July 31– “The Education of Women” by Daniel Defoe (1719)

 A MISERABLE LITTLE PILE OF SECRETS!

July 31– “The Education of Women” by Daniel Defoe (1719)

Summary: Women aren't dumb, we should let them learn stuff.

Commentary: I'm trying to decide if his plans for a triangular school with a moat is meant to be satirical. The rest seems fairly straightforward (school for women would be good), but I'm not sure if that part is a real appeal to people's concerns about modesty or just him poking a bit.

The building should be of three plain fronts, without any jettings or bearing-work, that the eye might at a glance see from one coin to the other; the gardens walled in the same triangular figure, with a large moat, and but one entrance.

 There's a fair bit of "oh, women are so angelic, etc., etc.", that eventually gets into slut shaming attractive women, so it's not that progressive.

I think the passage that jumped out to me the most was:

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear.  And it is manifest that as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes, so education carries on the distinction, and makes some less brutish than others.

I more often read about how the body/mind/world corrupts the soul, and how we don't need education, we need to just trust the soul/God than that we need education to refine the soul. (Or, the modern alternative: everyone is awful, but if you work really hard you can be marginally less awful) It's an interesting viewpoint vis a vis self improvement. All people are born with the capacity to be good (moral) people, but you need to work to be one.