Strictures on the modern system of female education: ... By Hannah More. In two volumes. ... [pt.1]

CHAP. II. On the education of women.—The prevailing system tends to establish the errors which it ought to correct.—Dangers arising from an excessive cultivation of the arts.

IT is far from being the object of this slight work to offer a regular plan of female education, a task which has been often more properly assumed by far abler writers; but it is intended rather to sug|gest a few remarks on the existing mode, which, though it has had many panegy|rists, appears to be defective, not only in a few particulars, but as a general system. There are indeed numberless honourable exceptions to an observation which will be thought severe; yet the author questions if it be not the natural and direct tendency of the prevailing and popular system, to excite and promote those very defects,

which it ought to be the main end and object of Christian education to remove; whether, instead of directing this import|ant engine to attack and destroy vanity, selfishness, and inconsideration, that triple alliance in league against female virtue; the combined powers of instruction are not sedulously confederated in confirming their strength and establishing their empire?

If indeed the material substance, if the body and limbs, with the organs and senses, be really the more valuable objects of attention, then is there little room for animadversion and improvement. But if the immaterial and immortal mind; if the heart,

out of which are the issues of life,

be the main concern; if the great business of education be to implant ideas, to communicate knowledge, to form a correct taste and a sound judgment, to resist evil propensities, and, above all, to seize the favourable season for infusing principles and confirming habits; if edu|cation be a school to fit us for life, and

life be a school to fit us for eternity; if such, I repeat it, be the chief work and grand ends of education, it may then be worth inquiring how far these ends are likely to be effected by the prevailing system.

Is it not a fundamental error to consider children as innocent beings, whose little weaknesses may perhaps want some cor|rection, rather than as beings who bring into the world a corrupt nature and evil dispositions, which it should be the great end of education to rectify? This appears to be such a foundation-truth, that if I were asked what quality is most im|portant in an instructor of youth, I should not hesitate to reply, such a strong im|pression of the corruption of our nature, as should insure a disposition to counteract it; together with such a deep view and thorough knowledge of the human heart, as should be necessary for developing and controlling its most secret and complicated workings. And let us remember that to know the world,

as it is called, that is, to know its local manners, temporary usages, and evanescent fashions, is not to know human nature: and where this last mentioned know|ledge is wanting, those natural evils which ought to be counteracted will be fostered.

Vanity, for instance, is reckoned among the light and venial errors of youth; nay, so far from being treated as a dangerous enemy, it is often called in as an auxiliary. At worst, it is considered as a harmless weakness, which subtracts little from the value of a character; as a natural effer|vescence, which will subside of itself, when the first ferment of the youthful passions shall have done working. But those know little of the conformation of the human, and especially of the female heart, who fancy that vanity is ever exhausted, by the mere operation of time and events. Let those who maintain this opinion look into our places of public resort, and there be|hold if the ghost of departed beauty is not to its last flitting fond of haunting the

scenes of its past pleasures; the soul, un|willing (if I may borrow an allusion from the Platonic mythology) to quit the spot in which the body enjoyed its former delights, still continues to hover about the same place, though the same pleasures are no longer to be found there. Disappoint|ments indeed may divert vanity into a new direction; prudence may prevent it from breaking out into excesses, and age may prove that it is "vexation of "spirit;" but neither disappointment, prudence, nor age can cure it; for they do not correct the principle. Nay, the very disappointment itself serves as a painful evidence of its existence.

Since then there is a season when the youthful must cease to be young, and the beautiful to excite admiration; to grow old gracefully is perhaps one of the rarest and most valuable arts which can be taught to woman. It is for this sober season of life that education should lay up its rich resources. However disregarded they may

hitherto have been, they will be wanted now. When admirers fall away, and flatterers become mute, the mind will be driven to retire into itself, and if it find no entertainment at home, it will be driven back again upon the world with increased force. Yet forgetting this, do we not seem to educate our daughters, exclusively, for the transient period of youth, when it is to maturer life we ought to advert? Do we not educate them for a crowd, forgetting that they are to live at home? for the world, and not for themselves? for show, and not for use? for time, and not for eternity?

Vanity (and the same may be said of selfishness) is not to be resisted like any other vice, which is sometimes busy and sometimes quiet; it is not to be attacked as a single fault, which is indulged in opposition to a single virtue; but it is uniformly to be controlled, as an active, a restless, a growing principle, at constant war with all the Christian graces; which

not only mixes itself with all our faults, but insinuates itself into all our virtues too; and will, if not checked effectually, rob our best actions of their reward. Vanity, if I may use the analogy, is, with respect to the other vices, what feeling is in regard to the other senses; it is not confined in its operation to the eye, or the ear, or any single organ, but diffused through the whole being, alive in every part, awakened and communicated by the slightest touch.

Not a few of the evils of the present day arise from a new and perverted application of terms; among these perhaps, there is not one more abused, misunderstood, or misapplied, than the term accomplishments. This word in its original meaning, signifies completeness, perfection. But I may safely appeal to the observation of mankind, whether they do not meet with swarms of youthful females, issuing from our board|ing schools, as well as emerging from the more private scenes of domestic education,

who are introduced into the world, under the broad and universal title of accom|plished young ladies, of all of whom it cannot very truly and correctly be pro|nounced, that they illustrate the definition by a completeness which leaves nothing to be added, and a perfection which leaves nothing to be desired.

This phrenzy of accomplishments, un|happily, is no longer restricted within the usual limits of rank and fortune; the middle orders have caught the contagion, and it rages with increasing violence, from the elegantly dressed but slenderly por|tioned curate's daughter, to the equally fashionable daughter of the little tradesman, and of the more opulent, but not more judicious farmer. And is it not obvious, that as far as this epidemical mania has spread, this very valuable part of fociety declines in usefulness, as it rises in its unlucky pretensions to elegance? And this revolution of the manners of the middle class has so far altered the cha|racter

of the age, as to be in danger of rendering obsolete the heretofore common saying,

that most worth and virtue are to be found in the middle station.

For I do not scruple to assert, that in general, as far as my little observation has extended, this class of females, in what relates both to religious knowledge and to practical industry, falls short both of the very high and the very low. Their new course of education, and the habits of life, and elegance of dress connected with it, peculiarly unfits them for the active duties of their own very important condition; while, with frivolous eagerness and second|hand opportunities, they run to snatch a few of those showy acquirements which decorate the great. This is done appa|rently with one or other of these views; either to make their fortune by marriage, or if that fail, to qualify them to become teachers of others: hence the abundant multiplication of supersicial wives, and of incompetent and illiterate governesses.

The use of the pencil, the performance of exquisite but unnecessary works, the study of foreign languages and of music, require (with some exceptions, which should always be made in favour of great natural genius) a degree of leisure which belongs exclusively to affluence * 1.1 One use of learning languages is, not that we may know what the terms which express the articles of our dress and our table are called in French or Italian; not that we may think over a few ordinary phrases in English, and then translate them, with|out one foreign idiom; for he who cannot think in a language cannot be said to un|derstand it: but the great use of acquiring any foreign language is, either that it enables us occasionally to converse with foreigners unacquainted with any other,

or that it is a key to the literature of the country to which it belongs; and those humbler females, the chief part of whose time is required for domestic offices, are little likely to fall in the way of foreigners; and so far from enjoying opportunities for the acquisition of foreign literature, have seldom time to possess themselves of all that valuable knowledge, which the books of their own country so abundantly fur|nish; and the acquisition of which would be so much more useful and honourable than the paltry accessions they make, by hammering out the meaning of a few passages in a tongue they but imperfectly understand, and of which they are likely to make no use.

It would be well if the reflection how eagerly this redundancy of accomplish|ments is seized on by their inferiors, were to operate as in the case of other absurd fashions, which the great can feldom be brought to renounce from any

other consideration than that they are adopted by the vulgar.

But, to return to that more elevated, and, on account of their more extended influence only, that more important class of females, to whose use this little work is more immediately dedicated. Some popular authors, on the subject of female instruction, had for a time established a fantastic code of artificial manners. They had refined elegance into insipidity, frittered down delicacy into frivolousness, and reduced manner into minauderie. But

to lisp and to amble and to nick-name God's creatures,

has nothing to do with true gentleness of mind; and to be silly makes no necessary part of softness. Another class of cotemporary authors turned all the force of their talents to excite emotions, to inspire sentiment, and to reduce all moral excellence into sympathy and feeling. These softer qualities were elevated at the expence of principle; and young women were incessantly hearing

unqualified sensibility extolled as the per|fection of their nature; till those who really possessed this amiable quality, instead of directing, and chastising, and restraining it, were in danger of fostering it to their hurt, and began to consider themselves as deriving their excellence from its excess; while those less interesting damsels, who happened not to find any of this amiable sensibility in their hearts, but thought it creditable to have it somewhere, fancied its seat was in the nerves; and here indeed it was easily found or feigned; till a false and excessive display of feeling became so predominant, as to bring in question the actual existence of that true tenderness, without which, though a woman may be worthy, she can never be amiable.

Fashion then, by one of her sudden and rapid turns, instantaneously struck out sensibility and affectation from the standing list of female perfections; and, by a quick touch of her magic wand,

shifted the scene, and at once produced the bold and independent beauty, the intrepid female, the hoyden, the huntress, and the archer; the swinging arms, the confident address, the regimental, and the four-in-hand. These self-complacent heroines made us ready to regret their softer predecessors, who had aimed only at pleasing the other sex, while these aspiring fair ones struggled for the bolder renown of rivalling them. The project failed; for, whereas the former had sued for admiration, the latter challenged, seized, compelled it; but the men, as was natural, continued to prefer the more modest claimant to the sturdy competitor.

It were well if we, who have the advan|tage of contemplating the errors of the two extremes, were to look for truth where she is commonly to be found, in the plain and obvious middle path, equally remote from each excess; and, while we bear in mind that helplessness is not delicacy, let us also remember that masculine manners

do not necessarily include strength of character nor vigour of intellect. Should we not reflect also, that we are neither to train up Amazons nor Circassians, but to form Christians? that we have to educate not only rational but accountable beings? and, remembering this, should we not be solicitous to let our daughters learn of the well-taught, and associate with the well-bred? In training them, should we not carefully cultivate intellect, implant religion, and cherish modesty? then, whatever is delicate in manners, would be the natural result of whatever is just in sentiment, and correct in principle: then, the decorums, the proprieties, theele|gancies, and even the graces, as far as they are simple, pure, and honest, would follow as an almost inevitable consequence; for to follow in the train of the Christian virtues, and not to take the lead of them, is the proper place which religion assigns to the graces.

Whether we have made the best use of the errors of our predecessors, and of our own numberless advantages, and whether the prevailing system be really consistent with sound policy or with Christian prin|ciple, it may be worth our while to inquire.

Would not a stranger be led to imagine by a view of the reigning mode of female education, that human life consisted of one universal holiday, and that the grand con|test between the several competitors was, who should be most eminently qualified to excel, and carry off the prize, in the various shows and games which were intended to be exhibited in it? And to the exhibitors themselves, would he not be ready to apply Sir Francis Bacon's observation on the Olympian victors, that they were so excellent in these unnecessary things, that their perfection must needs have been acquired by the neglect of whatever was necessary?

What would the polished Addison, who thought that one great end of a lady's learning to dance was, that she might know how to sit still gracefully; what would even the Pagan historian * 1.2 of the great Roman conspirator, who could commemorate it among the defects of his hero's accomplished mistress,

that she was too good a singer and dancer for a virtuous woman;

what would these refined critics have said, had they lived as we have done, to see the art of dancing lifted into such importance, that it cannot with any degree of safety be confided to one instructor, but a whole train of successive masters are considered as abso|lutely essential to its perfection? What would these accurate judges of female manners have said, to see a modest young lady first delivered into the hands of a military sergeant to instruct her in the feminine art of marching? and when this

delicate acquisition is attained, to see her transferred to a professor who is to teach her the Scotch steps; which professor, having communicated his indispensable por|tion of this indispensable art, makes way for the professor of French dances; and all perhaps in their turn, either yield to, or have the honour to co-operate with a finishing master; each probably receiv|ing a stipend which would make the pious curate or the learned chaplain rich and happy?

The science of music, which used to be communicated in so competent a de|gree by one able instructor, is now distributed among a whole band. A young lady now requires, not a master, but an orchestra. And my country readers would accuse me of exaggeration were I to hazard enumerating the variety of musical teachers who attend in the same family; the daugh|ters of which are summoned, by at least as many instruments as the subjects of Nebu|chadnezzar, to worship the idol which

fashion has set up. They would be in|credulous were I to produce real instances, in which the delighted mother has been heard to declare, that the visits of masters of every art, and the masters for various gradations of the same art, followed each other in such close and rapid succession during the whole London residence, that her girls had not a moment's interval to look into a book; nor could she contrive any method to introduce one, till she happily devised the scheme of reading to them herself for half an hour while they were drawing, by which means no time was lost.

Before the evil is past redress, it will be prudent to reflect that in all polished countries an entire devotedness to the fine arts has been one grand source of the cor|ruption of the women; and so justly were these pernicious consequences appreciated by the Greeks, among whom these arts were carried to the highest possible per|fection, that they seldom allowed them to

be cultivated to a very exquisite degree by women of great purity of character. And if the ambition of an elegant British lady should be fired by the idea that the accom|plished females of those polished states were the admired companions of the philo|sophers, the poets, the wits, and the artists of Athens; and their beauty or talents the favourite subjects of the muse, the lyre, the pencil, and the chissel; so that their pictures and statues furnished the most consummate models of Grecian art: if, I say, the accomplished females of our days are panting for similar renown, let their modesty chastise their ambition, by re|collecting that these celebrated women are not to be found among the chaste wives and the virtuous daughters of the Aristides's, the Agis's, and the Phocions; but that they are to be looked for among the Phrynes, the Lais's, the Aspasias, and the Glyceras. I am persuaded the Christ|ian female, whatever be her talents, will renounce the desire of any celebrity when

attached to impurity of character, with the same noble indignation with which the virtuous biographer of the above-named heroes renounced all dishonest fame, by exclaiming,

I had rather it should be said there never was a Plutarch, than that they should say Plutarch was ma|lignant, unjust, or envious * 1.3

And while this corruption, brought on by an excessive cultivation of the arts, has contributed its full share to the decline of states, it has always furnished an in|fallible symptom of their impending fall. The satires of the most penetrating and judicious of the Roman poets, corroborat|ing the testimonies of the most accurate of their historians, abound with invectives against the depravity of manners intro|duced by the corrupt habits of female education. The bitterness and gross in|delicacy

of some of these satirists (too gross to be either quoted or referred to) make little against their authority in these points; for how shocking must those cor|ruptions have been, and how obviously offensive their causes, which could have appeared so highly disgusting to minds not likely to be scandalized by slight de|viations from decency! The famous ode of Horace, attributing the vices and disasters of his country to the same cause, might, were it quite free from the above ob|jections, be produced, I will not presume to say as an exact picture of the existing manners of this country; but may I not venture to say, as a prophecy, the ful|filment of which cannot be very remote? It may however be observed, that the modesty of the Roman matron, and the chaste demeanor of her virgin daughters, which amidst the stern virtues of the state were as immaculate and pure as the honour of the Roman citizen, fell a sacri|fice to the luxurious dissipation brought in

by their Asiatic conquests; after which the females were soon taught a com|plete change of character. They were instructed to accommodate their talents of pleasing to the more vitiated tastes of the other sex; and began to study every grace and every art which might captivate the exhausted hearts, and excite the wearied and capricious inclinations of the men: till by a rapid and at length com|plete enervation, the Roman character lost its signature, and through a quick suc|cession of slavery, effeminancy, and vice, sunk into that degeneracy of which some of the modern Italian states serve to furnish a too just specimen.

It is of the essence of human things that the same objects which are highly useful in their season, measure, and de|gree, become mischievous in their excess, at other periods, and under other cir|cumstances. In a state of barbarism, the arts are among the best reformers; and they go on to be improved themselves,

and improving those who cultivate them, till, having reached a certain point, those very arts which were the instruments of civilization and refinement, become instru|ments of corruption and decay; enervat|ing and depraving in the second instance as certainly as they refined in the first. They become agents of voluptuousness. They excite the imagination; and the imagin|ation thus excited, and no longer under the government of strict principle, be|comes the most dangerous stimulant of the passions; promotes a too keen relish for pleasure, teaching how to multiply its sources, and inventing new and pernicious modes of artificial gratification.

May the author be allowed to address to our own country and our own cir|cumstances, to both of which they seem peculiarly applicable, the spirit of that beau|tiful apostrophe of the most polished poet of antiquity to the most victorious nation?

Let us leave to the inhabitants of con|quered countries the praise of carrying to

the very highest degree of perfection, sculpture and the sister arts; but let this country direct her own exertions to the art of governing mankind in equity and peace, of shewing mercy to the sub|missive, and of abasing the proud among surrounding nations.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Those among the class in question, whose own good sense leads them to avoid these mistaken pur|suits, cannot be offended at a reproof which does not belong to them.
• * 1.2

  Sallust.
• * 1.3

  No censure is levelled at the exertions of real genius, which is as valuable as it is rare; but at the absurdity of that system which is erecting the whole sex into artists.