In the second chapter, the author shows by what gradations the daughter, deprived of the right of inheritance, has come in our times to share equally with her brothers; then, passing to the right of education, he answers those who pretend that to give a solid education to woman would be to corrupt her and to injure the family: "The diversity of their nature (man and woman) being developed by the identity of their studies, it may be said that women would become so much the more fully women in proportion as they received a masculine education. "Well! it is in the name of the family, in the name of the salvation of the family, in the name of maternity, of marriage, of the household, that a solid and earnest education must be demanded for girls.... Without knowledge, no mother is completely a mother, without knowledge no wife is truly a wife. The question is not, in revealing to the feminine intellect the laws of nature, to make all our girls astronomers or physicians; do we see all men become Latinists by spending ten years of their life in the study of Latin? The question is to strengthen their minds by acquaintance with science; and to prepare them to participate in all the thoughts of their husbands, all the studies of their children.... Ignorance leads to a thousand faults, a thousand errors in the wife. The husband who scoffs at science might have been saved by it from dishonor." Insisting upon the rights of woman, the author adds: "As such (the work of God) she has the right to the most complete development of her mind and heart. Away then with these vain objections, drawn from the laws of a day! It is in the name of eternity that you owe her enlightenment." Further on, he exclaims indignantly: "What! the state maintains a university for men, a polytechnic school for men, academies of art and trades for men, agricultural schools for men--and for woman, what has it established? Primary schools! And even these were not founded by the State, but by the Commune. No inequality could be more humiliating. There are courts and prisons for women, there should be public education for women; you have not the right to punish those whom you do not instruct!" M. Legouvé demands, in consequence, public education for girls in athenæums, "which, by thorough instruction with respect to France, her laws, her annals, and her poetry, shall make her women French women in truth. The country alone can teach love of country."