Paris, March 12, 1802.

From the account I have given you of the Public Schools here, you will have perceived that, since the revolution, nothing has been neglected which could contribute to the mental improvement of the male part of the rising generation. But as some parents are averse to sending their children to these National Schools, there are now established in Paris a great number of

PRIVATE SEMINARIES FOR YOUTH OF BOTH SEXES.

Several of these are far superior to any that previously existed in France, and are really of a nature to excite admiration, when we consider the cruel divisions which have distracted this country. But it seems that if, for a time, instruction, both public and private, was suspended, no sooner were the French permitted to breathe than a sudden and salutary emulation arose among those who devoted themselves to the important task of conducting these private schools. The great advantage which they appear to me to have over establishments of a similar description in England, is that the scholars are perfectly grounded in whatever they are taught; the want of which, among us, occasions many a youth to forget the greater part of what he has learned long before he has attained the years of manhood.

If several of the schools for boys here are extremely well conducted, some of those for girls appear to be governed with no less care and judgment. In order to be enabled to form an opinion on the present mode of bringing up young girls in France, I have made a point of investigating the subject. I shall, in consequence, endeavour to shew you the contrast which strikes me to have occurred here in

FEMALE EDUCATION.

In France, convents had, at all times, prior to the revolution, enjoyed the exclusive privilege of bringing up young women; and some families had, for a century past, preserved the habit of sending all their daughters to be St. Ursulas, in order to enter afterwards into the world as virtuous wives and tender mothers. The natural result was, that, if the principles of excessive piety which had been communicated to them remained deeply engraved in their heart, they employed the whole day in the duties required by the catholic religion; and the confessor who dictated all these habitual practices, not unfrequently became the director of the temporal concerns of the family, as well as the spiritual. If the young girls, in emerging from the cells of a convent, were disposed to lay aside their religious practices, in order to adopt the customs and pleasures of the world, this sudden transition, from one extreme to the other, made them at once abandon, not only the puerile minutiÆ, but also the sacred principles of religion. There was no medium. They either became outrageous devotees, and, neglecting the respectable duties of housewives and mistresses of a family, wrapped themselves up in a great hood, and were incessantly on their knees before the altars of the churches, or, on the other hand, rushed into extravagance and dissipation, and, likewise, deserting a family which claimed their care, dishonoured themselves by the licentiousness of their manners.

At the present time, many women of good abilities and character, deprived of their property by the vicissitudes of the revolution, have established, in Paris and its environs, seminaries, where young girls receive such advice as is most useful to females who are destined to live in the world, and acquirements, which, by employing them agreeably several hours in the day, contribute to the interior happiness of their family, and make them find charms in a domestic life. In short, the superiority of female education in France is decidedly in favour of the present system, whether considered in regard to mental improvement, health, or beauty. With respect to the morals inculcated in these modern French boarding schools, the best answer to all the prejudices might be entertained against them, is that the men, who have married women there educated, find that they prove excellent wives, and that their accomplishments serve only to embellish their virtues.