CHAPTER III

EDUCATION

1. BOARDING-SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS

Of schools for girls in the period from 1650 to 1750 we can get only the most scattered bits of information. It is apparent that there were boarding-schools for girls from five to sixteen, and that these schools rapidly increased in number, but of the scope and nature of the instruction we have only the most general ideas. In 1677 there appeared the following advertisement:

In Oxford there is set up a boarding-school for young gentlewomen (by John Waver, Master in the art of dancing) where they may be educated and instructed in the art of dancing, singing, music, writing, and all manner of works.

A more famous school was at Chelsea in Gorges House. Our first knowledge of this boarding-school comes from a play given by the pupils. It was dated 1676 and was entitled "_Beauty's Triumph_, a masque presented by the scholars of Mr. Jeffrey Banister and Mr. James Hart at their new Boarding-School for young Ladies and Gentlewomen kept in that house which was formerly Sir Arthur Gorges at Chelsey."[377] The "Epilogue--Spoken by a young lady" recounts "the serious things" done in the school, embroidery and modeling in wax being the chief items.

One in rich works with lively colours tells Lucretia's rape or mourning Philomel's; Each chaste beholder sighs and drops a tear.

* * * * *

Another's different mind more pleasure takes In various forms to mould the painted wax; Such shape, such beauty in each piece is shown, Nature sits pale, or blushing on her own, To see her pride by curious art out-done.

Between 1680 and 1690 Purcell's _Dido and Æneas_ was given at this school. D'Urfey's _Love for Money; or, the Boarding School_ (1691) has its scene "Chelsey by the River" and is supposed to refer to this school. It was here that Molly Verney learned to japan. The school maintained its repute under Mr. Portman, and later under Josias Priests.

In 1680 the school was advertised:

Josias Priests, dancing master, that kept a boarding school for gentlewomen in Leicester Field is removed to the great school-house in Chelsea, which was Mr. Portman's, where he did teach, and will continue the said master and others to the improvement of the said school.

Gorges House was demolished in 1726.

Two other notices belong in the reign of Queen Anne. The first one shows the continued popularity of the Hackney schools:

Whereas it is reported that Mrs. Overing who keeps a Boarding School at Bethnal Green near Hackney, is leaving off; this is to give Notice that the said Report is false, if not Malicious. And that she continues to take sober young Gentlewomen to board and teach whatever is necessary to the Accomplishment of that sex.

The second one reads,

Mrs. Elizabeth Tutchin continues to keep her school at Highgate, notwithstanding Reports to the contrary. Where young Gentlewomen may be soberly Educated, and taught all sorts of Learning fit for young Gentlewomen.[378]

In _The Levellers_ a dialogue between two young ladies, we have an account of the education given at most of these schools. One of the young ladies says:

You know my father was a tradesman, and lived very well by his traffick; and I, being beautiful, he thought nature had already given me part of my portion, and therefore he would add a liberal education, that I might be a complete gentlewoman; away he sent me to the boarding school; there I learned to dance and sing; to play on the bass viol, virginals, spinet, and guitar. I learned to make wax work, japan, paint upon glass, to raise paste, make sweetmeats, sauces, and everything that was genteel and fashionable.[379]

One element here indicated seems to have held a fairly permanent place, and that is some trifling form of hand-work. A book published in 1671 gives a hint as to the nature of this work. It is entitled _Four hundred new sorts of Birds, Beasts, Flowers, Fruits, Fish, Flyes, Worms, Landskips, Ovals, and Histories, etc. Lively coloured for all sorts of Gentlewomen and School-Mistresses Works._ Many of the kinds of work with which women attempted to get rid of their leisure were apparently taught in the schools. All sorts of needlework seem to have been included in the necessary subjects. The interest in samplers is shown by a reference in _The Tatler_, April 19, 1709, to an "excellent discourse" by "Mrs. Arabella Manly, School-Mistress at Hackney," entitled _An Essay on the Invention of Samplers, communicated by Mrs. Judith Bagford with an account of her Collections for the same_.[380]

In 1714 a "Venerable Correspondent" wrote to _The Spectator_ that in her day young women "Worked Beds, Chairs, and Hangings," and urged _The Spectator_ to recommend a renewal of these activities. The humorous response is hardly an exaggerated statement of the great pieces of work undertaken by the women of the seventeenth century:

What a delightful Entertainment must it be to the Fair Sex, whom their native Modesty, and the Tenderness of Men towards them, exempts from Publick Business, to pass their hours in imitating Fruits and Flowers, and transplanting all the Beauties of Nature into their own Dress, or raising a new Creation in their Closets and Apartments. How pleasing is the Amusement of walking among the Shades and Groves planted by themselves, in surveying Heroes slain by their Needle, or little Cupids which they have brought into the World without Pain.

This is, methinks, the most proper way wherein a Lady can shew a fine Genius, and I cannot forbear wishing, that several Writers of that Sex had chosen to apply themselves rather to Tapestry than Rhime. Your Pastoral Poetesses may vent their Fancy in Rural Landskips, and place despairing Shepherds under silken Willows, or drown them in a Stream of Mohair.... How memorable would that Matron be, who should have it Inscribed upon her Monument, "That she wrought out the whole Bible in Tapestry, and died in a good old Age, after having covered three hundred Yards of Wall in the Mansion-House."[381]

In the eighteenth century embroidery and tapestry are still an occupation, but other and less tedious works partially supplant them. Pope's Grotto was not an isolated curiosity. _The Spectator_ suggests the part women were taking in the manufacture of grottoes:

There is a very particular kind of Work, which of late several Ladies here in our Kingdom seem very fond of, which seems very well adapted to a Poetical Genius: It is the making of Grottos. I know a Lady who has a very Beautiful one, composed by herself, nor is there one Shell in it not stuck up by her own Hands.[382]

Pope wrote an inscription for a "Grotto of Shells at Crux Easton, the Work of Nine young Ladies." These young ladies were sisters and their grotto was also celebrated by "N. H."[383] In 1735 "S. J." wrote a poem to a Lady to accompany a present of shells and stones for her grotto.[384] In 1746 Mr. Graves congratulated Lady Fane on her "grotto divine" where "miracles are wrought by shells."[385]

Paper-cutting also remained something of an art. Waller had praised a lady who skillfully cut a tree in paper.[386] Cutting silhouettes was one of the diversions of the circle of Dr. Swift, Dr. Delany, and Mr. Sheridan. There is a series of poems, concerning "Dan Jackson's Picture Cut in Silk and Paper," by Lady Betty.[387] The most important cut-paper work on record is Mrs. Delany's herbarium or paper mosaics, but this did not come till the last quarter of the century.[388]

Mrs. Barber's _Patch-Work Screen_ gets its name from another sort of device. Screens were adorned by pasting odds and ends of pictures all over them. Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe wrote to the Duchess of Somerset in 1734: "The screen your Ladyship sent me is a Rareeshew for all the women and children about town who have anything of a nice and elegant taste." The Duchess was at this time doing tent-stitch concerning which Mrs. Rowe wrote:

I am delighted with all your entertainments, except the _Tent-stitch_; and that I own, I admire, but then 't is as some people admire virtue, only in speculation. It seems to me an ante-diluvian invention, a task for those long-breath'd people, who spent a sort of eternity on earth, compar'd to the short duration of a modern period. However, I am in no pain for your Ladyship: whether your attempt is a chair or a stool, I suppose it will be an hereditary occupation; if you finish the branch of a tree, and Lady ----, a shepherd's crook, the service of your generation is done, and you may contentedly leave the rest to be finished by your children's children.

In 1758 Lady Bute had just completed a carpet concerning which she wrote to her mother, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lady Mary answered:

You need not excuse to me taking notice of your carpet. I think you have great reason to value your-self on the performance, but will have better than I have had if you can persuade anybody else to do so. I could never get people to believe that I set a stitch, when I worked six hours in a day.

Perhaps the most popular of all the arts was japanning. Molly (b. 1675), the daughter of Edmund Verney, was sent at eight to Mrs. Priest's school at Great Chelsey. Her father wrote to her:

I find you have a desire to learn to Jappan, as you call it, and I approve of it; and so I shall of anything that is Good & Virtuous, therefore learn in God's name all Good Things, & I will willingly be at the Charge so farr as I am able--tho' they come from Japan or from never so farr & Looke of an Indian Hue & Odour, for I admire all accomplishments that will render you considerable, and Lovely in the sight of God and man.[389]

The continued favor accorded japanning is shown by a letter from Mrs. Rowe to the Duchess of Somerset in 1734:

My great attainment at present is colouring prints: If Lady ---- wants any birds for her new _Japan_, I have some at her service. Mrs. ---- is so inchanted with this new japanning, that she has abandon'd Mr. _Baxter_, and the _Greek_ Fathers, and employes her time in sticking bears and monkies on all the wooden furniture she can find about the house.

Japanning was taught in most of the schools.

Mrs. Montagu, Queen of the Blue-Stockings, was indefatigable in her devotion to hand-work. Not only was she familiar with every kind of needlework, but she turned in wood and ivory, made shell grottoes, and designed shell frames, and she planned and executed feather hangings for a room. Mrs. Delany is the only lady whose recorded work exceeds that of Mrs. Montagu in amount and variety.

Domestic science was faintly foreshadowed in what were known as "Pastry Schools." The following illustrates the type:

To all young ladies at Edw. Kidder's Pastry School in little Lincoln's Inn Fields are taught all sorts of Pastry and Cookery, Dutch hollow works, and Butter works, on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturday, in the afternoon, and on the same days in the Morning, at his school in Norris Street in St. James's Market, and at his School in St. Martin's Le Grand, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in the Afternoons. And at his School at St. Mary Overies Dock, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday Mornings from 9 to 12.[390]

An entertaining passage in Shadwell's _The Scowrers_ (1690) indicates something of the character of a girl's education in the country:

_Priscilla._ Did she not bestow good breeding upon you there?

_Eugenia._ Breeding! what, to learn to feed Ducklings, and cram Chickens?

_Clara._ To see cows milk'd, learn to Churn, and make cheese?

_Eugen._ To make Clouted cream, and whipt sillabubs?

_Clara._ To make a Caraway Cake, and raise Py Crust?

_Eugen._ And to learn the top of your skill in Syrrup, Sweetmeat, _Aqua Mirabilis_, and Snayl water.

_Clara._ Or your great Cunning in Cheese cake, several Creams and Almond butter.

_Prisc._ Ay, ay, and 't were better for all the Gentlemen in England that Wives had no other breeding, but you had Musick and Dancing.

_Eugen._ Yes, an ignorant, illiterate, hopping Puppy, that rides his Dancing Circuit thirty Miles about, lights off his tyred steed, draws his Kit at a poor Country creature, and gives her a Hich in her Pace, that she shall never recover.

_Clara._ And for Musick an old hoarse singing man riding ten miles from his Cathedral to Quaver out the Glories of our Birth and State, or it may be a Scotch Song more hideous and barbarous than an Irish Cronan.

_Eugen._ And another Musick Master from the next town to Teach one to twinkle out _Lilly burlero_ upon an old pair of Virginals, that sound worse than a Tinker's Kettle that cries for his work on.

We happen to have somewhat more definite knowledge of one early eighteenth-century school for girls. Mrs. Hannah Wood, the "Mistress of a College-Boarding School" in Bury, in 1723, was the sister of Mr. D. Bellamy who wrote "Dramatic Entertainments" for the "Annual Public Exercises of the School." These "Entertainments" were published with a dedication to Mrs. Wood, "A Prefatory Essay," and some "Familiar Letters." Mr. Bellamy considers it the particular province of Mrs. Wood "to polish Nature," since she has "a perfect Idea of every Female Accomplishment" and if her young ladies can be "One Virtue the better" through his labors it is ample reward.

Mr. Bellamy's plays were rather elaborately staged. There were "pastoral figure dances" and considerable singing. One character enters "drest like a Gentleman." There is a machine for the descent of Apollo. The dramas performed are carefully adapted to young ladies, "the porcelaine-clay of humankind." Mr. Bellamy examines every word and weighs each thought to see that "The sence is Chast and inoffensive to nicest tast." The first of the plays given is _Vanquish'd Love: or, The Jealous Queen_, an adaptation of the _Rosamund_ of Addison. The emphasis on warm passions, amorous prayers, guilty fires, rage, jealousy, vengeance, and death, would but doubtfully contribute to the delicate innocence of the young ladies. All is, however, made right by the abrupt and unnatural repentance of King Henry, and his eulogy of the sweets of "Virtuous Love." The second play, _Innocence Betray'd; or, The Royal Imposter_, was taken from Cowley's _Love's Riddle_. In the Epilogue a young lady says the auditors may

Wish we had Rehears'd our Spelling Books: And think our Time had been much better spent In Cross-Stitch, Irish-Stitch, or at the Tent.

And Mr. Bellamy is quite conscious that some indulgent and timorous parents may censure his designs of teaching young ladies to speak before an audience:

There are too many, I know, are of Opinion, that the _Art of Pronunciation_ is no Female Accomplishment; that the Ladies were design'd by Nature for the Objects of Sight only; and that to encourage them in Dramatic Representations, is to offer Violence to their native Modesty....

'T was an Observation of One of the most learned Prelates of his Age, the late Archbishop of Cambray, That the general Mistake of Parents in the Education of their Daughters, was this: "That they were too solicitous about the Ornament of their Person, and too remiss, if not entirely regardless, of the Endowments of their Mind."

'T is pity methinks that the favourite Works of Nature should be nothing but moving Pictures, and, like Sir _Godfrey Kneller's_ Canvas, as Mr. Dryden expresses it, only _Look a Voice_; that the Study of the Toilet should be recommended to them, as their most material Accomplishment, whilst the Improvement of their Judgment is neglected as a Trifle, and the early Exercise of their Rational Faculties esteem'd, if not a Crime, an Act of Imprudence and ill Conduct.

In the presentation of the play the young ladies are urged to enter into the characters they have taken, and to remember the reverence and respect they owe their auditors. Under more specific directions Mr. Bellamy says:

In the first place, Ladies, carefully avoid all unnatural Distortions both of your Limbs and Features. Wry mouths, contracted Brows, shrug'd up shoulders, and the like are Farce and Buffoonry, very disagreeable and very ungenteel: Nay, Coughing and Spitting, unless very accidental, are vicious Habits, and ought betimes to be corrected.

Among "Useful Observations" is the following on modulation of the voice:

All Persons Names, viz., I, Thou, He, She, We, Ye, and They, etc. and their following States, Me, Thee, Him, Her, Us, You, and Them, etc. and their Possessives, My, Thy, Our, Yours, Theirs, Mine, Thine, etc. and all Epithets, Adjectives, or Qualities, by which Substantives, Beings, or Things are explain'd and distinguish'd as, Black, White, Good, Bad, Round, Square, and the like, should always be read or spoken with a clear, open, and distinct Voice, as they are for the most part very emphatical, and the Beauty of Expression depends much upon them.

In a letter on "Female Accomplishments" the Virtuous and Fair Antiope in the twenty-second book of Fénelon's _Telemachus_ is set forth as an example of a lady of the first quality. Her silence, modesty, reservedness, gentleness, her assiduous industry in spinning and embroidering, her regularity and order and poise, make her a treasure worthy to be sought in far regions. In the letter on "Innocent Recreations" reading is particularly commended. The "chaste and very useful" collection of books suggested is based on the Postscript to Dr. Hickes's _Instructions for the Education of a Daughter_, and is as follows:

The whole Duty of Man, The Lady's Calling, The Government of the Tongue, Mr. Nelson's Companion for the Feast and Fasts of the Church of England, Meditations and Soliloquies of St. Augustine, Comber and Bennet on the Liturgy, Mr. Boyle on the Style of the Scriptures. Tillotson's Sermons, Paradise Lost with Addison's judicious and entertaining Remarks, Blackmore's Paraphrase on Job, Cowley's Davideis.

For the gayer part of poetry,

Mr. Waller, Mr. Cowley's _Mistress_, some pieces of Mr. Prior, particularly his _Henry_ and _Emma_. Mr. Norris's _Miscellany_, and Mr. Watts's _Horæ Lyricæ_. For precepts of Morality I would lay before her Sir Roger L'Estrange's _Seneca_ and his _Fables_; Mr. Collier's _Essays_ and his _Antoninus_ and some select pieces of the Letters and Spectators.

For history, Lord Clarendon on the _Rebellion_ and Dr. Welwood's _Memoirs_ are suggested.

For novels, the _Adventures of Telemachus_, translated by Mr. Ozell; and _Don Quixot_ by Mr. Motteux, Mr. Congreve, and others, are the only Pieces that I would offer to her. For Plays, tho' there are too many unfit for a young Lady's Perusal: yet such as _Cato_, _Love and Empire_, _Tamerlane_, the _Mourning Bride_, the _Distress'd Mother_, _Phædra and Hippolitus_, and the _Conscious Lovers_, with many more, can never be read without Pleasure and Improvement.

Schools for young ladies increased in number during the eighteenth century, especially near London. Malcolm, in 1808, said that even so early as 1759

two or three houses might be seen in almost every village, with the inscription, "Young Ladies boarded and educated," where every description of tradesmen sent their children to be instructed, not in the useful attainments necessary for humble life, but the arts of coquetry and self-consequence--in short, those of a _young lady_. The person who received the children had then the sounding title of Governess: and French and Dancing-masters prepared the girl for the hour when contempt for her parents' deficiencies was to be substituted for affection and respect. Instead of reading their native language with propriety and just emphasis, it was totally neglected, and in place of nervous sentences and flowing periods, the vulgarisms of low life were continued; while the lady repeated familiar words of the French language with a sound peculiar to Boarding-schools, and quite unintelligible to a native of France: the pleasing labours of the needle were thrown aside, and the young lady soon became an adept in imitating laces and spoiling the beauty of coloured silks.[391]

The _Idler_ in 1750 comments on female education as spoiling girls for service:

Scarcely a wench was to be got for all work, since education had made such numbers of fine ladies that nobody would now accept a lower title than that of waiting-maid, or something that might qualify her to wear laced shoes and long ruffles and to sit at work in the parlor window.

2. CHARITY SCHOOLS

In 1698 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge started a movement for the establishment of charity schools. An organized propaganda for getting subscriptions was undertaken by the bishops and was so successful that between 1698 and 1715 more than one hundred of these schools were established in London and Westminster. In this scheme poor girls were considered as well as poor boys. They were, of course, in separate schools.[392] Each school had a prescribed uniform and the pupils marching in a body made a picturesque addition to many a civic festival. In 1714 Thoresby went to hear "the Bishop of London preach the charity sermon before an almost innumerable company of poor children, decently clad in various colours, which are Christianly educated and cared for in the several wards of the city, both for soul and body."[393] In 1723 he again records seeing the Lord Mayor in all his pomp going to St. Bride's Church with a great train of charity children, all decently habited, some with blue coats with yellow vests, others brown, most with blue caps, but some with white hats and mathematical instruments in their hands.[394] By 1753 the number of charity children that went to Christ Church to hear the Anniversary Sermon was five thousand. William Blake, in _Songs of Innocence_ (1789) and in _Songs of Experience_ (1799), gives the impression of great numbers. In the first of these commemorations Blake voices what was the general attitude, and that is a eulogy of London's magnificent generosity. The second one represents a much more modern tone, that of question as to a city's social and civic standards where the supply of helpless orphans was so large and so constant.

The word education is too pretentious for most of these schools. The purpose in the main was to train boys and girls for service. In the pictures drawn by Hogarth in 1741 in honor of Captain Coram's noble charity, _The Foundling Hospital_, the three little girls in the foreground are holding a spinning-wheel, a sampler, and a broom, indicating branches of industry to which they were destined.

There were also many privately endowed schools in various parts of England. In 1726 William Law, the author of _The Serious Call_, brought out a treatise on _Christian Perfection_. It is said that an anonymous stranger presented him with £1000 on reading it. The next year Law founded a school for fourteen girls at King's Cliffe, and the money is supposed to have come from this gift. When Archibald Hutcheson died in 1740 he expressed a wish that his widow should lead a retired and religious life under Law's guidance. Miss Hester Gibbon joined Mrs. Hutcheson. Their joint income was £2600 a year, most of which they planned to spend in charity. In 1744 they settled down in King's Cliffe in Law's house, formerly a royal manor house and known as "King John's Palace," where they continued the girls' school, and added to it a school for eighteen boys. The important schools in Yorkshire founded by Lady Elizabeth Hastings have already been mentioned.

Other more private and personal and less permanent educational ventures are occasionally recorded. A religious family school something after the fashion of Little Gidding was now and then attempted. One "religious retirement" is mentioned by Bishop Ken. Two dear friends whom he frequently visited were Mary and Anne Kemys of Cefn Mably, Glamorganshire. After the death of their mother in 1683 they went to reside at Naish Court, about a mile from Porteshead. There they established a kind of Anglican sisterhood where they lived a devout life and did charitable works. Bishop Ken was their spiritual adviser, and since he had known Nicholas Ferrar well, it is not unlikely that the ideals at Naish Court were somewhat like those at Little Gidding.[395] In 1698 Sir George Wheler brought out a tractate entitled _A Protestant Monastery, or Christian Œconomics_, containing _Directions for the Religious Conduct of a Family_. He founded and endowed a school for girls at Houghton-le-Springs, Durham, when he was rector there. Sir George Wheler was an intimate friend and a disciple of Dr. Hickes with whom he went abroad. It was evidently through the influence of Dr. Hickes that he became an advocate of higher education for women.

About the middle of the century Mrs. Montagu went to Bath-Easton to visit her sister, Mrs. Scott, and Lady Bab Montagu, who had chosen a life of retirement and good works. On her return to Sandleford, Mrs. Montagu wrote as follows to Mr. Gilbert West:

My sister rises early, and as soon as she has read prayers to their small family, she sits down to cut out and prepare work for 12 poor girls, whose schooling they pay for; to those whom she finds more than ordinarily capable, she teaches writing and arithmetic herself. The work these children are usually employed in is making child-bed linen and clothes for poor people in the neighborhood, which Lady Bab Montagu and she bestow as they see occasion. Very early on Sunday morning these girls, with 12 little boys whom they also send to school, come to my sisters and repeat their catechism, read some chapters, have the principal articles of their religion explained to them, and then are sent to the parish church. These good works are often performed by the Methodist ladies in the best of enthusiasm, but thank God, my sister's is a calm and rational piety. Her conversation is lively and easy, and she enters into all the reasonable pleasures of Society; goes frequently to the plays, and sometimes to balls, etc. They have a very pretty house at Bath for the winter, and one at Bath Easton for the summer; their houses are adorned by the ingenuity of the owners, but as their income is small, they deny themselves unnecessary expences. My sister seems very happy; it has pleased God to lead her to truth, by the road of affliction; but what draws the sting of death and triumphs over the grave, cannot fail to heal the wounds of disappointment. Lady Bab Montagu concurs with her in all these things, and their convent, for by its regularity it resembles one, is really a cheerful place.[396]

3. HIGHER EDUCATION

The lesser boarding-schools and the charity schools give no intimation of anything even approximating the higher education of women. But that topic was not neglected. And it is of interest to take up in chronological sequence the various expressions of opinion as to the kind of education women should have.

[Sidenote: Anna van Schurman (1607-1678)]

The first influential writer advocating a large and liberal curriculum for women was a foreigner,[397] the famous Anna van Schurman of Utrecht. She was, indeed, the most famous learned woman of the seventeenth century, not only in Holland, but in the entire world of letters. As a child she gave such indication of unusual power that her father's interest and ambition were aroused, and he gave her perfect freedom and sympathetic coöperation in the development of her tastes. There was no regular plan or discipline in her education. She merely followed out, in art, in handicrafts, in letters, every new interest of her singularly alert and responsive mind. Till she was twenty-eight, art in some form was her chief occupation. She carved portraits in boxwood, modeled them in wax, etched them on glass or copper, and cut medallions in ivory. She did fine needlework and intricate embroidery, and worked tapestry. Specimens of her scissors-work are still preserved in the Schurman museum at Franeker and show a dexterity that must have been remarkable even in that day of exquisite cut-paper.[398] And she excelled in the fashionable accomplishment of writing in foreign alphabets. She sang delightfully, and played on the cymbal, the lute, and the violin. Her interest in the technical side of music is evidenced by her correspondence with noted musicians such as Huyghens, Hooft, and Bannius.

But gradually during the amateurish delights of these occupations and through the frivolities of a gay life there had been growing in Anna's mind a desire for serious work. And from twenty-eight to forty-eight she gave herself to the learned pursuits on which her contemporary renown was based. She became known throughout Europe and the most extravagant recognition was accorded her. As the finest Latinist in Utrecht she was chosen to write the ode on the founding of the University in that city. She was named the "Star of Utrecht." Gisbert Voët, the Rector of the University, taught her Hebrew, Syriac, and Chaldee, and influenced her to devote years to a textual study of the Bible. Beverwyck, who through admiration for her had become a convinced feminist, dedicated his treatise _De Excellentia Fæmini Sexus_ to her as "the most wonderful woman of her day." Cats wrote poems to her as the _Wonderstuk_ of the age. Her _Ethiopian Grammar_ was greeted as a marvel by the scholars of the Dutch universities. Jean Louis Balzac congratulated himself on coming to know "_cette merveilleuse fille_." Descartes was one of her close friends. She corresponded on terms of equality with theologians like Jacob Lydius and Fredereck Spanheim and M. de Saumaise of Leyden University. Caspar van Baerle eulogized her as "a second Sempronia, a better Sappho, a new Pallas." She became almost an object of pilgrimage, royal personages being among those attracted by her great fame. The Queen of Poland, the Duchesse de Longueville, and Christina of Sweden with an escort of Jesuit priests were among those who made visits of state to "the incomparable Virgin."

The last twenty years of Anna van Schurman's life were given entirely to mystical religion under the guidance of Jean de Labadie of whose community she became the most influential member. But in the preceding period many topics of contemporary interest held her attention. Chief among these was the right of women to free mental development. Dr. Rivet, Professor of Theology at Leyden, and her intimate friend, once wrote to her that ordinary women were debarred from equality with men by "the sacred laws of Nature." Anna responded in lively protest and said that he based his arguments on custom and not on reason. In time she wrote a book embodying her own views on the subject. It was published by Elzevir at Leyden in 1641 under the title _De ingenii muliebris ad doctrinam et meliores litteras aptitudine_. In 1659 the book was translated into rather stiff and cumbersome English, by "C. B.," doubtless Clement Barksdale, an Oxford man, a prolific translator from the Latin and much interested in education. He was master of a free school at Hereford, and later had a successful private school at Hawling in Cotswolds. He must have had especial interest in the education of women, for in 1675 he wrote a _Letter touching a College of Maids or a Virgin Society_. Mr. Barksdale's translation appeared under the title, _The Learned Maid_; or, _Whether a Maid may be a Scholar. Logick Exercise Written in Latine by that incomparable Virgin Anna Maria à Schurman of Utrecht. With some Epistles to the famous Gassendus and others._ The book opens with a quotation from Fr. Spanhemius in which he eulogizes Anna van Schurman as "the utmost Essay of Nature in this Sex." The translation is dedicated to the "Lady A. H.," probably the Lady Anne Hudson to whom Gerbier dedicated his _Elogium Heroinum_. There had evidently been an earlier translation than Barksdale's, for he says, "This _strange maid_, being now the second time drest up in her _English Habit_, cometh to kiss your hand." Two translations into English within eighteen years indicate a considerable interest in the arguments advanced. Yet the form of the book was difficult and unattractive as is indicated by the phrase "Logick Exercise." Every argument is thrown into stiff syllogistic form. The portion of the book entitled "A Refutation to the Adversaries" is somewhat more natural and lively. Stripped of their pedantry the arguments against the education of women and the answers to these arguments are as follows:

Objection: The wits of women are too weak for the study of letters.

Answer: Not all men have "heroical wits" yet they are not excluded from studies. No claim is made that all women should study, but only those of "at least indifferent good wits." Weakness of wit may be aided by study.

Objection: Women have no opportunity to prosecute studies, no academies or schools being open to them.

Answer: There are parents and tutors.

Objection: Knowledge is a useless acquirement since women are shut out from "Politicall, Eclesiasticall, or Academicall" offices.

Answer: Though they gain not the Primary end of public usefulness they yet gain an important secondary personal end.

Objection: Since a little knowledge will suffice for a woman in her vocation an "Encyclopædy" of knowledge is superfluous.

Answer: There is ambiguity in the word "vocation." Does it mean that woman belongs to private as against public life? Then many gentlemen in private life should be shut out from studies. Does it mean woman's special calling to Family Life? But all human beings have a right to a personal development, a "Universal Calling" separate from and above their special vocation.

Objection: Women do not care for studies, and nothing should "be done _invitâ Minervâ_, as we say, Against the Hair."

Answer: The assumption that women do not care to apply themselves to studies becomes logically important only when it is proved of women after excitation and opportunity in studies. "No man can rightly judge of our Inclination to studies, before he hath encouraged us by the best reasons and means to set upon them: and withall hath given us some _taste_ of their sweetness."

The arguments given and the objections answered lead to the statement:

Wherefore our _Thesis_ stands firm: _A Christian Maid_, or _Woman may conveniently give herself to Learning_: Whence we draw this Consectary, that Maids may and ought to be excited and encouraged by the best and strongest _Reasons_, by the _Testimonies_ of wise men: and lastly by the _examples of illustrious Women_, to the embracing of this kind of life, especially _those_ who are above others provided of _leisure_, and other _means_ and _aides_ for their _studies_. And, because it is best, that the mind being seasoned with _Learning_ from the very Infancy: therefore the _Parents_ themselves are chiefly to be stirred up, as we suppose, and to be admonished of their duty.

In a presentation of the appropriate range of the studies of women Anna includes the entire circle of Liberal Arts and Sciences as convenient for the Head of a Christian Maid.

But specially let regard be had unto those Arts which have neerest alliance to _Theology_ and the _Moral Virtues_, and are Principally subservient to them. In which number we reckon _Grammar_, _Logick_, _Rhetoric_: especially _Logick_, fitly called _The Key of all Sciences_: and then, _Physicks_, _Metaphysicks_, _History_, etc. and also the knowledge of Languages, chiefly of the _Hebrew_ and _Greek_. All which may advance to the more facile and full understanding of _Holy Scriptures_: to say nothing now of other Books. The rest, i.e. _Mathematicks_, (to which is also referred _Musick_) _Poesie_, _Picture_, and the like, not illiberal Arts, may obtain the place of pretty Ornaments and ingenious Recreations. Lastly, those studies which pertain to the practice of the Law, Military Discipline, Oratory in the Church, Court, University, as less proper and less necessary, we do not very much urge. And yet we in no wise yield that our _Maid_ should be excluded from the Scholastick Knowledge or Theory of those; especially not from understanding the most noble Doctrine of the _Politicks_ or Civil Government.

The whole book is a eulogy of learning as a specific for all the ills of mind or heart. Anna quotes from the great Erasmus to the effect that "nothing takes so full possession of the fair Temple of a Virgin's breast, as learning and study, whither, on all occasions she may fly for refuge," and hence nothing can so effectually oppose vanity and light-mindedness. Studies will make a woman sufficient unto herself in leisure hours. Studies perfect and adorn the intellect; they conduce to reverence for the most beautiful, the most excellent, and so to love of God; they fortify the mind against heresies, they teach prudence, they destroy fear, they put courage into the heart; they give a delight that is like "Divine gladness"; and they mollify and sweeten manners. In fine, the liberal pursuit of learning brings the whole nature into conformity with "the Rule of right reason." Who, then, would shut women out from delights so laudable, virtues so desirable?

The whole book gives such an impression of high-minded earnestness, it is so strenuous and sincere, affirmative arguments are so elaborately established, and adversaries are so elaborately crushed, that it becomes a distinct anti-climax to realize what, after all, was the extent of her demand. She virtually asks nothing more than that rich girls of good minds shall be allowed and even encouraged to study at home under tutors, with the proviso that they make no public use of their learning, that they remember St. Paul's injunction to women "to be οἰκουργός, keepers at home," and that they make learning the handmaid of piety. Anna van Schurman was asking for what she herself had had. And her conception seems somewhat less modest when we realize that no scholastic dignities, no authorship, no public offices, could put a woman of to-day so distinctly in the lime-light of royal and learned favor as was this retiring Anna in her quiet little home at Utrecht.

[Sidenote: Bathsua Pell, Mrs. Makin (fl. 1641-1673)]

The immediate follower of Anna van Schurman was Bathsua Pell, better known as Mrs. Makin.[399] She is one of the most significant personages connected with the education of girls in the mid-seventeenth century. Her father was a rector in Southwick, Sussex. He died in 1616 and his wife in 1617, leaving three children. Thomas became gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles I, but went to America in 1635. The younger brother, John (1611-1685), was early noted as a student. At thirteen he entered Trinity at Cambridge, being even then "as good a scholar as some masters of arts." At twenty he was reported to know Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Italian, French, High and Low Dutch. By the time he was twenty-three he had specialized in mathematics. He held important mathematical posts under Cromwell; and, later, under Charles II, he was given a valuable living. Bathsua Pell had her brother's talent for languages, and like him had an early repute for learning. About 1641, when she was perhaps about thirty, she was appointed tutoress to Princess Elizabeth, the six-year-old daughter of Charles I. The learned tutoress was apparently at liberty to follow her own ideas of education, and for several years she led the sad little Princess into such delights as might be found in the languages and theology. She boasted of her pupil's proficiency, saying that at nine she could "write, read, and in some measure understand, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and Italian."[400] Mrs. Makin had other distinguished pupils. Among them was Lucy Davies, daughter to Sir John Davies, Attorney-General for Ireland, and better known as author of _Nosce Teipsum_, and Eleanor Truchett, fluent author of half-mad books of prophecy.[401] Lucy married the sixth Earl of Huntington. After his death in 1655, when their son was but six years old, as Countess Dowager of Huntington, she evidently gave her time and interest in her retirement to the studies begun under Mrs. Makin (possibly in the Putney Schools before 1649), who says of her in 1673: "I am forbidden to mention the Countess _Dowager of Huntington_ (instructed sometimes by Mrs. Makin) howe well she understands _Latin_, _Greek_, _Hebrew_, _French_ and _Spanish_; or what a proficient she is in Arts, subservient to Divinity, in which (if I durst I would tell you) she excells."

Mrs. Makin makes enthusiastic mention of other learned ladies, but does not make it clear whether they had been under her instruction. Lady Mildmay could not, she says, be justly omitted. Then there was Mrs. Thorold, daughter of Lady Carr in Lincolnshire, who was "excellent in Philosophy, and all sorts of Learning." She cites also "Dr. Love's daughters,"[402] as "still fresh in the memory of men" for their "Worth and Excellency in Learning."

In April, 1649, John Evelyn and a party of ladies visited "the schools or colleges for gentlewomen" at Putney. In all probability Mrs. Makin had charge of this institution. Certainly no other known Englishwoman would have been so competent, or would have had such prestige as a school-mistress, and her _Essay_ of 1673 shows that she remained in the educational field. Accompanying the _Essay_ is a _Prospectus_ for a school she had recently opened. "If any enquire where this education may be performed, such may be informed that a school is lately erected for Gentlewomen, at Tottenham High Cross, within four miles of London, on the road to Ware, where Mrs. Makin is governess who was formerly tutoress to the Princess Elizabeth, daughter to King Charles the First. Where, by the blessing of God, Gentlewomen may be instructed in the _Principles_ of _religion_, and in all manner of sober and virtuous Education: more particularly in all things ordinarily taught in other schools." These things "ordinarily taught in other schools" are listed as "Dancing, Musick, Singing, Writing, Keeping accompts." Half the time in Mrs. Makin's school was to be spent on this portion of the curriculum. The other half was to be "employed in gaining the _Latin_ and _French_ tongues." Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and Spanish were optional subjects, but were offered by the Governess who had a "competent knowledge" of all of them. The language requirements could not have been extensive since "Gentlewomen of eight or nine years old, that can read well, may be instructed in a year or two (according to their parts) in the _Latin_ and _French_ tongues." Something in the way of natural history was attempted. Mrs. Makin announces, "_Repositories_ also for Visibles shall be prepared; by which, from beholding the things, Gentlewomen may learn the Names, Natures, Values, and Use of _Herbs_, _Shrubs_, _Trees_, _Mineral-pieces_, _Metals_, and _Stones_," a sort of laboratory course in botany and mineralogy. Astronomy, geography, and especially arithmetic and history were also offered in a "general" way. Domestic science was not omitted, though oddly bound up with a course in art: "Those that please may learn Limning, Preserving, Pastry, and Cookery." The principle of electives was in full force. "Those that think one language enough for a Woman, may forbear the Languages, and learn only Experimental Philosophy." In fact, students were allowed to take "more or fewer" of the courses offered as they might incline. The regular rate was twenty pounds per annum, but a "competent improvement in the Tongues, and the other things aforementioned" was to command an additional fee. Very astutely Mrs. Makin constituted the parents the judge as to the excellency of their children's attainments. The notice closes with this fair offer: "Those that think these Things Improbable, or Impracticable may have further account every _Tuesday_, at Mr. Mason's Coffee-house, in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange; and _Thursdays_, at the 'Bolt and Tun,' in Fleet Street, between the hours of three and six in the afternoon, by some person whom Mrs. Makin shall appoint."[403]

This course of study, desultory, inchoate, fragmentary, as it is, is nevertheless of great historic interest. It is the first known attempt to organize a scheme of definite and solid study for girls. However superficial the work, it was based on a novel and important conception of the value of genuine knowledge in languages and science for girls as well as for boys. It must have been as doubtful and epoch-making an event in a community to have its girls sent to Tottenham High Cross, as for the earliest students to go to Vassar. Unfortunately the inception of this school is all we know about it. A knowledge of its actual work, its success, a list of its students, would serve as an illuminating commentary on the general attitude towards learning for girls in the last quarter of the seventeenth century.

That Mrs. Makin expected opposition is shown by the remarkable _Essay_ that was issued with her _Prospectus_. The full title of the _Essay_ is, _An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen, in Religion, Manners, Arts, & Tongues, with an Answer to the Objections against this Way of Education. London, Printed by J. D. to be sold by Tho. Parkhurst, at the Bible and Crown, at the lower end of Cheapside._ 1673. In her opening paragraphs Mrs. Makin recognizes that an age in which "Learning and Virtue are counted Pedantick Things, fit only for the Vulgar" is not a propitious time to undertake an advanced scheme for the education of girls. She trenchantly summarizes the prevalent attitude towards learned women; and then bravely sets forth her own creed. She also emphasizes the modesty of her demands:

Custom, when it is inveterate, hath a mighty influence: it hath the force of Nature itself. The Barbarous custom to breed Women low, is grown general amongst us, and hath prevailed so far, that it is verily believed (especially amongst a cort of debauched Sots) that Women are not endued with such reason, as Men; nor capable of improvement by Education, as they are. It is lookt upon as a monstrous thing, to pretend the contrary. A Learned Woman is thought to be a Comet, that bodes Mischief, when ever it appears. To offer to the World the liberal Education of Women is to deface the Image of God in Man, it will make Women so high, and men so low, like Fire in the House-tops it will set the whole world in a Flame. These things and worse than these, are commonly talked of, and verily believed by many, who think themselves wise Men: to contradict these is a bold attempt; where the Attempter must expect to meet with much opposition.... I verily think, Women were formerly Educated in the knowledge of Arts and Tongues, and by their Education, many did rise to a great height in Learning. Were Women thus educated now, I am confident the advantage would be very great: the Women would have Honour and Pleasure, their Relations Profit, and the whole Nation Advantage.... Were a competent number of Schools erected to Educate Ladyes ingenuously, methinks I see how ashamed Men would be of their Ignorance, and how industrious the next Generation would be to wipe off their Reproach. I expect to meet with many Scoffes and Taunts from inconsiderate and illiterate Men, that prize their own Lusts and Pleasure more than your Profit and Content. I shall be the less concern'd at these, so long as I am in your favour; and this discourse may be a Weapon in your hands to defend yourselves, whilst you endeavour to polish your Souls, that you may glorify God, and answer the end of your Creation, to be meet helps to your Husbands. Let not your Ladiships be offended, that I do not (as some have wittily done) plead for Female Preëminence. To ask too much is the way to be denied all. God hath made Man the Head, if you be educated and instructed, as I propose, I am sure you will acknowledge it, and be satisfied that you are helps, that your Husbands do consult and advise with you (which if you be wise they will be glad of) and that your Husbands have the casting-Voice, in whose determinations you will acquiesce.

The main portion of the _Essay_ is addressed to a "much-honoured and worthy friend" who has expressed considerable doubt as to the wisdom of her educational projects. The tone of his letter is indicated by the following summary:

Your great question is, Whether to breed up Women in Arts and Tongues, is not a mere new Device, never before practised in the World. This you doubt the more: Because Women are of low Parts, and not capable of Improvement by this Education. If they could be improved you doubt, whether it would benefit them? If it would benefit them, you enquire where such Education may be had? or, whether they must go to School with Boys? to be made twice more impudent than learned. At last you muster up a Legion of Objections.

These doubts and objections are then discussed _seriatim_. To establish her contention that women have been educated in arts and sciences in the past she gives an unchronological, uncritical list of women who attained distinction in Greece and Rome and in Bible times. Miriam, "a great poet and philosopher," the women who danced before David (singing songs "compos'd it's like by themselves"), Huldah the Prophetess, "who dwelt (we may suppose) in a college where women were bred up in good literature"; Anna and Phebe; Triphena, Triphosa, and Persis; Priscilla who instructed Apollos; Timothy's mother Eunice and grandmother Lois; and Philip's four daughters, make up from Sacred Writ a list intended to allay the anxieties of a devout churchman as to the effect of learning on female piety. Mrs. Makin was really forced to get as many Biblical recruits as possible, since her opponents regularly massed their forces in the Garden of Eden with the Sin of Eve as their impregnable fort.

To the lay mind examples from classic lands might prove authoritative, hence there follows a list of Greek and Roman ladies of learning. If the heroes of ancient story are but idealized representations of actual men, why, reasons Mrs. Makin, may we not suppose some actual wise women as the begetters of the legends of Minerva, the Muses, and the Sibyls? From history she cites "Sempronia, Cornelia, Lelia, Mutia, Cleobulina, Cassandra, Terentia, Hortensia, Sulpitia, Portia, Helvitia, Enonia, Paula, Albina, Pella, Jenobia, Voleria, Proba, Eudocia, Claudia," and many others; a list too undiscriminating to be convincing, but certainly creditable to Mrs. Makin's industrious learning. After this wide preliminary sweep, Mrs. Makin takes up different realms of attainment. "Women have been good Linguists"; "Women have been good Oratours"; "Women have understood Logic"; "Women have been profound Philosophers"; "Some Women have understood the Mathematics"; "Women have been good Poets"; "Women have been good Divines"--such are the theses she is prepared to defend. The mathematics are most thinly provided with examples, Hypatia of Alexandria and "A Lady of late, her name I have forgot," who printed divers tables, being the only instances she can summon. The richest assemblage of names comes under the linguists and the poets. The purpose of this ardent and prolonged search of times past and present is to show that women are not by act of creation always of "low parts"; that some, indeed, have approached the standards set by men. This being the case, women should have full educational opportunities. Mrs. Makin is careful, however, to hedge in even this proposition with qualifications. Education belongs only to the Christian maid, to the maid of excellent mind, to the maid of wealth and leisure. A woman's education is for her own development and pleasure and for the service of her family. Any social, public, utilitarian use of it is not for a moment contemplated. A further qualification is that education is not absolutely essential:

I do not mean that it is necessary to the _esse_, to the _subsistence_, or to the salvation of women, to be thus educated. Those that are mean in the world have not the opportunity for this education. Those that are of low parts, though they have opportunity, cannot reach this. _Ex quovis ligno not fit Minerva._ My meaning is, persons that God hath blessed with the things of this world, that have competent natural parts, ought to be educated in knowledge. That is, it is much better they should spend the time of their youth to be competently instructed in those things usually taught to gentlewomen at schools, and the over-plus of their time to be spent in gaining arts and tongues and useful knowledge, rather than to trifle away so many precious minutes, merely to polish their hands and feet, to curl their locks, to dress and trim their bodies.

With these limitations the proposition may be allowed to stand that the virtuous, talented woman of leisure should be granted educational advantages. But there are objections still to be met. The more important of these may be summarized with Mrs. Makin's answers:

1. "If we bring up our Daughters to Learning no Persons will adventure to Marry them."

Answer: Learned men would surely choose learned wives, and it will be long before there are learned women enough to overstock the market.

2. "When Solomon praised the good housewife no mention was made of her learning."

Answer: The daily tasks of Solomon's housewife required considerable knowledge. "To buy wool and flax, to dye scarlet and purple, requires skill in Natural Philosophy. To consider a field, the quantity and quality, requires knowledge in Geometry. To plant a vineyard, requires understanding in Husbandry. She could not merchandise without Arithmetic. She could not govern so great a family well without knowledge in Politics and Economics. She could not look well to the ways of her household, except she understood Physic and Chirurgery. She could not open her mouth with wisdom and have in her tongue the law of kindness without Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic." But at the best, Solomon's good housewife seems to Mrs. Makin hardly more than "an honest, well-bred, ingenious, industrious Dutchwoman," not at all the sort of talented gentlewoman of the leisure classes for whom the new liberal education is to be provided.

3. "Women are of ill Natures, and will abuse their Education."

Answer: Men also abuse their Education.

4. "They will be proud and not obey their Husbands; they will be pragmatick and boast of their Parts and Improvements."

Answer: "To this I Answer; What is said of Philosophy, is true of Knowledge; a little Philosophy carries a man from God, but a great deal brings him back again; a little knowledge, like windy Bladders, puffs up, but a good measure of true knowledge, like Ballast in a Ship, settles down, and makes a person more even in his station; 't is not knowing too much, but too little that causes the irregularity."

5. "The end of Learning is Publick Business" in which women have no concern.

Answer: The private ends of learning are as important as the public ends. Moreover, this objection would apply to all men in private life.

6. "Women do not desire Learning."

Answer: "Neither do many Boys."

7. "Women are of Low Parts."

Answer: "So are many Men."

8. Women are soft, tender, delicate, weak.

Answer: Then strengthen them by Education.

9. A learned gentlewoman is ridiculous because contrary to custom.

Answer: This custom has a bad ground. Men wish women to be fools, that they may remain slaves. A bad custom should be broken that good customs may prevail.

10. The final and crucial objection is elaborately stated: "How shall time be found to teach children these things here proposed? Boys go to school ordinarily from seven till sixteen or seventeen, and not above one in four attain so much knowledge in the Tongues as to be admitted into the University, where no great accuracy is required, and they learn nothing else usually besides a little History. Gentlewomen will not ordinarily be sent out so soon, nor is it convenient they should continue so long. Further, half their time, it is supposed, must be spent in learning those things that concern them as Women. Twice as many things are proposed to be taught Girls in half the time, as Boyes do learn, which is impossible."

The rest of the article is taken up with an analysis of Lilly's _Grammar_, to show how slow and burdensome and distasteful are its methods, and to an analysis of the short cuts to knowledge devised by Mrs. Makin and Mr. Lewis. For instance, Lilly's long rule for substantives is simplified into, "Any word with _a_, _an_, or _the_ in front of it is a substantive." If you wish to distinguish between a noun and an adjective you have but to note that nouns change when you make a plural, adjectives do not. And so on with many shrewd little tricks of learning whereby the parts of speech may be known at a glance, the nature of said parts of speech not being in question. The whole of Mrs. Makin's scope and plan of education seems superficial and uncoördinated until seen in the light of the contemporary training of boys as she describes it. Then her system seems alive and energetic in its effort to slough off non-essentials.

In passing, Mrs. Makin frequently utters wise and far-seeing opinions concerning the education of girls.

If any desire to know what they should be instructed in? I answer: I cannot tell where to begin to admit Women, nor from what part of Learning to exclude them, in regard of their Capacities. The whole _Encyclopoedia_ of Learning may be useful some way or other to them. "Grammar, Rhetorick, Logick, Physick, the Tongues, Mathematics, Geography, History, Musick, Painting, Poetry"--all of these should be open to women, and all could be advantageously used by them.

With regard to the pleasures of the student she says, "Delight and Pleasure are the attendants on Learning."

There is no pleasure greater than what is founded in Knowledge; it is the First Fruits of Heaven, and a glimpse of that Glory we afterwards expect. There is in all an innate desire of knowing, and the satisfying this is the greatest pleasure. Men are very cruel, that give them leave to look at a distance, only to know they do not know; to make any thus to tantalize is a great torment.

She is especially scornful of the vain and frivolous women of that frivolous age, those women whose time is spent in "making Points for Bravery, in dressing and trimming themselves like Bartholomew-Babies, in Painting and Dancing, in making Flowers of Coloured Straw, and building Houses of stained Paper, and such like vanities."

[Sidenote: Poulain de la Barre]

A book nearly contemporaneous with Mrs. Makin's _Prospectus_ is entitled _The Woman as Good as the Man, or the Equality of Both Sexes. Written originally in French and translated into English by A. L._ The French original was by Poulain de la Barre whose _De l'Egalité des deux Sexes_ was published in 1673. The translation by A. L. came out in 1677. The Preface by the author and that by the translator show that they enter upon their work with considerable trepidation, knowing that they write against the general view. The probable opponents are classified as "all the Ignorant and most of the Learned," but the author proceeds valiantly on his mission of enlightenment. "Men," he says, "have always kept women in subjection," moved thereto by a "secret Instinct," as if they had for their own dominance "Letters-Patent from the Author of Nature." Women have likewise accepted the doctrine of their own inferiority so that dependence and subjection have come to seem their normal condition. M. de la Barre states the prevalent idea and his own radical departure from it in the following passage:

Let every Man (in particular) be asked his Thoughts of Women (in general) and that he would surely confess his Mind; he will tell you without doubt, That they were not made but for Man; That they are fit for nothing, but to Nurse and Breed little Children in their Low Ages; and to mind the House. It may be the more Ingenious will add, That there are many Women that have indeed Parts, and Conduct; but that even they who seem to have most, when they are nearly examined, discover still some-what that speaks their Sex: That they have neither Solidity, nor Constancy; nor that depth of Judgment which they think to find in themselves: And that it hath been an effect of Divine Providence, and Wisdom of Men, to have barred them from Sciences, Government, and Offices: That it would be a pleasant thing indeed, to see a Lady in the Chair (in quality of a Professor) teaching _Rhetorick_, or _Medicine_; marching along the Streets, followed by Officers, and Sergeants; putting in Execution Laws: Playing the part of a Counsellour; pleading before Judges: Seated on a Bench, to Administer Justice in Supream Courts: Leading of an Army; giving Battel; and Speaking before States, and Princes, as the Head of an Embassy.

I do confess, such Practices would surprize us; but for no other reason, but that of Novelty. For, if in modelling of states and establishing the different Offices that compose them, Women had been likewise called to Functions; we should have been as much accustomed to have seen them in Dignity, as they are to see us. And should have found it no more strange to have seen a Lady on a Throne, than a Woman in a Shop.[404]

M. de la Barre admits that many women may properly be accused of "Idleness, Softness, and Ignorance," but gives the astonishingly modern explanation that no fair estimate of the ability of women can be made until they have been trained by right education and stimulated by public responsibility and opportunity. He believes that if women "made it their business to study Law, they would succeed in it (at least) as well as we." "Women seem born to practise Physick." They would excel as "Pastour or Minister in the Church ... and there can be nothing else but custome shewn, which remove _Women_ therefrom.... And if men were accustomed to see _Women_ in a Pulpit, they would be no more startled thereat, than the _Women_ are at the sight of men." Women if rightly educated would show peculiar aptitude for teaching.

If _Women_ had studyed in the Universities with men, or in others appointed for them in particular, they might have entered into Degrees, and taken the title of Master of Arts, Doctor of Divinity, Medicine, Civil, and Cannon Law: And their genius so advantageously fitting them to learn, would dispose them to teach with success. They would find methods, and insinuating biasses, to instil their Doctrine; they would discover the strength and weakness of their Schollars, to proportion themseves to their reach, and the facility which they have to express themselves; and, [this] which is one of the most excellent talents of a good Master, would compleat and render them admirable Mistresses.[405]

There is no reason "why a _Woman_ of sound Judgment and Understanding, might not take the chaire in a court of Justice, and preside in all other companies." There are no positions of public authority from the throne to the humblest office of state that should not be open to women. Even "the military Art hath nothing beyond others, whereof _Women_ are not capable."

That women may become learned is beyond dispute, and they are the more to be praised because of the difficulties they have overcome:

How many Ladies have there been, and how many are there still, who ought to be placed amongst the number of the Learned, if we assigne them not a Higher Sphear? The Age wherein we live hath produced more of these, than all the past. And as they have in all things run parallel with _Men_, upon some Particular Reasons, they ought more to be esteemed than they: For, it behoved them to surmount the Softness wherein their Sex is bred, renounce the Pleasures and Idleness, to which Custom had condemned them, overcome certain public Impediments that removed them from Study, and to get above those disadvantagious Notions, which the Vulgar conceive of the Learned, besides, those of their own Sex in general: All this they have performed. And whether it be, that these Difficulties have rendered their Wit more quick and penetrating, or that these Qualities are the peculiar of their Nature, they have [proportionably] made Progress and Advancements beyond _Men_.[406]

These may be regarded as exceptional women, but "there are infinite numbers of _Women_, which could have done no less, had their Advantages been Equal." But the training given to girls make them believe that beauty and fine clothes should be their only interests. Their education seldom goes beyond writing and reading, and their library consists of a few little books of devotion.

In all that which is taught to _Women_, do we see anything that tends to solid instruction? It seems, on the contrary, that men have agreed on this sort of education, of purpose to abase their courage, darken their mind, and to fill it only with vanity, and fopperies.

It may be said that "Learning would render _Women_ more Wicked and Proud." But only false knowledge can produce so bad an effect. True knowledge makes a woman humble and virtuous. It actually "choaks" some men to find women eager after knowledge. These men have "forged to themselves that Women ought not to Study," and they "stand upon their Points, when Women demand to be informed of that which is Learned by Books." But since "Ignorance is the most irksome Slavery," and knowing the truth is a way out of it, all women who seek that way should be praised, not blamed.

"We may [then] with Assurance, exhort Ladies to apply themselves to Study; without having Respect to the little Reasons of those who would undertake to divert them there-from. Since they have a Mind (as well as We) capable of knowing of Truth ... they ought to put themselves in condition of avoyding the Reproach, of having stifled a Talent, which they might put to use." Learning cannot be counted useless to women even if they do not publicly use it. It is a personal right and necessity like "Felicity and Vertue." "The Spring of reason is not limited; it hath in all men an equal Jurisdiction.... Truth and Knowledge are goods that admit of no prescription." And, finally, the economy of the world demands that one half its mentality should not be debarred from the search after Truth.

The sincerity of M. Poulain de la Barre might be put in question by the fact that he wrote in 1675 a book entitled _De l'Excellence des Hommes contre l'Egalité des Sexes_, but the earlier treatise maintained its popularity, for it was republished in 1676, 1690, 1692. Of the English translation but one edition appeared, nor does it seem to have been well known in the seventeenth century. Mary Astell makes no use of it, perhaps because it was too radical and uncompromising in its demand. Certainly no other defense of feminism even approached the work of M. de la Barre in the relentless logic with which it carried fundamental assumptions into the practical affairs of life.

[Sidenote: Dr. George Hickes (1642-1715)]

From Marie de Jars to Anna van Schurman, and then to Bathsua Makin is a regular and recognized progression of influence. I am unable to trace any direct influence from Mrs. Makin, though her prestige and the number of her aristocratic pupils must have made her school one of the important factors in establishing new ideas. At any rate, by whatever influences brought about, we have, after about 1680, several significant discussions of liberal education for woman. One of the earliest and most surprising of these comes in a sermon by Dr. George Hickes. Its full title is, _A Sermon Preached at the Church of St. Bridget, on Easter, Tuesday, being the first of April, 1684. Before the Right Honourable Sir Henry Tulse, Lord Mayor of London and Honourable Court of Alderman, Together with the Governors of the Hospital, upon the Subject of Alms-giving. By George Hickes, D. D. Dean of Worcester, and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty._

At the close of this sermon on the reasons for alms-giving Dr. Hickes emphasizes the great obligation resting on those "Who heap up Riches, and can not tell who shall gather them, I mean those to whom God hath given great Estates, and no Children." Such people seem to him set apart by Providence for the endowing of works of public beneficence. In a comprehensive analysis of the practical ways in which they could use their wealth we come upon the following remarkable suggestion:

I will also put you in mind of establishing a Found for Endowing of poor Maids, who have lived so many years in Service, and of building Schools, or Colleges for the Education of young Women, much like unto those in the Universities, for the Education of young Men, but with some alteration in the Discipline, and Occonomy, as the nature of such an Institution would require.

Such Colleges might be so ordered, as to become security to your Daughters against all the hazard to which they are exposed at private Schools, and likewise a security to the Government, that the Daughters of the Land should be bred up according to the religion now established in it, to the unconceivable advantage of the Publick, in rooting out _Enthusiasme_, with her Daughter _Schisme_, both of which are upheld by nothing among us as much, as by the Women, who are so silly and deceiveable for want of Ingenious and Orthodox Education, and not for want of Parts. Methinks the Rich and Honourable Ladies of the Church of _England_, the _Elect Ladies_ of her Apostolical Communion should be zealous to begin, and carry on such a work, as this; which upon more accounts than I have mentioned, would make the Daughters of _Israel_ be glad, and the Daughters of _Judah_ and _Jerusalem_ rejoyce.

Had Dr. Hickes read Anna van Schurman's _May the Christian Maid be a Scholar?_ Or had he seen the _Prospectus_ and _Essay_ of Mrs. Makin which had appeared eleven years before he preached his Sermon to the Lord Mayor?

Among the clergy of the English Church the Reverend George Hickes must take rank as the earliest and one of the most important defenders of higher education for women. His Easter sermon antedated Mary Astell, and his claim was more generous and daring than hers. In 1710, when he published _Controversial Letters_, he included letters from Susanna Hopton and Lady Gratiana Carew, and he considered them valuable aids in the presentation of religious truth. It was he who called Mrs. Bovey "the Christian Hypatia," and he was the chief encourager of Elizabeth Elstob.

Besides these individual manifestations of approval Dr. Hickes contributed to the cause of the right education of girls by a translation of Fénelon's _Traité de l'éducation des filles_ (1688), under the title _Instructions for the Education of a Daughter, by the Author of Telemachus. To which is Added, A Small Tract of Instructions for the Conduct of Young Ladies of the Highest Rank. With Suitable Devotions Annexed. Done into English and Revised by George Hicks._ In putting the French treatise into an English dress Dr. Hickes has not hesitated to make such changes as would bring the book closer to English needs. This book was so widely read and so influential in England that rather full extracts may profitably be given. But it should be noted in advance that the general tone of this treatise is much more conventional, much less liberal, in its ideas of education and of opportunity for self-expression than was Dr. Hickes in his Easter sermon, and in his encouragement of individual learned women. But it must be remembered that here he is not writing for mature women with superior minds, but for young girls of high social rank to whom he wishes to recommend the most exalted ideals of character, behavior, and general culture. Modest indeed are the requirements in exact learning:

Teach her to _Read_ and _Write_ correctly. It is shameful, but ordinary, to see Gentlewomen, who have both Wit and Politeness, not able yet to pronounce well what they read; they either hesitate, or else chant, as it were, in reading; whereas they ought to pronounce their Words with a plain and natural Tone, such as is also firm and uniform. They are still more grossly deficient in Orthography, or in Spelling right, and in the manner of forming or connecting Letters in Writing. Accustom her then, from the first, to make her Lines strait, and to have her Character neat and legible.

It would also be requisite for her to understand a little _Grammar_ of her Native Language; by which it is not meant, she should be taught by Rule, as Boys are, _Latin_: Use her only without Affectation, not to take one Tense for another; to express herself in proper Terms; to explain clearly her Thoughts, with Order, and after a short and concise manner. Thus will you put her into a Method, by which she may teach her own Children afterwards to speak well and truly, without any formal Study. It is well known, that in Old Rome, Sempronia the Mother of the _Gracchi_, contributed very much to the forming of the Eloquence of her Sons, who became afterwards so great Men.

She ought also to understand the Four first great Rules of Arithmetic; you may make good use of them, in teaching her thereby to keep your Accompts. This is indeed a troublesome Employment to a great many; but an Habit from her Childhood, joyn'd with the Easiness of keeping readily, by the Help of these Rules, all Sorts of Accompts, tho' never so intricate, will very much diminish this Dislike. Now't is sufficiently known how much Exactness of Accompts conduces to the good Order in Families.

After these instructions, which are to hold the first Rank, I believe it will not be quite useless, to allow young Ladies according to their Leisure, and their Capacity, the _reading_ of some select prophane Authors, that have nothing Dangerous in them for the Passions. This is the Means to give them a Distaste of most Plays and Romances; Give them therefore into their Hands _Greek_ and _Roman_ Histories, in the best Translations; they will see in them wonderful Instances of Courage, of Faithfulness, of Generosity, and of the great Contempt of their own private Advantage, whenever the Publick was in the Balance. Let them not be ignorant of the History of _Britain_, which hath also some very great Instances of Brave (no less than of Bad) Actions, that hardly any thing in Antiquity will be found to exceed: Those Illustrious Patterns which have been set by their own Nation and by Persons too of their own Sex, will be apt more strongly to influence them.

Though _Natural Philosophy_ seems not to be adapted to the Understanding of Women, or at least not to fall within the Bounds of what concerns their Duty; yet _Moral Philosophy_ is, upon both Accounts, to be studied by them.[407] _Languages_ are next to be considered. It is commonly believ'd in _France_, that a Lady that would be well-bred, must learn _Italian_ and _Spanish_; as with us, _French_ at least. I see nothing of less Benefit than this Study, unless it be where the Lady is oblig'd to it on account of Business.... Some, and those the farthest in the World from all Pedantry, think it would not be unreasonable for this End, to have them learn a little _Latin_. For which, there may be a great deal more Reason in those Countries, where this is look'd on as the Language of the Church; it being an inestimable Fruit and Consolation, say they, to understand the Words of the Divine Service, whereat one is oblig'd to attend so often. Yet doubtless, every where the Advantages of it are not small, if but accompanied with Humility, and season'd with Prudence.

To this restricted course of study is added most careful advice as to general reading with a particular caution against romances. If Dr. Hickes's advice had prevailed Steele's Biddy Tipkin and Mrs. Lennox's Arabella would never have existed:

But, on the contrary, Young Persons, and Women especially, without Instruction and Application, have always a roving Imagination. For want of solid Nourishment, their Curiosity violently turns them towards Vain and Dangerous Objects. Such as have a little Capacity, are in Danger to set up for Wits; they read, for this, all the Books that may feed their Vanity; they are extremely affected with Romances, with Plays, with the Relations of Chimerical Adventures, in which profane Love bears a mighty Share; they fill their Minds with empty Notions; and, using themselves to the Magnificent Language of Heroes, or Heroins, in Romances, they spoil themselves hereby for Converse in the World: For all these fine airy Sentiments, these generous Passions, these strange Adventures, which the Author of the Romance, or Play, hath invented merely for Pleasure, bear no sort of proportion, either to the True _Motives_, which are generally the Springs of our Actions in the World, and upon which all our Affairs do turn; or to the _Mistakes_, which are commonly met with in all that is here undertaken.

A poor raw Girl, whose Head is fill'd with the moving and surprising Strains, which have charmed her in her Reading, is astonished, not to find in the World real Persons, who may answer to these Romantick Heroes. Fain would she live like those imaginary Princesses, who are in the Romances, that is, always charming, always adored, always above all kind of Want: What a Disgust must it be then, for her to descend from this Heroical State, down to the meanest Parts and Offices of Housewifery.

A second limit is set in cases where the roving imagination may carry young women to subjects too high for them:

Some carry their Curiosity yet much farther still, and set themselves even to decide Matters of Religion, as much as if they had studied in the Schools of Divinity twice Seven Years; and with a Magisterial Air, are for determining some of the most Knotty Questions that divide Men of the greatest Learning and Capacity; and for settling the Bounds of Truth betwixt the several contending Parties, as if they were capable of the Employment.

From "An Address to the Right Honourable the Lady ----, From the Translator," we get a list of books considered by Dr. Hickes as advisable reading for English girls:

It must be acknowledg'd, that there is not less difficulty in the Chusing good Books to busy one's self withal in _Solitude_, than good Friends to Entertain one in _Conversation_. Those which I would recommend to a Young Lady, next to the HOLY SCRIPTURES, are, THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN; THE LADY'S CALLING; and THE GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE. After these let her read Dr. Cave's PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY, to give her an Idea of the Lives and Manners of the Ancient Christians; with which she may join his LIVES OF THE APOSTLES, and, A COMPANION FOR THE FESTIVALS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, by Robert Nelson, Esq. She ought not likewise to be unacquainted with A SERIOUS PROPOSAL TO THE LADIES, FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THEIR TRUEST AND GREATEST INTEREST, in TWO PARTS; nor with THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AS PROFESS'D BY A DAUGHTER OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND: These Two, being written by one of her own Sex, may probably serve to make a deeper Impression upon her, and will be both Instructive and Delightful. To these, if you please, you may add, THE LADY'S NEW YEARS GIFT; and, JUST MEASURES OF THE PIOUS INSTITUTION OF YOUTH, by Mr. Monro. But, chiefly, the Two Volumes of THE CHRISTIAN PATTERN, may very Profitably be recommended to her; the Christian Exercises and Entertainments, in the Second, she will find of very peculiar Service and Consolation to her, in all the several Stages of Life; and if she can be brought to be in love with the Character herein of _Philothea_, the Work is soon done. The _Meditations_ and _Soliloquies_ of St. Augustine, deserve likewise to be of the Number of her more intimate Companions; together with the DEVOTIONS IN THE ANCIENT WAY OF OFFICES, WITH PSALMS, AND HYMNS, AND PRAYERS FOR EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK, publish'd by Dr. Hickes: Nothing can be ever sweeter or finer than some of the _Meditations_, and particularly the _Hymns_. To these let her add a most excellent Book, called, THE OLD RELIGION; with the WINTER EVENING CONFERENCES; which, together with solid Instruction, will be very divertive: Both by Dr. Goodman. That when she approaches the Solemn Assemblies, she may do it with that Understanding and Devotion which she ought, let her read _Comber_ or _Bennet_ upon the _Liturgy_. That she may read the _Scriptures_ in her Closet with a greater Relish, let her peruse Mr. _Boyle's Considerations_ on their _Stile_. For the _Psalms_, wherein I must needs suppose her particularly conversant, she may have _Hatton's Psalter_, or _Patrick's Paraphrase_, which are very plain, and will be of excellent Use. The rest of the Practical Works of this last Author, will not be unworthy her Acquaintance, but especially THE PARABLE OF THE PILGRIM, the Pleasantness and Easiness of which will incite her to read forward, and will much help to inspire a lovely Idea of Religion. For the same Reason, that I recommend the last, I would likewise THE MARTYRDOM OF THEODORA, with some few Pieces of like Nature. And the TELEMACHUS of our Author will be better, sure, for her, than any Romance or Novel besides: This, though written in Prose, is perhaps the most compleat Poem that several Ages have produced, for the Subject and Disposition of it. She may be directed likewise to the _Psyche_ of Dr. _Beaumont_; to Dr. _Woodford's Poetical Paraphrases_ on the Psalms and Canticles; Sir _Richard Blackmore's Paraphrase_ on Job; the _Davideis_ and some of the _Pindaricks_ of Mr. _Cowley_. If she be Curious, her Time will not be lost in turning over the best Histories and Memoirs. For _Plays_, there is great Danger in giving her but a Taste of them, tho' there should be some few that may be read, not only Innocently, but Usefully: And great Caution will be required, not to be hurt by some that are the best Written, and not to fall by them into sundry Inconveniences and Temptations, which may not so presently, perhaps, appear; which the Principles laid down in this Treatise of _Education_ do sufficiently evince. For _Sermons_, at her leisure Hours, when she is disposed to read them, there is abundant Choice. Let her not affect to read such as are too Learned, or above her Capacity; and especially, let her avoid all such as savour of a Party, and that may tend to sowre her with Disputes either Civil or Religious. For the Study of _Morality_, SENECA'S MORALS, Abstracted by _L'Estrange_, is almost the only Piece, that I should offer to her, besides the Incomparable Essays of Mr. _Collier_, and his ANTONINUS. I mention but a few, among many others excellent in this kind, because I would not have her distracted by too great Variety of Reading.

The final admonition implies the danger always in the background of the most liberal eighteenth-century mind, and that is that learning, even hedged-in and expurgated learning, might make girls bold and unfeminine:

That which remains next, is to win young ladies to beware of the Reputation of being _Witty_; such a Reputation being constantly attended with very great Perils and Inconveniences to them. For if you take not Care hereof, they that are of a brisk lively Spirit, will continually be intriguing, will be forward to speak of everything, and be criticising on Matters beyond their Capacity; while they affect to shew their Wit, and study to be applauded when they are but troublesome by their Niceness. If you can but give them a Relish for the true Delicacy, they will presently be asham'd of this Affectation of Wit and Humour; and so will avoid splitting upon those dangerous Shelves, which such a Temper is ordinarily exposed to. Show them sweetly that the Virgin Delicacy, the less it is touched, is the more admired.... A Maid ought not to speak but for Necessity; nor then but with an Air of Diffidence and Deference: she ought not likewise to talk of things which are above the common reach of Young Women, even though she, herself, may, perhaps, be instructed in them.

[Sidenote: Mary Astell (1666-1739)]

It would be interesting to know whether the next and most pronounced advocate of higher education, Mary Astell, had read Dr. Hickes's sermon. Miss Astell[408] was born in Newcastle in 1666. Her father died when she was twelve; the uncle who is supposed to have educated her died when she was thirteen; her mother died when she was eighteen. Beyond these facts nothing is known of her early life. A record of the education of Anne Killegrew, Anne Kingsmill, and Mary Astell would be a social document of great significance for the reign of Charles II. But it was a record too slight to be kept. Of the books these young ladies read, the studies they pursued, of the schools they may have attended, of the tutors they had, we get no hint. Of the early influences that led them to achievements unusual in their day and circle we know nothing. When we first meet them their formal education is complete and we can surmise its details only by doubtful inferences based on later attainments.

At about twenty Mary Astell went to London and there she lived till her death in 1731, Chelsea being the part of the city with which she was most definitely associated. There is no available record of the first seven years of her London life. But during this time she must have been doing thorough and consecutive reading in history, philosophy, theology, and politics. And she must have read analytically, critically, with vigorous independent judgment, for at twenty-seven she was well ready for the era of controversy on which she then entered. Her style was also so matured in her first published work as to indicate a disciplined mind and pen.

In 1693-94 she was in correspondence with John Norris concerning his theory that God should be the sole object of human love. So acute, so devout, so ably expressed, were Miss Astell's letters that Mr. Norris won her consent to an anonymous publication of the correspondence in 1695 under the title, _Letters concerning the love of God_. In his Preface Dr. Norris said that he could not express the value he set upon Miss Astell's letters either as to their ingenuity or their piety, "the former of which might make them an entertainment for an angel, and the latter sufficient (if possible) to make a saint of the blackest devil." He said he had never met any discourses that had so enlightened his mind and enlarged his heart, had so taken possession of his spirit, and had exerted such "a general and commanding influence over his whole soul."

While carrying on this discussion with Mr. Norris another subject had been more definitely occupying Miss Astell's active mind, and in 1694 she had published her most original and important work, _A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their true and greatest interest_. This appeared in July, 1694, and by 1697 the fourth edition came out. "By a Lover of her Sex" was the only indication of authorship. In 1700 she published _Some Reflections upon Marriage_, a discussion based on the unhappy experiences of her neighbor in Chelsea, the Duchess of Mazarine. The years 1704-05 show her greatest activity. In _Moderation Truly Stated_ (1704) she answered Owen's _Moderation a Virtue_, and in the Preface discussed Davenant's recently published _Essays on Peace and War_. In _A Fair Way with Dissenters and their Patrons_ (1704) she attempted to answer Defoe's _Shortest Way with Dissenters_, while in a Postscript she carried on her analysis of Owen's views on Moderation. In _An Impartial Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil War in this Kingdom_ she took up another phase of politics--religious controversy, showing herself a believer in Stuart doctrines of Church and State. _The Christian Religion as Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church of England_ (1705) showed the insidious dangers of latitudinarianism and deism within the Church, and defended the Christian religion as reasonable and resulting in moral excellence. In 1709 appeared her last pamphlet, _Bart'lemy Fair, or an Enquiry after Wit_, an attack on Shaftesbury's _Letter Concerning Enthusiasm_, which she, however, wrongly attributed to Swift. The Preface to _Bart'lemy Fair_ is a bitter invective against the Kit-Kat Club.

The pamphlets thus briefly listed are sufficient to show with what sustained energy Mary Astell entered into the discussions most vital in her day. Education, religion, politics, and social questions held her entire attention. She was never side-tracked into anything light or gay. We find no indications that she had any interest in art or general literature, that she had any of the recognized accomplishments, that she put any stress on scientific or linguistic attainments. She was temperamentally a controversialist, a propagandist. She was too serious, too much in earnest, to play with a subject. Her disapprovals were never softened by any humorous recognition of human foibles. For the graces and amenities of style she had slight regard. But she was beyond any woman and most men of her day in her command of the weapons of satire and irony. She could pierce to the heart of a sham or a sophistry, and she was merciless in her analysis of a trifling, corrupt, or irreligious life. She stands as a new type of learned woman. No other woman had ideas so rigorously thought-out or so firmly expressed. She taught with authority, not with the timidity, self-distrust, or reticence supposedly feminine in her time. She did not, write for money or for fame. She wrote because she had a message.

Many of the actual causes championed by Mary Astell are now dead issues, but her ideas concerning women, their education, their increased freedom of action, even in some measure their economic independence, led her into a field of controversy the problems of which are even yet but imperfectly solved. In the cause of feminism she did pioneer work quite amazing in its challenge of contemporary opinion and in its tempered wisdom. Her fundamental assumption was that the potentialities of women must be considered undetermined until they have been given full opportunities for preparation, and tested by real tasks. "Women are from their very Infancy," she says, "debarr'd those advantages with the want of which they are afterwards reproached, and nursed up in those vices which will hereafter be upbraided to them. So partial are Men to Expect Bricks when they afford no Straw."

Eleven years later in the Preface to _Reflections on Marriage_, in the edition of 1706, she wrote with greater bitterness:

In the first place, Boys have much Time and Pains, Care and Cost bestowed on their education, Girls have little or none. The former are early initiated in the Sciences, are made acquainted with Antient and Modern Discoveries, they Study Books and Men, have all imaginable encouragement; not only Fame, a dry reward now-a-days, But also Title, Authority, Power, and Riches themselves which purchase all things, are the reward of their improvement. The latter are restricted, frown'd upon, beat, not _for_ but _from_ the Muses; Laughter and Ridicule that never-failing Scare-Crow is set up to drive them from the Tree of Knowledge. But if in spite of all difficulties Nature prevails, and they can't be kept so ignorant as their masters would have them, they are stared upon as Monsters, Censur'd, Envyd and every way discouraged, or at the best they have the Fate the Proverb assigns them: _Virtue is praised and starved_.

Even more caustic is her outburst against the women who accept the theory of their inferiority and hug their chains:

She's a Fool who would attempt their Deliverance or Improvements. No, let them enjoy the great Honour and Felicity of their tame, submissive and depending Temper! Let the Men applaud, and let them glory in this wonderful Humility! Let them receive the Flatteries and Grimaces of the other Sex, live unenvied by their own, and be as much belov'd as one such Woman can afford to love another! Let them enjoy the Glory of treading in the Footsteps of their Predecessors, and of having the Prudence to avoid that audacious attempt of soaring beyond their Sphere! Let them Houswife or Play, Dress and be pretty entertaining Company! Or, which is better, relieve the Poor to ease their own Compassions, read pious Books, say their Prayers, and go to Church, because they have been taught and us'd to do so, without being able to give a better Reason for their Faith and Practice! Let them not by any means aspire to being Women of Understanding, because no Man can endure a Woman of Superior Sense, or would treat a reasonable Woman civilly, but that he thinks he stands on higher Ground, and that she is so wise as to make Exceptions, in his Favour, and to take her Measures by his Directions; they may pretend to Sense, indeed, since meer Pretences only render one the more ridiculous! Let them, in short, be what is call'd _very_ Women, for this is most acceptable to all sorts of Men; or let them aim at the Title of _good devout_ Women, since Men can bear with this; but let them not judge of the Sex by their own Scantling: For the great Author of Nature and Fountain of all Perfection, never design'd that the Mean and Imperfect, but that the most Compleat and Excellent of his Creatures in every Kind, should be the Standard to the rest.[409]

In spite of these very real elements of discouragement Mary Astell proposed a remedy. The basic assumptions of her _Serious Proposal_ in 1694 are nearly identical with those of Bathsua Makin's _Prospectus_, twenty-one years earlier. They agree that girls have minds worth training, that education is their natural right, their most reliable safeguard, and a permanent source of strength and happiness. But here the likeness ends. Mrs. Makin's inchoate plans contemplated little more than the ordinary school for housewifery and accomplishments, with the addition of solid learning for those who could be lured into it. The total training did not extend beyond the years a girl would ordinarily spend in a boarding-school, hence the genuine learning she could gain would be almost negligible. Mary Astell's plan was much more comprehensive. It was for women as well as for girls. To her "Religious Retirement" might go women tired of the world, young women waiting the arrangement of a suitable marriage, heiresses desiring to escape pursuit, spinsters anxious for some honorable retreat from a derisive world. All would find a serene and ordered life. But no vows were to be taken. In fact, one important purpose of the college was to provide England with virtuous and accomplished wives, through whom social regeneration might be brought about.

In thus educating wives, however, Mary Astell had no iconoclastic or alarming notions of female dominance. She is as positive as the author of _The Ladies Calling_, or of Halifax himself, in her conception of the husband as the head of the house. She says:

She then who Marries, ought to lay it down for an indisputable Maxim, that her Husband must govern absolutely and intirely, and that she has nothing else to do but to Please and Obey. She must not attempt to divide his Authority, or so much as dispute it; to struggle with her Yoke will only make it gall the more, but must believe him Wise and Good in all respects the best, at least he must be so to her. She who can't do this is no way fit to be a Wife, she may set up for that peculiar Coronet the antient Fathers talk'd of, but is not qualified to receive the great Reward which attends the eminent Exercise of Humility and Self-denial, Patience and Resignation, the duties that a Wife is call'd to.[410]

Education can fortify and guide married women and can give them unending private satisfaction, but can in no way alter their status or secure them any freedom.

To the unmarried woman the college offered the only means so far devised whereby they could not only escape from the odium of a single life, but could have a chance for activity along lines chosen in accordance with their tastes and capacities.

The aims of the college and the plans as outlined were so reasonable and put forward with so much eloquence that they attracted favorable attention. Part II of the _Proposal_ was dedicated to the Princess Anne, and it is to her that we must give the credit for a subscription of £10,000 for the necessary buildings.[411] And it is practically certain that Bishop Burnet, at this time tutor to the young Duke of Gloucester and so of easy access to Anne, is the one to whom we must ascribe the withdrawal of that subscription and along with it the royal sanction so essential an element in the success of the plan. Bishop Burnet saw in this proposed "Lay Monastery" a source of plots and cabals dangerous to the Church. And Anne was too devout and narrow-minded a churchwoman to run any such risks. So the plan came to no practical realization.

Though the time was probably not ripe for such a college, it is significant that in the aristocratic circle where Mary Astell moved there was apparently considerable favorable discussion of the project. In 1697 Thomas Burnet wrote to the Electress Sophia of Mary Astell as "a young Ladie of extraordinary piety and knowledge as any of the age" and comments on her "two little books of proposals to the Ladies" as showing "both her zeal and judgment in thee advyces given to her sex, for the reformation of manners, living, studies, and conversations of the ladies."[412] In the same year Defoe, in his _Essay on Projects_, referred with praise to Mary Astell, though not agreeing with her plans in detail. In 1697, also, Evelyn commented favorably on Mary Astell: He said that he could not omit some acknowledgment of the satisfaction he had received from her "most sublime" writings, and he adds concerning her college, "Besides what lately she has proposed to the Virtuous of her Sex, to shew by her own Example, what great Things, and Excellencies it is Capable of, and which calls to mind the Lady of that _Protestant Monastery_, Mrs. _Farrer_, not long since at _Geding_ in _Huntington-shire_."[413] George Wheler, in _A Protestant Nunnery_, refers to "_A Serious Proposal_ written by an ingenious Lady" and gives it the further compliment of adopting some of its ideas.[414] George Hickes, in his _Instructions for the Education of a Daughter_ (1708), gives _A Serious Proposal_ and _The Christian Religion_, by Mary Astell, in the list of books which he commends to young women. Robert Nelson, in an _Address to Persons of Quality_ (1715), also praised the _Proposal to Ladies_ as made "by a very Ingenious Gentlewoman, which was then well approved by several ladies and others."[415]

The wits of the time are usually accredited with derisive laughter at the female college. But the chief attacks were from Swift in _The Tatler_ in 1709, fifteen years after the _Proposal_, Part I, and twelve years after the second part. Swift's _Tatler_ articles followed immediately on Mary Astell's _Bart'lemy Fair_, and were really not so much an attack on a college for women as an attempt to answer Mary Astell's satiric commentary on the Kit-Kat Club, and on Steele and Swift in particular. It was a sort of _quid pro quo_ in which Swift seized upon the weapons most available. The coarseness of the description of the college must have been very offensive to Mary Astell as a similar vulgarity of attack in _Three Hours after Marriage_ must have offended Lady Winchilsea. Swift represents the professors of the college to be Madonella (Mary Astell), Epicene (Mrs. Manley), and Mrs. Elstob, a union that would probably have been as irritating to Mrs. Manley as it was to her virtuous co-adjutors in academic chairs. The break-up of the college is due to a company of rakes to whom the ladies collegiate give joyous welcome.

Steele's attacks on Mary Astell are much milder. He represents her as "Mrs. Comma, the great Scholar," who defends her desired seclusion by herself announcing to would-be callers that she is "not at home." Again, she is put in as the foreman of a jury in a Court of Honour, and is described as a "professed Platonist that had spent much of her time in exhorting the sex to set a just value upon their persons, and to make the men know themselves."

That the attention attracted by Mary Astell's writings was not all contemptuous has been already indicated. Her books were, however, but one source of her influence. In her later life not only was she of sufficient repute to make her home in Chelsea a sort of minor learned salon, but she had considerable personal influence among younger women of like aspirations. Of three of her friendships with learned women we have some knowledge. The most intimate of these was with Lady Elizabeth Hastings, twenty-two years her junior. Lady Betty went to Ledstone to live in about 1705 and was thereafter only occasionally in London, so they could not have had much continuous personal association, but they apparently found themselves in immediate accord on vital subjects. Lady Betty and her sisters on the remote Yorkshire estate almost realized in a small way Mary Astell's ideal of a religious retirement. If the correspondence between them were only extant it would be invaluable. Elizabeth Elstob is also given as one of Mary Astell's friends. Miss Elstob was in London from 1709 to 1715 and came to know Miss Astell during this period. It was to Miss Elstob that Ballard wrote for information about Miss Astell when he wished to write her biography, which might seem to argue a known friendship between the two. But against any theory of real intimacy is the fact that Miss Astell, a woman of substance and wide influence, did not exert herself in Miss Elstob's behalf when she was left penniless and driven into obscurity. The most noted of Mary Astell's literary friends was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The culmination of that friendship in the indignant championship by Mary Astell of Lady Mary's _Turkish Letters_ appears in an essay dated 1724, but the friendship was of much earlier date. It was not by wealth or position or beauty or social charm that Mary Astell gained and held her friends. In person she was "ill-favoured and forbidding," in manner she was abrupt and even rough in repelling what displeased her. She defended her own leisure and followed her own plans with defiance of all social conventions. She had the instincts of a recluse. She was deeply religious, austere to the point of asceticism, and her friendships were no matter of mutual admiration and easy compliances. She was a flaming advocate of Lady Mary against all detractors, but she stoutly combated Lady Mary's religious indifferentism. It was by sheer force of intellectual ability, moral earnestness, and profound convictions that Mary Astell gained her general repute and by sincerity and an unexpected ardor of devotion that she held her friends.

[Sidenote: An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex (1696)]

Mary Astell's _Serious Proposal_ appeared in 1694 with a second edition in 1695. In 1696 there appeared another feminist pamphlet the full title of which was _An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex in which are inserted the characters of A Pedant, A Squire, A Beau, A Vertuoso, A Poetaster, A City-critick. C. In a Letter to a Lady by a Lady._ A second edition in 1696, a third in 1697, a fourth in 1791, and an undated but later edition, testify to its popularity. This pamphlet was long attributed to Mary Astell, but both internal and external evidence are against her authorship. There seem to be reasons for ascribing it to Mrs. Drake, the sister of the Mr. James Drake who wrote the commendatory poem and essay published with the _Defence of the Female Sex_.[416] Whoever the author was she certainly deserves the credit of being the most brilliant woman writer of her period. In her Preface she says:

There have been women in all Ages, whose Writings might vie with those of the greatest Men, as the Present Age as well as past can testifie.... Their names are already too well known, and celebrated to receive any additional Lustre from so weak Encomiums as mine.... I pretend not to imitate, much less to Rival those Illustrious Ladies who have done so much Honour to their Sex, and are unanswerable Proofs of what I contend for. I only wish, that some Ladies now living among us (whose names I forbear to mention in regard to their Modesty) wou'd exert themselves, and give us more recent Instances, who are both by Nature and Education sufficiently qualified to do it, which I pretend not to.

The _Essay_ opens with a statement that women must plead their own cause, since men no longer enter the lists in their behalf. The most recent woman's advocate, William Walsh, she dismisses with scant praise:

Those Romantick days are over, and there is not so much as a _Don Quixote_ of the Quill left to succor the distressed Damsels. 'T is true a Feint of something of this Nature was made three or four years since by one; but how much soever his Eugenia may be oblig'd to him, I am of Opinion the rest of her Sex are but little beholding to him. For as you rightly observ'd, _Madam_, he has taken more care to give an Edge to his Satyr, than force to his Apology; he has play'd a sham Prize, and receives more thrusts than he makes.... He levels his Scandals at the whole Sex, and thinks us sufficiently fortified, if out of the Story of Two Thousand Years he has been able to pick up a few Examples of Women illustrious for their Wit, Learning or Vertue.... I have neither Learning nor Inclination to make a Precedent, or indeed any use of Mr. W's labour'd Common Place Book; and shall leave Pedents and School-Boys to rake and tumble the Rubbish of Antiquity, and muster all the _Heroes_ and _Heroins_ they can find.

The _Essay_ takes up no such serious and practical topics as Mary Astell discusses. The curious question proposed is, "Whether the time an ingenious Gentleman spends in the Company of Women, may justly be said to be misemploy'd, or not." The opinion to be combated is that of men who declare the company of women to be irksome and unprofitable. The author gives the old argument that in souls there is no male and female, and brings Scripture proof that woman was expressly created as a companion for man. If the divine plan has been interfered with by the disqualification of women the cause is to be found not in their minds or natures but in their lack of education. Men should no more exult over being wiser than women than they would congratulate themselves on conquering a man whose hands were tied.

But women, even without regular education, know more than they are supposed to know. At boarding-schools, to be sure, they learn only needlework, dancing, singing, music, drawing, painting, and other accomplishments; and of languages they know only their mother tongue and French, "now very fashionable and almost as familiar amongst Women of Quality as Men." But after school days they have abundant leisure and the world of classic literature is open to them in translations. Ovid, Tibullus, Juvenal, Horace, Plutarch, Seneca, and Cicero may be read by the woman who knows only her mother tongue, and Dryden has already given "Divine Samples" of the sweetness and majesty of Virgil. The graces of France and Italy are equally at woman's command. Following this account of foreign, especially classic literature, is an energetic passage, very modern in tone, attacking the conception dominant in the Augustan age that the term "learning" applied only to a knowledge of the dead languages.

Nor can I imagine for what good Reason a Man skill'd in Latin and Greek, and vers'd in the Authors of Ancient Times shall be call'd Learned; yet another who perfectly understands _Italian_, _French_, _High Dutch_, and the rest of the _European_ Languages, is acquainted with the Modern History of all those Countries ... shall after all this be thought Unlearned for want of those two Languages. Nay, though he be never so well vers'd in the Modern Philosophy, Astronomy, Geometry, and Algebra, he shall notwithstanding never be allow'd that honourable Title.... Thus you shall have 'em allow a Man to be a wise Man, a good Naturalist, a good Mathematician, Politician, or Poet, but not a Scholar, a learned Man, that is no Philologer. For my part I think these Gentlemen have just inverted the use of the Term, and given that to the knowledge of words, which belongs more properly to Things. I take Nature to be the great Book of Universal Learning, which he that reads best in all, or in any of its Parts, is the greatest Scholar, the most learned Man.

Furthermore, ignorance of Latin is no such drawback when one considers the English language and its riches. Who is nobler than Mr. Shakespeare? Whose grief more awful than Mr. Otway's? What tenderer Passion than in the _Maid's Tragedy_? Whose thoughts more beautiful and gallant than Mr. Dryden's? Her "Indignation, Compassion, Grief, are all at the Beck of these dramatists." Who can rival Sir George Etheredge, Sir Charles Sedley, for "neat Raillery and Gallantry"? Who has such strong "Wit and pointed Satyr" as Mr. Wicherley? Who can offer such "sprightly, gentile, easie Wit" as Mr. Congreve? For critics, who can more justly point out beauties and defects than Mr. Dennis and Mr. Rymer? If for poetry we are inclined, what more ravishing than the fancy of Cowley and the gallantry of Waller? For elevation of soul and reverence are there not the _Fairy Queen_ and _Paradise Lost_? Then as for "satyrists," there are Mr. Butler and Mr. Oldham. For morals there are sermons, pious, solid, eloquent. For essays, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, Mr. Osborn, Sir Wm. Temple, Sir George Mackenzie, Sir Roger L'Estrange.

The second portion of the _Essay_ answers those who accuse women of inconstancy, dissimulation, impertinence, and vanity. These, the author maintains, are imperfections of human nature, not especially of women; and her method of proof is to show typical masculine exemplifications of these defects. Under vanity are a "Bully," a "Scourer," a "Fop Poet," a "Beau," a "Sloven"; these being men who disqualify themselves for agreeable social intercourse by a too emphatic and egregious desire to bring themselves into notice.

Of these the most voluminous Fool is the Fop Poet who ... has always more Wit in his Pockets than any where else, yet seldom or never any of his own there. _Esop's Daw_ was a _Type_ of him; for he makes himself fine with the Plunder of all Parties. He is a Smuggler of Wit, and steals French Fancies without paying the customary Duties. Verse is his _Manufacture_; For it is more the labour of his Finger than his brain.... He talks much of _Jack Dryden_ and _Will Wycherley_, and the rest of that Set, and protests he can't help having some respect for 'em, because they have so much for him, and his Writings.... Once a Month he fits out a small _Poetical Smack_ at the charge of his Bookseller, which he lades with _French Plunder_ new vampt in English, small Ventures of _Translated Odes_, _Elegies_ and _Epigrams_ of Young Traders, and ballasts with heavy Prose, of his own.... He is the Oracle of those that want Wit and the Plague of those that have it.... Men avoid him for the same Reason they avoid the Pillory, the security of their Ears.

The "Pedant" and the "Country Squire" are both blockheads, and thus unfitted for rational society. "For my part, I think the Learned and Unlearned Blockhead pretty equal; for 't is all one to me, whether a Man talk Nonsense, or unintelligible Sense." These characters are especially effective. Not Pope himself has a more trenchant and sharply antithetic picture of the "Vertuoso." Contemporary public opinion as to the uselessness of the students of grasses, flies, bugs, shells, coins, etc., received concise and picturesque statement in the _Defence_.

What improvements of _Physick_, or any useful Arts, what noble Remedies, what serviceable Instruments have these Mushrome, and Cockel-shell Hunters oblig'd the World with? For I am ready to recant if they can shew so good a Med'cine as Stew'd _Prunes_, or so necessary an Instrument as a _Flye Flop_ of their own Invention and Discovery.... I wou'd not have any Body mistake me so far, as to think I wou'd in the least reflect upon any sincere, and intelligent Enquirers into Nature, of which I as heartily wish a better knowledge, as any _Vertuoso_ of 'em all. You can be my Witness, Madam, that I us'd to say, I thought Mr. _Boyle_ more honourable for his learned Labours, than for his Noble Birth; and that the _Royal Society_, by their great and celebrated Performances, were an Illustrious Argument of the Wisdom of the August Prince, their Founder of Happy _Memory_; and that they highly merited the _Esteem_, _Respect_ and _Honour_ paid 'em by the Lovers of Learning all _Europe_ over. But though I have a very great Veneration for the _Society_ in general, I can't but put a vast difference between the particular Members that compose it.

The character of a "Beau" is keen and minute in observation. No coquette was more admirably dissected. The later _Tatler_ pictures are inferior in brightness and pointed detail. The whole account is readable, laughable. Impertinence is defined as the quality of busying one's self with the trivial, and forcing these petty affairs on the attention of the uninterested. The author responds in lively fashion to those who count this a peculiarly feminine trait:

Thus, when they hear us talking to, and advising one another about the Order, Distribution, and Contrivance of _Household Affairs_, about the _Regulation_ of the _Family_, the _Government_ of _Children_ and _Servants_, the provident management of a Kitchin, and the decent ordering of a _Table_, the suitable _Matching_ and convenient disposition of _Furniture_, and the like, they condemn us for impertinence. Yet they may be pleased to consider, that as the affairs of the World are now divided betwixt us, the _Domestick_ are our share, and out of which we are rarely suffer'd to interpose our Sense. They may be pleased to consider likewise, that as light and inconsiderable as these things seem, they are capable of no Pleasures of Sense higher, or more refin'd than those of _Brutes_ without our care of 'em. For were it not for that, their Houses wou'd be meer _Bedlums_, their most luxurious Treats, but a rude confusion of ill Digested, ill mixt Scents and Relishes, and the fine Furniture, they bestow so much cost on, but an expensive Heap of glittering Rubbish. Thus they are beholding to us for the comfortable enjoyment of what their labour, or good Fortune hath acquir'd or bestow'd, and think meanly of our care only, because they understand not the value of it.

The _Essay_ is, in reality, hardly more than a frame for the "Characters." It defends the female sex, by the method of denouncing the "Adversaries of the Sex." Its result as argument is, therefore, on the whole, negative. But the positive value of the book is great in its spirited exemplification of a woman's power to form independent judgments and to write vigorous English.

[Sidenote: Daniel Defoe (1661-1731)]

In 1697, the year in which the fourth edition of Mary Astell's _A Serious Proposal to the Ladies_ appeared, Defoe published his _Essay on Projects_. Among plans for joint-stock banks, repairing and widening of highways, assurance societies, sick clubs, pensions for widows, etc., comes "An Academy for Women":

I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to our women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and impertinence, while I am confident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves. One would wonder indeed how it should happen that women are conversible at all, since they are only beholden to natural parts for all their knowledge. Their youth is spent to teach them to stitch and sew, or make baubles; they are taught to read, indeed, and perhaps to write their names, or so, and that is the height of a woman's education; and I would but ask those who slight the sex for their understanding, what is a man (a gentleman I mean) good for, that is taught no more?... The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear; and 't is manifest that, as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes, so education carries on the distinction, and makes some less brutish than others. This is too evident to need any demonstration. But why, then, should women be denied the benefit of instruction?... I would ask any such, what they can see in ignorance that they should think it a necessary ornament to a woman? Or how much worse is a wise woman than a fool? Or what has the woman done to forfeit the privilege of being taught?... Shall we upbraid women with folly, when 't is only the error of this inhuman custom that hindered them from being made wiser?

The capacities of women are supposed to be greater, and their senses quicker, than those of the men; and what they might have been capable of being bred to, is plain from instances of female wit, which this age is not without; which upbraids us with injustice, and looks as if we denied women the advantage of education for fear they should vie with the men in their improvements. To remove this objection, and that women might have at least a needful opportunity of education in all sorts of useful learning, I propose the draught of an academy for that purpose.... I doubt a method proposed by an ingenious lady, in a little book called _Advice to the Ladies_, would be found impracticable.... When I talk, therefore, of an academy for women, I mean both the model, the teaching, and the government different from what is proposed by that ingenious lady for whose proposal I have a very great esteem, and also a great opinion of her wit; different, too, from all sorts of religious confinement, and, above all, from vows of celibacy.

Wherefore the academy I propose should differ but little from public schools, wherein such ladies as were willing to study, should have all the advantages of learning suitable to their genius....

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.

Having thus provided against intrigues and escapades he would have no guards, no eyes, no spies, set over the ladies, but would expect them to be tried by the principles of honor and strict virtue.

Defoe's arguments in favor of the higher education of women represent the most advanced thought of his age.

Methinks mankind, for their own sakes, since, say what we will of the women, we all think fit one time or other to be concerned with them, should take some care to breed them up to be suitable and serviceable, if they expected no such thing as delight from them. Bless us! what care do we take to breed up a good horse, and to break him well! And why not a woman?...

But to come closer to the business. The great distinguishing difference which is seen in the world between men and women, is in their education; and this is manifested by comparing it with the difference between one man or woman and another.

And herein is it I take upon me to make such a bold assertion, that all the world are mistaken in their practice about women; for I can not think that God Almighty ever made them so delicate, so glorious creatures, and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and delightful to man, with souls capable of the same accomplishments with men, and all only to be stewards of our houses, cooks, and slaves.

Not that I am for exalting the female government in the least; but, in short, I would have men take women for companions, and educate them to be fit for it....

I need not enlarge on the loss the defect of education is to the sex, nor argue the benefit of the contrary practice: it is a thing will be more easily granted than remedied. This chapter is but an essay at the thing; and I refer the practice to these happy days, if ever they shall be, when men shall be wise enough to mend it.

Defoe asserts that his ideas on this subject were not derived from Mary Astell, and is even slightly irritated that she was ahead of him in publication, since he had long before mentally elaborated the scheme he suggests.

[Sidenote: "Sophia Pamphlets" (1739-40)]

The feminist argument was carried on in what are known as the "Sophia Pamphlets." The first of these appeared in 1739 and was entitled _Woman not inferior to Man: or a short and modest vindication of the natural right of the fair sex to a perfect equality of power, dignity and esteem with the men. By Sophia a person of Quality._ There was an immediate answer under the title, _Man superior to Woman; containing a plain confutation of the fallacious arguments of Sophia in her late Treatise intitled Woman not Inferior to Man_. In 1740 Sophia responded with, _Woman's superior excellence over Man or a reply to the author of a late treatise entitled Man superior to Woman. In which the excessive weakness of that Gentleman's answer to Woman not inferior to Man is exposed._ The three pamphlets were published together in 1757 under the collective title _Beauty's Triumph_. These pamphlets give an interesting little passage at arms in the feminist controversy. The subjects taken up in the first pamphlet are closely modeled on _The Woman as Good as the Man_. "In what esteem the women are held by the men and how justly"; "Whether women are inferior to men in this intellectual capacity, or not"; "Whether the men are better qualified to govern than women, or not"; "Whether the women are fit for public offices, or not"; "Whether the women are naturally capable of teaching sciences, or not"; "Whether women are naturally qualified for military offices, or not,"--these are the topics discussed. With regard to the education of women Sophia says:

Men, by thinking us incapable of improving our intellects, have entirely thrown us out of the advantages of education, and thereby contributed as much as possible to make us the senseless creatures they imagine us. So that for want of education, we are rendered subject to all the follies they dislike in us.... And as our sex, when it applies to learning, may be said at least to keep pace with the men, so are they more to be esteemed for their learning than the latter: Since they are under a necessity of surmounting the softness they were educated in; of renouncing the pleasure and indolence to which cruel custom seem'd to condemn them to overcome the external impediments in their way of study; and to conquer the disadvantageous notions, which the vulgar of both sexes entertain of learning in women. And whether it be these difficulties add any keenness to a female understanding, or that nature has given women, a quicker more penetrating genius than to men, it is self-evident that many of our sex have far out-stript the men. Why then are we not as fit to learn and teach the sciences, at least to our own sex, as they fancy themselves to be.... We may easily conclude then, that if our sex, as it hitherto appears, have all the talents requisite to learn and teach these sciences, which qualify men for power and dignity, they are equally capable of applying their knowledge to practice in exercising that power and dignity. And since, as we have said, this nation has seen many glorious instances of Women, severally qualified to have all public authority center'd in them, why may they not be as qualified at least for the subordinate offices of ministers of state, vice-queens, governesses, etc.?

Sophia has, however, one reservation. Women may not enter the ministry:

Thus far I insist there is no _science_ or _public office_ in a state which women are not as much qualified for by Nature as the ablest of Men. With regard to divinity, our natural capacity has been restrain'd by a positive law of God: and therefore we know better than to lay claim to what we could not practice without sacrilegious intrusion.

The Gentleman, in his answer to Sophia, takes up her claims _seriatim_ and disposes of them to his own satisfaction.

Neither Juvenal nor I [he says] deny that Women may acquire some superficial Learning. All we contend for is that it is ever evil bestowed upon them, inasmuch as it renders them useless to their own sex, and a nuisance to ours.... I grant Greece has shewn its Sappho, Rome her Cornelia, France has produced a Dacier; Holland has brought forth a Schurman; Italy a Doctress; and England now boasts an Eliza and a Sophia.

But the whole serio-comic tone of the Gentleman's _Essay_ makes it difficult of interpretation. Sophia writes as if she were in genuine earnest in her protest and propaganda. But it seems much less certain that the Gentleman is not merely playing with the situation.[417] The identity of the writers has not been discovered. Miss McIlquham[418] believes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to be Sophia. But this is hardly likely, since 1739 is the year Lady Mary went to Italy. A writer signing himself "Medley," in _Notes and Queries_, suggests that "Sophia" was Lady Sophia Fermor, the second wife of Lord Cararet, and thinks she may also have been the "Sophia" of _Letters of Portia to her Daughter Sophia_, though these were not published till years later.[419]