It was a misfortune, that at the school at which they had been bred, and at some others, there was no system of education which had any immediate reference to the station of life to which the girls chiefly belonged. As persons in the middle line, for want of that acquaintance with books, and with life and manners, which the great possess, do not always see the connection between remote consequences and their causes, the evils of a corrupt and inappropriate system of education do not strike _them_ so forcibly; and provided _they can pay for it_, which is made the grand criterion between the fit and the unfit, they are too little disposed to consider the value, or rather the worthlessness, of the thing which is paid for: but literally go on to _give their money for that which is not bread._ Their subsequent course of reading serves to establish all the errors of their education. Instead of such books as might help to confirm and strengthen them in all the virtues of their station, in humility, economy, meekness, contentment, self-denial, and industry; the studies now adopted are, by a graft on the old stock, made to grow on the habits acquired at school. Of those novels and plays which are so eagerly devoured by persons of this description, there is perhaps scarce one which is not founded upon principles which would lead young women of the middle ranks to be discontented with their station. It is _rank_--it is _elegance_--it is _beauty_--it is _sentimental feelings_--it is _sensibility_--it is some needless, or some superficial, or some hurtful quality, even in that fashionable person to whom the author ascribes it, which is the ruling principle. This quality transferred into the heart and the conduct of an illiterate woman in an inferior station, becomes absurdity, becomes sinfulness.