Mary Wollstonecraft pleads the necessity of giving woman an education like that which is granted to man, that she may learn to take Reason for her guide. Only then will she be able to perform the specific duties of her sex. But there is a weightier argument for the cultivation of Reason in women. Their deplorable deficiency in this quality has so far made them consider only earthly interests and disqualified them from looking beyond the affairs of this world to the promise of that eternity for which only the soul can fit them. It is in pointing out the evil consequences to the soul of a life devoted to pleasure that Mary's pleadings attain their greatest depth of pathos and intensity. The profound piety of her character makes her protest against this sordid view of life.
"Surely" she exclaims, "she has not an immortal soul who can loiter life away merely employed to adorn her person that she may amuse the languid hours and soften the cares of a fellow-creature who is willing to be enlivened by her smiles and tricks when the serious business of life is over."
Once a woman has attained her aim of a profitable marriage, the circumstances of which almost exclude the possibility of love, she turns all her "natural" cunning to account to establish a sort of mock tyranny over her master. She lives in the enjoyment of her present influence, forgetting that adoration will cease with the loss of her charms, and that woman is "quickly scorned when not adored". In later years there will be no sound basis of friendship arising from equality of tastes to take its place, no reflection to be substituted for sensation, and their earthly punishment consists in a miserable old age. Even when married to a sensible husband, who thinks for her, what will be the fate of a woman who is left a widow with a large family? "Unable to educate her sons, or to impress them with respect, she pines under the anguish of unavailing impotent regret." The passage in which she pictures her ideal of rational womanhood, who, far from being rendered helpless by her husband's death, rises to the occasion and devotes herself with a strong heart to the discharge of her maternal duties, finally reaping the reward of her care when she sees her children attain a strength of character enabling them to endure adversity, is a piece of true eloquence. "The task of life fulfilled, she calmly waits for the sleep of death, and rising from the grave, may say: "Behold, thou gavest me a talent, and here are five talents".[48]
There never was a more fervent champion of marriage and domesticity than Mary. The sanctity of matrimony needed no enforcement by means of a wedding ceremony, but consisted in the mutual affection and esteem which was felt. Hence her violent criticism of loveless marriages contracted from mercenary motives and her severe condemnation of the harshness with which society treated poor ruined girls.
The twelfth chapter of the Rights of Women contains a plea for national education. Mary is here seen treading in the steps of Talleyrand, and forsaking her old masters Locke and Rousseau. They both advocate a private education. Locke wants to educate the "gentleman", making his scheme practicable in isolated applications, but disregarding the bulk of the nation.
Rousseau, who did regard the mass of the people in matters of political speculation, entirely loses sight of the public interest in favour of the private in his educational scheme, thus reducing it to mere abstract speculation, incapable of extensive realisation. But Mary Wollstonecraft adopts the more practical view of the active socialist. The children of the nation are to be educated without the slightest reference to class distinction, and they ought to be brought up together. The exclusive teaching of a child by a tutor will make him acquire a sort of premature manhood, and will not tend to make him a good citizen. He is to be a member of society, and it will not do to regard him as a unit, complete in himself. The same view limits the freedom of the individual to what is compatible with the rights of others. To ignore the duties of the individual towards society would be to build the entire structure of education upon an unsound basis.
This plea for co-education will be seen to be a recantation from former opinions expressed in the "Original Stories". The latter had their rise chiefly in the experience gained of boarding-schools during her stay at Eton with the Priors. They seemed to her absolute hotbeds of vice and folly, where an utter want of modesty introduced the most repulsive habits. The younger boys delighted in mischief, the older in every form of vice. The colleges were full of the relics of popery, the 'mouth-service',which makes all religion but a cold parade of show, and the educators themselves were very poor champions of true religion. What Mary saw at Eton confirmed her in the belief that dayschools were to be preferred, as the only way of combining the advantages of private and public education.
That important part of education which aims at awakening the affections can only be given in the home of loving parents, and only that man can be a good citizen who has first learned to be a good son and brother. A country day-school, affording the best opportunities for unstinted physical exercise, might be expected to be productive of the greatest benefit to young pupils. The division of the educational task between school and home will moreover leave the children the necessary amount of freedom which is denied them when living the cramped lives of boarding-schools.
To make women the companions of men, and to remove the unhealthy atmosphere of an artificial separation of the sexes which produces indelicacy in both, she thinks it necessary that boys and girls should be brought up together. All children should be dressed regardless of class and submitted to the same rules of discipline. They should not be made to remain in the schoolroom for longer than an hour, and be taken out into the schoolyard, or better still, for walks. A good deal of outdoor instruction of the kind Rousseau described might be given by means of spectacular illustration.
At the age of nine comes the first great change in the daily routine. The two sexes will still be together in the morning, engaged in common pursuits, but the afternoon will find the girls bent over their needlework, millinery, etc., while the boys' further instruction will depend on their choice of a trade. Special schools ought to be established for those whose superior abilities render them fit to pursue some course of scientific studies.