Education. 285 



and Philosophical Disquisitions, has endeavoured, 

 with great art and plausibility, to recommend the 

 principles of this mischievous school. 



It cannot be denied that a total mistake con- 

 cerning the capacity and importance of the female 

 sex, has long held that part of our species under a 

 most degrading thraldom, and obscured the por- 

 tion of intellectual and moral excellence which 

 they possess. It may also, with truth, be granted, 

 that the idea of an original difference between the 

 mental characters and powers of the two sexes 

 has been pushed greatly too far, and been made a 

 source of long-continued and essential injury to 

 women. Females, if it were practicable or proper 

 to give them, in all respects, the same education 

 as that bestowed on men, would probably discover 

 nearly equal talents, and exhibit little difference 

 in their intellectual structure and energies. But 

 is it possible, or consistent with the obvious in- 

 dications of nature, to give them precisely the 

 same education as is given to the male part of our 

 species ? That this is neither practicable nor de- 

 sirable will appear from the following consider^ 

 ations. 



First. Women are obviously destined to different 

 employments and pursuits from men. This is evi- 

 dent from various considerationr. Among all the 

 classes of animals with which we are acquainted, 

 the female is smaller, weaker, and usually more 

 timid than the male. This fact cannot be ascribed 

 to difference of education, to accident, or to per- 

 verted systems of living among the inferior animals ; 

 for it is uniform, and nearly, if not entirely, uni- 

 versal, applying to all countries, climates, and situa- 

 tions; and if ever we may expect to find nature 

 pure and unperverted, it must be among the brutal 

 tribes. The same fact applies to the human spe- 

 cies. The bodies of women, in general, are smaller 



