hich they are possessed, are encouraged, principles will be
abandoned in order to gratify passions.--Females are taught frivolous
accomplishments in place of what would be useful, and expensive
vanity is substituted for that modest dignity that should be taught; the
consequence is, that, in every rank of life, according to her station, the
woman aims at being above it, and affects the manners and dress of
her superiors.

There is too much pains taken with adorning the person, and too little
with instructing the mind, in every civilized country; and when
women are wise, and good, and virtuous, it is more owing to nature
than to education.

As, indeed, the duties of a woman, in ordinary life, are of a nature
more difficult to describe than those of a man, who, when he has
learnt a trade, has little more to do, the care employed in seeing that
proper persons only are intrusted with the important office of teaching
them to perform those duties ought to be proportionally great.

The farther remarks on the subject of education are deferred to the
Fourth Book =sic--there is none.=, where place and circumstances
come into consideration. It is, however, to be observed, that, in all
cases, as a nation becomes more wealthy, the business of education
becomes more important, and has a natural tendency to be worse
managed; it therefore demands a double share of attention.

If the women of a nation are badly educated, it must have a great
effect on the education of their sons, and the conduct of their
husbands. The Spartan and Roman mothers had the glory of making
[end of page #100] their sons esteem bravery, and those qualities in a
man that were most wanted in their state of society. It should be one
part of female education to know and admire the qualities that are
estimable in the other sex. To obtain the approbation of the other sex,
is, at a certain time of life, the greatest object of ambition, and it is
never a matter of indifference.

The great general error consists in considering the woman merely in
her identical self, without thinking of her influence on others. It
appears to be for this reason, that writers on political economy have
paid no attention to female education; but we find no state in which
the virtue of men has been preserved where the women had none;
though there are examples of women preserving their virtues,
notwithstanding the torrent of corruption by which that of the men has
been swept away. [end of