The great error, in female education, does not consist in neglecting to instil good principles; for that is, in most countries, for obvious reasons, pretty well attended to; but good principles, without the means of adhering to them, are of little avail. If a desire for dress, or other enjoyments, that cannot be gratified fairly, and by the means of which they are possessed, are encouraged, principles will be abandoned in order to gratify passions. -- Females are taught frivolous accomplishments in place of what would be useful, and expensive vanity is substituted for that modest dignity that should be taught; the consequence is, that, in every rank of life, according to her station, the woman aims at being above it, and affects the manners and dress of her superiors.
There is too much pains taken with adorning the person, and too little with instructing the mind, in every civilized country; and when women are wise, and good, and virtuous, it is more owing to nature than to education.
As, indeed, the duties of a woman, in ordinary life, are of a nature more difficult to describe than those of a man, who, when he has learnt a trade, has little more to do, the care employed in seeing that proper persons only are intrusted with the important office of teaching them to perform those duties ought to be proportionally great.
The farther remarks on the subject of education are deferred to the Fourth Book =sic - there is none=, where place and circumstances come into consideration. It is, however, to be observed, that, in all cases, as a nation becomes more wealthy, the business of education becomes more important, and has a natural tendency to be worse managed; it therefore demands a double share of attention.
If the women of a nation are badly educated, it must have a great effect on the education of their sons, and the conduct of their husbands. The Spartan and Roman mothers had the glory of making [end of page #100] their sons esteem bravery, and those qualities in a man that were most wanted in their state of society. It should be one part of female education to know and admire the qualities that are estimable in the other sex. To obtain the approbation of the other sex, is, at a certain time of life, the greatest object of ambition, and it is never a matter of indifference.
The great general error consists in considering the woman merely in her identical self, without thinking of her influence on others. It appears to be for this reason, that writers on political economy have paid no attention to female education; but we find no state in which the virtue of men has been preserved where the women had none; though there are examples of women preserving their virtues, notwithstanding the torrent of corruption by which that of the men has been swept away. [end of page #101]
CHAP. III.
Of increased Taxation, as an Interior Cause of Decline.-- Its different Effects on Industry, according to the Degree to which it is carried.-- Its Effects on the People and on Government.
THERE has been no instance of a government becoming more economical, or less expensive, as it became older, even when the nation itself was not increasing in wealth; but, in every nation that has increased in wealth, the expenditure, on the part of government, has augmented in a very rapid manner.
Amongst the interior causes of the decline of nations, and the overthrow of governments, the increase of taxes has always been very prominent. It is in the levying of taxes that the sovereign and the subject act as if they were of opposite interests, or rather as if they were enemies to each other.