CHAPTER II. On the education of women.-The prevailing system tends to establish the errors which it ought to correct. Dangers arising from an excessive cultivation of the arts. It is far from being the object of this slight work to offer a regular plan of female education, a task which has been often more properly assumed by far abler writers; but it is intended rather to suggest a few remarks on the reigning mode, which, though it has had many panegyrists, appears to be defective, not only in certain particulars, but as a general system. There are indeed numberless honourable exceptions to an observation which will be thought severe; yet the author would ask, whether it be not the natural tendency of the prevailing and popular mode to excite and promote those very evils which it ought to be the main end and object of Christian instruction to remove? Whether the reigning system does not tend to weaken the principles it ought to strengthen, and to dissolve the heart it should fortify? Whether, instead of directing the grand and important engine of education to attack and destroy vanity, selfishness, and inconsideration, that triple alliance, in strict and constant league against female virtue; the combined powers of instruction are not sedulously confederated in confirming their strength and establishing their empire? If indeed the material substance, if the body and limbs, with the organs and senses, be really the more valuable objects of attention, then there is little room for animadversion and improvement: but if the immaterial and immortal mind; if the heart, "out of which are the issues of life," be the main concern; if the great business of education be to implant right ideas, to communicate useful knowledge, to form a correct taste, and a sound judgment, to resist evil propensitics, and, above all, to seize the favourable season for infusing principles and confirming habits; if education be a school to fit us for life, and life be a school to fit us for eternity; if such, I repeat it, be the chief work and grand ends of education, it may then be worth inquiring how far these ends are likely to be effected by the prevailing system. Is it not a fundamental error to consider children as innocent beings, whose little weaknesses may perhaps want some correction, rather than as beings who bring into the world a corrupt nature and evil dispositions, which it should be the great end of education to rectify? This appears to be such a foundation-truth, that if I were asked what quality is most important in an instructor of youth, I should not hesitate to reply, "Such a strong impression of the corruption of our nature, as should ensure a disposition to counteract it; together with such a deep view and thorough knowledge of the human heart, as should be necessary for developing and controlling its most secret and complicated workings." And let us remember, that to know the world, as it is called, that is, to know its local manners, temporary usages, and evanescent fashions, is not to know human nature; and that where this prime knowledge is wanting, those natural evils which ought to be counteracted will be fostered. Vanity, for instance, is reckoned among the light and venial errors of youth; nay, so far from being treated as a dangerous enemy, it is often called in as an auxiliary. At worst, it is considered as a harmless weakness, which subtracts little from the value of a character; as a natural effervescence, which will subside of itself, when the first ferment of the youthful passions shall have done working. But those persons know little of the conformation of the human, and especially of the female heart, who fancy that vanity is ever exhausted by the mere operation of time and events. Let those who maintain this opinion look into our places of public resort, and there behold if the ghost of departed beauty is not, to its last flitting, fond of haunting the scenes of its past pleasures. The soul, unwilling (if I may borrow an allusion from the Platonic mythology) to quit the spot in which the body enjoyed its former delights, still continues to hover about the same place, though the same pleasures are no longer to be found there. Disappointments indeed may divert vanity into a new direction; prudence may prevent it from breaking out into excesses, and age may prove that it is "vexation of spirit:" but neither disappointment, prudence, nor age can cure it; for they do not correct the principle. Nay, the very disappointment itself serves as a painful evidence of its protracted existence. Since then there is a season when the youthful must cease to be young, and the beautiful to excite admiration; to learn how to grow old gracefully is perhaps one of the rarest and most valuable arts which can be taught to woman. And it must be confessed it is a most severe trial for those woman to be called to lay down beauty, who have nothing else to take up. It is for this sober season of life that education should lay up its rich resources. However disregarded they may hitherto have been, they will be wanted now. When admirers fall away, and flatterers become mute, the mind will be driven to retire into itself; and if it find no entertainment at home, it will be driven back again upon the world with increased force. Yet, forgetting this, do we not seem to educate our daughters, exclusively, for the transient period of youth, when it is to maturer life we ought to advert? Do we not educate them for a crowd, forgetting that they are to live at home? for the world, and not for themselves? for show, and not for use? for time, and not for eternity? Vanity (and the same may be said of selfishness) is not to be resisted like any other vice, which is sometimes busy, and sometimes quiet; it is not to be attacked as a single fault, which is indulged in opposition to a single virtue; but it is uniformly to be controlled, as an active, a restless, a growing principle, at constant war with all the Christian graces; which not only mixes itself with all our faults, but insinuates itself into all our virtues too; and will, if not checked effectually, rob our best actions of their reward. Vanity, if I may use the analogy, is, with respect to the other vices, what feeling is in regard to the other senses; it is not confined in its operation to the eye, or the ear, or any single organ, but is diffused through the whole being, alive in every part, awakened and communicated by the slightest touch! Not a few of the evils of the present day arise from a new and perverted application of terms: among these, perhaps, there is not one more abused, misunderstood, or misapplied, that the term "accomplishments." This word, in its original meaning, signifies completeness, perfection. But I may safely appeal to the observation of mankind, whether they do not meet with swarms of youthful females, issuing from our boarding-schools, as well as emerging from the more private scenes of domestic education, who are introduced into the world, under the broad and universal title of "accomplished young ladies," of all of whom it cannot very truly and correctly be pronounced, that they illustrate the definition, by a completeness which leaves nothing to be added, and a perfection which leaves nothing to be desired. This frenzy of accomplishments, unhappily, is no longer restricted within the usual limits of rank and fortune; the middle orders have caught the contagion, and it rages downward with increasing and destructive violence, from the elegantly dressed but slenderly portioned curate's daughter, to the equally fashionable daughter of the little tradesman, and of the more opulent but not more judicious farmer. And is it not obvious, that as far as this epidemical mania has spread, this very valuable part of society is declining in usefulness, as it rises in its ill-founded pretensions to elegance? till this rapid revolution of the manners of the middle class has so far altered the character of the age, as to be in danger of rendering obsolete the heretofore common saying, "that most worth and virtue are to be found in the middle station?" For I do not scruple to assert, that in general, as far as my little observation has extended, this class of females, in what relates both to religious knowledge and to practical industry, falls short both of the very high and the very low. Their new course of education, and the indolent habits of life and elegance of dress connected with it, peculiarly unfits them for the active duties of their own very important condition; while, with frivolous eagerness, and secondhand opportunities, they run to snatch a few of those showy acquirements which decorate the great. This is done apparently with one or other of these views; either to make their fortune by marriage, or, if that fail, to qualify them to become teachers of others: hence the abundant multiplication of superficial wives, and of incompetent and illiterate governesses. The use of the pencil, the performance of exquisite but unnecessary works, the study of foreign languages and of music, require (with some exceptions which should always be made in favour of great natural genius) a degree of leisure which belongs exclusively to affluence.* One use of learning languages is, not that we may know what the terms which express the articles of our dress and our table are called in French or Italian; nor that we may think over a few ordinary phrases in English, and then translate them, without one foreign idiom; for he who cannot think in a language, cannot be said to understand it; but the great use of acquiring any foreign language is, either that it enables us occasionally to converse with foreigners unacquainted with any other, or that it is a key to the literature of the country to which it belongs. Now, those humbler females, the chief part of whose time is required for domestic offices, are little likely to fall in the way of foreigners; and, so far from enjoying opportunities for the acquisition of foreign literature, they have seldom time to possess themselves of much of that valuable knowledge which the books of their own country so abundantly furnish; and the acquisition of which would be so much more useful and honourable than the paltry accessions they *Those among the class in question, whose own good sense leads them to avoid these mistaken pursuits, cannot be offended at a reproof which does not belong to them. make, by hammering out the meaning of a few passages in a tongue they but imperfectly understand, and of which they are never likely to make any use. It would be well if the reflection how eagerly this redundancy of accomplishments is seized on by their inferiors, were to operate as in the case of other absurd fashions: the rich and great being seldom brought to renounce any mode or custom, from the mere consideration that it is preposterous, or that it is wrong; while they are frightened into its immediate relinquishment, from the pressing consideration that the vulgar are beginning to adopt it. But, to return to that more elevated, and on account of their more extended influence only, that more important class of females, to whose use this little work is more immediately dedicated. Some popular authors on the subject of female instruction had for a time established a fantastic code of artificial manners. They had refined elegance into insipidity, frittered down delicacy into frivolousness, and reduced manner into minauderie.* "But to lisp, and to amble, and to nickname God's creatures,” has nothing to do with true gentleness of mind; and to be silly makes no necessary part of softness. Another class of contemporary authors turned all the force of their talents to excite emotions, to inspire sentiment, and to reduce all mental and moral excellence into sympathy and feeling. These softer qualities were elevated at the expense of principle; and young women were incessantly hearing unqualified sensibility extolled as the perfection of their nature; till those who really possessed this amiable quality, instead of directing, and chastising, and restraining it, were in danger of fostering it to their hurt, and began to consider themselves as deriving their excellence from its excess; while those less interesting damsels, who happened not to find any of this amiable sensibility in their hearts, but thought it creditable to have it somewhere, fancied its seat was in the nerves - and here indeed it was easily found or feigned-till a false and excessive display of feeling became so predominant, as to bring in question the actual existence of that true tenderness, without which, though a woman may be worthy, she can never be amiable.. Fashion then, by one of her sudden and rapid turns, instantaneously struck out both real sensibility, and the affectation of it, from the standing list of female perfections; and, by a quick touch of her magic wand, shifted the scene, and at once produced the bold and independent beauty, the intrepid female, the hoyden, the huntress, and the archer; the swinging arms, the confident address, the regimental, and the four-in-hand. Such self-complacent heroines mades us ready to regret their softer predecessors, who had aimed only at pleasing the other sex, while these aspiring fair ones struggled for the bolder renown of rivalling them: the project failed; for, whereas the former had sued for admiration, the latter challenged, seized, compelled it; but the men, as was natural, continued to prefer the more modest claimant to the sturdy competitor. It would be well if we, who have the advantage of contemplating the errors of the two extremes, were to look for truth where she is commonly to be found, in the plain and obvious middle path, equally remote from each excess; and, while we bear in mind that helplessness is not * Affectation. delicacy, let us also remember that masculine manners do not necessarily include strength of character nor vigour of intellect. Should we not reflect also, that we are neither to train up Amazons nor Circassians, but that it is our business to form Christians? that we have to educate not only rational, but accountable beings? and, remembering this, should we not be solicitous to let our daughters learn of the well taught, and associate with the well-bred? In training them, should we not carefully cultivate intellect, implant religion, and cherish modesty? Then, whatever is engaging in manners would be the natural result of whatever is just in sentiment, and correct in principle; softness would grow out of humility, and external delicacy would spring from purity of heart. Then the decorums, the proprieties, the elegances, and even the graces, as far as they are simple, pure, and honest, would follow as an almost inevitable consequence; for to follow in the train of the Christian virtues, and not to take the lead of them, is the proper place which religion assigns to the graces. Whether we have made the best use of the errors of our predecessors, and of our own numberless advantages, and whether the prevailing system be really consistent with sound policy, true taste, or Christian principle, it may be worth our while to inquire. Would not a stranger be led to imagine, by a view of the reigning mode of female education, that human life consisted of one universal holiday, and that the grand contest between the several competitors was who should be most eminently qualified to excel, and carry off the prize, in the various shows and games which were intended to be exhibited in it? And to the exhibitors themselves, would he not be ready to apply Sir Francis Bacon's observation on the Olympian victors, that they were so excellent in these unnecessary things, that their perfection must needs have been acquired by the neglect of whatever was necessary? What would the polished Addison, who thought that one great end of a lady's learning to dance was, that she might know how to sit still gracefully; what would even the pagan historian* of the great Roman conspirator, who could commemorate it among the defects of his hero's accomplished mistress, "that she was too good a singer and dancer for a virtuous woman ;"-what would these refined critics have said, had they lived as we have done, to see the art of dancing lifted into such importance, that it cannot with any degree of safety be confided to one instructor; but a whole train of successive masters are considered as absolutely essential to its perfection? What would these accurate judges of female manners have said, to see a modest young lady first delivered into the hands of a military sergeant, to instruct her in the feminine art of marching? and when this delicate acquisition is attained, to see her transferred to a professor, who is to teach her the Scotch steps; which professor, having communicated his indispensable portion of this indispensable art, makes way for the professor of French dances; and all perhaps, in their turn, either yield to, or have the honour to co-operate with, a finishing master; each probably receiving a stipend which would make the pious curate or the learned chaplain rich and happy? The science of music, which used to be communicated in so competent VOL. I. |