“Nor do I think that the harvest will be much affected whether it is a man or a woman who sows the field. They both have the same human nature, which reason differentiates from that of beasts; both, therefore, are equally suited for those studies by which reason is perfectioned, and becomes fruitful like a ploughed land, on which the seed of good lessons has been sown. If it be true that the soil of woman’s brain be bad, and apter to bear bracken than corn, by which saying many keep women from study, I think, on the contrary, that a woman’s wit is, on that account, all the more diligently to be cultivated, that nature’s defect may be redressed by industry. This was the opinion of the ancients, of those who were most prudent as well as most holy. Not to speak of the rest, St. Jerome and St. Augustine not only exhorted excellent matrons and most noble virgins to study, but also, in order to assist them, diligently explained the abstruse meanings of Holy Scripture, and wrote for tender girls letters replete with so much erudition, that now-a-days old men, who call themselves professors of sacred science, can scarcely read them correctly, much less understand them. Do you, my learned Gunnel, have the kindness to see that my daughters thoroughly learn these works of those holy men....” “So that is the explanation of the Saint Augustine we found on Margaret’s desk yesterevening?” Master Gunnel nods confirmation, but he is much occupied in finding the next suitable passage in the letter, and does not speak immediately. Then with his thumb on the paragraph selected, he looks up for a moment out of kind, rather near-sighted eyes. “Do you remember last night when he spoke of the ‘Valiant Woman,’ and showed how all those who have girls to educate can find in her an imperishable model? For his own daughters he hath borne in mind, that, of all the virtues of the ‘Valiant Woman,’ it is her fear of the Lord that alone giveth substance and value to the others. ‘Many daughters have gathered together riches: thou hast surpassed them all. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: the woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.’ Hark, how he drives home the point. He hath been praising Elizabeth for her good conduct in her mother’s absence.