"Now unfortunately some of the female sex having just tasted of the Pierian springs, have become stimulated to intoxication, without proceeding to the sobering draught recommended by the poet. Then, as a woman's education does not _usually_ comprehend either classical or scientific literature, a very slight proficiency in either will make a great shew, just as a solitary candle will do in a dark place; but there are silly people to be found in every country as of every age, and _both_ sexes." "Pray then," said Emily, "would not the abuse of learning be remedied in a manner _kind_ as well as efficient, by making knowledge fashionable, rather than by condemning half the creation to ignorance? If girls were _generally_ allowed to acquire more information than it is customary to teach them, there would be an end of what you call blue-stockings, and women would not boast of a little reading any more than they do of drawing or music." "You are perfectly right, Emily," answered Mr. Otway, "the best gifts may be abused, and the improper use of any good that we possess can never be considered as a sound argument for relinquishing it. Neither do men argue in this way when the question relates to money, power, rank, or any of those advantages which they _desire_ to achieve. Now, my own opinion is, that much of the unhappiness of married life, as well as the insipidity of mixed society, results from the present style of female education. Accomplishments are ornamental, yet they are only the acanthus that decorates the pillar, not the pillar itself. The most empty mind, the worst regulated temper, may be the portion of a young lady who plays and sings like a professor, who draws and models, who can take casts, and sculpture marble. All these things, however pretty, occupy neither the highest nor the best powers of the human mind; and, generally speaking, they are pursuits which _suppose_ exhibition. There are few who cultivate them on their _own account_; and thousands arrive at excellence in several branches of polite education without natural taste, merely to attain certain ends, and when they are compassed, the scaffolding is thrown aside altogether; the fingers are given a holyday, and the unfurnished understanding stands confessed in all its vacuity. If the vessel be not valuable from what it contains, it naturally follows that the external fashion will determine its estimation; and thus a short-lived grace comes to be the pearl of price; and when the bloom of youth is past, there is no fund to support the long evening of life. A sleepy animalized existence at _home_, or a perpetual search after excitement abroad, succeeds. Both sexes degenerate, society grows more vapid, and more vulgar, every day, till reduced to its coarse elements of mere sensual attraction, folly ends in vice, and things are worse and worse, till some new impetus arises to change the entire system. If companionship be the charm of social intercourse, why should not both sexes