I am well aware that Difficulties will occur to me on this Head, and thereby sometimes break the Order of my Design; but, as I have elsewhere observed, when Exceptions from general Rules are reasonable, it is perfectly right to adhere to them. It would be Affectation in me to call myself such a Stranger to the World, as not to know the Influence of Money: Mankind is apt to contract a Degree of Esteem for all who possess it; and the Possessor seldom fails to set a sufficient Value on himself for it. Thus it often happens that Men, whose Business is but mean, grow wealthy, have perhaps an only Child, and think they have a Right to educate it as they please; for my own Part I do not mean expressly to oppose it, because it may be nipping a promising Fruit in the Bud; but Parents of this Class stand in need of more Knowledge to conduct themselves herein than commonly speaking they are possess’d of. Nothing is more frequent than for Men in different Stations to ruin themselves by rashly aspiring; and he who has Reputation and Credit in one Sphere, is perhaps undone if he moves beyond it. But while we see that Money is apt to make Men even of good Understanding and good Education giddy, no wonder that those of obscure Birth, no Education, and a Life of ordinary Employment, spent mostly in ordinary Company, value themselves for their Possessions far beyond Desert. To this is owing that vain Strut, that supercilious Air, and Contempt of others, so frequent in People of this Class; and hence too arise those Errors they daily commit, by an ostentatious Education of their Children; by vainly aspiring to equal their Betters, and often to surpass them, at least in Appearance. I had occasion, some Years ago, to make a Visit to a young Lady of Fashion and Fortune at one of our Boarding-Schools near Town, where the best dress’d Girl in the whole House was a Poulterer’s Daughter. Can there be any thing more absurd than this? yet is there any thing more common? It is a general Observation, that ordinary People dress their Children finer than People of Fashion; and why? only because they will shew the World they are able to do it, and therefore will not be outdone. Parents are not aware how destructive this false Pride, this vain mistaken Fondness is to their Children: and the first Effect it has on them is, to make them ashamed of their Parents, those very People who thus mislead them. Can any thing be more preposterous and unnatural? yet is it undeniably true.