"I congratulate my granddaughters on being born in an age so much
enlightened. Sentiments are certainly extreme silly, and only qualify
young people to be the bubbles of all their acquaintance. I do not doubt
the frequency of assemblies has introduced a more enlarged way of
thinking; it is a kind of public education, which I have always thought
as necessary for girls as for boys. A woman married at five-and-twenty,
from under the eye of a strict parent, is commonly as ignorant as she
was at five; and no more capable of avoiding the snares, and struggling
with the difficulties, she will infallibly meet with in the commerce of
the world. The knowledge of mankind (the most useful of all knowledge)
can only be acquired by conversing with them. Books are so far from
giving that instruction, they fill the head with a set of wrong notions,
from whence spring the tribes of Clarissas, Harriets, &c. Yet such was
the method of education when I was in England, which I had it not in my
power to correct; the young will always adopt the opinions of all their
companions, rather than the advice of their mothers."


"Ignorance and a narrow education lay the foundations of vice," Mary
Astell had laid down as an axiom, and Lady Mary was always propounding
this to her daughter.


"I am extremely concerned to hear you complain of ill health, at a time
of life when you ought to be in the flower of your strength. I hope I
need not recommend to you the care of it: the tenderness you have for
your children is sufficient to enforce you to the utmost regard for the
preservation of a life so necessary to their well-being. I do not doubt
your prudence in their education: neither can I say anything particular