Maria Edgeworth (Essay Date 1799)

SOURCE: Edgeworth, Maria. "Answer to the Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend, Upon the Birth of a Daughter." In Letters for Literary Ladies, Second Edition, Revised, 58-83. London: J. Johnson, 1799.

In the following excerpt, Edgeworth's male letter writer discusses the proper education for women.

No woman can foresee what may be the taste of the man with whom she may be united; much of her happiness, however, will depend upon her being able to conform her taste to his: for this reason I should therefore, in female education, cultivate the general powers of the mind, rather than any particular faculty. I do not desire to make my daughter merely a musician, a painter, or a poet; I do not desire to make her merely a botanist, a mathematician, or a chemist; but I wish to give her early the habit of...