fe. Calphurnia, a
Roman lady, used to plead her own causes before the senate, and we are
informed, that she became "so troublesome and confident, that the
judges decreed that thenceforward no woman should be suffered to
plead." Did not this lady make an imprudent use of her talents?

In the choice of friends, and on all matters of taste, young women
should be excited to reason about their own feelings. "There is no
reasoning about taste," is a pernicious maxim: if there were more
reasoning, there would be less disputation upon this subject. If women
questioned their own minds, or allowed their friends to question
them, concerning the reasons of their "preferences and aversions,"
there would not, probably, be so many love matches, and so few love
marriages. It is in vain to expect, that young women should begin to
reason miraculously at the very moment that reason is wanted in the
guidance of their conduct. We should also observe, that women are
called upon for the exertion of their prudence at an age when young
men are scarcely supposed to possess that virtue; therefore, women
should be more early, and more carefully, educated for the purpose.
The important decisions of woman's life, are often made before she is
twenty: a man does not come upon the theatre of public life, where
most of his prudence is shown, till he is much older.

Economy is, in women, an essential domestic virtue. Some women have a
foolish love of expensive baubles; a taste which a very little care,
probably, in their early education, might have prevented. We are told,
that when a collection of three hundred and fifty pounds was made for
the celebrated Cuzzona, to save her from absolute want, she
immediately laid out two hundred pounds of the money in the purchase
of a _shell cap_, which was then in fashion.[104] Prudent mothers,
will avoid showing any admiration of pretty trinkets before their
young daughters; and they will oppose the ideas of utility and
durability to the mere caprice of fashion, which creates a taste for
beauty, as it were, by proclamation. "Such a thing is pretty, but it
is of no use. Such a thing is pretty, but it will soon wear out"--a
mother may say; and she should prove the truth of her assertions to
her pupils.

Economy is usually confined to the management of money, but it may be
shown on many other occasions: economy may be exercised in taking care
of whatever belongs to us; children should have the care of their own
cl