are capable of study, and who hope to distinguish themselves thereby, are more eager over their books than over their clothes. They may hide their knowledge somewhat, but they only half hide it, in order that they may get credit for modesty and brains all at once. Other grosser vanities are corrected more easily, because they are seen easily, therefore women reproach themselves for such, and also because they are the marks of a frivolous character. But a speculative woman, who prides herself on knowing a great deal, flatters herself that she is a genius superior to all the rest of her sex; she thinks she has a right to despise the amusements and vanities of other women; she thinks she has a solid knowledge of everything, and nothing will cure her of this pigheadedness. As a rule, she only knows half of a thing, she flatters herself she knows the whole: she decides matters, she takes a particular view in everything, even in religion: thence arises the fact that budding sects come to power, because women have got into and supported them."

Whenever he looks at the question from the more abstract point of view, he sets the most rigid limits to women's legitimate knowledge: forgetting Jeanne d'Arc, Lady Jane Grey, the princesses of Este, the daughters of Sir Thomas More, and Elizabeth Queen of England, Fénelon declares dogmaticallyrather in the vein of Erasmus' Abbé and the Learned Lady— that they ought neither "to govern a state, nor to make war, nor to take Holy Orders: therefore they can do very well without certain parts of knowledge, which belong to political science, to the military arts, to jurisprudence, philosophy and theology." Perhaps it is permissible to point out that though Queen Elizabeth was not a candidate for Holy Orders, she was called upon to possess no mean degree of theological acumen and knowledge.

As he considers Fénelon's strictures, one reflection must sadden the historian's mind--how educational theory has deteriorated since the days of the Renaissance which knew

so little of class and sex, and cared so much for ability, worth and hard work. Yet there is quite another side to Fénelon's theory, which emerges when he considers the functions of women, looking at her not in the abstract but in the concrete. As he expounds these functions at the beginning of the book, they may seem narrow and dull: "it is enough if they know some day how to rule their households, and obey their husbands without arguing about it." Apparently, like a good many other people, he does not at first apprehend how high a degree of intelligence such a line of conduct may involve. He proceeds to pile up the indictment of their faults by adding feebleness to all the rest. But out of this very indictment he draws an ingenious argument in favour of educating them: "What follows from women's natural feebleness? The feebler they are the more important it becomes to strengthen them. Have not they duties to fulfil, and duties too which lie at the very root of human life? Is it not they who mar or make our homes, who regulate every detail of domestic life, and who consequently decide what touches the whole human race very intimately? In this way, they bear the principal responsibility of the good or bad conduct of almost the whole world." One wonders why Fénelon did not perceive that the closing admission gives away the whole case of the opposition to women's education, more especially as his friend the Abbé Fleury had written "if they are not destined for such great employments as men, they have very much more leisure, and this degenerates into a very serious corruption of conduct if it be not tempered by some study3."

The responsibility of women should have seemed all the heavier, and therefore to involve the utmost care in preparation, to Fénelon, because he is of those who regard the family as the core of the nation: "How can men hope for any pleasure in life, if their narrowest circle, that formed by marriage, be turned 1 De l'Education des Filles, ch. i. 2 Ibid.

3 Traité du choix et de la méthode des Études, ch. xxxviii.

into bitterness? And the children, who will be the human race, what will become of them, if the mothers spoil them from their earliest years' ?"

But perhaps the most weighty tribute to the influence of women, ever paid by friend or foe to their education, is enshrined in this one sentence of Fénelon: Men, themselves, even though they have all the authority in public, cannot by their deliberations establish any effectual system of right, if women will not help them to carry it out2." From the abstract point of view, from that standpoint of something approaching to caricature popularised by Molière, Fénelon condemns the higher education of women: but when he turns the matter round, when he looks at facts, when he analyses the functions and duties of women, the matter strikes him in a curiously different light: "The following then are a woman's duties, not less important to the public than those of men, since they have a house to rule, a husband to make happy, children to bring up well. Let us add that virtue is as incumbent on women as on men; without entering on the question of the public harm or good they can do, they are, after all, one half of the human race, redeemed by the Blood of Jesus Christ, and created for eternal life.... What intrigues we see in History, what contraventions of Law and good conduct, what sanguinary wars, what heresies in religion, what revolutions in States due to the unruliness of women. There then is the justification of their education. Let us cast about for the right method3."

woman.

In the eleventh chapter Fénelon enumerates the duties of a It should be remembered that he was writing in the main for the aristocracy, and also that his assumption that the majority of women in society were mistresses of houses was not far from the facts in an age when it was customary to relegate to the "religious" life those daughters for whom the family estate could not provide sufficient dowry to preserve them from 1 De l'Éducation des Filles, ch. i. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.

a mésalliance. The modern mixture of class, the possibility of "bachelor women," providing for their own support, or the sale of titles for American fortunes were matters undreamed of by M. de Fénelon and his contemporaries. To turn then to the Abbé's scheme, which he planned not for events which might happen in the future, but for circumstances then existent. He lays down the sound principle that a woman's knowledge, like a man's, should be regulated by her functions, and he declares those functions to be

(1) To educate her children,

(a) the boys up to a certain age,

(b) the girls till they marry or take the veil.

(2) Management of the servants, their morals, their work. (3) Household management, the art of providing at once economically and with dignity.

(4) To let the farms on the estate, and to receive the revenues'.

The drama of a nation is some index to its current views. Chrysale in Les Femmes Savantes draws a similar picture to Fénelon's of woman's functions; he only omits the fourth:

"Il n'est pas bien honnête, et pour beaucoup de causes,
Qu'une femme étudie et sache tant de choses.

Former aux bonnes mœurs l'esprit de ses enfants,
Faire aller son ménage, avoir l'œil sur ses gens,
Et régler la dépense avec économie

Doit être son étude et sa philosophie"."

After all, and this is what the men of the 17th century do not seem to have perceived, women can be, have been, well educated and excellent wives, mothers, sisters: after all, every good thing is liable to abuse, so as there are men pedants, so there are, have been, will be woman pedants. There is no

1 De l'Éducation des Filles, ch. xi.
2 Les Femmes Savantes, II. vii.

doubt a substratum of fact under the admirable epigram in which Chrysale hits off the deplorable results of the search for wisdom conducted without sense:

"Raisonner est l'emploi de toute ma maison,

Et le raisonnement en bannit la raison...1!"

It is important to remember that there are two sides to Fénelon's scheme of education. What we might call the scholastic curriculum is somewhat meagre: it includes reading, writing, spelling, enough grammar to ensure accuracy in the use of the mother tongue, the four rules of arithmetic in order that they may keep accounts, the elementary principles of justice (which he hopes will not give them a taste for the slippery paths of litigation), and a knowledge of the simple customs of their country. After that is accomplished, he would permit them to read those profane authors who do not trifle with serious matters, nor excite the passions, e.g. the historians of Greece and Rome-in those they "will see prodigies of courage and unselfishness.” The more inspiring parts of the national history he permits also. If they must learn a foreign language, he prefers Latin to those fashionable in his timeItalian and Spanish-for, as he remarks, the latter leave the way open to "dangerous books," whereas Latin is the tongue of the Church, and, as he adds with an almost naive simplicity, "there is profit and inestimable consolation in understanding the meaning of the words of those Divine Offices one hears so often." Those who may smile at what they consider such ingenuousness must remember that an elaborate ritual is a mode of explanation open to those who chance to be ignorant of Latin. Then Fénelon grants a further concession: if great care in selection be exercised, women may read the orators and poets. Music and painting, with due precautions, are admissible, and even valuable; a knowledge of drawing would, he thought, purify taste.

1 Les Femmes Savantes, II. vii.