But duty is
a cold word; and people, in order to find pleasure in duty, must have
been trained to consider their duties as pleasures. This is a truth at
which no one arrives by inspiration! And in this moral struggle, which,
like all other struggles, produces lassitude and distaste of all things,
the happiness of the individual is lost, her usefulness destroyed, her
influence most pernicious. For nothing has so injurious an effect on
temper and manners, and consequently on moral influence, as the want of
that internal quiet which can only arise from the accordance of duty
with inclination. Another most pernicious effect is, the deadening
within the heart of the feeling of love, which is the root of all
influence; for it is an extraordinary fact, that vanity acts as a sort
of refrigerator on all men--on the possessor of it, and on the observer.
Now, if conscientiousness and unselfishness be the two main supports of
women's beneficial influence, how can any education be good which has
not the cultivation of these qualities for its first and principal
object? The grand objects, then, in the education of women, ought to be,
the conscience, the heart, and the affections; the development of those
moral qualities which Providence has so liberally bestowed upon them,
doubtless with a wise and beneficent purpose.
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