224 ON FEMALE EDUCATION AND OCCUPATIONS. 



From such teachers, generally speaking, (for native 

 talent and peculiar circumstances will always produce 

 respectable exceptions,) what results can be expected ? 

 from such culture what fruit can we hope to gather ? 

 Are wives and mothers formed in such schools, or in 

 their offspring are good citizens and patriots to be 

 looked for ? They may glitter and dazzle during the 

 transient period of youth ; but will they become useful 

 when they cease to be ornamental ? While half of the 

 human species are thus treated and trained, the philo- 

 sopher and the philanthropist will labour in vain for 

 the advance of civilization, and the improvement of 

 social order. Can men sow tares and hope to reap 

 wheat ! 



Among the superior ranks in female life, where 

 there is no need to barter accomplishments for support, 

 education is often similarly directed ; not to the culti- 

 vation of intellect, not to the formation of ^principle, 

 but to showy accomplishments and external grace. 

 Woman is seldom the companion and helpmate, but 

 frequently the toy or the drudge clF man. If she par- 

 takes in the diffusion of literature, it is the belles lettres 

 only over which she skims. Modem book societies 

 have banished the old English classical writers ; our 

 youth, our female youth more especially, are scarcely 

 acquainted with the titles of their works. Book soci- 

 eties circulate only what is new, the various tastes and 

 opinions of the subscribers prohibit even in what is 

 new all that is solid ; politics and religion, the only 

 subjects of vital importance, as embracing the present 

 and future interests of the human race, are strictly 

 proscribed, as tending to controversy and offence. 

 The light novelty of the day is exclusively admitted 

 and read, and the succession of such novelties is too 

 quick to leave any lasting impression or time for other 

 studies. The reading of the morning supplies topics 

 for prattle and display in the drawing room circle of 

 the evening ; all talk from a common reservoir, few or 

 none from a source : literature itself becomes but an- 

 other mode for exhibition, another means for a vain 

 display. 



