But if, after all your efforts, your wife persists in wishing to read,
put at her disposal at once all possible books from the A B C of her
little boy to _Rene_, a book more dangerous to you when in her hands
than _Therese Philosophe_. You might create in her an utter disgust
for reading by giving her tedious books; and plunge her into utter
idiocy with _Marie Alacoque_, _The Brosse de Penitence_, or with the
chansons which were so fashionable in the time of Louis XV; but later
on you will find, in the present volume, the means of so thoroughly
employing your wife's time, that any kind of reading will be quite out
of the question.
And first of all, consider the immense resources which the education
of women has prepared for you in your efforts to turn your wife from
her fleeting taste for science. Just see with what admirable stupidity
girls lend themselves to reap the benefit of the education which is
imposed upon them in France; we give them in charge to nursery maids,
to companions, to governesses who teach them twenty tricks of coquetry
and false modesty, for every single noble and true idea which they
impart to them. Girls are brought up as slaves, and are accustomed to
the idea that they are sent into the world to imitate their
grandmothers, to breed canary birds, to make herbals, to water little
Bengal rose-bushes, to fill in worsted work, or to put on collars.
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