If the women of a nation are badly educated, it must have a great effect on the education of their sons, and the conduct of their husbands.  The Spartan and Roman mothers had the glory of making [end of page #100] their sons esteem bravery, and those qualities in a man that were most wanted in their state of society.  It should be one part of female education to know and admire the qualities that are estimable in the other sex.  To obtain the approbation of the other sex, is, at a certain time of life, the greatest object of ambition, and it is never a matter of indifference.

The great general error consists in considering the woman merely in her identical self, without thinking of her influence on others.  It appears to be for this reason, that writers on political economy have paid no attention to female education; but we find no state in which the virtue of men has been preserved where the women had none; though there are examples of women preserving their virtues, notwithstanding the torrent of corruption by which that of the men has been swept away. [end of page #101]

CHAP.  III.

Of increased Taxation, as an Interior Cause of Decline.—­Its different Effects on Industry, according to the Degree to which it is carried.—­Its Effects on the People and on Government.

There has been no instance of a government becoming more economical, or less expensive, as it became older, even when the nation itself was not increasing in wealth; but, in every nation that has increased in wealth, the expenditure, on the part of government, has augmented in a very rapid manner.

Amongst the interior causes of the decline of nations, and the overthrow of governments, the increase of taxes has always been very prominent.  It is in the levying of taxes that the sovereign and the subject act as if they were of opposite interests, or rather as if they were enemies to each other.

In every case almost, where the subjects have rebelled against their sovereign, or where they have abandoned their country to its enemies, the discontents have been occasioned by taxes that were either too heavy, imprudently laid on, or rigorously levied.

Sometimes the manner of laying on the tax has given the offence; sometimes its nature, and sometimes its amount.  The revolution in England, in Charles the first’s time, began about the manner of levying a tax.  The revolution of the American colonies began in the same way; and it is generally at the manner that nations enjoying a certain degree of freedom make objection.  The excise had very nearly proved fatal to the government of this country, as the stamp duties did to that of France, and as the general amount and enormity of taxes did to the Western Empire. {87}

—–­ {87} The system of taxation was ill understood amongst the Romans, and its execution, under a military government, is always severe.  The Romans were so tormented, at last, that they lost all regard for their country.  Taxes seem to be the price we pay for the con-[end of page #102] stitution we live under, and as they increase, the value of the purchase lessens.  The difference between value paid, and value received, constitutes the advantage or loss of every bargain. -=-