Daniel Defoe.

1661(?)-1731.

AN ACADEMY FOR WOMEN.

(From An Essay upon Projects, 1697.)

I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and 5 impertinence, while I am confident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves. One would wonder, indeed, how it should happen that women are conversible at all, since they are only beholden to natural parts for all their knowledge. Their youth 10 is spent to teach them to stitch and sew or make baubles. They are taught to read, indeed, and perhaps to write their names or so, and that is the height of a woman's education. And I would but ask any who slight the sex for their understanding, What is a man (a gentleman, I mean) good for that 15 is taught no more? I need not give instances, or examine the character of a gentleman with a good estate and of a good family and with tolerable parts, and examine what figure he makes for want of education.

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and 20 must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear. And it is manifest that as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes, so education carries on the distinction and makes some less brutish than others. This is too evident to need any demonstration. But why, then, should women be denied the 25 benefit of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God Almighty would never have given them capacities, for He made nothing needless.

Besides, I would ask such what they can see in ignorance that they should think it a necesary ornament to a woman. Or how much worse is a wise woman than a fool? Or what has the woman done to forfeit the privilege of being taught? Does she plague us with her pride and impertinence? Why 5 did we not let her learn, that she might have had more wit? Shall we upbraid women with folly, when it is only the error of this inhuman custom that hindered them being made wiser? The capacities of women are supposed to be greater and their senses quicker than those of the men; and what they 10 might be capable of being bred to is plain from some instances of female wit which this age is not without; which upbraids us with injustice, and looks as if we denied women the advantages of education for fear they should vie with the men in their improvements.

To remove this objection, and that women might have at least a needful opportunity of education in all sorts of useful learning, I propose the draught of an academy for that purpose.

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I know it is dangerous to make public appearances of the 20 sex. They are not either to be confined or exposed: the first will disagree with their inclinations, and the last with their reputations; and therefore it is somewhat difficult; and I doubt a method proposed by an ingenious lady, in a little book called Advice to the Ladies, would be found imprac- 25 ticable, for, saving my respect to the sex, the lexity which perhaps is a little peculiar to them (at least in their youth) will not bear the restraint, and I am satisfied nothing but the height of bigotry can keep up a nunnery. . Wherefore the academy I propose should differ but little from public 30 schools, wherein such ladies as were willing to study should have all the advantages of learning suitable to their genius.

But since some severities of discipline more than ordinary would be absolutely necessary to preserve the reputation of the house, that persons of quality and fortune might not be 35 afraid to venture their children thither, I shall venture to make a small scheme by way of essay.

The house I would have built in a form by itself, as well

as in a place by itself. The building should be of three plain fronts, without any jettings or bearing-work, that the eye might at a glance see from one coin to the other; the gardens walled in the same triangular figure, with a large moat and 5 but one entrance.

When thus every part of the situation was contrived as well as might be for discovery, and to render intriguing dangerous, I would have no guards, no eyes, no spies set over the ladies, but shall expect them to be tried by the principles of honor 10 and strict virtue.

Upon this ground I am persuaded such measures might be taken that the ladies might have all the freedom in the world within their own walls, and yet no intriguing, no indecencies, nor scandalous affairs happen; and, in order to this, the fol15 lowing customs and laws should be observed in the colleges, of which I would propose one at least in every county in England, and about ten for the city of London. After the regulation of the form of the building as before:

1. All the ladies who enter into the house should set their 20 hands to the orders of the house, to signify their consent to submit to them.

2. As no woman should be received but who declared herself willing, and that it was the act of her choice to enter herself, so no person should be confined to continue there a 25 moment longer than the same voluntary choice inclined her.

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3. The charges of the house being to be paid by the ladies, every one that entered should have only this encumbrance— that she should pay for the whole year, though her mind should change as to her continuance.

4. An act of Parliament should make it felony, without clergy, for any man to enter by force or fraud into the house, or to solicit any woman, though it were to marry, while she was in the house. And this law would by no means be severe, because any woman who was willing to receive the addresses 35 of a man might discharge herself of the house when she pleased; and, on the contrary, any woman who had occasion might discharge herself of the impertinent addresses of any person she had an aversion to by entering into the house.

In this house the persons who enter should be taught all sorts of breeding suitable to both their genius and their quality, and, in particular, music and dancing, which it would be cruelty to bar the sex of, because they are their darlings; but, besides this, they should be taught languages, as par-5 ticularly French and Italian; and I would venture the injury of giving a woman more tongues than one. They should, as a particular study, be taught all the graces of speech and all the necessary air of conversation, which our common education is so defective in that I need not expose it. They 10 should be brought to read books, and especially history, and so to read as to make them understand the world and be able to know and judge of things when they hear of them. To such whose genius would lead them to it I would deny no sort of learning: but the chief thing in general is to culti- 15 vate the understandings of the sex, that they may be capable of all sorts of conversation; that, their parts and judgments being improved, they may be as profitable in their conversation as they are pleasant.

Women, in my observation, have little or no difference in 20 them but as they are or are not distinguished by education. Tempers indeed may in some degree influence them, but the main distinguishing part is their breeding. The whole sex are generally quick and sharp; I believe I may be allowed to say generally so, for you rarely see them lumpish and 25 heavy when they are children, as boys will often be. If a woman be well bred, and taught the proper management of her natural wit, she proves generally very sensible and retentive; and, without partiality, a woman of sense and manners is the finest and most delicate part of God's creation, 30 the glory of her Maker, and the great instance of His singular regard to man (His darling creature), to whom He gave the best gift either God could bestow or man receive; and it is the sordidest piece of folly and ingratitude in the world to withhold from the sex the due lustre which the advantages 35 of education gives to the natural beauty of their minds.

A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behavior, is

a creature without comparison: her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments; her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly; she is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight; she is every way suitable to the sublimest 5 wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion has nothing to do but to rejoice in her and be thankful.

On the other hand, suppose her to be the very same woman and rob her of the benefit of education, and it follows thus:

If her temper be good, want of education makes her soft 10 and easy. Her wit, for want of teaching, makes her impertinent and talkative. Her knowledge, for want of judgment and experience, makes her fanciful and whimsical. If her temper be bad, want of breeding makes her worse, and she grows haughty, insolent, and loud. If she be passionate, 15 want of manners makes her a termagant and a scold, which is much at one with lunatic. If she be proud, want of discretion (which still is breeding) makes her conceited, fantastic, and ridiculous. And from these she degenerates to be turbulent, clamorous, noisy, nasty, and the devil.

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Methinks mankind for their own sakes (since, say what we will of the women, we all think fit, one time or other, to be concerned with them) should take some care to breed them up to be suitable and serviceable, if they expected no such thing as delight from them. Bless us! what care do we take 25 to breed up a good horse, and to break him well! and what a value do we put upon him when it is done!—and all because he should be fit for our use. And why not a woman? since all her ornaments and beauty, without suitable behavior, is a cheat in nature, like the false tradesman who puts the best 30 of his goods uppermost that the buyer may think the rest are of the same goodness.

Beauty of the body, which is the woman's glory, seems to be now unequally bestowed, and nature (or rather Providence) to lie under some scandal about it, as if it was given a woman 35 for a snare to men and so make a kind of she-devil of her: because, they say, exquisite beauty is rarely given with wit, more rarely with goodness of temper, and never at all with modesty. And some, pretending to justify the equity of such