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Untitled Article
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Untitled Article
cultivation of the understanding , to informing the mind , to developing the reasoning powers , and implanting just principles ; to these , which seem to be considered as of very inferior importance , no time whatever has been spared . From such teachers , generally speaking , ( for native 'talent and peculiar circumstances will always produce respectable exceptions , ) what results can be expected ; from such culture what fruit can we hope to gather ? Are wives and mothers formed in such schools , or in their offspring are good citizens and patriots to be looked for ? They may glitter and dazzle during the transient period of youth ; but will they become useful when they cease to be ornamental ? While half of the human species are thus treated and trained , the philosopher and philanthropist will labour in vain for the advance of civilization , and the improvement of social order . Can men sow tares and hooe to reap wheat ?
Among the superior ranks in female Jife , where there is no need to barter accomplishments for support , education is similarly directed , not to the cultivation of intellect , not to the formation of principle , but to showy accomplishments and external grace . Woman is never the companion and helpmate , but still the toy or the drudge of man . If she partakes in the diffusion of literature , it is the belles lettres only over which she skims . Modern book societies have banished the old English classical writers ; our youth , our female youth more especially , are scarcely
acquainted with the titles of their works . Book societies circulate only what is new ; the various tastes and opinions of the subscribers prohibit even in what is new all that is solid ; politics and religion , the only subjects of vital importance , as embracing the present and future interests of the human race , are strictly proscribed , as tending to controversy and offence . The light novelty of the day is exclusively admitted and read , and the succession of such novelties is too quick to leave any lasting impression or time for other studies . The reading of the morning supplies topics for prattle and display in the drawing-room circle of the evening ; all talk from a common reservoir , few or none from a source ; literature itself becomes but another mode for exhibition , another means for vapid and vain display . The dependent situation of woman in society , and her entire subjugation to the caprices and passions of man , is at the root of all moral and mental degradation . She must continue to suit herself to those passions and caprices , while those afford her the only means of procuring for herself social consideration , the only means , generally speaking , of obtaining the accommodations and comforts of civilized life . If the maternal duties and domestic
avocations of those who have a numerous offspring claim a large share of their attention and time , an active mind may still find leisure for more than these ; and , at all events , become by a more rational and useful mode of education better fitted for the dis-
Untitled Article
On Female Education and Occupations . 49 $
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1833, page 495, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2618/page/55/
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