bitually_ feel that nice sense of propriety, which is at once
the guard and the charm of every feminine virtue. By early caution,
unremitting, scrupulous caution in the choice of the books which are
put into the hands of girls, a mother, or a preceptress, may fully
occupy and entertain their pupils, and excite in their minds a _taste_
for propriety, as well as a taste for literature. It cannot be
necessary to add more than this general idea, that a mother ought to
be answerable to her daughter's husband for the books her daughter had
read, as well as for the company she had kept.

Those observations, which apply equally to the cultivation of the
understanding both of men and of women, we do not here mean to point
out; we would speak only of what may be peculiar to female education.
From the study of the learned languages, women, by custom,
fortunately for them, are exempted: of ancient literature they may, in
translations which are acknowledged to be excellent, obtain a
sufficient knowledge, without paying too much time and labour for this
classic pleasure. Confused notions from fashionable publications, from
periodical papers, and comedies, have made their way into common
conversation, and thence have assumed an appearance of authority, and
have been extremely disadvantageous to female education. Sentiment and
ridicule have conspired to represent reason, knowledge, and science,
as unsuitable or dangerous to women; yet at the same time wit, and
superficial acquirements in literature, have been the object of
admiration in society; so that this dangerous inference has been
drawn, almost without our perceiving its fallacy, that superficial
knowledge is more desirable in women than accurate knowledge. This
principle must lead to innumerable errours; it must produce continual
contradictions in the course of education: instead of making women
more reasonable, and less presuming, it will render them at once
arrogant and ignorant; full of pretensions, incapable of application,
and unfit to hear themselves convinced. Whatever young women learn,
let them be taught accurately; let them know ever so little
apparently, they will know much if they have learnt that little
_well_. A girl who runs through a course of natural history, hears
something about chemistry, has been taught something of botany, and
who knows but just enough of these to make her fancy that she is well
informed, is in a miserable situation, in danger of becoming