house and garden may make, the children do

not enjoy the comforts of either, for they are continually

reminded, by irksome restrictions, that they are not at home, and

the state-rooms, garden, etc. must be kept in order for the

recreation of the parents; who, of a Sunday, visit the school, and

are impressed by the very parade that renders the situation of

their children uncomfortable.

With what disgust have I heard sensible women, for girls are more

restrained and cowed than boys, speak of the wearisome confinement

which they endured at school. Not allowed, perhaps, to step out of

one broad walk in a superb garden, and obliged to pace with steady

deportment stupidly backwards and forwards, holding up their heads,

and turning out their toes, with shoulders braced back, instead of

bounding, as nature directs to complete her own design, in the

various attitudes so conducive to health. The pure animal spirits,

which make both mind and body shoot out, and unfold the tender

blossoms of hope are turned sour, and vented in vain wishes, or

pert repinings, that contract the faculties and spoil the temper;

else they mount to the brain and sharpening the understanding

before it gains proportionable strength, produce that pitiful

cunning which disgracefully characterizes the female mind--and I

fear will ever characterize it whilst women remain the slaves of

power!

The little respect which the male world pay to chastity is, I am

persuaded, the grand source of many of the physical and moral evils

that torment mankind, as well as of the vices and follies that

degrade and destroy women; yet at school, boys infallibly lose that

decent bashfulness, which might have ripened into modesty at home.

I have already animadverted on the bad habits which females acquire

when they are shut up together; and I think that the observation

may fairly be extended to the other sex, till the natural inference

is drawn which I have had in view throughout--that to improve both

sexes they ought, not only in private families, but in public

schools, to be educated together. If marriage be the cement of

society, mankind should all be educated after the same model, or

the intercourse of the sexes will never deserve the name of

fellowship, nor will women ever fulfil the peculiar duties of their

sex, till they become enlightened citizens, till they become free,

by being enabled to earn their own subsistence, independent of men;

in the same manner, I mean, to prevent misconstruction, as one man

is independent of another. Nay, marriage will never be held sacred

till women by being brought up with men, are prepared to be their

companions, rather than their mistresses; for the mean doublings of

cunning will ever render them contemptible, whilst oppression

renders them timid. So convinced am I of this truth, that I will

venture to predict, that virtue will never prevail in society till

the virtues of both sexes are founded on reason; and, till the

affection common to both are allowed to gain their due strength by

the discharge of mutual duties.

Were boys and girls permitted to pursue the same studies together,

those graceful decencies might early be inculcated which produce

modesty, without those sexual distinctions that taint the mind.

Lessons of politeness, and that formulary of decorum, which treads

on the heels of falsehood, would be rendered useless by habitual

propriety of behaviour. Not, indeed put on for visiters like the

courtly robe of politeness, but the sober effect of cleanliness of

mind. Would not this simple elegance of sincerity be a chaste

homage paid to domestic affections, far surpassing the meretricious

compliments that shine with false lustre in the heartless

intercourse of fashionable life? But, till more understanding

preponderate in society, there will ever be a want of heart and

taste, and the harlot's rouge will supply the place of that

celestial suffusion which only virtuous affections can give to the

face. Gallantry, and what is called love, may subsist without

simplicity of character; but the main pillars of friendship, are

respect and confidence--esteem is never founded on it cannot tell

what.

A taste for the fine arts requires great cultivation; but not more

than a taste for the virtuous affections: and both suppose that

enlargement of mind which opens so many sources of mental pleasure.

Why do people hurry to noisy scenes and crowded circles? I should

answer, because they want activity of mind, because they have not

cherished the virtues of the heart. They only, therefore, see and

feel in the gross, and continually pine after variety, finding

every thing that is simple, insipid.

This argument may be carried further than philosophers are aware

of, for if nature destined woman, in particular, for the discharge

of domestic duties, she made her susceptible of the attached

affections in a great degree. Now women are notoriously fond of

pleasure; and naturally must be so, according to my definition,

because they cannot enter into the minutiae of domestic taste;

lacking judgment the foundation of all taste. For the

understanding, in spite of sensual cavillers, reserves to itself

the privilege of conveying pure joy to the heart.

With what a languid yawn have I seen an admirable poem thrown down,

that a man of true taste returns to, again and again with rapture;

and, whilst melody has almost suspended respiration, a lady has

asked me where I bought my gown. I have seen also an eye glanced

coldly over a most exquisite picture, rest, sparkling with

pleasure, on a caricature rudely sketched; and whilst some terrific

feature in nature has spread a sublime stillness through my soul, I

have been desired to observe the pretty tricks of a lap-dog, that

my perverse fate forced me to travel with. Is it surprising, that

such a tasteless being should rather caress this dog than her

children? Or, that she should prefer the rant of flattery to the

simple accents of sincerity?

To illustrate this remark I must be allowed to observe, that men of

the first genius, and most cultivated minds, have appeared to have

the highest relish for the simple beauties of nature; and they must

have forcibly felt, what they have so well described, the charm,

which natural affections, and unsophisticated feelings spread round

the human character. It is this power of looking into the heart,

and responsively vibrating with each emotion, that enables the poet

to personify each passion, and the painter to sketch with a pencil

of fire.

True taste is ever the work of the understanding employed in

observing natural effects; and till women have more understanding,

it is vain to expect them to possess domestic taste. Their lively

senses will ever be at work to harden their hearts, and the

emotions struck out of them will continue to be vivid and

transitory, unless a proper education stores their minds with

knowledge.

It is the want of domestic taste, and not the acquirement of

knowledge, that takes women out of their families, and tears the

smiling babe from the breast that ought to afford it nourishment.

Women have been allowed to remain in ignorance, and slavish

dependence, many, very many years, and still we hear of nothing but

their fondness of pleasure and sway, their preference of rakes and

soldiers, their childish attachment to toys, and the vanity that

makes them value accomplishments more than virtues.

History brings forward a fearful catalogue of the crimes which

their cunning has produced, when the weak slaves have had

sufficient address to over-reach their masters. In France, and in

how many other countries have men been the luxurious despots, and

women the crafty ministers? Does this prove that ignorance and

dependence domesticate them? Is not their folly the by-word of the

libertines, who relax in their society; and do not men of sense

continually lament, that an immoderate fondness for dress and

dissipation carries the mother of a family for ever from home?

Their hearts have not been debauched by knowledge, nor their minds

led astray by scientific pursuits; yet, they do not fulfil the

peculiar duties, which as women they are called upon by nature to

fulfil. On the contrary, the state of warfare which subsists

between the sexes, makes them employ those wiles, that frustrate

the more open designs of force.

When, therefore, I call women slaves, I mean in a political and

civil sense; for, indirectly they obtain too much power, and are

debased by their exertions to obtain illicit sway.

Let an enlightened nation then try what effect reason would have to

bring them back to nature, and their duty; and allowing them to

share the advantages of education and government with man, see

whether they will become better, as they grow wiser and become

free. They cannot be injured by the experiment; for it is not in

the power of man to render them more insignificant than they are at

present.

To render this practicable, day schools for particular ages should

be established by government, in which boys and girls might be

educated together. The school for the younger children, from five

to nine years of age, ought to be absolutely free and open to all

classes.* A sufficient number of masters should also be chosen by

a select committee, in each parish, to whom any complaint of

negligence, etc. might be made, if signed by six of the children's

parents.

(*Footnote. Treating this part of the subject, I have borrowed

some hints from a very sensible pamphlet written by the late bishop

of Autun on public Education.)

Ushers would then be unnecessary; for, I believe, experience will

ever prove, that this kind of subordinate authority is particularly

injurious to the morals of youth. What, indeed, can tend to

deprave the character more than outward submission and inward

contempt? Yet, how can boys be expected to treat an usher with

respect when the master seems to consider him in the light of a

servant, and almost to countenance the ridicule which becomes the

chief amusement of the boys during the play hours?

But nothing of this kind could occur in an elementary day-school,

where boys and girls, the rich and poor, should meet together. And

to prevent any of the distinctions of vanity, they should be

dressed alike, and all obliged to submit to the same discipline, or

leave the school. The school-room ought to be surrounded by a

large piece of ground, in which the children might be usefully

exercised, for at this age they should not be confined to any

sedentary employment for more than an hour at a time. But these

relaxations might all be rendered a part of elementary education,

for many things improve and amuse the senses, when introduced as a

kind of show, to the principles of which dryly laid down, children

would turn a deaf ear. For instance, botany, mechanics, and

astronomy. Reading, writing, arithmetic, natural history, and some

simple experiments in natural philosophy, might fill up the day;

but these pursuits should never encroach on gymnastic plays in the

open air. The elements of religion, history, the history of man,

and politics, might also be taught by conversations, in the

socratic form.

After the age of nine, girls and boys, intended for domestic

employments, or mechanical trades, ought to be removed to other

schools, and receive instruction, in some measure appropriated to

the destination of each individual, the two sexes being still

together in the morning; but in the afternoon, the girls should

attend a school, where plain work, mantua-making, millinery, etc.

would be their employment.

The young people of superior abilities, or fortune, might now be

taught, in another school, the dead and living languages, the

elements of science, and continue the study of history and

politics, on a more extensive scale, which would not exclude polite

literature. Girls and boys still together? I hear some readers

ask: yes. And I should not fear any other consequence, than that

some early attachment might take place; which, whilst it had the

best effect on the moral character of the young people, might not

perfectly agree with the views of the parents, for it will be a

long time, I fear, before the world is so enlightened, that

parents, only anxious to render their children virtuous, will let

them choose companions for life themselves.

Besides, this would be a sure way to promote early marriages, and

from early marriages the most salutary physical and moral effects

naturally flow. What a different character does a married citizen

assume from the selfish coxcomb, who lives but for himself, and who

is often afraid to marry lest he should not be able to live in a

certain style. Great emergencies excepted, which would rarely

occur in a society of which equality was the basis, a man could

only be prepared to discharge the duties of public life, by the

habitual practice of those inferior ones which form the man.

In this plan of education, the constitution of boys would not be

ruined by the early debaucheries, which now make men so selfish,

nor girls rendered weak and vain, by indolence and frivolous

pursuits. But, I presuppose, that such a degree of equality should

be established between the sexes as would shut out gallantry and

coquetry, yet allow friendship and love to temper the heart for the

discharge of higher duties.

These would be schools of morality--and the happiness of man,

allowed to flow from the pure springs of duty and affection, what

advances might not the human mind make? Society can only be happy

and free in proportion as it is virtuous; but the present

distinctions, established in society, corrode all private, and

blast all public virtue.

I have already inveighed against the custom of confining girls to

their needle, and shutting them out from all political and civil

employments; for by thus narrowing their minds they are rendered

unfit to fulfil the peculiar duties which nature has assigned them.

Only employed about the little incidents of the day, they

necessarily grow up cunning. My very soul has often sickened at

observing the sly tricks practised by women to gain some foolish

thing on which their silly hearts were set. Not allowed to dispose

of money, or call any thing their own, they learn to turn the

market penny; or, should a husband offend, by staying from home, or

give rise to some emotions of jealousy--a new gown, or any pretty

bauble, smooths Juno's angry brow.

But these LITTLENESSES would not degrade their character, if women

were led to respect themselves, if political and moral subjects

were opened to them; and I will venture to affirm, that this is the

only way to make them properly attentive to their domestic duties.

An active mind embraces the whole circle of its duties, and finds

time enough for all. It is not, I assert, a bold attempt to

emulate masculine virtues; it is not the enchantment of literary

pursuits, or the steady investigation of scientific subjects, that

lead women astray from duty. No, it is indolence and vanity --the

love of pleasure and the love of sway, that will reign paramount in

an empty mind. I say empty, emphatically, because the education

which women now receive scarcely deserves the name. For the little

knowledge they are led to acquire during the important years of

youth, is merely relative to accomplishments; and accomplishments

without a bottom, for unless the understanding be cultivated,

superficial and monotonous is every grace. Like the charms of a

made-up face, they only strike the senses in a crowd; but at home,

wanting mind, they want variety. The consequence is obvious; in

gay scenes of dissipation we meet the artificial mind and face, for

those who fly from solitude dread next to solitude, the domestic

circle; not having it in their power to amuse or interest, they

feel their own insignificance, or find nothing to amuse or interest

themselves.

Besides, what can be more indelicate than a girl's coming out in

the fashionable world? Which, in other words, is to bring to

market a marriageable miss, whose person is taken from one public

place to another, richly caparisoned. Yet, mixing in the giddy

circle under restraint, these butterflies long to flutter at large,

for the first affection of their souls is their own persons, to

which their attention has been called with the most sedulous care,

whilst they were preparing for the period that decides their fate

for life. Instead of pursuing this idle routine, sighing for

tasteless show, and heartless state, with what dignity would the

youths of both sexes form attachments in the schools that I have

cursorily pointed out; in which, as life advanced, dancing, music,

and drawing, might be admitted as relaxations, for at these schools

young people of fortune ought to remain, more or less, till they

were of age. Those, who were designed for particular professions,

might attend, three or four mornings in the week, the schools

appropriated for their immediate instruction.

I only drop these observations at present, as hints; rather, indeed

as an outline of the plan I mean, than a digested one; but I must

add, that I highly approve of one regulation mentioned in the

pamphlet already alluded to (The Bishop of Autun), that of making

the children and youths independent of the masters respecting

punishments. They should be tried by their peers, which would be

an admirable method of fixing sound principles of justice in the

mind, and might have the happiest effect on the temper, which is

very early soured or irritated by tyranny, till it becomes

peevishly cunning, or ferociously overbearing.

My imagination darts forward with benevolent fervour to greet these

amiable and respectable groups, in spite of the sneering of cold

hearts, who are at liberty to utter, with frigid self-importance,

the damning epithet-- romantic; the force of which I shall

endeavour to blunt by repeating the words of an eloquent moralist.

"I know not whether the allusions of a truly humane heart, whose

zeal renders every thing easy, is not preferable to that rough and

repulsing reason, which always finds in indifference for the public

good, the first obstacle to whatever would promote it."

I know that libertines will also exclaim, that woman would be

unsexed by acquiring strength of body and mind, and that beauty,

soft bewitching beauty! would no longer adorn the daughters of men.

I am of a very different opinion, for I think, that, on the

contrary, we should then see dignified beauty, and true grace; to

produce which, many powerful physical and moral causes would

concur. Not relaxed beauty, it is true, nor the graces of

helplessness; but such as appears to make us respect the human body

as a majestic pile, fit to receive a noble inhabitant, in the

relics of antiquity.

I do not forget the popular opinion, that the Grecian statues were

not modelled after nature. I mean, not according to the

proportions of a particular man; but that beautiful limbs and

features were selected from various bodies to form an harmonious

whole. This might, in some degree, be true. The fine ideal

picture of an exalted imagination might be superior to the

materials which the painter found in nature, and thus it might with

propriety be termed rather the model of mankind than of a man. It

was not, however, the mechanical selection of limbs and features,

but the ebullition of an heated fancy that burst forth; and the

fine senses and enlarged understanding of the artist selected the

solid matter, which he drew into this glowing focus.

I observed that it was not mechanical, because a whole was

produced--a model of that grand simplicity, of those concurring

energies, which arrest our attention and command our reverence.

For only insipid lifeless beauty is produced by a servile copy of

even beautiful nature. Yet, independent of these observations, I

believe, that the human form must have been far more beautiful than

it is at present, because extreme indolence, barbarous ligatures,

and many causes, which forcibly act on it, in our luxurious state

of society, did not retard its expansion, or render it deformed.

Exercise and cleanliness appear to be not only the surest means of

preserving health, but of promoting beauty, the physical causes

only considered; yet, this is not sufficient, moral ones must

concur, or beauty will be merely of that rustic kind which blooms

on the innocent, wholesome countenances of some country people,

whose minds have not been exercised. To render the person perfect,

physical and moral beauty ought to be attained at the same time;

each lending and receiving force by the combination. Judgment must

reside on the brow, affection and fancy beam in the eye, and

humanity curve the cheek, or vain is the sparkling of the finest

eye or the elegantly turned finish of the fairest features; whilst

in every motion that displays the active limbs and well-knit

joints, grace and modesty should appear. But this fair assemblage

is not to be brought together by chance; it is the reward of

exertions met to support each other; for judgment can only be

acquired by reflection, affection, by the discharge of duties, and

humanity by the exercise of compassion to every living creature.

Humanity to animals should be particularly inculcated as a part of

national education, for it is not at present one of our national

virtues. Tenderness for their humble dumb domestics, amongst the

lower class, is oftener to be found in a savage than a civilized

state. For civilization prevents that intercourse which creates

affection in the rude hut, or mud cabin, and leads uncultivated

minds who are only depraved by the refinements which prevail in the

society, where they are trodden under foot by the rich, to domineer

over them to revenge the insults that they are obliged to bear from

their superiours.

This habitual cruelty is first caught at school, where it is one of

the rare sports of the boys to torment the miserable brutes that

fall in their way. The transition, as they grow up, from barbarity

to brutes to domestic tyranny over wives, children, and servants,

is very easy. Justice, or even benevolence, will not be a powerful

spring of action, unless it extend to the whole creation; nay, I

believe that it may be delivered as an axiom, that those who can

see pain, unmoved, will soon learn to inflict it.

The vulgar are swayed by present feelings, and the habits which

they have accidentally acquired; but on partial feelings much

dependence cannot be placed, though they be just; for, when they

are not invigorated by reflection, custom weakens them, till they

are scarcely felt. The sympathies of our nature are strengthened

by pondering cogitations, and deadened by thoughtless use.

Macbeth's heart smote him more for one murder, the first, than for

a hundred subsequent ones, which were necessary to back it. But,

when I used the epithet vulgar, I did not mean to confine my remark

to the poor, for partial humanity, founded on present sensations or

whim, is quite as conspicuous, if not more so, amongst the rich.

The lady who sheds tears for the bird starved in a snare, and

execrates the devils in the shape of men, who goad to madness the

poor ox, or whip the patient ass, tottering under a burden above

its strength, will, nevertheless, keep her coachman and horses

whole hours waiting for her, when the sharp frost bites, or the

rain beats against the well-closed windows which do not admit a

breath of air to tell her how roughly the wind blows without. And

she who takes her dogs to bed, and nurses them with a parade of

sensibility, when sick, will suffer her babes to grow up crooked in

a nursery. This illustration of my argument is drawn from a matter

of fact. The woman whom I allude to was handsome, reckoned very

handsome, by those who do not miss the mind when the face is plump

and fair; but her understanding had not been led from female duties

by literature, nor her innocence debauched by knowledge. No, she

was quite feminine, according to the masculine acceptation of the

word; and, so far from loving these spoiled brutes that filled the

place which her children ought to have occupied, she only lisped

out a pretty mixture of French and English nonsense, to please the

men who flocked round her. The wife, mother, and human creature,

were all swallowed up by the factitious character, which an

improper education, and the selfish vanity of beauty, had produced.

I do not like to make a distinction without a difference, and I own

that I have been as much disgusted by the fine lady who took her

lap-dog to her bosom, instead of her child; as by the ferocity of a

man, who, beating his horse, declared, that he knew as well when he

did wrong as a Christian.

This brood of folly shows how mistaken they are who, if they allow

women to leave their harams, do not cultivate their understanding,

in order to plant virtues in their hearts. For had they sense,

they might acquire that domestic taste which would lead them to

love with reasonable subordination their whole family, from the

husband to the house-dog; nor would they ever insult humanity in

the person of the most menial servant, by paying more attention to

the comfort of a brute, than to that of a fellow-creature.

My observations on national education are obviously hints; but I

principally wish to enforce the necessity of educating the sexes

together to perfect both, and of making children sleep at home,

that they may learn to love home; yet to make private support

instead of smothering public affections, they should be sent to

school to mix with a number of equals, for only by the jostlings of

equality can we form a just opinion of ourselves.

To render mankind more virtuous, and happier of course, both sexes

must act from the same principle; but how can that be expected when

only one is allowed to see the reasonableness of it? To render

also the social compact truly equitable, and in order to spread

those enlightening principles, which alone can meliorate the fate

of man, women must be allowed to found their virtue on knowledge,

which is scarcely possible unless they be educated by the same

pursuits as men. For they are now made so inferiour by ignorance

and low desires, as not to deserve to be ranked with them; or, by

the serpentine wrigglings of cunning they mount the tree of

knowledge and only acquire sufficient to lead men astray.

It is plain from the history of all nations, that women cannot be

confined to merely domestic pursuits, for they will not fulfil

family duties, unless their minds take a wider range, and whilst

they are kept in ignorance, they become in the same proportion, the

slaves of pleasure as they are the slaves of man. Nor can they be

shut out of great enterprises, though the narrowness of their minds

often make them mar what they are unable to comprehend.

The libertinism, and even the virtues of superior men, will always

give women, of some description, great power over them; and these

weak women, under the influence of childish passions and selfish

vanity, will throw a false light over the objects which the very

men view with their eyes, who ought to enlighten their judgment.

Men of fancy, and those sanguine characters who mostly hold the

helm of human affairs, in general, relax in the society of women;

and surely I need not cite to the most superficial reader of

history, the numerous examples of vice and oppression which the

private intrigues of female favourites have produced; not to dwell

on the mischief that naturally arises from the blundering

interposition of well-meaning folly. For in the transactions of

business it is much better to have to deal with a knave than a

fool, because a knave adheres to some plan; and any plan of reason

may be seen through much sooner than a sudden flight of folly. The

power which vile and foolish women have had over wise men, who

possessed sensibility, is notorious; I shall only mention one

instance.

Whoever drew a more exalted female character than Rousseau? though

in the lump he constantly endeavoured to degrade the sex. And why

was he thus anxious? Truly to justify to himself the affection

which weakness and virtue had made him cherish for that fool

Theresa. He could not raise her to the common level of her sex;

and therefore he laboured to bring woman down to her's. He found

her a convenient humble companion, and pride made him determine to

find some superior virtues in the being whom he chose to live with;

but did not her conduct during his life, and after his death,

clearly show how grossly he was mistaken who called her a celestial

innocent. Nay, in the bitterness of his heart, he himself laments,

that when his bodily infirmities made him no longer treat her like

a woman, she ceased to have an affection for him. And it was very

natural that she should, for having so few sentiments in common,

when the sexual tie was broken, what was to hold her? To hold her

affection whose sensibility was confined to one sex, nay, to one

man, it requires sense to turn sensibility into the broad channel

of humanity: many women have not mind enough to have an affection

for a woman, or a friendship for a man. But the sexual weakness

that makes woman depend on man for a subsistence, produces a kind

of cattish affection, which leads a wife to purr about her husband,

as she would about any man who fed and caressed her.

Men, are however, often gratified by this kind of fondness which is

confined in a beastly manner to themselves, but should they ever

become more virtuous, they will wish to converse at their fire-side

with a friend, after they cease to play with a mistress. Besides,

understanding is necessary to give variety and interest to sensual

enjoyments, for low, indeed, in the intellectual scale, is the mind

that can continue to love when neither virtue nor sense give a

human appearance to an animal appetite. But sense will always

preponderate; and if women are not, in general, brought more on a

level with men, some superior women, like the Greek courtezans will

assemble the men of abilities around them, and draw from their

families many citizens, who would have stayed at home, had their

wives had more sense, or the graces which result from the exercise

of the understanding and fancy, the legitimate parents of taste. A

woman of talents, if she be not absolutely ugly, will always obtain

great power, raised by the weakness of her sex; and in proportion

as men acquire virtue and delicacy: by the exertion of reason, they

will look for both in women, but they can only acquire them in the

same way that men do.

In France or Italy have the women confined themselves to domestic

life? though they have not hitherto had a political existence, yet,

have they not illicitly had great sway? corrupting themselves and

the men with whose passions they played? In short, in whatever

light I view the subject, reason and experience convince me, that

the only method of leading women to fulfil their peculiar duties,

is to free them from all restraint by allowing them to participate

the inherent rights of mankind.

Make them free, and they will quickly become wise and virtuous, as

men become more so; for the improvement must be mutual, or the

justice which one half of the human race are obliged to submit to,

retorting on their oppressors, the virtue of man will be worm-eaten

by the insect whom he keeps under his feet.

Let men take their choice, man and woman were made for each other,

though not to become one being; and if they will not improve women,

they will deprave them!

I speak of the improvement and emancipation of the whole sex, for I

know that the behaviour of a few women, who by accident, or

following a strong bent of nature, have acquired a portion of

knowledge superior to that of the rest of their sex, has often been

over-bearing; but there have been instances of women who, attaining

knowledge, have not discarded modesty, nor have they always

pedantically appeared to despise the ignorance which they laboured

to disperse in their own minds. The exclamations then which any

advice respecting female learning, commonly produces, especially

from pretty women, often arise from envy. When they chance to see

that even the lustre of their eyes, and the flippant sportiveness

of refined coquetry will not always secure them attention, during a

whole evening, should a woman of a more cultivated understanding

endeavour to give a rational turn to the conversation, the common

source of consolation is, that such women seldom get husbands.

What arts have I not seen silly women use to interrupt by

FLIRTATION, (a very significant word to describe such a manoeuvre)

a rational conversation, which made the men forget that they were

pretty women.

But, allowing what is very natural to man--that the possession of

rare abilities is really calculated to excite over-weening pride,

disgusting in both men and women--in what a state of inferiority

must the female faculties have rusted when such a small portion of

knowledge as those women attained, who have sneeringly been termed

learned women, could be singular? Sufficiently so to puff up the

possessor, and excite envy in her contemporaries, and some of the

other sex. Nay, has not a little rationality exposed many women to

the severest censure? I advert to well known-facts, for I have

frequently heard women ridiculed, and every little weakness

exposed, only because they adopted the advice of some medical men,

and deviated from the beaten track in their mode of treating their

infants. I have actually heard this barbarous aversion to

innovation carried still further, and a sensible woman stigmatized

as an unnatural mother, who has thus been wisely solicitous to

preserve the health of her children, when in the midst of her care

she has lost one by some of the casualties of infancy which no

prudence can ward off. Her acquaintance have observed, that this

was the consequence of new-fangled notions--the new-fangled notions

of ease and cleanliness. And those who, pretending to experience,

though they have long adhered to prejudices that have, according to

the opinion of the most sagacious physicians, thinned the human

race, almost rejoiced at the disaster that gave a kind of sanction

to prescription.

Indeed, if it were only on this account, the national education of

women is of the utmost consequence; for what a number of human

sacrifices are made to that moloch, prejudice! And in how many

ways are children destroyed by the lasciviousness of man? The want

of natural affection in many women, who are drawn from their duty

by the admiration of men, and the ignorance of others, render the

infancy of man a much more perilous state than that of brutes; yet

men are unwilling to place women in situations proper to enable

them to acquire sufficient understanding to know how even to nurse

their babes.

So forcibly does this truth strike me, that I would rest the whole

tendency of my reasoning upon it; for whatever tends to

incapacitate the maternal character, takes woman out of her sphere.

But it is vain to expect the present race of weak mothers either to

take that reasonable care of a child's body, which is necessary to

lay the foundation of a good constitution, supposing that it do not

suffer for the sins of its fathers; or to manage its temper so

judiciously that the child will not have, as it grows up, to throw

off all that its mother, its first instructor, directly or

indirectly taught, and unless the mind have uncommon vigour,

womanish follies will stick to the character throughout life. The

weakness of the mother will be visited on the children! And whilst

women are educated to rely on their husbands for judgment, this

must ever be the consequence, for there is no improving an

understanding by halves, nor can any being act wisely from

imitation, because in every circumstance of life there is a kind of

individuality, which requires an exertion of judgment to modify

general rules. The being who can think justly in one track, will

soon extend its intellectual empire; and she who has sufficient

judgment to manage her children, will not submit right or wrong, to

her husband, or patiently to the social laws which makes a

nonentity of a wife.

In public schools women, to guard against the errors of ignorance,

should be taught the elements of anatomy and medicine, not only to

enable them to take proper care of their own health, but to make

them rational nurses of their infants, parents, and husbands; for

the bills of mortality are swelled by the blunders of self-willed

old women, who give nostrums of their own, without knowing any

thing of the human frame. It is likewise proper, only in a

domestic view, to make women, acquainted with the anatomy of the

mind, by allowing the sexes to associate together in every pursuit;

and by leading them to observe the progress of the human

understanding in the improvement of the sciences and arts; never

forgetting the science of morality, nor the study of the political

history of mankind.

A man has been termed a microcosm; and every family might also be

called a state. States, it is true, have mostly been governed by

arts that disgrace the character of man; and the want of a just

constitution, and equal laws, have so perplexed the notions of the

worldly wise, that they more than question the reasonableness of

contending for the rights of humanity. Thus morality, polluted in

the national reservoir, sends off streams of vice to corrupt the

constituent parts of the body politic; but should more noble, or

rather more just principles regulate the laws, which ought to be

the government of society, and not those who execute them, duty

might become the rule of private conduct.

Besides, by the exercise of their bodies and minds, women would

acquire that mental activity so necessary in the maternal

character, united with the fortitude that distinguishes steadiness

of conduct from the obstinate perverseness of weakness. For it is

dangerous to advise the indolent to be steady, because they

instantly become rigorous, and to save themselves trouble, punish

with severity faults that the patient fortitude of reason might

have prevented.

But fortitude presupposes strength of mind, and is strength of mind

to be acquired by indolent acquiescence? By asking advice instead

of exerting the judgment? By obeying through fear, instead of

practising the forbearance, which we all stand in need of

ourselves? The conclusion which I wish to draw is obvious; make

women rational creatures and free citizens, and they will quickly

become good wives, and mothers; that is--if men do not neglect the

duties of husbands and fathers.

Discussing the advantages which a public and private education

combined, as I have sketched, might rationally be expected to

produce, I have dwelt most on such as are particularly relative to

the female world, because I think the female world oppressed; yet

the gangrene which the vices, engendered by oppression have

produced, is not confined to the morbid part, but pervades society

at large; so that when I wish to see my sex become more like moral

agents, my heart bounds with the anticipation of the general

diffusion of that sublime contentment which only morality can

diffuse.

CHAPTER 13.

SOME INSTANCES OF THE FOLLY WHICH THE IGNORANCE OF WOMEN GENERATES;

WITH CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS ON THE MORAL IMPROVEMENT THAT A

REVOLUTION IN FEMALE MANNERS MIGHT NATURALLY BE EXPECTED TO

PRODUCE.

There are many follies, in some degree, peculiar to women: sins

against reason, of commission, as well as of omission; but all

flowing from ignorance or prejudice, I shall only point out such as

appear to be injurious to their moral character. And in

animadverting on them, I wish especially to prove, that the

weakness of mind and body, which men have endeavoured by various

motives to perpetuate, prevents their discharging the peculiar duty

of their sex: for when weakness of body will not permit them to

suckle their children, and weakness of mind makes them spoil their

tempers--is woman in a natural state?

SECTION 13.1.

One glaring instance of the weakness which proceeds from ignorance,

first claims attention, and calls for severe reproof.

In this metropolis a number of lurking leeches infamously gain a

subsistence by practising on the credulity of women, pretending to

cast nativities, to use the technical phrase; and many females who,

proud of their rank and fortune, look down on the vulgar with

sovereign contempt, show by this credulity, that the distinction is

arbitrary, and that they have not sufficiently cultivated their

minds to rise above vulgar prejudices. Women, because they have

not been led to consider the knowledge of their duty as the one

thing necessary to know, or, to live in the present moment by the

discharge of it, are very anxious to peep into futurity, to learn

what they have to expect to render life interesting, and to break

the vacuum of ignorance. I must be allowed to expostulate

seriously with the ladies, who follow these idle inventions; for

ladies, mistresses of families, are not ashamed to drive in their

own carriages to the door of the cunning man. And if any of them

should peruse this work, I entreat them to answer to their own

hearts the following questions, not forgetting that they are in the

presence of God.

Do you believe that there is but one God, and that he is powerful,

wise, and good?

Do you believe that all things were created by him, and that all

beings are dependent on him?

Do you rely on his wisdom, so conspicuous in his works, and in your

own frame, and are you convinced, that he has ordered all things

which do not come under the cognizance of your senses, in the same

perfect harmony, to fulfil his designs?

Do you acknowledge that the power of looking into futurity and

seeing things that are not, as if they were, is an attribute of the

Creator? And should he, by an impression on the minds of his

creatures, think fit to impart to them some event hid in the shades

of time, yet unborn, to whom would the secret be revealed by

immediate inspiration? The opinion of ages will answer this

question--to reverend old men, to people distinguished for eminent

piety.

The oracles of old were thus delivered by priests dedicated to the

service of the God, who was supposed to inspire them. The glare of

worldly pomp which surrounded these impostors, and the respect paid

to them by artful politicians, who knew how to avail themselves of

this useful engine to bend the necks of the strong under the

dominion of the cunning, spread a sacred mysterious veil of

sanctity over their lies and abominations. Impressed by such

solemn devotional parade, a Greek or Roman lady might be excused,

if she inquired of the oracle, when she was anxious to pry into

futurity, or inquire about some dubious event: and her inquiries,

however contrary to reason, could not be reckoned impious. But,

can the professors of Christianity ward off that imputation? Can a

Christian suppose, that the favourites of the most High, the highly

favoured would be obliged to lurk in disguise, and practise the

most dishonest tricks to cheat silly women out of the money, which

the poor cry for in vain?

Say not that such questions are an insult to common sense for it is

your own conduct, O ye foolish women! which throws an odium on your

sex! And these reflections should make you shudder at your

thoughtlessness, and irrational devotion, for I do not suppose that

all of you laid aside your religion, such as it is, when you

entered those mysterious dwellings. Yet, as I have throughout

supposed myself talking to ignorant women, for ignorant ye are in

the most emphatical sense of the word, it would be absurd to reason

with you on the egregious folly of desiring to know what the

Supreme Wisdom has concealed.

Probably you would not understand me, were I to attempt to show you

that it would be absolutely inconsistent with the grand purpose of

life, that of rendering human creatures wise and virtuous: and

that, were it sanctioned by God, it would disturb the order

established in creation; and if it be not sanctioned by God, do you

expect to hear truth? Can events be foretold, events which have

not yet assumed a body to become subject to mortal inspection, can

they be foreseen by a vicious worldling, who pampers his appetites

by preying on the foolish ones?

Perhaps, however, you devoutly believe in the devil, and imagine,

to shift the question, that he may assist his votaries? but if

really respecting the power of such a being, an enemy to goodness

and to God, can you go to church after having been under such an

obligation to him. From these delusions to those still more

fashionable deceptions, practised by the whole tribe of

magnetisers, the transition is very natural. With respect to them,

it is equally proper to ask women a few questions.

Do you know any thing of the construction of the human frame? If

not, it is proper that you should be told, what every child ought

to know, that when its admirable economy has been disturbed by

intemperance or indolence, I speak not of violent disorders, but of

chronical diseases, it must be brought into a healthy state again

by slow degrees, and if the functions of life have not been

materially injured, regimen, another word for temperance, air,

exercise, and a few medicines prescribed by persons who have

studied the human body, are the only human means, yet discovered,

of recovering that inestimable blessing health, that will bear

investigation.

Do you then believe, that these magnetisers, who, by hocus pocus

tricks, pretend, to work a miracle, are delegated by God, or

assisted by the solver of all these kind of difficulties--the

devil.

Do they, when they put to flight, as it is said, disorders that

have baffled the powers of medicine, work in conformity to the

light of reason? Or do they effect these wonderful cures by

supernatural aid?

By a communication, an adept may answer, with the world of spirits.

A noble privilege, it must be allowed. Some of the ancients

mention familiar demons, who guarded them from danger, by kindly

intimating (we cannot guess in what manner,) when any danger was

nigh; or pointed out what they ought to undertake. Yet the men who

laid claim to this privilege, out of the order of nature, insisted,

that it was the reward or consequence of superior temperance and

piety. But the present workers of wonders are not raised above

their fellows by superior temperance or sanctity. They do not cure

for the love of God, but money. These are the priests of quackery,

though it be true they have not the convenient expedient of selling

masses for souls in purgatory, nor churches, where they can display

crutches, and models of limbs made sound by a touch or a word.

I am not conversant with the technical terms, nor initiated into

the arcana, therefore I may speak improperly; but it is clear, that

men who will not conform to the law of reason, and earn a

subsistence in an honest way, by degrees, are very fortunate in

becoming acquainted with such obliging spirits. We cannot, indeed,

give them credit for either great sagacity or goodness, else they

would have chosen more noble instruments, when they wished to show

themselves the benevolent friends of man.

It is, however, little short of blasphemy to pretend to such power.

>From the whole tenor of the dispensations of Providence, it appears

evident to sober reason, that certain vices produce certain

effects: and can any one so grossly insult the wisdom of God, as to

suppose, that a miracle will be allowed to disturb his general

laws, to restore to health the intemperate and vicious, merely to

enable them to pursue the same course with impunity? Be whole, and

sin no more, said Jesus. And are greater miracles to be performed

by those who do not follow his footsteps, who healed the body to

reach the mind?

The mentioning of the name of Christ, after such vile impostors may

displease some of my readers--I respect their warmth; but let them

not forget, that the followers of these delusions bear his name,

and profess to be the disciples of him, who said, by their works we

should know who were the children of God or the servants of sin. I

allow that it is easier to touch the body of a saint, or to be

magnetised, than to restrain our appetites or govern our passions;

but health of body or mind can only be recovered by these means, or

we make the Supreme Judge partial and revengeful.

Is he a man, that he should change, or punish out of resentment?

He--the common father, wounds but to heal, says reason, and our

irregularities producing certain consequences, we are forcibly

shown the nature of vice; that thus learning to know good from

evil, by experience, we may hate one and love the other, in

proportion to the wisdom which we attain. The poison contains the

antidote; and we either reform our evil habits, and cease to sin

against our own bodies, to use the forcible language of scripture,

or a premature death, the punishment of sin, snaps the thread of

life.

Here an awful stop is put to our inquiries. But, why should I

conceal my sentiments? Considering the attributes of God, I

believe, that whatever punishment may follow, will tend, like the

anguish of disease, to show the malignity of vice, for the purpose

of reformation. Positive punishment appears so contrary to the

nature of God, discoverable in all his works, and in our own

reason, that I could sooner believe that the Deity paid no

attention to the conduct of men, than that he punished without the

benevolent design of reforming.

To suppose only, that an all-wise and powerful Being, as good as he

is great, should create a being, foreseeing, that after fifty or

sixty years of feverish existence, it would be plunged into never

ending woe--is blasphemy. On what will the worm feed that is never

to die? On folly, on ignorance, say ye--I should blush indignantly

at drawing the natural conclusion, could I insert it, and wish to

withdraw myself from the wing of my God! On such a supposition, I

speak with reverence, he would be a consuming fire. We should

wish, though vainly, to fly from his presence when fear absorbed

love, and darkness involved all his counsels.

I know that many devout people boast of submitting to the Will of

God blindly, as to an arbitrary sceptre or rod, on the same

principle as the Indians worship the devil. In other words, like

people in the common concerns of life, they do homage to power, and

cringe under the foot that can crush them. Rational religion, on

the contrary, is a submission to the will of a being so perfectly

wise, that all he wills must be directed by the proper motive--must

be reasonable.

And, if thus we respect God, can we give credit to the mysterious

insinuations which insult his laws? Can we believe, though it

should stare us in the face, that he would work a miracle to

authorize confusion by sanctioning an error? Yet we must either

allow these impious conclusions, or treat with contempt every

promise to restore health to a diseased body by supernatural means,

or to foretell, the incidents that can only be foreseen by God.

SECTION 13.2.

Another instance of that feminine weakness of character, often

produced by a confined education, is a romantic twist of the mind,

which has been very properly termed SENTIMENTAL.

Women, subjected by ignorance to their sensations, and only taught

to look for happiness in love, refine on sensual feelings, and

adopt metaphysical notions respecting that passion, which lead them

shamefully to neglect the duties of life, and frequently in the

midst of these sublime refinements they plunge into actual vice.

These are the women who are amused by the reveries of the stupid

novelists, who, knowing little of human nature, work up stale

tales, and describe meretricious scenes, all retailed in a

sentimental jargon, which equally tend to corrupt the taste, and

draw the heart aside from its daily duties. I do not mention the

understanding, because never having been exercised, its slumbering

energies rest inactive, like the lurking particles of fire which

are supposed universally to pervade matter.

Females, in fact, denied all political privileges, and not allowed,

as married women, excepting in criminal cases, a civil existence,

have their attention naturally drawn from the interest of the whole

community to that of the minute parts, though the private duty of

any member of society must be very imperfectly performed, when not

connected with the general good. The mighty business of female

life is to please, and, restrained from entering into more

important concerns by political and civil oppression, sentiments

become events, and reflection deepens what it should, and would

have effaced, if the understanding had been allowed to take a wider

range.

But, confined to trifling employments, they naturally imbibe

opinions which the only kind of reading calculated to interest an

innocent frivolous mind, inspires. Unable to grasp any thing

great, is it surprising that they find the reading of history a

very dry task, and disquisitions addressed to the understanding,

intolerably tedious, and almost unintelligible? Thus are they

necessarily dependent on the novelist for amusement. Yet, when I

exclaim against novels, I mean when contrasted with those works

which exercise the understanding and regulate the imagination. For

any kind of reading I think better than leaving a blank still a

blank, because the mind must receive a degree of enlargement, and

obtain a little strength by a slight exertion of its thinking

powers; besides, even the productions that are only addressed to

the imagination, raise the reader a little above the gross

gratification of appetites, to which the mind has not given a shade

of delicacy.

This observation is the result of experience; for I have known

several notable women, and one in particular, who was a very good

woman--as good as such a narrow mind would allow her to be, who

took care that her daughters (three in number) should never see a

novel. As she was a woman of fortune and fashion, they had various

masters to attend them, and a sort of menial governess to watch

their footsteps. From their masters they learned how tables,

chairs, etc. were called in French and Italian; but as the few

books thrown in their way were far above their capacities, or

devotional, they neither acquired ideas nor sentiments, and passed

their time, when not compelled to repeat WORDS, in dressing,

quarrelling with each other, or conversing with their maids by

stealth, till they were brought into company as marriageable.

Their mother, a widow, was busy in the mean time in keeping up her

connexions, as she termed a numerous acquaintance lest her girls

should want a proper introduction into the great world. And these

young ladies, with minds vulgar in every sense of the word, and

spoiled tempers, entered life puffed up with notions of their own

consequence, and looking down with contempt on those who could not

vie with them in dress and parade.

With respect to love, nature, or their nurses, had taken care to

teach them the physical meaning of the word; and, as they had few

topics of conversation, and fewer refinements of sentiment, they

expressed their gross wishes not in very delicate phrases, when

they spoke freely, talking of matrimony.

Could these girls have been injured by the perusal of novels? I

almost forgot a shade in the character of one of them; she affected

a simplicity bordering on folly, and with a simper would utter the

most immodest remarks and questions, the full meaning of which she

had learned whilst secluded from the world, and afraid to speak in

her mother's presence, who governed with a high hand; they were

all educated, as she prided herself, in a most exemplary manner;

and read their chapters and psalms before breakfast, never touching

a silly novel.

This is only one instance; but I recollect many other women who,

not led by degrees to proper studies, and not permitted to choose

for themselves, have indeed been overgrown children; or have

obtained, by mixing in the world, a little of what is termed common

sense; that is, a distinct manner of seeing common occurrences, as

they stand detached: but what deserves the name of intellect, the

power of gaining general or abstract ideas, or even intermediate

ones, was out of the question. Their minds were quiescent, and

when they were not roused by sensible objects and employments of

that kind, they were low-spirited, would cry, or go to sleep.

When, therefore, I advise my sex not to read such flimsy works, it

is to induce them to read something superior; for I coincide in

opinion with a sagacious man, who, having a daughter and niece

under his care, pursued a very different plan with each.

The niece, who had considerable abilities, had, before she was left

to his guardianship, been indulged in desultory reading. Her he

endeavoured to lead, and did lead, to history and moral essays; but

his daughter whom a fond weak mother had indulged, and who

consequently was averse to every thing like application, he allowed

to read novels; and used to justify his conduct by saying, that if

she ever attained a relish for reading them, he should have some

foundation to work upon; and that erroneous opinions were better

than none at all.

In fact, the female mind has been so totally neglected, that

knowledge was only to be acquired from this muddy source, till from

reading novels some women of superior talents learned to despise

them.

The best method, I believe, that can be adopted to correct a

fondness for novels is to ridicule them; not indiscriminately, for

then it would have little effect; but, if a judicious person, with

some turn for humour, would read several to a young girl, and point

out, both by tones and apt comparisons with pathetic incidents and

heroic characters in history, how foolishly and ridiculously they

caricatured human nature, just opinions might be substituted

instead of romantic sentiments.

In one respect, however, the majority of both sexes resemble, and

equally show a want of taste and modesty. Ignorant women, forced

to be chaste to preserve their reputation, allow their imagination

to revel in the unnatural and meretricious scenes sketched by the

novel writers of the day, slighting as insipid the sober dignity

and matronly grace of history,* whilst men carry the same vitiated

taste into life, and fly for amusement to the wanton, from the

unsophisticated charms of virtue, and the grave respectability of

sense.

(*Footnote. I am not now alluding to that superiority of mind

which leads to the creation of ideal beauty, when life surveyed

with a penetrating eye, appears a tragi-comedy, in which little can

be seen to satisfy the heart without the help of fancy.)

Besides, the reading of novels makes women, and particularly ladies

of fashion, very fond of using strong expressions and superlatives

in conversation; and, though the dissipated artificial life which

they lead prevents their cherishing any strong legitimate passion,

the language of passion in affected tones slips for ever from their

glib tongues, and every trifle produces those phosphoric bursts

which only mimick in the dark the flame of passion.

SECTION 13.3.

Ignorance and the mistaken cunning that nature sharpens in weak

heads, as a principle of self-preservation, render women very fond

of dress, and produce all the vanity which such a fondness may

naturally be expected to generate, to the exclusion of emulation

and magnanimity.

I agree with Rousseau, that the physical part of the art of

pleasing consists in ornaments, and for that very reason I should

guard girls against the contagious fondness for dress so common to

weak women, that they may not rest in the physical part. Yet, weak

are the women who imagine that they can long please without the aid

of the mind; or, in other words, without the moral art of pleasing.

But the moral art, if it be not a profanation to use the word art,

when alluding to the grace which is an effect of virtue, and not

the motive of action, is never to be found with ignorance; the

sportiveness of innocence, so pleasing to refined libertines of

both sexes, is widely different in its essence from this superior

gracefulness.

A strong inclination for external ornaments ever appears in

barbarous states, only the men not the women adorn themselves; for

where women are allowed to be so far on a level with men, society

has advanced at least one step in civilization.

The attention to dress, therefore, which has been thought a sexual

propensity, I think natural to mankind. But I ought to express

myself with more precision. When the mind is not sufficiently

opened to take pleasure in reflection, the body will be adorned

with sedulous care; and ambition will appear in tattooing or

painting it.

So far is the first inclination carried, that even the hellish yoke

of slavery cannot stifle the savage desire of admiration which the

black heroes inherit from both their parents, for all the

hardly-earned savings of a slave are commonly expended in a little

tawdry finery. And I have seldom known a good male or female

servant that was not particularly fond of dress. Their clothes

were their riches; and I argue from analogy, that the fondness for

dress, so extravagant in females, arises from the same cause--want

of cultivation of mind. When men meet they converse about

business, politics, or literature; but, says Swift, "how naturally

do women apply their hands to each others lappets and ruffles."

And very natural it is--for they have not any business to interest

them, have not a taste for literature, and they find politics dry,

because they have not acquired a love for mankind by turning their

thoughts to the grand pursuits that exalt the human race and

promote general happiness.

Besides, various are the paths to power and fame, which by accident

or choice men pursue, and though they jostle against each other,

for men of the same profession are seldom friends, yet there is a

much greater number of their fellow-creatures with whom they never

clash. But women are very differently situated with respect to

each other--for they are all rivals.

Before marriage it is their business to please men; and after, with

a few exceptions, they follow the same scent, with all the

persevering pertinacity of instinct. Even virtuous women never

forget their sex in company, for they are for ever trying to make

themselves AGREEABLE. A female beauty and a male wit, appear to be

equally anxious to draw the attention of the company to themselves;

and the animosity of contemporary wits is proverbial.

Is it then surprising, that when the sole ambition of woman centres

in beauty, and interest gives vanity additional force, perpetual

rivalships should ensue? They are all running the same race, and

would rise above the virtue of mortals if they did not view each

other with a suspicious and even envious eye.

An immoderate fondness for dress, for pleasure and for sway, are

the passions of savages; the passions that occupy those uncivilized

beings who have not yet extended the dominion of the mind, or even

learned to think with the energy necessary to concatenate that

abstract train of thought which produces principles. And that

women, from their education and the present state of civilized

life, are in the same condition, cannot, I think, be controverted.

To laugh at them then, or satirize the follies of a being who is

never to be allowed to act freely from the light of her own reason,

is as absurd as cruel; for that they who are taught blindly to obey

authority, will endeavour cunningly to elude it, is most natural

and certain.

Yet let it be proved, that they ought to obey man implicitly, and I

shall immediately agree that it is woman's duty to cultivate a

fondness for dress, in order to please, and a propensity to cunning

for her own preservation.

The virtues, however, which are supported by ignorance, must ever

be wavering--the house built on sand could not endure a storm. It

is almost unnecessary to draw the inference. If women are to be

made virtuous by authority, which is a contradiction in terms, let

them be immured in seraglios and watched with a jealous eye. Fear

not that the iron will enter into their souls--for the souls that

can bear such treatment are made of yielding materials, just

animated enough to give life to the body.

"Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,

And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair."

The most cruel wounds will of course soon heal, and they may still

people the world, and dress to please man--all the purposes which

certain celebrated writers have allowed that they were created to

fill.

SECTION 13.4.

Women are supposed to possess more sensibility, and even humanity,

than men, and their strong attachments and instantaneous emotions

of compassion are given as proofs; but the clinging affection of

ignorance has seldom any thing noble in it, and may mostly be

resolved into selfishness, as well as the affection of children and

brutes. I have known many weak women whose sensibility was

entirely engrossed by their husbands; and as for their humanity, it

was very faint indeed, or rather it was only a transient emotion of

compassion, "Humanity does not consist in a squeamish ear," says

an eminent orator. "It belongs to the mind as well as the nerves."

But this kind of exclusive affection, though it degrade the

individual, should not be brought forward as a proof of the

inferiority of the sex, because it is the natural consequence of

confined views: for even women of superior sense, having their

attention turned to little employments, and private plans, rarely

rise to heroism, unless when spurred on by love; and love as an

heroic passion, like genius, appears but once in an age. I

therefore agree with the moralist who asserts, "that women have

seldom so much generosity as men;" and that their narrow

affections, to which justice and humanity are often sacrificed,

render the sex apparently inferior, especially as they are commonly

inspired by men; but I contend, that the heart would expand as the

understanding gained strength, if women were not depressed from

their cradles.

I know that a little sensibility and great weakness will produce a

strong sexual attachment, and that reason must cement friendship;

consequently I allow, that more friendship is to be found in the

male than the female world, and that men have a higher sense of

justice. The exclusive affections of women seem indeed to resemble

Cato's most unjust love for his country. He wished to crush

Carthage, not to save Rome, but to promote its vain glory; and in

general, it is to similar principles that humanity is sacrificed,

for genuine duties support each other.

Besides, how can women be just or generous, when they are the

slaves of injustice.

SECTION 13.5.

As the rearing of children, that is, the laying a foundation of

sound health both of body and mind in the rising generation, has

justly been insisted on as the peculiar destination of woman, the

ignorance that incapacitates them must be contrary to the order of

things. And I contend, that their minds can take in much more, and

ought to do so, or they will never become sensible mothers. Many

men attend to the breeding of horses, and overlook the management

of the stable, who would, strange want of sense and feeling! think

themselves degraded by paying any attention to the nursery; yet,

how many children are absolutely murdered by the ignorance of

women! But when they escape, and are neither destroyed by

unnatural negligence nor blind fondness, how few are managed

properly with respect to the infant mind! So that to break the

spirit, allowed to become vicious at home, a child is sent to

school; and the methods taken there, which must be taken to keep a

number of children in order, scatter the seeds of almost every vice

in the soil thus forcibly torn up.

I have sometimes compared the struggles of these poor children who

ought never to have felt restraint, nor would, had they been always

held in with an even hand, to the despairing plunges of a spirited

filly, which I have seen breaking on a strand; its feet sinking

deeper and deeper in the sand every time it endeavoured to throw

its rider, till at last it sullenly submitted.

I have always found horses, an animal I am attached to, very

tractable when treated with humanity and steadiness, so that I

doubt whether the violent methods taken to break them, do not

essentially injure them; I am, however, certain that a child should

never be thus forcibly tamed after it has injudiciously been

allowed to run wild; for every violation of justice and reason, in

the treatment of children, weakens their reason. And, so early do

they catch a character, that the base of the moral character,

experience leads me to infer, is fixed before their seventh year,

the period during which women are allowed the sole management of

children. Afterwards it too often happens that half the business

of education is to correct, and very imperfectly is it done, if

done hastily, the faults, which they would never have acquired if

their mothers had had more understanding.

One striking instance of the folly of women must not be omitted.

The manner in which they treat servants in the presence of

children, permitting them to suppose, that they ought to wait on

them, and bear their humours. A child should always be made to

receive assistance from a man or woman as a favour; and, as the

first lesson of independence, they should practically be taught, by

the example of their mother, not to require that personal

attendance which it is an insult to humanity to require, when in

health; and instead of being led to assume airs of consequence, a

sense of their own weakness should first make them feel the natural

equality of man. Yet, how frequently have I indignantly heard

servants imperiously called to put children to bed, and sent away

again and again, because master or miss hung about mamma, to stay a

little longer. Thus made slavishly to attend the little idol, all

those most disgusting humours were exhibited which characterize a

spoiled child.

In short, speaking of the majority of mothers, they leave their

children entirely to the care of servants: or, because they are

their children, treat them as if they were little demi-gods, though

I have always observed, that the women who thus idolize their

children, seldom show common humanity to servants, or feel the

least tenderness for any children but their own.

It is, however, these exclusive affections, and an individual

manner of seeing things, produced by ignorance, which keep women

for ever at a stand, with respect to improvement, and make many of

them dedicate their lives to their children only to weaken their

bodies and spoil their tempers, frustrating also any plan of

education that a more rational father may adopt; for unless a

mother concurs, the father who restrains will ever be considered as

a tyrant.

But, fulfilling the duties of a mother, a woman with a sound

constitution, may still keep her person scrupulously neat, and

assist to maintain her family, if necessary, or by reading and

conversations with both sexes, indiscriminately, improve her mind.

For nature has so wisely ordered things, that did women suckle

their children, they would preserve their own health, and there

would be such an interval between the birth of each child, that we

should seldom see a house full of babes. And did they pursue a

plan of conduct, and not waste their time in following the

fashionable vagaries of dress, the management of their household

and children need not shut them out from literature, nor prevent

their attaching themselves to a science, with that steady eye which

strengthens the mind, or practising one of the fine arts that

cultivate the taste.

But, visiting to display finery, card playing, and balls, not to

mention the idle bustle of morning trifling, draw women from their

duty, to render them insignificant, to render them pleasing,

according to the present acceptation of the word, to every man, but

their husband. For a round of pleasures in which the affections

are not exercised, cannot be said to improve the understanding,

though it be erroneously called seeing the world; yet the heart is

rendered cold and averse to duty, by such a senseless intercourse,

which becomes necessary from habit, even when it has ceased to

amuse.

But, till more equality be established in society, till ranks are

confounded and women freed, we shall not see that dignified

domestic happiness, the simple grandeur of which cannot be relished

by ignorant or vitiated minds; nor will the important task of

education ever be properly begun till the person of a woman is no

longer preferred to her mind. For it would be as wise to expect

corn from tares, or figs from thistles, as that a foolish ignorant

woman should be a good mother.

SECTION 13.6.

It is not necessary to inform the sagacious reader, now I enter on

my concluding reflections, that the discussion of this subject

merely consists in opening a few simple principles, and clearing

away the rubbish which obscured them. But, as all readers are not

sagacious, I must be allowed to add some explanatory remarks to

bring the subject home to reason--to that sluggish reason, which

supinely takes opinions on trust, and obstinately supports them to

spare itself the labour of thinking.

Moralists have unanimously agreed, that unless virtue be nursed by

liberty, it will never attain due strength--and what they say of

man I extend to mankind, insisting, that in all cases morals must

be fixed on immutable principles; and that the being cannot be

termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority but that of

reason.

To render women truly useful members of society, I argue, that they

should be led, by having their understandings cultivated on a large

scale, to acquire a rational affection for their country, founded

on knowledge, because it is obvious, that we are little interested

about what we do not understand. And to render this general

knowledge of due importance, I have endeavoured to show that

private duties are never properly fulfilled, unless the

understanding enlarges the heart; and that public virtue is only an

aggregate of private. But, the distinctions established in society

undermine both, by beating out the solid gold of virtue, till it

becomes only the tinsel-covering of vice; for, whilst wealth

renders a man more respectable than virtue, wealth will be sought

before virtue; and, whilst women's persons are caressed, when a

childish simper shows an absence of mind--the mind will lie fallow.

Yet, true voluptuousness must proceed from the mind--for what can

equal the sensations produced by mutual affection, supported by

mutual respect? What are the cold or feverish caresses of

appetite, but sin embracing death, compared with the modest

overflowings of a pure heart and exalted imagination? Yes, let me

tell the libertine of fancy when he despises understanding in

woman--that the mind, which he disregards, gives life to the

enthusiastic affection from which rapture, short-lived as it is,

alone can flow! And, that, without virtue, a sexual attachment

must expire, like a tallow candle in the socket, creating

intolerable disgust. To prove this, I need only observe, that men

who have wasted great part of their lives with women, and with whom

they have sought for pleasure with eager thirst, entertain the

meanest opinion of the sex. Virtue, true refiner of joy! if

foolish men were to fright thee from earth, in order to give loose

to all their appetites without a check--some sensual wight of taste

would scale the heavens to invite thee back, to give a zest to

pleasure!

That women at present are by ignorance rendered foolish or vicious,

is, I think, not to be disputed; and, that the most salutary

effects tending to improve mankind, might be expected from a

REVOLUTION in female manners, appears at least, with a face of

probability, to rise out of the observation. For as marriage has

been termed the parent of those endearing charities, which draw man

from the brutal herd, the corrupting intercourse that wealth,

idleness, and folly produce between the sexes, is more universally

injurious to morality, than all the other vices of mankind

collectively considered. To adulterous lust the most sacred duties

are sacrificed, because, before marriage, men, by a promiscuous

intimacy with women, learned to consider love as a selfish

gratification--learned to separate it not only from esteem, but

from the affection merely built on habit, which mixes a little

humanity with it. Justice and friendship are also set at defiance,

and that purity of taste is vitiated, which would naturally lead a

man to relish an artless display of affection, rather than affected

airs. But that noble simplicity of affection, which dares to

appear unadorned, has few attractions for the libertine, though it

be the charm, which, by cementing the matrimonial tie, secures to

the pledges of a warmer passion the necessary parental attention;

for children will never be properly educated till friendship

subsists between parents. Virtue flies from a house divided

against itself--and a whole legion of devils take up their

residence there.

The affection of husbands and wives cannot be pure when they have

so few sentiments in common, and when so little confidence is

established at home, as must be the case when their pursuits are so

different. That intimacy from which tenderness should flow, will

not, cannot subsist between the vicious.

Contending, therefore, that the sexual distinction, which men have

so warmly insisted upon, is arbitrary, I have dwelt on an

observation, that several sensible men, with whom I have conversed

on the subject, allowed to be well founded; and it is simply this,

that the little chastity to be found amongst men, and consequent

disregard of modesty, tend to degrade both sexes; and further, that

the modesty of women, characterized as such, will often be only the

artful veil of wantonness, instead of being the natural reflection

of purity, till modesty be universally respected.

>From the tyranny of man, I firmly believe, the greater number of

female follies proceed; and the cunning, which I allow, makes at

present a part of their character, I likewise have repeatedly

endeavoured to prove, is produced by oppression. Were not

dissenters, for instance, a class of people, with strict truth

characterized as cunning? And may I not lay some stress on this

fact to prove, that when any power but reason curbs the free spirit

of man, dissimulation is practised, and the various shifts of art

are naturally called forth? Great attention to decorum, which was

carried to a degree of scrupulosity, and all that puerile bustle

about trifles and consequential solemnity, which Butler's

caricature of a dissenter brings before the imagination, shaped

their persons as well as their minds in the mould of prim

littleness. I speak collectively, for I know how many ornaments to

human nature have been enrolled amongst sectaries; yet, I assert,

that the same narrow prejudice for their sect, which women have for

their families, prevailed in the dissenting part of the community,

however worthy in other respects; and also that the same timid

prudence, or headstrong efforts, often disgraced the exertions of

both. Oppression thus formed many of the features of their

character perfectly to coincide with that of the oppressed half of

mankind; for is it not notorious, that dissenters were like women,

fond of deliberating together, and asking advice of each other,

till by a complication of little contrivances, some little end was

brought about? A similar attention to preserve their reputation

was conspicuous in the dissenting and female world, and was

produced by a similar cause.

Asserting the rights which women in common with men ought to

contend for, I have not attempted to extenuate their faults; but to

prove them to be the natural consequence of their education and

station in society. If so, it is reasonable to suppose, that they

will change their character, and correct their vices and follies,

when they are allowed to be free in a physical, moral, and civil

sense.

Let woman share the rights, and she will emulate the virtues of

man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated, or justify

the authority that chains such a weak being to her duty. If the

latter, it will be expedient to open a fresh trade with Russia for

whips; a present which a father should always make to his

son-in-law on his wedding day, that a husband may keep his whole

family in order by the same means; and without any violation of

justice reign, wielding this sceptre, sole master of his house,

because he is the only being in it who has reason; the divine,

indefeasible, earthly sovereignty breathed into man by the Master

of the universe. Allowing this position, women have not any

inherent rights to claim; and, by the same rule their duties

vanish, for rights and duties are inseparable.

Be just then, O ye men of understanding! and mark not more severely

what women do amiss, than the vicious tricks of the horse or the

ass for whom ye provide provender, and allow her the privileges of

ignorance, to whom ye deny the rights of reason, or ye will be

worse than Egyptian task-masters, expecting virtue where nature has

not given understanding!