The solemnity with which contributors devoted themselves to the _Diaries_, the stately compliments interchanged over successful work, provoke a smile, but yet it must be confessed that no other agency between 1703 and 1726 offered to women so genuine an intellectual opportunity. To some women it was literally a perennial joy. Who were the _Astræa_ and the _Adrastea_ whose names are so often in the prize list? Who, in particular, was _Anna Philomathes_, who could write up whole numbers, questions and answers, and who kept at the business steadily for eleven years? From what homes did the "4 or 5 Hundred several Letters" of the editor's note come? That the _Tatlers_, the _Spectators_, and the _Guardians_ should have their thousands of readers is easily explicable. But do not the now obscure _Diaries_ indicate a more unusual mental energy, a more genuine delight in personal mental activity? In many a home, geographies, arithmetics, histories, classical dictionaries, would surround the "Fair-Sex" as they devoted themselves with leisurely assiduity to the demands of the _Diary_ for the ensuing year. And a prize or an honorable mention marked a gratifying mental achievement. [Sidenote: The Guardian (1713)] In _The Guardian_, No. 155, we have an account of how melancholy a thing it is to see a coxcomb at the head of a family. The paper proceeds: This is one reason why I would the more recommend the improvements of the mind to my female readers, that a family may have a double chance for it; and if it meets with weakness in one of the heads, may have it made up in the other. It is indeed an unhappy circumstance in a family, where the wife has more knowledge than the husband; but it is better it should be so, than that there should be no knowledge in the whole house. It is highly expedient that at least one of the persons, who sits at the helm of affairs, should give an example of good sense to those who are under them. I have often wondered that learning is not thought a proper ingredient in the education of a woman of quality or fortune. Since they have the same improveable minds as the male part of the species, why should they not be cultivated by the same method? Why should reason be left to itself in one of the sexes, and be disciplined with so much care in the other?