294 Education. 



the friends of virtue and happiness cannot content 

 plate with un mingled pleasure. By far too great 

 a portion of the reading of females is directed to 

 Novels, and other productions of light and frivo- 

 lous character, which, at best, can only amuse, and 

 which often exert a corrupting influence, instead of 

 enlightening the mind, and forming it to a love of 

 wisdom and virtue. Hence the frequent com-? 

 plaint, among the sober and discerning, that mo- 

 dern female education is calculated to make su- 

 perficial, assuming and dissipated, rather than wise 

 and useful women; and that they have just learn- 

 ing enough to detach them from the peculiar and 

 proper duties of their sex, but not sufficient to ex- 

 pand, enrich, and regulate their minds. This com- 

 plaint has, doubtless, some foundation. 9 But in- 

 stead of proving that a taste for literature is impro- 

 per or injurious in females, it only serves to admo- 

 nish us, that their studies should be more extensive 

 and better directed ; that an acquaintance with 

 novels only will never make any woman a good 

 housewife, mother, friend, or christian; and that 

 literature in them, as well as the other sex, though, 

 in itself, an invaluable blessing, may be perverted 

 into a heavy curse. 



The elegant accomplishments of music and 

 drawing were also more commonly made a part 

 of female education, at the close of the eighteenth 

 century, than at any former period with the his- 



f If the statement given in a former page, respecting the character and 

 destination of the female sex, be just, then engaging in literary pursuits of 

 such a kindy or to such a degree, as will render them either unfit or indis- 

 posed to act in their peculiar domestic sphere, is, in ordinary cases, unwise 

 and mischievous. This remark applies, with particular force, to that kind 

 of reading which has a tendency to consume time, without conferring 

 a single advantage of solid information, or of real wisdom. Those young 

 ladies who, instead of studying theology, morals, grammar, geography, 

 history, chemistry, &c. give all their reading hours to Novels, would do 

 well to ask themselves, how far this kind of employment is likely to qualify 

 them to be dignified heads of families, respectable companions of their hu»= 

 bands, or useful members of society ? 



