common course of their education. They are
taught what their parents or guardians judge
it necessary or useful for them to learn, and
they are taught nothing else. Every part of
their education tends evidently to some useful
purpose; either to improve the natural attractions
of their person, or to form their mind
to reserve, to modesty, to chastity, and to
economy; to render them both likely to become
the mistresses of a family, and to behave
properly when they have become such.
In every part of her life, a woman feels some
conveniency or advantage from every part of
her education. It seldom happens that a
man, in any part of his life, derives any conveniency
or advantage from some of the most
laborious and troublesome parts of his education.
Ought the public, therefore, to give no
attention, it may be asked, to the education
of the people? Or, if it ought to give any,
what are the different parts of education
which it ought to attend to in the different
orders of the people? and in what manner
ought it to attend to them?
In some cases, the state of society necessarily
places the greater part of individuals in
such situations as naturally form in them,
without any attention of government, almost
all the abilities and virtues which that state
requires, or perhaps can admit of. In other
cases, the state of the society does not place
the greater part of individuals in such situations;
and some attention of government is
necessary, in order to prevent the almost entire
corruption and degeneracy of the great
body of the people.
In the progress of the division of labour,
the employment of the far greater part of
those who live by labour, that is, of the great
body of the people, comes to be confined to
a few very simple operations; frequently to
one or two. But the understandings of the
greater part of men are necessarily formed
by their ordinary employments. The man
whose whole life is spent in performing a few
simple operations, of which the effects, too,
are perhaps always the same, or very nearly
the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding,
or to exercise his invention, in
finding out expedients for removing difficulties
which never occur. He naturally loses,
therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally
becomes as stupid and ignorant as it
is possible for a human creature to become.
The torpor of his mind renders him not only
incapable of relishing or bearing a part in
any rational conversation, but of conceiving
any generous, noble, or tender sentiment,
and consequently of forming any just judgment
concerning many even of the ordinary
duties of private life. Of the great and extensive
interests of his country he is altogether
incapable of judging; and unless very
particular pains have been taken to render
him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending
his country in war. The uniformity
of his stationary life naturally corrupts the
courage of his mind, and makes him regard,
with abhorrence, the irregular, uncertain, and
adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts
even the activity of his body, and renders
him incapable of exerting his strength with
vigour and perseverance in any other employment,
than that to which he has been bred.
His dexterity at his own particular trade
seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the
expense of his intellectual, social, and martial
virtues. But in every improved and civilized
society, this is the state into which the labouring
poor, that is, the great body of the
people, must necessarily fall, unless government
takes some pains to prevent it.
It is otherwise in the barbarous societies, as
they are commonly called, of hunters, of shepherds,
and even of husbandmen in that rude
state of husbandry which precedes the improvement
of manufactures, and the extension
of foreign commerce. In such societies, the
varied occupations of every man oblige every
man to exert his capacity, and to invent expedients
for removing difficulties which are
continually occurring. Invention is kept
alive, and the mind is not suffered to fall into
that drowsy stupidity, which, in a civilized
society, seems to benumb the understanding
of almost all the inferior ranks of people.
In those barbarous societies, as they are called,
every man, it has already been observed,
is a warrior. Every man, too, is in some
measure a statesman, and can form a tolerable
judgment concerning the interest of the
society, and the conduct of those who govern
it. How far their chiefs are good judges in
peace, or good leaders in war, is obvious to
the observation of almost every single man
among them. In such a society, indeed, no
man can well acquire that improved and refined
understanding which a few men sometimes
possess in a more civilized state.
Though in a rude society there is a good
deal of variety in the occupations of every
individual, there is not a great deal in those
of the whole society. Every man does, or is
capable of doing, almost every thing which
any other man does, or is capable of doing.
Every man has a considerable degree of
knowledge, ingenuity, and invention; but
scarce any man has a great degree. The degree,
however, which is commonly possessed,
is generally sufficient for conducting the
whole simple business of the society. In a
civilized state, on the contrary, though there
is little variety in the occupations of the
greater part of individuals, there is an almost
infinite variety in those of the whole society.
These varied occupations present an almost
infinite variety of objects to the contemplation
of those few, who, being attached to no
particular occupation themselves, have leisure