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VIEW

OF THE

PRINCIPLES AND CONDUCT

PREVALENT AMONG

WO MEN OF RANK AND FORTUNE.

CHAP. XIV.

The practical ufe of female knowledge, with a sketch of the female character, and a comparative view of the fexes.

THE chief end to be propofed in cultivating the understandings of women, is to qualify them for the practical purpofes of life. Their knowledge is not often like the learning of men, to be reproduced in fome literary compofition, nor ever in any learned profeffion; but it is to come out in conduct. It is to be exhibited in life and manners. A lady ftudies, not

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that fhe may qualify herself to become an orator or a pleader; not that she may learn to debate, but to act. She is to read the best books, not fo much to enable her to talk of them, as to bring the improvement which they furnish, to the rectification of her principles and the formation of her habits. The great uses of study to a woman are to enable her to regulate her own mind, and to be inftrumental to the good of others.

To woman, therefore, whatever be her rank, I would recommend a predominance of thofe more fober ftudies, which, not having display for their object, may make her wife without vanity, happy without witneffes, and content without panegyrifts; the exercife of which will not bring celebrity, but improve usefulness. She fhould pursue every kind of ftudy which will teach her to elicit truth; which will lead her to be intent upon realities; will: give precifion to her ideas; will make an exact mind. She fhould cultivate every

study

study which, instead of stimulating her senfibility, will chaftife it; which will neither create an exceffive or a falfe refinement which will give her definite notions; will bring the imagination under dominion will lead her to think, to compare, to combine, to methodise, which will confer fuch a power of difcrimination, that her judgment fhall learn to reject what is dazzling, if it be nót folid; and to prefer, not what is ftriking, or bright, or new, but what is juft. That kind of knowledge which is rather fitted for home confumption than foreign exportation, is peculiarly adapted to women'*.

It is because the fuperficial nature of their education furnishes them with a falfe and low ftandard of intellectual excellence,

May I be allowed to ftrengthen my own opinion with the authority of. Dr. Johnfon, that a woman cannot have too much arithmetic ? It is a folid, practical acquirement, in which there is much ufe and little. display; it is a quiet fober kind of knowledge, which fhe acquires for herself and her family, and not for the world.

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that women have too often become ridiculous by the unfounded pretenfions of literary vanity for it is not the really learned, but the fmatterers, who have generally brought their fex into difcredit, by an abfurd affectation, which has fet them on defpifing the duties of ordinary life. There have not indeed been wanting (but the character is not now common) precieufes ridicules, who, affuming a fuperiority to the fober cares which ought to occupy their fex, have claimed a lofty and fupercilious exemption from the dull and plodding drudgeries

Of this dim fpeck called earth!

て

There have not been wanting ill-judging females, who have affected to establish an unnatural feparation between talents and usefulness, instead of bearing in mind that talents are the great appointed inftruments of usefulness; who have acted as if knowledge were to confer on woman a kind of fantastic.fovereignty, which fhould exone

rate

rate her from the difcharge of female duties; whereas it is only meant the more eminently to qualify her for the performance of them. A woman of real fenfe will never forget, that while the greater part of her proper duties are fuch as the most moderately gifted may fulfil with credit, (fince Providence never makes that to be very difficult, which is generally neceffary,) yet that the most highly endowed are equally bound to fulfil them ¿ and let her remember that the humbleft of thefe offices, performed on Christian principles, are wholefome for the minds even of the moft enlightened, as they tend to the cafting down of thofe "high imaginations" which women of genius are too much tempted to indulge.

For inftance; ladies whose natural vanity has been aggravated by a falfe education, may look down on œconomy as a vulgar attainment, unworthy of the attention of an highly cultivated intellect; but this is the false estimate of a fhallow mind.

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