Envy:  Whilst the silly Creatures who do them so unspeakable Mischiefs are scarce capable of being made to understand the harm that they do; but think Parents ill-natur’d, or that they have fancies fit only to be smil’d at, who will deny their Child a thing for no other reason, it may be, but because he has desir’d it:  And who before he is trusted to go alone will check his Resentment, Impatience, Avarice, or Vanity, which they think becomes him so prettily; neither will suffer him to be rewarded for doing what they bid him to do.

This I am sure, that who so has try’d how very little Sense is to be met with, or can be infus’d into Nurses, and Nurse-Maids; and with what difficulty even the best of them by those who make it their business to watch over them, are restrain’d from what they are perswaded has no hurt in it, will soon be satisfy’d how little fit it is to trust Children any more than is necessary, in such Hands.  And no wiser than such, if not much worse, are the greatest part of those who are usually their immediate Successors, viz. young Scholars and French Maids, erected into Tutors and Governesses, only for the sake of a little Latin and French.

In Mr. L——­ s excellent Treatise of Education, he shews how early and how great a Watchfulness and Prudence are requisite to the forming the Mind of a Child to Vertue; and whoso shall read what he has writ on that Subject, will, it is very likely, think that few Mothers are qualify’d for such an undertaking as this:  But that they are not so is the Fault which should be amended:  In the mean time nevertheless, their presum’d willingness to be in the right, where the Happiness of their Children is concerned in it, must certainly inable them, if they were but once convinc’d that this was their Duty, to perform it much better than such People will do, who have as little Skill and Ability for it as themselves; and who besides, that they rarely desire to learn any more than they have, are not induc’d by Affection to do for those under their care all the Good that they can.  Since then the Affairs either of Men’s Callings, or of their private Estates, or the Service of their Country (all which are indispensibly their Business) allows them not the leisure to look daily after the Education of their Children; and that, otherwise, also they are naturally less capable than Women of that Complaisance and Tenderness, which the right Instruction and Direction of that Age requires; and since Servants are so far from being fit to be rely’d upon in that great concern, that to watch against the Impediments they actually bring thereto, is no small part of the care that a wise Parent has to take; I do presume that (ordinarily speaking) this so necessary a Work of forming betimes the Minds of Children so as to dispose them to be hereafter Wise and Vertuous Men and Women, cannot be perform’d but by Mothers only.  It being a thing practicable but by a very few to purchase the having always Wise, Vertuous and