Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/283

Rh knowledge of human nature, uppoed to be attained there, merely cunning elfihnes.

At chool boys become gluttons and lovens, and, intead of cultivating dometic affections, very early ruh into the libertinim which detroys the contitution before it is formed; hardening the heart as it weakens the undertanding.

I hould, in fact, be avere to boarding-chools, if it were for no other reaon than the unettled tate of mind which the expectation of the vacations produce. On thee the children's thoughts are fixed with eager anticipating hopes, for, at leat, to peak with moderation, half of the time, and when they arrive they are pent in total diipation and beatly indulgence.

But, on the contrary, when they are brought up at home, though they may purue a plan of tudy in a more orderly manner than can be adopted when near a fourth part of the year is actually pent in idlenes, and as much more in regret and anticipation; yet they there acquire too high an opinion of their own importance, from being allowed to tyrannize over ervants, and from the anxiety expreed by mot mothers, on the core of manners, who, eager to teach the accomplihments of a gentleman, tifle, in their birth, the virtues of a man. Thus brought into company when they ought to be eriouly employed, and treated like men when they are till boys, they become vain and effeminate.

The only way to avoid two extremes equally injurious to morality, would be to contrive ome way of combining a public and private education. Thus to make men citizens two natural teps Rh