A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education: 1797 - Rilegato

Erasmus Darwin's attentive instructions for girls' schooling were written as part of a scheme to provide for his natural daughters Susan and Mary by setting them up as proprietors of a boarding school. Though forming part of the contemporary debate on educational theory they are in contrast to Wollstonecraft, Edgeworth and others. Where Wollstonecraft can sound repressive, Hannah More excessively pious, and Catharine Macaulay and the Edgeworths sometimes programmatic and demanding, Darwin's is a voice of practical moderation, as much concerned with health and the physical environment as with the nurturing of mental and social faculties.