284 Education. 



cation has also been promoted by the writings of 

 Archbishop FENELON,Dr. Gregory, Dr. Fordyce, 

 Mr. Bennett, Dr. Darwin, and some others. 

 Even the celebrated work of Rousseau has contri- 

 buted to this end, notwithstanding the visionary 

 and erroneous principles with which it abounds. 



But while female talents have been more justly 

 appreciated, and more generally improved, espe- 

 cially during the latter half of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, certain extravagant and mischievous doc- 

 trines relating to that sex have arisen within this 

 period, and obtained considerable currency. These 

 doctrines are the following, viz. " That there is 

 no difference between the powers and tendencies 

 of the male and female mind; that women are as 

 capable of performing, and as fit to perform, all 

 the duties and offices of life as men; that their 

 education should be the same with that of the 

 men; in a word, that, except in the business of 

 love, all distinctions of sex should be forgotten and 

 confounded." These opinions, if not wholly new, 

 and peculiar to the last age, have doubtless ob- 

 tained a currency, within a few years past, which 

 they never before had, and which has produced 

 much interesting discussion, and very sensible ef- 

 fects in society. 



The most conspicuous advocate of these opi- 

 nions is the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft/ 

 whose ingenious vindication of the Rights of Wo- 

 man is universally known ; and whose licentious 

 practice renders her memory odious to every friend 

 of virtue. In her principles on this subject she 

 has been followed by several of her own sex, as 

 well as by a few male writers. To the former 

 class belongs Mary Hays, who, in her Novels 



i As this lady is better known by her maiden name than by that which, 

 she assumed after becoming; the wife of Mr. Godwin, the former if 

 retained. 



