In the best regulated feminaries vacant hours occur, many of which will be often wafted in the perufal of pernicious, or, at best, frivolous novels*, if better books are not at hand. We are fully vels, Atlaffes ancient and modern, Dictionaries of Arts and Sciences, and the French and English Claffics.-Having found them, on experience, well calculated for aiding the pupil in her studies, I may be allowed particularly to mention the Pronouncing Dictionary (called "Sheridan Improved") and "The New Biographical Dictionary" of Mr. STEPHEN JONES. This ingenious Author I have long most highly esteemed as a friend; but his productions I fhould not, merely on that account, here prefume to recommend, if the public voice had not given an ample and honourable sanction to my humble teflimony. * "The frivolity of the age (fays an elegant writer) affords very fhameful encouragement to a fpecies of literary compofition called a NOVEL, which is nothing more than a romance taken from the manners of the times; and is, in general, worked up in fuch a form, as to corrupt the minds of young women, and to enable old ones to murder that time of which they have fo little remaining." It is, indeed, poffible, for excellent fentiments, and valuable knowledge, to be communicated in the form of a novel; but there are very few productions of this kind in our language; and, in general, it is much better for young perfons to employ fuch time as they can fpare for that purpofe in the perufal of real hiftory, and of biographical accounts of perfons eminent for virtue and for knowledge. The early hours of youth are invaluable, and fhould be conftantly improved; not always, indeed, in a direct manner, and with a profeffed aim at improvement; yet always as really, and as effectually, as if that was, as indeed it ought to be, the ftudy of life. No book, therefore, fhould be put into their hands which does not actually increase their stock of knowledge, and either explicitly or implicitly promote virtue, general or particular. Now novel-reading not only indifpofes those who indulge in it for all other kinds of reading, but eventually injures the health. I have been told, fays Mr. Clarkson, by a physician of the first eminence, that mufic and novels have done more to produce the fickly countenances and nervous habits of fully fenfible, with Dr. Knox, that, as a regular courfe of history would too much interfere with other parts of learning in the academies of young gentlemen, fome of the time of recreation must be allotted to the attainment of that invaluable acquifition. Females, in general, are exactly in the fame predicament, and fhould, therefore, be encouraged to devote a part of those seasons of relaxation to the acquiring of a fpecies of knowledge, which, however neceffary and ornamental, the multiplicity of ordinary business renders unattainable at other times. It is hoped, that the following performance will not be thought altogether ill calculated to facilitate the defirable end juft mentioned; as many of the questions in it either create fome new idea, convey fome useful or pleafing information, or fix the date of fome memorable tranfaction; a circumftance deemed of fuch confequence by Mrs. Chapone, that the obferves, "It is to little purpose that you are able to mention a fact, if you cannot nearly ascertain the time in which it happened; which alone, in many cafes, gives importance to the fact itself." The fame judicious writer elsewhere remarks, not inapplicably to the general defign of the following compilation, that whatever tends to embellish the understanding, and to furnish the mind with ideas to reflect upon when alone, or to converfe of our highly-educated females, than any other causes that can be affigned. The excess of ftimulus on the mind, from the interefting and melting tales that are peculiar to novels, affects the organs of the body,. and relaxes the tone of the nerves; in the fame manner as the melting tones of mufic have been described to act upon the conftitution, after the fedentary employment, neceffary for skill in that science, has injured it. upon in company, is certainly well worth the acquifition." But let us direct our attention principally to female education, which judicious obfervers have reprefented as fo eminently conducive to the welfare of a state. Now, in order to eftimate the high obligations that women of cultivated minds may confer on the community, let us, first, refle& with Rouffeau, that "the education of most confequence, is that which is received in infancy; and this first education belongs incontestably to the WOMEN." The early part of education must, therefore, be one of the mother's molt appropriate and most important duties. We fhall felect a few examples from the ancients, especially the Roman matrons, among whom the oeconomical virtues, particularly indefatigable industry in the cultivation of the minds of their offspring, continued longeft to flourish. Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi; Aurelia, of Julius Cæfar; and Accia, of Auguftus, fuperintended the education of their respective children*. Among the GREEKS, he of whom antiquity, fanctioned by the teftimony of an oraclet, boafts * It is well obferved in a recent publication by an ingenious French lady, that " Agricola owed to his mother the poffeffion of that ftayed wifdom which is fo rare, and of fuch difficult attainment. Louis the 12th, Francis the 1ft, and Henry the 4th, are inftances which shew the utmost importance of the education given to children by their mothers. Louis caufed justice and humanity to reign; Francis was the patron of letters; while Henry was the father of his fubjects, and France never had a greater or a better king." Introduction to Madame Briguet's Dictionnaire Hiftorique, &c. + Whom well infpired the oracle pronounced Wifeft of men, Milton's Par. Regained, B. iv. itself as of the wifest of mortals, who is called by. a modern author "the Philofophic Patriarch, and the divinest man that ever appeared in the heathen world," even SOCRATES himself, derived confiderable advantage from the converfation of Diotime and Afpafia, women who are faid to have been excellently learned. To a Why, demanded a Perfian ambassador, are women held in such high estimation at Lacedæmon? Because, replied the confort of Leonidas, they only are competent to form men. Greek lady who difplayed her jewels before Phocion's mother, and expreffed a defire of feeing her's, the latter introduced her CHILDREN, saying, These are my jewels and ornaments; I hope they will one day be all my glory. "Will the important bufinefs of DRESSING and going to public places," afks Dr. Knox, "prove fo fatisfactory to mothers, a few years hence, as the confcioufnefs of having fown the feeds of virtue, taste, and learning, in the infant bofoms of their own offspring?" Pitiable, indeed, is the mother, if fhe deferves the name, who knows not that fuch an office has fweets beyond the effence of perfumes, the giddy whirl of pleafure, and the incense of admiration! If, in the next place, we observe, how greatly the conduct of men is influenced by the other fex; what effectual difcouragement their averfion gives to vice and ignorance in their male relatives and acquaintance; "that," as the elegant writer just quoted pertinently obferves, "the dignity of female virtue, confiftently supported, is better calculated than any moral leffon to strike confufion and awe into the breast of the EMPTY and ART FUL VILLAIN*; and that they may indeed become the BEST REFORMERS:" thefe, with other obvious confiderations, will abundantly evince the fingular advantages neceffarily refulting from female improvement. Should any doubts ftill remain of the very exalted benefits which, we contend, naturally and neceffarily flow from female influence, let an appeal be made to matter of fact,-I mean to ancient and modern history. To felect only two or three prominent and decifive inftances, out of the innumerable examples which the records of all nations fupply; who is ignorant of the patriotic ardour, the invincible intrepidity, infpired by the truly laconic admonition of the Spartan matrons to their hufbands and fons, when, after the last embrace that preceded an expected conflict, they charged them" to return either WITH OR UPON THEIR SHIELDS" In Dr. Gordon's Hiftory of the * Remarkable is the confeffion of a profeffed libertine on this fubject: "A chafte, a virtuous woman, is an awful character; fomething preternatural feems to furround her, and shroud her from profane approach." LORD LYTTELTON'S Pofthumous Letters. She that has that, is clad in complete steel; -Be it not done in pride, nor in prefumption. MILTON. + It was the first and most inviolable law of war with the Spartans, never to flee, or turn their backs, whatever fuperiority of numbers the enemy's army might confift of; never to quit their poft; never to deliver up their arms; in a word, either to conquer, or to die on the fpot.-And fometimes those who were flain were brought home upon their fhields. |
