" Intellectual cultivation was too long
considered as education, properly so called. The mischief which this
error has produced, is exactly in proportion to the increase of power
thereby communicated to wrong principles.
What, then, is the true object of female education? The best answer to
this question is, a statement of future duties; for it must never be
forgotten, that if education be not a training for future duties, it is
nothing. The ordinary lot of woman is to marry. Has any thing in these
educations prepared her to make a wise choice in marriage? To be a
mother! Have the duties of maternity,--the nature of moral
influence,--been pointed out to her? Has she ever been enlightened as
to the consequent unspeakable importance of personal character as the
source of influence? In a word, have any means, direct or indirect,
prepared her for her duties? No! but she is a linguist, a pianist,
graceful, admired. What is that to the purpose? The grand evil of such
an education is the mistaking means for ends; a common error, and the
source of half the moral confusion existing in the world. It is the
substitution of the part for a whole.
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