e, to confine them to the
society of boys, is to _retard_ their arrival at the years of
discretion; and in case of adverse circumstances in the pecuniary way,
where, in all the creation, is there so helpless a mortal as a boy who
has always been at school! But, if, as I said before, a school there
_must_ be, let the congregation be as small as possible; and, do not
expect too much from the master; for, if it be irksome to you to teach
your own sons, what must that teaching be to him? If he have great
numbers, he must delegate his authority; and, like all other delegated
authority, it will either be abused or neglected.

309. With regard to _girls_, one would think that _mothers_ would want
no argument to make them shudder at the thought of committing the care
of their daughters to other hands than their own. If fortune have so
favoured them as to make them rationally desirous that their daughters
should have more of what are called accomplishments _than_ they
_themselves have_, it has also favoured them with the means of having
teachers under their own eye. If it have not favoured them so highly as
this (and it seldom has in the middle rank of life), what duty so sacred
as that imposed on a mother to be the teacher of her daughters! And is
she, from love of ease or of pleasure or of any thing else, to neglect
this duty; is she to commit her daughters to the care of persons, with
whose manners and morals it is impossible for her to be thoroughly
acquainted; is she to send them into the promiscuous society of girls,
who belong to nobody knows whom, and come from nobody knows whither, and
some of whom, for aught she can know to the contrary, may have been
corrupted before, and sent thither to be hidden from their former
circle; is she to send her daughters to be shut up within walls, the
bare sight of which awaken the idea of intrigue and invite to seduction
and surrender; is she to leave the health of her daughters to chance, to
shut them up with a motley bevy of strangers, some of whom, as is
_frequently_ the case, are proclaimed _bastards_, by the undeniable
testimony given by the _colour of their skin_; is she to do all this,
and still put forward pretensions to the authority and the affection due
to a _mother_! And, are you to permit all this, and still call yourself
_a father_!

310. Well, then, having resolved to teach your own children, or, to have
them taught, at home, let us now see how they ought to proceed as