against those vices to which they find they have a natural disposition; and drinking and gluttony are the vices to which the common people in this country are the most addicted.
Whatever other things may be taught, let this truth be instilled into all children brought up to earn their bread, that in proportion to their diligence will be their ease and enjoyment, and that this world is a world of sorrow and grief to the idle and the ignorant; that knowledge does not consist in being able to read books, but in understanding one's business and duty in life, and that industry consists in doing it.
Female education, in England, requires as much reform as that of the other sex; but, though the subject is not much less important, it is perhaps still more difficult. It has been remarked, by those who have travelled abroad, that, in other countries, women are in general not better, but rather worse dressed than men of the same rank: in England it is different; for, at an early age, the women are dressed, both as to style and quality of clothes, far above their rank. This might, perhaps, not be difficult to account for, but it undoubtedly is a misfortune, and one that is greatly increased by the mode of education and manner of thinking; for the main and indispensable virtue of that amiable sex excepted, (for which Englishwomen are highly distinguished,) perhaps no women in the world are brought up in a more frivolous unmeaning manner. The French women, with all their vivacity and giddy airs, have more accomplishment; {184} and, as they speak their mind pretty plainly, they have, on many occasions, testified surprise to find English ladies, who had studied music for years, who could scarcely play a tune, and who, after devoting years to the needle, were incapable of embroidering a pin-cushion.
Novels, a species of light, insipid, and dangerous reading, are the bane of English female education. They teach a sort of false romantic sentiment, and withdraw the mind from attention to the duties of
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{184} The emigrants have taught to ladies of rank, fashions; and to those of an inferior class, arts and industry. The English women did not know half what they could do, till the French came amongst them, about twelve years ago.
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life, at a time when it should be taught to learn their high importance. In female education the government should interfere; for the education of the mother will always have an influence on the education of the son, as her conduct in life must have on that of her husband.
As one general observation, relative to the education given at most public schools, it may be observed, that, whilst much time is taken up in teaching things that can never probably be of great utility, that species of knowledge that does not belong to any particular class, but which is of the utmost importance, is left to chance and to accident. While a boy is tormented with learning a dead language he is left to glean, as in a barren field, for all those rules of conduct on which the prosperity and happiness of his future life depends. {185}