732

THJi NATURE AND CAUSES O E

else. Every part of their education tends evidently to someuseful purpose; either to improve the natural attractions oftheir persons, or to form their mind to reserve, to modesty,to chastity, and to economy; to render them both likely tobecome the mistresses of a family, and to behave properlywhen they have become such. In every part of her life awoman feels some conveuieney or advantage from everypart of her education. It seldom happens that a man, in anypart of his life, derives any eonveniency or advantage fromsome of the most laborious and troublesome parts of hiseducation.

Ought the public, therefore, to give no attention, it may beasked, to the education of the people ? Or if it ought togive any, what are the different parts of education which itought to attend to in the different orders of the people? andin what manner ought it to attend to them ?

In some cases the state of society necessarily places thegreater part of individuals in such situations as naturallyform in them, without any attention of government, almostall the abilities and virtues which that state requires, or per-haps can admit of. In other cases the state of the societydoes not place the greater part of individuals in .such situ-ations, and some attention of government is necessary in orderto prevent the almost entire corruption and degeneracy ofthe great body of the people.

In the progress of the division of labour, the employmentof the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, ofthe great body of the people, comes to be confined to a fewvery simple operations ; frequently to one or two. But theunderstandings of the greater part of men are necessarilyformed by their ordinary employments. The man whosewhole life is spent in performing a few simple operations ofwhich the effects too are, perhaps, always the same, or verynearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding,or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for re-moving difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses,therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomesas stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creatureto become. The torpor of his mind renders him not onlyincapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational con-versation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tendersentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgmentconcerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life.