nature of their employments, the associations they form, and the subjects which engage their attention, all tend to give to the minds of men in general, a clearness of understanding on certain points, and an acquaintance with important facts, beyond what is possessed by one woman in a thousand; though, at the same time, women have a vast advantage over them in this respect, that the liveliness and facility of their intellectual powers, enable them to invest with interest many of the inferior, and less important topics of conversation.
General knowledge, however, is not less important to them, than to men, in the effect it produces upon their own minds and feelings. A well-informed woman may generally be known, not so much by what she tells you, as by what she does not tell you; for she is the last to take pleasure in mere gossip, or to make vulgar allusions to the appearance, dress, or personal habits, of her friends and neighbours. Her thoughts are not in these things. The train of her reflections goes not along with the eating, drinking, visiting, or scandal, of the circle in which she moves. She has a world of interest beyond her local associations; and while others are wondering what is the price of her furniture, or where she bought her watch; she, perhaps, is mentally solving that important question, whether civilization ever was extinguished in a Christian country.
Nor is it merely to be able to say, when asked, in what year any particular sovereign reigned—that knowledge is worth acquiring. Its highest use is to be able to assist on all occasions in the establishment of truth, by a clear statement of facts; to say what experience has proved; and to overcome prejudice by just reasoning. It enables us also to take expansive views of every subject upon which our minds can be employed, so as never to argue against general principles, from opposite impressions produced merely upon our own minds.
