The next afternoon, when we were all conversing together, I asked Mr.
Stanley what opinion he held on a subject which had lately been a good
deal canvassed; the propriety of young ladies learning the dead
languages; particularly Latin. He was silent. Mrs. Stanley smiled.
Ph[oe]be laughed outright. Lucilla, who had nearly finished making tea,
blushed excessively. Little Celia, who was sitting on my knee while I
was teaching her to draw a bird, put an end to the difficulty, by
looking up in my face and crying out--"Why, sir, Lucilla reads Latin
with papa every morning." I cast a timid eye on Miss Stanley, who, after
putting the sugar into the cream pot, and the tea into the sugar bason,
slid out of the room, beckoning Ph[oe]be to follow her.
"Poor Lucilla," said Mr. Stanley, "I feel for her. Well, sir," continued
he, "you have discovered by external, what I trust you would not have
soon found by internal evidence. Parents who are in high circumstances,
yet from principle abridge their daughters of the pleasures of the
dissipated part of the world, may be allowed to substitute other
pleasures; and if the girl has a strong inquisitive mind, they may
direct it to such pursuits as call for vigorous application, and the
exercise of the mental powers."
"How does that sweet girl manage," said Lady Belfield, "to be so
utterly void of pretension? So much softness and so much usefulness
strip her of all the terrors of learning."
"At first," replied Mr. Stanley, "I only meant to give Lucilla as much
Latin as would teach her to grammaticize her English, but her quickness
in acquiring led me on, and I think I did right; for it is superficial
knowledge that excites vanity. A learned language, which a discreet
woman will never produce in company, is less likely to make her vain
than those acquirements which, are always in exhibition. And after all,
it is a hackneyed remark, that the best instructed girl will have less
learning than a school-boy; and why should vanity operate in her case
more than in his?"
"For this single reason, sir," said I, "that every body knows that which
very few girls are taught. Suspect me not, however, of censuring a
measure which I admire. I hope the example of your daughters will help
to raise the tone of female education."
"Softly, softly," interrupted Mr. Stanley, "retrench your plural number.
It is only one girl out of six that has deviated from the beaten track.
I do not expect many converts to what I must rather call my practice in
one instance, than my general opinion. I am so convinced of the
prevailing prejudice, that the thing has never been named out of the
family. If my gay neighbor Miss Rattle knew that Lucilla had learned
Latin, she would instantly find out a few moments to add that language
to her innumerable acquirements, because her mother can afford to pay
for it, and because Lady Di. Dash has never learned it. I assure you,
however" (laughing as he spoke), "I never intend to smuggle my poor girl
on any man by concealing from him this unpopular attainment, any more
than I would conceal any personal defect."
"I will honestly confess," said Sir John, who had not yet spoken, "that
had I been to judge the case _a priori_, had I met Miss Stanley under
the terrifying persuasion that she was a scholar, I own I should have
met her with a prejudice; I should have feared she might be forward in
conversation, deficient in feminine manners, and destitute of domestic
talents. But having had such a fair occasion of admiring her engaging
modesty, her gentle and unassuming tone in society, and above all,
having heard from Lady Belfield how eminently she excels in the true
science of a lady--domestic knowledge--I can not refuse her that
additional regard, which this solid acquirement, so meekly borne,
deserves. Nor, on reflection, do I see why we should be so forward to
instruct a woman in the language spoken at Rome in its present degraded
state, in which there are comparatively few authors to improve her, and
yet be afraid that she should be acquainted with that which was its
vernacular tongue, in its age of glory two thousand years ago, and which
abounds with writers of supreme excellence."
I was charmed at these concessions from Sir John, and exclaimed with a
transport which I could not restrain: "In our friends, even in our
common acquaintance, do we not delight to associate with those whose
pursuits have been similar to our own, and who have read the same books?
How dull do we find it, when civility compels us to pass even a day with
an illiterate man? Shall we not then delight in the kindred acquirements
of a dearer friend? Shall we not rejoice in a companion who has drawn,
though less copiously, perhaps, from the same rich sources with
ourselves; who can relish the beauty we quote, and trace the allusion at
which we hint? I do not mean that _learning_ is absolutely necessary,
but a man of taste who has an ignorant wife, can not, in her company,
think his own thoughts, nor speak his own language; his thoughts he will
suppress; his language he will debase, the one from hopelessness, the
other from compassion. He must be continually lowering and diluting his
meaning, in order to make himself intelligible. This he will do for the
woman he loves, but in doing it he will not be happy. She, who can not
be entertained by his conversation, will not be convinced by his
reasoning; and at length he will find out that it is less trouble to
lower his own standard to hers, than to exhaust himself in the vain
attempt to raise hers to his own."
"A fine high-sounding _tirade_, Charles, spoken _con amore_," said Sir
John. "I really believe, though, that one reason why women are so
frivolous is, that the things they are taught are not solid enough to
fix the attention, exercise the intellect, and fortify the
understanding. They learn little that inures to reasoning, or compels to
patient meditation."
"I consider the difficulties of a solid education," said Mr. Stanley,
"as a sort of preliminary course, intended perhaps by Providence as a
gradual preparative for the subsequent difficulties of life; as a
prelude to the acquisition of that solidity and firmness of character
which actual trials are hereafter to confirm. Though I would not make
instruction unnecessarily harsh and rugged, yet I would not wish to
increase its facilities to such a degree as to weaken that robustness of
mind which it should be its object to promote, in order to render mental
discipline subservient to moral."
"How have you managed with your other girls, Stanley?" said Sir John,
"for though you vindicate general knowledge, you profess not to wish for
general learning in the sex."
"Far from it," replied Mr. Stanley. "I am a gardener you know, and
accustomed to study the genius of the soil before I plant. Most of my
daughters, like the daughters of other men, have some one talent, or at
least propensity; for parents are too apt to mistake inclination for
genius. This propensity I endeavor to find out and to cultivate. But if
I find the natural bias very strong, and not very safe, I then labor to
counteract, instead of encouraging the tendency, and try to give it a
fresh direction. Lucilla having a strong bent to whatever relates to
intellectual taste, I have read over with her the most unexceptionable
parts of a few of the best Roman classics. She began at nine years old,
for I have remarked that it is not learning much, but learning late,
which makes pedants.
"Ph[oe]be, who has a superabundance of vivacity, I have in some measure
tamed, by making her not only a complete mistress of arithmetic, but by
giving her a tincture of mathematics. Nothing puts such a bridle on the
fancy as demonstration. A habit of computing steadies the mind, and
subdues the soarings of imagination. It sobers the vagaries of trope and
figure, substitutes truth for metaphor, and exactness for amplification.
This girl, who if she had been fed on poetry and works of imagination,
might have become a Miss Sparkes, now rather gives herself the airs of a
calculator and of a grave computist. Though as in the case of the cat in
the fable, who was metamorphosed into a lady, nature will breath out as
soon as the scratching of a mouse is heard; and all Ph[oe]be's
philosophy can scarcely keep her in order, if any work of fancy comes in
her way.
"To soften the horrors of her fate, however, I allowed her to read a few
of the best things in her favorite class. When I read to her the more
delicate parts of Gulliver's Travels, with which she was enchanted, she
affected to be angry at the voyage to Laputa, because it ridicules
philosophical science. And in Brobdignag, she said, the proportions were
not correct. I must, however, explain to you, that the use which I made
of these dry studies with Ph[oe]be, was precisely the same which the
ingenious Mr. Cheshire makes of his steel machines for defective shapes,
to straiten a crooked tendency or strengthen a weak one. Having employed
these means to set her mind upright, and to cure a wrong bias; as that
skillful gentleman discards his apparatus as soon as the patient becomes
strait, so have I discontinued these pursuits, for I never meant to
make a mathematical lady. Jane has a fine ear and a pretty voice, and
will sing and play well enough for any girl who is not to make music her
profession. One or two of the others sing agreeably.
"The little one, who brought the last nosegay, has a strong turn for
natural history, and we all of us generally botanize a little of an
evening, which gives a fresh interest to our walks. She will soon draw
plants and flowers pretty accurately. Louisa also has some taste in
designing, and takes tolerable sketches from nature. These we encourage
because they are solitary pleasures, and want no witnesses. They all are
too eager to impart somewhat of what they know to your little favorite
Celia, who is in danger of picking up a little of every thing, the sure
way to excel in nothing.
"Thus each girl is furnished with some one source of independent
amusement. But what would become of them, or rather what would become of
their mother and me, if every one of them was a scholar, a
mathematician, a singer, a performer, a botanist, a painter? Did we
attempt to force all these acquirements and a dozen more on every girl;
all her _time_ would be occupied about things which will be of no value
to her in _eternity_. I need not tell you that we are carefully
communicating to every one of them that general knowledge which should
be common to all gentlewomen.
"In unrolling the vast volume of ancient and modern history, I ground on
it some of my most useful instructions, and point out how the truth of
Scripture is illustrated by the crimes and corruptions which history
records, and how the same pride, covetousness, ambition, turbulence, and
deceit, which bring misery on empires, destroy the peace of families. To
history, geography and chronology are such, indispensable appendages,
that it would be superfluous to insist on their usefulness. As to
astronomy, while 'the heavens declare the glory of God,' it seems a kind
of impiety, not to give young people some insight into it." "I hope,"
said Sir John, "that you do not exclude the modern languages from your
plan." "As to the French," replied Mr. Stanley, "with that thorough
inconsistency which is common to man, the demand for it seems to have
risen in exact proportion as it ought to have sunk.[4] I would not,
however, rob my children of a language in which, though there are more
books to be avoided, there are more that deserve to be read, than in all
the foreign languages put together."
[Footnote 4: See an ingenious little treatise entitled Latium Redivivum,
or the modern use of the Latin language, and the prevalence of the
French.]
"If you prohibit Italian," said Sir John, laughing, "I will serve you as
Cowper advised the boys and girls to serve Johnson for depreciating
Henry and Emma; I will join the musical and poetical ladies in tearing
you to pieces, as the Thracian damsels did Orpheus, and send your head
with his
"Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore."
"You remember me, my dear Belfield," replied Mr. Stanley, "a warm
admirer of the exquisite beauties of Italian poetry. But a father feels,
or rather judges differently from the mere man of taste, and as a
father, I can not help regretting, that what is commonly put into the
hands of our daughters, is so amatory, that it has a tendency to soften
those minds which rather want to be invigorated.
"There are few things I more deprecate for girls than a poetical
education, the evils of which I saw sadly exemplified in a young friend
of Mrs. Stanley's. She had beauty and talents. Her parents, enchanted
with both, left her entirely to her own guidance. She yielded herself up
to the uncontrolled rovings of a vagrant fancy. When a child she wrote
verses, which were shown in her presence to every guest. Their flattery
completed her intoxication. She afterward translated Italian sonnets and
composed elegies of which love was the only theme. These she was
encouraged by her mother to recite herself, in all companies, with a
pathos and sensibility which delighted her parents, but alarmed her more
prudent friends.
"She grew up with the confirmed opinion that the two great and sole
concerns of human life were love and poetry. She considered them as
inseparably connected, and she resolved in her own instance never to
violate so indispensable a union. The object of her affection was
unhappily chosen, and the effects of her attachment were such as might
have been expected from a connexion formed on so slight a foundation. In
the perfections with which she invested her lover, she gave the reins to
her imagination, when she thought she was only consulting her heart. She
picked out and put together the fine qualities of all the heroes of all
the poets she had ever read, and into this finished creature, her fancy
transformed her admirer.
"Love and poetry commonly influence the two sexes in a very
disproportionate degree. With men, each of them is only one passion
among many. Love has various and powerful competitors in hearts divided
between ambition, business, and pleasure. Poetry is only one amusement
in minds, distracted by a thousand tumultuous pursuits, whereas in girls
of ardent tempers, whose feelings are not curbed by restraint, and
regulated by religion, love is considered as the great business of their
earthly existence. It is cherished, not as 'the cordial drop,' but as
the whole contents of the cup; the remainder is considered only as froth
or dregs. The unhappy victim not only submits to the destructive
dominion of a despotic passion but glories in it. So at least did this
ill-starred girl.
"The sober duties of a family had early been transferred to her sisters,
as far beneath the attention of so fine a genius; while she abandoned
herself to studies which kept her imagination in a fever, and to a
passion which those studies continually fed and inflamed. Both together
completed her delirium. She was ardent, generous, and sincere; but
violent, imprudent, and vain to excess. She set the opinion of the world
at complete defiance, and was not only totally destitute of judgment and
discretion herself, but despised them in others. Her lover and her muse
were to her instead of the whole world.
"After having for some years exchanged sonnets, under the names of Laura
and Petrarch, and elegies under those of Sappho and Phaon; the lover, to
whom all this had been mere sport, the gratification of vanity, and the
recreation of an idle hour grew weary.
Younger and fairer he another saw.
He drew off. Her verses were left unanswered, her reproaches unpitied.
Laura wept, and Sappho raved in vain.
"The poor girl, to whom all this visionary romance had been a serious
occupation, which had swallowed up cares and duties, now realized the
woes she had so often admired and described. Her upbraidings only served
to alienate still more the heart of her deserter; and her despair, which
he had the cruelty to treat as fictitious, was to him a subject of mirth
and ridicule. Her letters were exposed, her expostulatory verses read at
clubs and taverns, and the unhappy Sappho toasted in derision.
"All her ideal refinements now degenerated into practical improprieties.
The public avowal of her passion drew on her from the world charges
which she had not merited. Her reputation was wounded, her health
declined, her peace was destroyed. She experienced the dishonors of
guilt without its turpitude, and in the bloom of life fell, the
melancholy victim to a mistaken education and an undisciplined mind."
Mrs. Stanley dropped a silent tear to the memory of her unhappy friend,
the energies of whose mind she said would, had they been lightly
directed, have formed a fine character.
"But none of the things of which I have been speaking," resumed Mr.
Stanley, "are the great and primary objects of instruction. The
inculcation of fortitude, prudence, humility, temperance,
self-denial--this is education. These are things we endeavor to promote
far more than arts or languages. These are tempers, the habit of which
should be laid in early, and followed up constantly, as there is no day
in life which will not call them into exercise; and how can that be
practiced which has never been acquired?
"Perseverance, meekness, and industry," continued he, "are the qualities
we most carefully cherish and commend. For poor Laura's sake, I make it
a point never to extol any indications of genius. Genius has pleasure
enough in its own high aspirings. Nor am I indeed overmuch delighted
with a great blossom of talents. I agree with good Bishop Hull, that it
is better to thin the blossoms that the rest may thrive; and that in
encouraging too many propensities, one faculty may not starve another."
Lady Belfield expressed herself grateful for the hints Mr. Stanley had
thrown out, which could not be but of importance to her who had so large
a family. After some further questions from her, he proceeded:
"I have partly explained to you, my dear madam, why, though I would not
have every woman learn every thing, yet why I would give every girl, in
a certain station of life, some one amusing accomplishment. There is
here and there a strong mind, which requires a more substantial
nourishment than the common education of girls affords. To such, and to
such only, would I furnish the quiet resource of a dead language as a
solid aliment, which may fill the mind without inflating it.
"But that no acquirement may inflate it, let me add, there is but one
sure corrective. Against learning, against talents of any kind, nothing
can steady the head, unless you fortify the heart with real
Christianity. In raising the moral edifice, we must sink deep in
proportion as we build high. We must widen the foundation if we extend
the superstructure. Religion alone can counteract the aspirings of
genius, can regulate the pride of talents.
"And let such women as are disposed to be vain of their comparatively
petty attainments, look up with admiration to those two cotemporary
shining examples, the venerable Elizabeth Carter and the blooming
Elizabeth Smith. I knew them both, and to know was to revere them. In
_them_, let our young ladies contemplate profound and various learning
chastised by true Christian humility. In _them_, let them venerate
acquirements which would have been distinguished in a university,
meekly, softened, and beautifully shaded by the gentle exertion of every
domestic virtue, the unaffected exercise of every feminine employment."