"Women, however, are not designed to govern the state, or to command armies; to plead in Westminster Hall, or to preach in the church; and therefore need not study the sciences leading to those several professions. But there are employments suited to them, and to which they ought to be suited; and no small degree of knowledge is required to suit them. The knowledge that is necessary for men, may not be necessary for them; but they are not, for that reason, to be left in igno

rance.

"A young woman that is ignorant will be idle, because she knows not what to do; if she is idle, she will soon be miserable; because, throughout the world, from the highest to the lowest, happiness consists in employment; if she is miserable, she will seek to relieve her misery by wandering abroad, running after shows and diversions. When she is arrived thus far, she may soon go farther; she may become vicious herself, and then most probably will spend the rest of her life in making others so that have the misfortune to fall in her way. And how many these may be, who can say? The bad education of women doth generally even more mischief than that of men; since the vices of men often proceed either from the ill education they received at first from their mothers, or else from the passions which other women inspire into them at a riper age. "Female influence always has been, and always must be, very great in the world; and therefore it

is in the power of a well educated woman, whatever be her station, to do much good in it.

"How valuable to a family is a prudent and faithful servant of this sex, and of what vast importance to the temporal interests of a master or mistress has such an one proved!-sometimes to interests of a higher nature. Curious, to this purpose, is the story told in the fifth chapter of the second book of Kings. The Syrians had invaded the land of Israel, and, among other prisoners, had brought away captive a little maid, and she waited on the wife of Naaman, the king of Syria's general, a man of high renown, and in great favour at court, but afflicted with a terrible and loathsome disease, the leprosy, incurable by human means. This servant, who had been educated in the true religion, and therefore knew the power of the God of Israel, and the miracles wrought by the hands of his prophets, grieving at the unhappy condition of her new master, expressed her wishes to her mistress that he would apply for help to Elisha. 'Would God,' said she,

my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria; for he would recover him of his leprosy.' The words were so remarkable, that presently one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maid, that is of the land of Israel.' The consequence was, that the general took a journey to the prophet, and was not only cured of his leprosy, but became a convert to the true religion, and worshipped the God of Elisha. And how often have

persons in the highest stations been excited to good, or restrained from evil, at the instance or by the example of an inferior in the train of their own servants, who had been taught in early youth, what they perhaps had never learned, or, in the hour of passion, had forgotten!

"The importance of female education will rise in our opinion, if we consider women as persons who may become wives, and mistresses of families. In this situation, they have duties to perform which lie at the very foundation of human life; the support or the ruin of families depends upon their conduct. They have the direction of household affairs; they, consequently, determine the greatest concerns of mankind, and form the good or evil manners of almost all the world. A judicious woman, that is diligent and religious, is the very soul of a house; she gives orders for the good things of this life, and for those too of eternity. Men themselves, who have all the authority in public, cannot yet by their deliberations establish any effectual good, without the concurring assistance of women to carry them into execution. Besides their authority and their continual attendance in their houses, they have the advantage of being by nature careful, attentive to particulars, industrious, insinuating, and persuasive. And how can the men hope for any content in life, if their strictest friendship and alliance, which is that of marriage, be turned into disappointment and bitterness?

"But a matter of more weight is still behind. As mothers, women have, for some time, and that the most critical time too, the care of the education of their children of both sorts, who, in the next age, are to make up the great body of the world. And as the health and strength, or sickliness and weakness of our bodies, are very much owing to their methods of treating us when we were young; so the soundness or folly of our minds are not less owing to those first tempers and ways of thinking, which we eagerly received from the love, tenderness, authority, and constant conversation of our mothers. As we call our first language our mother tongue, so we may as justly call our first tempers our mother tempers; and perhaps it may be found more easy to forget the language, than to part entirely with those tempers which we learnt in the nursery.

"That mothers, where they themselves have been well instructed, are more capable than men, of teaching their children, will appear from these considerations. First, from their circumstances and condition of life: they are more within doors; have more time to spare; are best acquainted with their children's tempers; and always have them in their eye. Secondly, they have an advantage from their own make and frame of mind; they are generally more apprehensive of danger, and of what may come hereafter, than men are. This makes them more concerned for their children's everlasting welfare, and solicitous to teach them what they know them

selves. Then, they are of a milder disposition; can bear with their children's infirmities, and correct them with a tenderness, which even recommends a necessary severity. By this means their children come to love them, and to be fond of their instruction, and to imitate their example. Besides all this, they are more patient of this kind of labour than men are. It is not the child's dulness, nor the necessity of often repeating the same things, that will weary or discourage the pious mother. And, which is not to be omitted, she has an opportunity of seeing whether her instructions are apprehended and followed; of destroying vices, while they are in bud; as also, of encouraging every commendable word and action, in its season.

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"In one word. The mothers have an opportunity, both by their instruction and example, of fixing such lasting impressions upon their children's minds, as, by the blessing of God upon their endeavours, neither the iniquity of the age, nor the enemy of mankind, shall ever be able to blot out 1.

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A proper and effectual education of the female sex, is one of the very first steps to be taken for the effectual improvement and civilization of the whole empire. For children fall inevitably into the hands and under the care of women, in their infant state therefore their first and strongest impressions will be good or bad, salutary or destructive, according to the morals, character, and conduct of those women, under whose early tuition they may fall.'—Dr. Brown's Sketch of a Plan of Legislation for the Russian Empire, given in the Biographia Britannica, vol. ii. 664, 2d edition.".