A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Wollstonecraft believed that ndividual education is extremely significant not just to manners but to fundamental human development as it "will slowly sharpen the senses, form the temper, regulate the passions as they begin to ferment, and set the understanding to work before the body arrives at maturity; so that the man may only have to proceed, not to begin, the important task of learning to think and reason." Of course, individual education must be supplemented by the society within which men and women live. The most perfect type of education is one that encourages the individual to attain habits of virtue that will render him or her independent.