the person of the most menial servant, by paying more attention to
the comfort of a brute, than to that of a fellow-creature.

My observations on national education are obviously hints; but I
principally wish to enforce the necessity of educating the sexes
together to perfect both, and of making children sleep at home,
that they may learn to love home; yet to make private support
instead of smothering public affections, they should be sent to
school to mix with a number of equals, for only by the jostlings of
equality can we form a just opinion of ourselves.

To render mankind more virtuous, and happier of course, both sexes
must act from the same principle; but how can that be expected when
only one is allowed to see the reasonableness of it? To render
also the social compact truly equitable, and in order to spread
those enlightening principles, which alone can meliorate the fate
of man, women must be allowed to found their virtue on knowledge,
which is scarcely possible unless they be educated by the same
pursuits as men. For they are now made so inferiour by ignorance
and low desires, as not to deserve to be ranked with them; or, by
the serpentine wrigglings of cunning they mount the tree of
knowledge and only acquire sufficient to lead men astray.

It is plain from the history of all nations, that women cannot be
confined to merely domestic pursuits, for they will not fulfil
family duties, unless their minds take a wider range, and whilst
they are kept in ignorance, they become in the same proportion, the
slaves of pleasure as they are the slaves of man. Nor can they be
shut out of great enterprises, though the narrowness of their minds
often make them mar what they are unable to comprehend.