Those who so thought, were then the spiritual leaders of the people, the scholars and followers of Leibnitz, Thomasius, and Wolf,--estimable, good, and perhaps very learned men; and also the maidens and wives of the best families. It was certainly an ancient German custom to subordinate the individual; in this most important concern of life, to the judgment and interests of the family; undoubtedly marriage was considered more especially the great business of life which was to be arranged with strict adherence to duty, and not according to the delusive ideas of the fancy. But these sober, sensible views were beginning in 1750 to give way to the higher requirements of the individual Already were men inclined to indulge themselves with a richer mental life and greater independence. When Caroline Lucius modestly but firmly declined the offered hand of the Precentor of Thomas's Church, Gellert felt a little ashamed that he had judged his correspondent by the ordinary criterion, and in his letters afterwards a sincere respect may be observed. But, however frequently the wooing was deficient in the magic of the most beautiful of earthly passions, the marriages, as far as we can judge, were not on that account the less happy. That one must suit oneself in life is a very popular rule of wisdom. The man who proposed to share a respectable position and a certain income with the object of his choice, offered her much, according to the views of that time; she was to show her gratitude by unceasing faithful service, and to lighten his arduous, laborious life--nay, already had a more exalted feeling taken root in the souls of women, which we may well call the poetry of home. The amount of knowledge acquired by a German woman was on the whole small. If people of rank could not spell, this may be explained by the fluctuations in education between French and German,--by a mongrel culture which spoilt the style even of men, not only of Frederic II. and other rulers, but also of the highest officials, like the Imperial ambassador who wrote to Gellert, and begged him to send back his letter with corrections, that he might thereby learn the secret of good writing. But even the German trained daughter of a well-educated citizen family was generally deficient both in style and correctness of writing. Many women, indeed, learnt French, and in Protestant Germany Italian was more frequently studied than at present; even the students of Halle, under the guidance of their teacher, caused Italian treatises to be printed. In other respects education appears to have done little for women; even instruction in music, beyond the practice of light airs on the harpsichord, was rare.