sible, from the very knowledge of evil. But will
you be so good as to inform me why you make this distinction? Is it that
you think she has no virtue?'

'Assuredly not.'

'Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation;--and
you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too
little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith. It must be
either that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded,
that she cannot withstand temptation,--and though she may be pure and
innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being
destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin is at once to make her
a sinner, and the greater her knowledge, the wider her liberty, the
deeper will be her depravity,--whereas, in the nobler sex, there is a
natural tendency to goodness, guarded by a superior fortitude, which, the
more it is exercised by trials and dangers, is only the further
developed--'

'Heaven forbid that I should think so!' I interrupted her at last.

'Well, then, it must be that you think they are both weak and prone to
err, and the slightest error, the merest shadow of pollution, will ruin
the one, while the character of the other will be strengthened and
embellished--his education properly finished by a little practical
acquaintance with forbidden things. Such experience, to him (to use a
trite simile), will be like the storm to the oak, which, though it may
scatter the leaves, and snap the smaller branches, serves but to rivet
the roots, and to harden and condense the fibres of the tree. You would
have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience,
while our daughters must not even profit by the experience of others.
Now I would have both so to benefit by the experience of others, and the
precepts of a higher authority, that they should know beforehand to
refuse the evil and choose the good, and require no experimental proofs
to teach them the evil of transgression. I would not send a poor girl
into the world, unarmed against her foes, and ignorant of the snares that
beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of
self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch
and guard herself;--and as for my son--if I thought he would grow up to
be what you call a man of the world--one that has "seen life," and
glories in his experience, even though he should so far profit by it as
to sober