I79I* SOPHIA ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 3I5 



namentsand folacements of domertic fociety. In you, 

 Sophia, I fee the happy proof of the truth and efllcacy 

 of your fyfteni ; and in that plan you have my approba-" 

 tion to proceed. Here Eugenius ended his delightful 

 difcourfe. The children were playing around U5 on a 

 meadow greener than velvet ; the Ihcep were fporting 

 around them ; the fun was about to defcend into the 

 weftern wave, and fpread a golden light on the empur- 

 pled hills at a diftance; the thrulh, the wood lark and all 

 the evening birds were joining in chorus with our 

 friends in the caffirio "; the fragrance of the dewy 

 flowers filled all the ambient air ; my hand was grafped 

 by my affedionate Eugenius ; and my thoughts were 

 elevated by all that nature, and fentiment, and t xuly, 

 could infpire in the contemplation of their refpective 

 bsauties. Everything fmiled around me ; and i iefoiv-«. 

 ed to deferve it. 



I iliall not trouble you with the progrelTive fteps of 

 my inRrUiflion to my young ladies, as it refimbled in 

 mod refpeds, the ordinary mode adopted in the bell a- 

 cademies for the education of boys, with due attention, 

 when neceffary, to the difference of the fex. I difcover- 

 ed the various propenfities of my daughters and their 

 friends ; one had a decided turn for mufic, another for 

 drawing, a third for natural hillory in general, a fourth 

 for botany, a fifth for hillory and the fciences conneft- 

 ed witli it, and the fixth for aftronomy and. the ftndy of 

 natural philofophy. All of them were taught in per- 

 feftion, what was eiTentially necefiary for women, as 

 houfewives ; and the clergyman's daughters were com- 

 pletely fitted for governeiies in the bell families, with 

 the additional capacity of being abis to teach the icien- 

 ces in the manner of preceptors. 



I v/as particularly careful, as their capacities opened, 

 in the inflitution of my young ladies in the principles of 

 univerfal grammar, logic and ethics ; after whicli, trom 

 natural theology, I led them to the (ludy of the principles uf 



