A hundred years ago
After the presentation of the prizes to the North-London Collegiate and Camden Schools for Girls last Tuesday, Lord Granville said that the objection was still entertained to such schools that they would turn young ladies into pedants and bluestockings. For his own part, he had known such ladies, and did not like them; but then he had almost always found that instead of being highly educated, they were very illeducated. It was no longer true, if it had ever been true, that it was easier for a coquette than for a highly educated woman to marry. Education made women less pedantic, not more so, and more lovable, not less so. These pleasant remarks Lord Granville concluded by telling his audience, in delicate language, that he sincerely admired the looks of the young ladies, and did not think they had diminished their charms by increasing their knowledge. And on matters of this kind, no better judge could be found than Lord Granville. He, if any one, knows how to distinguish between pedantry and intellectual modesty, and between what is mannish and what is womanly. The truth is that though mere acquirements are sometimes a little bristly, — education, in the true sense, is always modest. It teaches you to know your own ignorance and dependence, and to know them as ignorance can never know either.
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