ſtrength and uſefulneſs are ſacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleaſed a faſtidious eye, fade, diſregarded on the ſtalk, long before the ſeaſon when they ought to have arrived at maturity.—One cauſe of this barren blooming I attribute to a falſe ſyſtem of education, gathered from the books written on this ſubject by men who, conſidering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring miſtreſſes than rational wives; and the underſtanding of the ſex has been ſo bubbled by this ſpecious homage, that the civilized women of the preſent century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inſpire love, when they ought to cheriſh a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact reſpect.
In a treatiſe, therefore, on female rights and manners, the works which have been particularly written for their improvement muſt not be overlooked; eſpecially when it is aſſerted, in direct terms, that the minds of women are enfeebled by falſe refinement; that the books of inſtruction, written by men of genius, have had the ſame tendency as more frivolous productions; and that, in the true ſtyle of Mahometaniſm, they are only conſidered as females, and not as a part of the human ſpecies, when improvable rea-
