Galifts. Thus, when we see our Savoyard Curate hammering about the proofs of the existence of the Deity, the Freedom of human Will, the Caufe of Motion, and the poffibility of Matter's being endowed with a capacity of Thinking, we conceive ourfelves attending to a mere Tyro in philofophy, ftill ftumbling at the threshold of metaphyfical fcience. In like manner,, in matters of religion, when we find him making ufe of the fame arguments as Charron and others have done before him, without taking any notice of the replies made by the learned advocates on the other fide the question, we cannot help thinking him ignorant of the state of the controverfy, however invalid fuch replies may have been, or whatever force may be allowed to the arguments thus revived.

For these reasons, we fhall not enter into any particular difauffion of the tenets or arguments advanced in this fuppofed Creed; which abounds with paradoxes and inconfiftencies, in our opinion, totally irreconcileable to reafon. Some may think the Author, nevertheless, excufable, as he hath made the Speaker declare himself to be ignorant whether he is in the right or wrong; and that, tho' he fometimes affumes an affirmative tone, yet his affirmations are to be taken only as fo many rational doubts. There appears to us, however, fomething very prepofterous in the character of the reverend Sceptic he hath here introduced; a man at once fo confcientious and pious, fo temporizing and hypocritical for fuch, notwithstanding his many fine fpeeches, and the fpecious colourings, with which he ftrives to glofs over his conduct, we are apprehenfive, our latitudinarian Curate will appear to the majority of his Readers. Indeed, we think our Author hath been particularly unfuccessful in his endeavours to unite, in one character, the principles of a Sceptic with the practice of a Devotec. Among the pagan Philofophers, it is true, nothing was more common than for them to conform to the practices of a religion whofe tenets they difbelieved. The God of the Chriftians, however, requires to be ferved in fincerity and truth; fo that we cannot help thinking it little better than mockery, for a man, who believes fo little in the tenets of a Religion, to profefs fo profound a reverence for its. forms and difcipline. As we hope, nevertheless, that our Author's intention was good, we recommend this part of the work to the Reader's candour, and proceed to attend his Pupil, who. now enters on a more natural and pleafing inveftigation.

Emilius, being now grown to man's eftate, fets out, with his Tutor, in fearch of a wife: with this view he is first introduced to the Parisian Ladies, and made a little acquainted with the manners of the town. The latter, however, are fo foreign his tafte, and the former fo very unlike that amiable picture

Which his Tutor hath drawn of his intended Sophia, that our young Adventurer defpairs of finding her in the metropolis. They take a ramble, therefore, into the country; their route appearing to the Pupil undefigned and purely accidental, tho' beforehand projected by the Tutor, who knows very well when and where to convert the imaginary Sophia into a real one.

As a prelude to the meeting of the deftined couple, and to answer the purpose of a general treatise on Education, our Author enters, in his fifth and laft`book, on the confideration of the proper methods for educating, and forming the characters of the fair fex. With this design he takes notice of the different qualities of the fexes, and the distinguishing characteristics of each; making fuch variations from his general plan, as appear beft adapted to the fex under confideration. He obferves on this head, that the common difpute of fuperiority between the fexes, is frivolous and abfurd; that the very failings of one are fometimes virtues in the other; and that their obligations and duties are extremely different, as well with regard to their form as to the rigour of their obfervance. Hence, fays he, there is no common criterion by which the two fexes may be compared ; both their excellencies and defects being effentially different.

Having demonftrated that man and woman are not, nor ought to be, conftituted alike in temperament and character, it follows of courfe, fays he, that they fhould not be educated in the fame manner. In pursuing the directions of nature, they ought, indeed, to act in concert, but they should not be engaged in the fame employments: the end of their, purfuits fhould be the fame, but the means they fhould take to accomplish them, and of confequence their taftes and inclinations, fhould be different. He proceeds then to lay down the principles of a natural Education for a woman, in the fame manner as he hath done for that of a man.

"Whatever is characteristic of the fex, fhould be regarded as a circumftance peculiarly established. You are always complaining, that women have certain defects and failings; your vanity deceives you: fuch, indeed, would be defects and failings in you, but they are effential qualities in them, and women would be much worse without them. You may prevent these pretended defects from growing worfe; but you ought to take great care not entirely to remove them.

"The women again, on their part, are conftantly crying out, that we educate them to be vain and coquetish; that we conftantly entertain them with puerilities, in order to maintain Our authority over them; and attribute to us the failings for

which we reproach them. What a ridiculous accufation! How long is it that the men have troubled themselves about the Education of the women? What hinders mothers from bringing up their daughters just as they pleafe? There are, to be fure, no colleges and academies for girls: a fad misfortune truly! Would to God there were none alfo for boys; they would be more fenfibly and virtuously educated than they are. Who, ye mothers, compels your daughters to throw away their time in trifles to spend half their lives, after your example, at the torlette? Who hinders you from inftructing, or caufing them to be instructed, in the manner you chufe? Is it our fault that they charm us when they are pretty, that we are feduced by their affected airs; that the arts they learn of you, attract and flatter us, that we love to fee them becomingly dreffed, and that we permit them to prepare at leifure thofe arms with which they fubdue us to their pleafure? Educate them, if you think proper, like the men; we fhall readily confent to it. The more they resemble our fex, the lefs power will they have over us; and when they once become like ourfelves, we fhall then be tru ly their mafters.

the

In

"The qualities common to both fexes are not equally allotted to each; tho' taken altogether they are equal in both woman is more perfect as a woman, and lefs as a man. every cafe where the makes ufe of her own privileges, he has the advantage over us; but where fhe would ufurp ours, the becomes inferior. The only reply to be made to this general truth, is by bringing exceptions to it; the method of argumentation conftantly used by the fuperficial partizans of the fair fex.

4

"To cultivate in women, therefore, the qualifications of the men, and neglect those which are peculiar to the fex, would be acting to their prejudice: they fee this very well, and are too artful to become the dupes of fuch conduct: they endeavour, indeed, to ufurp our advantages; but they take care not to give up their own. By thefe means, however, it happens, that not being capable of both, because they are incompatible, they fail of attaining the perfection of their own fex, as well as Let not the fenfible mother of ours, and lofe half their merit. then, think of educating her daughter as a man, in contradiction to nature; but as virtuous woman; and the may be affured it will be much better both for her child and herself.

"It does not hence follow, however, that fhe ought to be educated in perfect ignorance, and confined merely to domeftic concerns. Would a man make a fervant of his companion, and deprive himself of the greatest pleasure of fociety? To make her the more fubmiffive, would he prevent her from ac

quiring

quiring the least judgment or knowlege? would he reduce her to a mere automaton? Surely not! Nature hath dictated otherwife, in giving the fex fuch refined and agreeable talents: on the contrary, the hath formed them for thought, for judgment, for love, and knowlege. They should beftow as much care on their underftandings, therefore, as on their perfons, and add the charms of the one to the other, in order to fupply their own want of ftrength, and to direct ours. They fhould doubtless learn many things, but only those which it is proper for them to know.

"Whether I confider the peculiar deftination of the sex, obferve their inclinations, or remark their duties, all things equally concur to point out the peculiar method of Education beft adapted to them. Woman and man were made for each other; but their mutual dependence is not the fame. The men depend on the women only on account of their defires; the women on the men both on account of their defires and their neceffities: we could fubfift better without them than they without us. Their very fubfiftence and rank in life depend cn us, and the eftimation in which we hold them, their charms and their merit. By the law of nature itself, both women and children lie at the mercy of the men: it is not enough they should be really eftimable, it is requifite they fhould be actually efteemed; it is not enough they should be beautiful, it is requifite their charms fhould please; it is not enough they should be fenfible and prudent, it is neceffary they should be acknowleged as fuch: their glory lies not only in their conduct, but in their reputation; and it is impoffible for any, who confent to be accounted infamous, to be virtuous. A man, fecure in his own good con duct, depends only on himself, and may brave the public opinion; but a woman, in behaving well, performs but half her duty; as what is thought of her, is as important to her as what fhe really is. It follows hence, that the fyftem of a woman's Education fhould, in this refpect, be directly contrary to that of ours. Opinion is the grave of virtue among the men; but its throne among the women."

Agreeable to this maxim, our Author goes on to particularize the feveral objects of greatest concern in female Education.

"As the body is born, fays he, in a manner, before the foul, our first concern fhould be to cultivate the former; this order is common to both fexes, but the object of that cultivation is different. In the one fex, it is the development of corporeal powers; in the other, that of perfonal charms; not that either the quality of strength or beauty ought to be confined exclufively to one fex; but only that the order of the cultivation

of both is in that refpect reversed. Women certainly require as much ftrength as to enable them to move and act gracefully; and men as much address as to qualify them to act with ease.

"From the extreme effeminacy of the women arifes that of the men. Women ought not to be robust like them, but for them, in order that the men born of them fhould be robuft alfo. In this refpect, convents, where the Boarders are coarfly dieted, but take much exercife in the gardens and open air, are preferable to home, where daughters aré ufually more nicely fed, and tenderly treated: here they are always either flattered or rebuked, and fitting under the eye of their mother in a close apartment, hardly ever venture to rife up, walk about, talk or breathe; they are not a moment at liberty, to play, run, romp about and make a noife, agreeable to the natural petulance of their age. They are always treated at home with exceffive indulgence, or ill-judged feverity; never according to the dictates of reafon. Thus it is we fpoil the perfons, and the hearts of youth.

"Among the Spartans, the girls ufed themfelves to military exercises, as well as the boys; not, indeed, to go to fight, but in order to be capable of bearing children able to undergo the fatigues of war. Not that I approve of their practice in this particular; it is not neceflary for the women to carry a musket, and learn the Pruffian exercife, in order to be capable of bearing robuft children; what I would infer from this inftance is, that the Greeks well understood the bufinefs of Education. The young females appeared often in public; not mixing promifcuoufly among the boys, but in felect companies of their own fex. There was hardly a fingle feftival, facrifice, or public ceremony, at which the daughters of the principal citizens did not make their appearance, crowned with chaplets of flowers, finging hymns, dancing with their baskets of oblations in their hands; and prefenting to the depraved fenfes of the Greeks, a fpectacle delightful in itself, and proper to counteract the bad effects of their indecent gymnaftics. But whatever impreffions this cuftom might make on the hearts of the men, it was an excellent one, as well to form the conftitution of the fair fex, by agreeable, moderate, and falutary exercife, as to refine their taste, by cherishing in them a continual defire to please, without expofing them to a corruption of manners.

"No fooner, however, were their females married, than they were fecluded from public view, and fhut up in their houses; their future concern relating entirely to the management of their families. Such is the manner of life which both nature and reafon prefcribe; and hence it was, that the Spartan mothers

gave