Matilda says, she should die with grief at this accident, but that her conscience tells her, she has contributed nothing to it herself. She appeals to their closets, to their books of devotion, to testify what care she has taken to establish her children in piety.
8. Now, tho’ I don’t intend to say, that no daughters are brought up in a better way than this; yet thus much may be said, that the greater part of them are not brought up so well, or accustomed to so much religion.
Their minds are turned as much to the care of their beauty and dress, without having such rules of devotion to stand against it. So that if solid piety is much wanted in that sex, it is the plain consequence of a corrupt education.
And if they are often ready to receive the first fops, beaux, and fine dancers, for their husbands, ’tis no wonder that they should like that in men, which they have been taught to admire in themselves.
Some people will perhaps say, that I am exercising too great a severity against the sex.
But reasonable persons will observe, that I spare the sex, and only arraign their education; that I not only spare them, but plead their interest, assert their honour, and only condemn that education which is so injurious thereto.
Their education I cannot spare; but the only reason is, because it is their greatest enemy, because it deprives the world of so many blessings, and the church of so many saints.
If it should here be said, that I even charge too high upon their education, and that they are not so much hurt by it, as I imagine.
It may be answered, that tho’ I don’t pretend to state the exact degree of mischief that is done by it, yet its plain and natural tendency to do harm, is sufficient to justify the most absolute condemnation of it.
9. But how possible it is to bring up daughters in a more excellent way, let the following character declare.