This is King Louis's orchard close!
Translation of Andrew Lang.
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
(1743-1825)
hen Lætitia Aikin Barbauld was about thirty years old, her friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Montague, wishing to establish a college for women, asked her to be its principal. In her letter of refusal Mrs. Barbauld said:--"A kind of Academy for ladies, where they are to be taught in a regular manner the various branches of science, appears to me better calculated to form such characters as the Précieuses or Femmes Savantes than good wives or agreeable companions. The very best way for a woman to acquire knowledge is from conversation with a father or brother.... The thefts of knowledge in our sex are only connived at while carefully concealed, and if displayed are punished with disgrace." It is odd to find Mrs. Barbauld thus reflecting the old-fashioned view of the capacity and requirements of her own sex, for she herself belonged to that brilliant group--Hannah More, Fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, Joanna Baillie, Mary Russell Mitford--who were the living refutation of her inherited theories. Their influence shows a pedagogic impulse to present morally helpful ideas to the public.
Anna L. Barbauld.