Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/300

294 the morals of youth. What, indeed, can tend to deprave the character more than outward ubmiion and inward contempt? Yet how can boys be expected to treat an uher with repect, when the mater eems to conider him in the light of a ervant, and almot to countenance the ridicule which becomes the chief amuement of the boys during the play hours.

But nothing of this kind could occur in an elementary day chool, where boys and girls, the rich and poor, hould meet together. And to prevent any of the ditinctions of vanity, they hould be dreed alike, and all obliged to ubmit to the ame dicipline, or leave the chool. The chool-room ought to be urrounded by a large piece of ground, in which the children might be uefully exercied, for at this age they hould not be confined to any edentary employment for more than an hour at a time. But thee relaxations might all be rendered a part of elementary education, for many things improve and amue the enes, when introduced as a kind of how, to the principles of which, dryly laid down, children would turn a deaf ear. For intance, botany, mechanics, and atronomy. Reading, writing, arithmetic, natural hitory, and ome imple experiments in natural philoophy, might fill up the day; but thee puruits hould never encroach on gymnatic plays in the open air. The elements of religion, hitory, the hitory of man, and politics, might alo be taught, by converations, in the ocratic form.

After the age of nine, girls and boys, intended for dometic employments, or mechanical trades, ought&ensp;