Rousseau's observations, it is proper to remark, were made in a
country where the art of pleasing was refined only to extract the
grossness of vice. He did not go back to nature, or his ruling
appetite disturbed the operations of reason, else he would not have
drawn these crude inferences.
In France, boys and girls, particularly the latter, are only
educated to please, to manage their persons, and regulate their
exterior behaviour; and their minds are corrupted at a very early
age, by the worldly and pious cautions they receive, to guard them
against immodesty. I speak of past times. The very confessions
which mere children are obliged to make, and the questions asked by
the holy men I assert these facts on good authority, were
sufficient to impress a sexual character; and the education of
society was a school of coquetry and art. At the age of ten or
eleven; nay, often much sooner, girls began to coquet, and talked,
unreproved, of establishing themselves in the world by marriage.
In short, they were made women, almost from their very birth, and
compliments were listened to instead of instruction. These,
weakening the mind, Nature was supposed to have acted like a
step-mother, when she formed this after-thought of creation.
Not allowing them understanding, however, it was but consistent to
subject them to authority, independent of reason; and to prepare
them for this subjection, he gives the following advice:
"Girls ought to be active and diligent; nor is that all; they
should also be early subjected to restraint.
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