teaching, than others of less information, in the same way as the best students of theoretical knowledge have not always the most practical skill.

The common method of teaching arts is not better than that of cultivating sciences. Let us suppose, for the sake of example, that those only who have natural talents apply themselves to drawing, painting, and the arts of imitation, but we may ask, how are they generally taught? They are too frequently confined to copying the antiques as the only models of beauty and perfection, instead of representing and imitating nature. In this way artists will be only copyists, and never can acquire any claim to originality. On the other hand, the ancients had no exclusive privilege of genius, nor did they necessarily exhaust all the sources of excellence, so as to leave to posterity no resource but to copy them. On the contrary, there are many antiques that have no merit but their age. The only criterion, then, of greater or less perfection in works of art, is their resemblance to nature. Now, if the ancients have brought forth masterpieces in imitating nature, why should not modern artists do the same, since nature, though infinite in her modifications, is constant in her laws? Let us imitate the method of the ancient artists, but not copy their productions. They represented nature, and imitated her varieties; they gave to each strong hero, strong muscles, yet different in proportion and size, just as we find in nature

why should our artists copy only the statue of HERCULES, in crder to indicate bodily strength? Why should they in general confine themselves only to one and the same configuration and attitude for particular personages? All musicians

might be equally, and, with the same right, requested to follow only the productions of one or several great composers; and all music which is not like that of HANDEL, MOZART or HAYDN, be declared to be good for nothing.

Even on the supposition that education, in all its details, is well understood, and its principles practised, still there will be but a few individuals, who will unite all the faculties necessary to such or such a situation. The individual painters will be rare, who possess in a high degree the faculties of Constructiveness, Configuration, Size, Coloring, Imitation, Individuality, Comparison, and Causality. The same difficulty of uniting the necessary fundamental faculties together prevails in all arts, sciences and professions. In every one there are and will be individuals endowed with one or several of the necessary gifts; but it seldom happens that all the faculties are united in an eminent degree in one person. The combination of the primitive powers are innumerable, and form the proper subject of a particular treatise on talents and characters.

The reader will keep in mind, that in this volume, I intend merely to expose the fundamental principles according to which education is to be regulated, and the human race perfected. The peculiar applications are without end. The two following chapters, however, one on the education of both sexes, and the other on that of nations, seem to me particularly interesting. Yet there too the general principles remain the same, but their application is to be modified, and adapted to the peculiarities of sexes and nations.

CHAPTER V.

EDUCATION OF THE SEXES.

THE question, whether both sexes are to be edacated differently, or in the same manner, and placed in different or in the same situations in practical life, has been, and is still differently answered. Women call men usurpers and tyrants; and they, on the contrary, boast of natural and positive rights of superiority. I shall consider, in the first place, in a general way, the condition of women as it was, and as it is, and then examine what natural claims they have to equality. Their education is to be regulated according to the determination of the latter point.

The condition of women is very miserable among barbarous nations; they are slaves. Wherever bodily strength and animal feelings predominate, they are sadly off. They are purchased, and divorce is permitted. The Jews were privi

leged to divorce their wives. (Duet. xxiv.)

Among civilized nations, as long as the code of morality is dictated by the lower feelings, females are looked on as means of gratifying the selfish passions of men. The ancient Greeks and the European nations, during the dark ages, treated them with every indignity. Polygamy is intimately connected with the custom of purchasing wives. It prevailed originally every where, and exists still in many countries. In China, the wives are sold at marriages, and not permitted to make any choice of their own. By polygamy, however, some men usurp the right of others, a custom which is contrary to nature, since more boys are born than girls; or are we authorized to admit that the contrary happens in Asia? The pure spirit of Christianity abolished this odious. practice, and re-established the primitive law of the CREATOR.

The female sex has risen by a slow progress to nigher and higher degrees of estimation in Europe. Females are respected wherever moral feelings are esteemed. Where this is the case, they are valued as friends; but still they are either con

sidered as weak and delicate creatures, and as-. sisted, since it is thought a duty to compassionate and to succor the feeble, or they are treated as simple and useful housewives.

Where a taste for beautiful forms and elegance of manners prevails, the females are considered as agreeable companions, and often become mistresses.

Women are best treated, when polite manners and moral feelings are cultivated. Then they live with men under the decent form of matrimony. Their gentle and insinuating manners are highly appreciated, and they are considered as intimate and faithful friends.

Yet there is no society where the two sexes stand altogether in an equal situation. Is this difference founded on nature, or the result of the selfishness of men? Women speak of vindicating their natural rights; they call it tyranny to deny them a share in civil and political affairs, to force them to remain immured in their families, &c. MARY WOLSTONCROFT has taken great pains to show, that both sexes are by nature equal. She was obliged to admit the actual inferiority of her sex; but still she endeavored to prove, that women are degraded only by want of education, and by external circumstances; and that men, through jealousy, purposely neglect the cultivation