le, be that as it will, you must nevertheless
find the Secret and Incomparable Pleasure of doing Good, and be a
great Sharer in the Entertainment you give. I acknowledge our Sex to
be much obliged, and I hope improved, by your Labours, and even your
Intentions more particularly for our Service. If it be true, as 'tis
sometimes said, that our Sex have an Influence on the other, your
Paper may be a yet more general Good. Your directing us to Reading is
certainly the best Means to our Instruction; but I think, with you,
Caution in that Particular very useful, since the Improvement of our
Understandings may, or may not, be of Service to us, according as it
is managed. It has been thought we are not generally so Ignorant as
Ill-taught, or that our Sex does so often want Wit, Judgment, or
Knowledge, as the right Application of them: You are so well-bred, as
to say your fair Readers are already deeper Scholars than the Beaus,
and that you could name some of them that talk much better than
several Gentlemen that make a Figure at _Will's_: This may possibly
be, and no great Compliment, in my Opinion, even supposing your
Comparison to reach _Tom's_ and the _Grecian_: Surely you are too wise
to think That a Real Commendation of a Woman. Were it not rather to be
wished we improved in our own Sphere, and approved our selves better
Daughters, Wives, Mothers, and Friends?

I can't but agree with the Judicious Trader in _Cheapside_ (though I
am not at all prejudiced in his Favour) in recommending the Study of
Arithmetick; and must dissent even from the Authority which you
mention, when it advises the making our Sex Scholars. Indeed a little
more Philosophy, in order to the Subduing our Passions to our Reason,
might be sometimes serviceable, and a Treatise of that Nature I should
approve of, even in exchange for _Theodosius_, or _The Force of Love_;
but as I well know you want not Hints, I will proceed no further than
to recommend the Bishop of _Cambray's Education of a Daughter, as 'tis
translated into the only Language I have any Knowledge of, [2] tho'
perhaps very much to its Disadvantage. I have heard it objected
against that Piece, that its Instructions are not of general Use, but
only fitted for a great Lady; but I confess I am not of that Opinion;
for I don't remember that there are any Rules laid down for the
Expences of a Woman, in which Particular only I thin