542 BOAKD OF AGRICULTtTRE. 



playinj; your rckkI sense. 11 will he (lum^^lit yoii assume a superiority over 

 the rest of tlie eonipany. Kut if you iiappen to have any learning, keep 

 it a profound secret, especially from the men, who generally look with a 

 jealous and malignant eye on a woman of great parts and a cultivated 

 understanding." Solomon's advice to "get wisdom, and with all thy get- 

 ting get understanding," was sui)posed to ai)ply to men only. Those were 

 the days when it was atfirmed that "women could not be instructed in the 

 system of botany consistently with female delicacy." Dr. Johnson 

 "thought portrait-painting an iniprojier employment for a woman. Public 

 practice of any art, and staring in men's faces, is very indelicate in a 

 female." And Boswell also assures us that he considered literature as 

 unsuited to a "delicate female" as painting. Of a literary woman who 

 was reputed to be paying great attention to dress, be observed that "she 

 was better emi)loyed at her toilet than using her pen." This remark 

 might, indeed, be made with great propriety of some of the literary 

 women of our own times. 



The accomplishments of the wife of the Vicar of Wakefield were veiy 

 fully stated when her husband said that "she could read any English book 

 without much s])elling; but for pickling, preserving, and cookery, none 

 could excel her." He never disputed her abilities at making a goose pie, 

 but he begged her to leave argument to him! And Mrs. Primrose felt 

 that praise could go no further when she said that her girls had a "good 

 education." "They can read, write, and cast accounts; they understand 

 their needle, broad-stitch, cross and change, and all manner of plain work; 

 they can pink, point and frill, and know something of music; my eldest 

 can cut paper, and my y<;ungest has a very pretty manner of telling for- 

 tunes upon the cards." 



It is no wonder that Mary Wollstonecraft lamented the insipidity of 

 the conversation of those "women whose time is spent in making bonnets, 

 and the whole mischief of trimmings, not to mention shopping, bargain- 

 hutning," etc. Abigail Adams felt herself alone much of her life so far as 

 the companionship of women who could understand and sympathize with 

 her was concerned. Not that she had had early educational advantages, 

 for she grew up at a time when, as she asserted, "it was fashionable to 

 ridicule female learning," and she often expressed regret that she was 

 not better fitted to instruct her children. But she taught herself history, 

 French, and n)any other things in order to aid them; and such were her 

 wisdom and goodness and high character that she was a constant stimulus 

 to them. 



In one of those clianning letters to her husband when he was in 

 attendance at the Continental Congress, Mrs. Adams begged him, while 

 engaged in law-making, to "remember the ladies, and be more generous 

 to them than your ancestors. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they 

 could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the (us) ladies, we 



