In France, convents had, at all times, prior to the revolution,
enjoyed the exclusive privilege of bringing up young women; and some
families had, for a century past, preserved the habit of sending all
their daughters to be St. Ursulas, in order to enter afterwards into
the world as virtuous wives and tender mothers. The natural result
was, that, if the principles of excessive piety which had been
communicated to them remained deeply engraved in their heart, they
employed the whole day in the duties required by the catholic
religion; and the confessor who dictated all these habitual
practices, not unfrequently became the director of the temporal
concerns of the family, as well as the spiritual. If the young girls,
in emerging from the cells of a convent, were disposed to lay aside
their religious practices, in order to adopt the customs and
pleasures of the world, this sudden transition, from one extreme to
the other, made them at once abandon, not only the puerile minutiæ,
but also the sacred principles of religion. There was no medium. They
either became outrageous devotees, and, neglecting the respectable
duties of housewives and mistresses of a family, wrapped themselves
up in a great hood, and were incessantly on their knees before the
altars of the churches, or, on the other hand, rushed into
extravagance and dissipation, and, likewise, deserting a family which
claimed their care, dishonoured themselves by the licentiousness of
their manners.
At the present time, many women of good abilities and character,
deprived of their property by the vicissitudes of the revolution,
have established, in Paris and its environs, seminaries, where young
girls receive such advice as is most useful to females who are
destined to live in the world, and acquirements, which, by employing
them agreeably several hours in the day, contribute to the interior
happiness of their family, and make them find charms in a domestic
life. In short, the superiority of female education in France is
decidedly in favour of the present system, whether considered in
regard to mental improvement, health, or beauty. With respect to the
morals inculcated in these modern French boarding schools, the best
answer to all the prejudices might be entertained against them, is
that the men, who have married women there educated, find that they
prove excellent wives, and that their accomplishments serve only to
embellish their virtues.