Answer: "Neither do many Boys."
7. "Women are of Low Parts."
Answer: "So are many Men."
8. Women are soft, tender, delicate, weak.
Answer: Then strengthen them by Education.
9. A learned gentlewoman is ridiculous because contrary to custom.
Answer: This custom has a bad ground. Men wish women to be fools, that they may remain slaves. A bad custom should be broken that good customs may prevail.
10. The final and crucial objection is elaborately stated: "How shall time be found to teach children these things here proposed? Boys go to school ordinarily from seven till sixteen or seventeen, and not above one in four attain so much knowledge in the Tongues as to be admitted into the University, where no great accuracy is required, and they learn nothing else usually besides a little History. Gentlewomen will not ordinarily be sent out so soon, nor is it convenient they should continue so long. Further, half their time, it is supposed, must be spent in learning those things that concern them as Women. Twice as many things are proposed to be taught Girls in half the time, as Boyes do learn, which is impossible."
The rest of the article is taken up with an analysis of Lilly's Grammar, to show how slow and burdensome and distasteful are its methods, and to an analysis of the short cuts to knowledge devised by Mrs. Makin and Mr. Lewis. For instance, Lilly's long rule for substantives is simplified into, "Any word with a, an, or the in front of it is a substantive." If you wish to distinguish between a noun and an adjective you have but to note that nouns change when you make a plural, adjectives do not. And so on with many shrewd little tricks of learning whereby the parts of speech may be known at a glance, the nature of said parts of speech not being in question. The whole of Mrs. Makin's scope and plan of education seems superficial and uncoördinated until seen in the light of the contemporary training of boys as she describes it. Then her system seems alive and energetic in its effort to slough off non-essentials.
In passing, Mrs. Makin frequently utters wise and far-seeing opinions concerning the education of girls.