nal Persons. And
is not the incuring of general dislike, one of the strongest
discouragements that we can have to any thing?

If the assistance of Mothers be, as I have already affirm'd it is,
necessary to the right forming of the Minds, and regulating of the
Manners of their Children; I am not in the wrong in reckoning (as I
do) that this care is indispensibly a Mothers Duty. Now it cannot, I
think, be doubted, but that a Mothers Concurrence and Care is thus
necessary, if we consider that this is a work which can never be too
soon begun, it being rarely at all well performed, if not betimes
undertaken; nothing being so effectual to the making Men vertuous, as
to have good Habits and Principles of Vertue establish'd in them
before the Mind is tainted with any thing opposite or prejudicial
hereunto. Those therefore must needs much over-look the chief Business
of Education, or have little consider'd the Constitution of Humane
Nature, that reckon for nothing the first eight or ten Years of a Boys
Life; an Age wherein Fathers, who seldom are able to do it at any
time, can neither charge themselves with the care of their Children,
nor be the watchful inspectors of those that they must be trusted to;
who usually and unavoidably by most Parents, are a sort of People far
fitter to be Learners than Teachers of the Principles of Vertue and
Wisdom; the great Foundation of both which consists in being able to
govern our Passions, and subject our Appetites to the direction of our
Reason: A Lesson hardly ever well learnt, if it be not taught us from
our very Cradles. To do which requires no less than a Parents Care and
Watchfulness; and therefore ought undoubtedly to be the Mothers
business to look after, under whose Eye they are. An exemption from
which, Quality (even of the highest degree) cannot give; since the
Relation between the Mother and Child is equal amongst all Ranks of
People. And it is a very preposterous Abuse of Quality to make it a
pretence for being unnatural. This is a Truth which perhaps would
displease many Ladies were it told them, and therefore, probably, it
is that they so seldom hear it: But none of them could be so much
offended with any one for desiring hereby to restrain them from some
of their expensive and ridiculous Diversions, by an employment so
worthy of Rational Creatures, and so becoming of maternal tenderness,
as it is just to be with them for neglecting their Children: A Fault
that women of Quali