Thoughts on the Education of Daughters
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: With Reflections on Female Conduct in the More Important Duties of Life
Mary Wollstonecraft
Published: Joseph Johnson 1787
This was Mary Wollstonecraft's first published book and she wrote it during the period she was running her girls' school at Newington Green. A Green Plaque to Mary Wollstonecraft has been put up on the Newington Green School building that overlooks the Green, as it lies close to where her school must have been.
'Thoughts on the Education of Daughters' is based on Mary Wollstonecraft's experience and her thoughts about education that she was developing whilst running her school. This short book was written at a time when women were merely expected to to 'know just enough arithmetic to do household accounts and just enough geography to converse with her husband and friends' ('Vindication'; Lyndall Gordon 2005. p 43) and Mary Wollstonecraft aimed to bring a more comprehensive education to girls
Some quotes from Thoughts on the Education of Daughters:
'Whenever a child asks a question, it should always have a reasonable answer given to it. Its little passions should be engaged'.(p18)
'A taste for the beauties of nature should be very early cultivated'.(p 22)
'Above all, try to teach them to combine their ideas. It is of more use to them than can be conceived, for a child to begin to compare things that are familiar in some respects, and different in others. I wish them to be taught to think - thinking indeed, is a severe exercise'... (P 22)
'Girls learn something of music, drawing and geography; but they do not know enough... to render it an employment of the mind.... Whatever tends to make a person in some measure independent of the senses, is a prop to virtue..... whoever weighs one subject will turn to others, and new ideas will rush into the mind, the faculties will be exercised... which will give a variety to character'.(p 27)
'In a comfortable situation, a cultivated mind is necessary to render a woman contented: and in a miserable one, it is her only consolation.' (p 101)
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