"A learned woman ought--so I surmise-- Conceal her knowledge, or she'll be unwise. If pedantry a mental blemish be At all times outlawed by society, If 'gainst a pedant all the world inveighs, Shall pass unchecked in woman pedant's ways? I hold it sure, condemned my sex is quite To trifling nothings as its sole birthright; Ridiculous 'tis thought outside its 'sphere'; The learned woman dare not such appear; Nay, she must even cloak her brilliancy So envy leave in peace stupidity; Must keep the level of the common kind, To subjects commonplace devote her mind, And treating these she must be like the rest. Lo, in such garb refinement must be dressed: That knowledge shall not make her seem unwise, She must herself in foolishness disguise." --Act III, Scene 7. [79] No one, however, went so far in his opposition to the education of women as the notorious Silvain _Marechal_, the author of _Projet d'une Loi portant Defense d'Apprendre a Lire aux Femmes_, who would have a law passed forbidding women to learn to read. He maintained that a knowledge of science and letters interfered with their being good housekeepers. "Reason," he avers, "does not approve of women studying chemistry. Women who are unable to read make the best soup. I would rather," he declares in the words of Balzac, "have a wife with a beard than a wife who is educated." See pp. 40, 50 and 51, of the edition of this strange work, published at Brussels, 1847. [80] In her _Problema Practicum_, addressed to Dr. Rivet, Anna van Schurman states and develops in true syllogistic form a series of propositions in defense of her thesis in favor of the higher education of women. Two of these propositions are here given as illustrative of her points of view: I. Cui natura inest scientiarum artiumque desiderium, ei conveniunt scientiae et artes. Atque feminae natura inest scientiarum artiumque desiderium. Ergo. II Quidquid intellectum hominis perficit et exornat, id femmae Christianae convenit. Atqui scientiae et artes intellectum hominis perficiunt et exornant. Ergo. See _Nobiliss. Virginis Annae Schurman Opuscula_, pp. 35 and 41, Leyden, 1656, and her _De Ingenii Muliebris ad Doctrinam et Meliores Literas Aptitudine_, Leyden, 1641. Cf. also _Anna van Schurman_, Chap. IV, by Una Birch, London, 1909.