Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/294

288 The little repect which the male world pay to chatity is, I am peruaded, the grand ource of many of the phyical and moral evils that torment mankind, as well as of the vices and follies that degrade and detroy women; yet at chool, boys infallibly loe that decent bahfulnes, which might have ripened into modety, at home.

And what naty indecent tricks do they alo learn from each other, when a number of them pig together in the ame bedchamber, not to peak of the vices, which render the body weak whilt they effectually prevent the acquiition of any delicacy of mind. The little attention paid to the cultivation of modety, amongt men, produces great depravity in all the relationhips of ociety; for, not only love—love that ought to purify the heart, and firt call forth all the youthful powers, to prepare the man to dicharge the benevolent duties of life, is acrificed to premature lut; but, all the ocial affections are deadened by the elfih gratifications, which very early pollute the mind, and dry up the generous juices of the heart. In what an unnatural manner is innocence often violated; and what erious conequences enue to render private vices a public pet. Beides, an habit of peronal order, which has more effect on the moral character, than is, in general, uppoed, can only be acquired at home, where that repectable reerve is kept up which checks the familiarity, that inking into beatlines, undermines the affection it inults.

I have already animadverted on the bad habits which females acquire when they are hut up gether;&ensp;