In every city, town, and almost in every
village, I have been told that there are public school for teaching the
more abstruse sciences.
_Mrs. B._ The mind of the poor girls, on the contrary, are most sadly
neglected. Needlework is almost the only accomplishment thought
necessary for them. There is no country in the world in which the woman
are in a greater state of humiliation, than in China. Those whose
husbands are of high rank, live under constant confinement; those of the
second class are little better than upper servants, deprived of all
liberty; whilst the poort share with their husbands the most laborious
occupations.
_Louisa._ How exceedingly I should dislike it; and yet, I think, I would
rather be the wife of a poor Chinese, than of a rich one.
_Emily_ I think so too; for the hardest labour would not be to me so
irksome as total inactivity.
_Mrs. B._ I am quite of your opinion, Emily. The situation of these
wretched beings must be rendered doubly irksome by the uncultivated
state of their minds. This deprives them of those delightful resources,
from which the well-educated female of our happy country may constantly
derive the purest enjoyment.
_Emily._ Had not your and my dear father early installed into us a love
of reading, how very much our present enjoyments would be lessened.
_Mrs. B._ We have always, my dear considered it as an important point
in your education; since no amusement so delightfully occupies the
vacant hours of life, even where entertainment is the principal object.
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