of my own sex more towards it than has been the fashion of late, I should not despair of very soon seeing happy effects resulting from it.

It is an astonishing fact, for the truth of which I appeal to all your most intelligent readers in Europe, that the education of women has never been made the subject of serious inquiry by any of the myriads of scribblers that have infested the republic of letters, since the days of the famed philosophers of Greece, to this moment. Turn over the whole papers of that most excellent periodical work upon manners, the Spectator, and you will find nothing but strictures upon the unhappy conse quences of a bad education of the sex, but not one syllable of serious good sense on the subject of amendment. The same remark is applicable to the papers called the World, the Connoisseur, Adventurer, Rambler, and so down to the Mirror, and Observer, of the present day. Dr Gregory indeed left a letter to his daughters,which was published some years ago, and contains some good hints for the conduct of young ladies, rather in the line of Chesterfieldian address, than to direct parents how to render their daughters pious, virtuous, amiable, and properly accomplished for the commerce of the world, in subordination to the duties of a wife, mother, and companion. Dean Swift's famous letter to a young lady on her marriage, though it is by far the most capital thing I ever saw upon the subject, yet it proceeds upon what I hope I shall be able to prove

is a false position; that women are incapable of becoming truly and logically learned, or of applying the fruits of study to the useful purposes of society.

Let us consider, for a few minutes, Mr Editor, the consequences that have arisen from the barbarous education of women in all ages, as playthings, or house-keepers for gentlemen of fortune, or for mechanics, and we shall beable to see at a glance, that the whole code of female education must be changed, before Dean Swift's assertion can be verified, or that it can be proved, that it would not be infinitely better, that women, in the present state of civilised society, should have, in almost every respect, an as truly learned institution as men in the higher ranks,---and in the lower ranks, be fitted for the practice of such of the fine or mechanical arts as are suited to their bodily strength, and to the decency required in their behaviour.

The faults that have been uniformly ascribed to our sex, as arising from the feebleness of our frame, are attachment to sensual pleasures in preference to those of the understanding, superstition, bigotry in religion, love of admiration directed to our personal charms only, impatience of contradiction, inability to give reasons for our moral or political conduct, attachment to the splendor of dress, excessive curiosity to discover secrets, and excessive desire of prying into the trifling business of our acquaintance, love of public shows of all kinds

in our youth, and attachment to card-playing in our old age, &c. &c. All these faults, Sir, are evidently the consequence of the want of substantial knowledge acquired by regular education, and are equally incident to ill educated men. I speak here feelingly, Sir, from experience, and hope those who have not experienced the same vicissitudes in life as myself, →will be inclined to give me a little credit on this head. Where the pleasures of the imagination, and the pleasures arising from the acquisition of knowledge are not felt, the pleasures of sense must be the only objects of pursuit ; and as intellectual delight cannot be procured, without a very great degree of culture and systematic education, the mode of educating women in all ages and countries, has effectually precluded them from being what the men are foolish enough to expect. As well might the philosophers of China hold the women in that empire, who are of better condition, cheap, because they cannot walk without difficulty and aukwardness. The men of Europe have: crushed the heads of the women in their infancy, and then laugh at them because their brains are not so well ordered as they would desire.

I am perfectly convinced, that the state and education of women, are a remain of the feudal system of Asia,---of the tyranny and jealousy of the east, which, with migration and conquest, has overspread the rest of the world, but which will soon disappear before the light of liberty and learning.

The rights of men begin now to be every where felt, understood, and vindicated; by and by, I would fain hope, the rights of our sex will be equally understood, and established upon the basis of a new code of education suited to the dignity and importance of our situation in society. And it is hard to say, whether the general welfare of the community will not be as much promoted by this last revolution as by the first. Women will then perhaps receive an education no way differing from that of men, in all things relating to the cultivation of the rational powers of the understanding: women in the higher or more opulent ranks of society, will receive every instruction in the sciences and fine arts, that may render them happy in themselves, agree able in their families, and useful to society. A female professor in a college, as at Bologna, will be no longer mentioned as a solecism, nor Macaulays, Montagues, Carters or Blackburnes be stared at as wonders, or envied by the la dies, and laughed at by the gentlemen.?

In the middling ranks, women will be educated to trades suited to their sex and behaviour in society, of which there are a sufficient number to share them with the other sex, without encroachment. Haberdashers, gro cers, and every kind of shop-keeping, watchmaking, and all the nicer operations of the hand in sedentary occupations, might be performed by them, whereby the wealth and strength of nations would be greatly increased,

and a greater militia kept up (without hurting the community) to preserve order at home, and defend the property and honour of nations abroad.

I shall be told, perhaps, by some of your correspondents, that the education of women, and particularly of gentlewomen, is now quite a different affair from what it was formerly; that young ladies are now taught to read English, French, and Italian; to play exquisitely on all musical instruments; to sing, to dance, to draw, to paint, and what not, for filling up their time agreeably, and rendering them interesting to society. To this I answer, that without the foundation of grammar, verbal and universal; without logic, without the principles of moral and political philosophy, without a just knowledge of universal history, chronology, and the study of mathematics, to lay the foundation of thought and of reasoning; all these accomplishments, as they are called, in the sex, are no more than the performances of Automatons. But perhaps I am running here a little before the spirit of the times, I therefore check my career a little, to take a view of the world as it goes at present.

Figure to yourself one of these charming, accomplished young ladies, fresh from six or seven years culture, at one of the best boarding schools, or out of the hands of the most capital governess, and the best instructors at home, becoming a fashionable miss, or Lady Mary in the circle of the ton; then married,