of knowledge (whether in Latin or in their mother-tongue). They also are formed in the image of God, and share in His grace and in the kingdom of the world to come. They are endowed with equal sharpness of mind and capacity for knowledge (often with more than the opposite sex), and they are able to attain the highest positions, since they have often been called by God Himself to rule over nations, to give sound advice to kings and princes, to the study of medicine and of other things which benefit the human race, even to the office of prophesying and of inveighing against priests and bishops. Why, therefore, should we admit them to the alphabet, and afterwards drive them away from books? Do we fear their folly? The more we occupy their thoughts, so much the less will the folly that arises from emptiness of mind find a place.
6. But let not all books be given to them indiscriminately, as they have been given to the young of the other sex (and indeed it is greatly to be deplored that more caution has not been displayed in this matter); but only those from which, by the due observation of God and of His works, true virtue and true piety can be learned.
7. And let none cast in my teeth that saying of the Apostle: “I permit not a woman to teach” (1 Tim. ii. 12), or that of Juvenal in the sixth satire: “See that thy lawful wife be not a chatterbox, that she express not the simplest matter in involved language, nor be deeply versed in history,” or the remark of Hippolytus in Euripides: “I detest a bluestocking. May there never be a woman in my house who knows more than is fitting for a woman to know. For ’tis in the wise especially that Cypris engenders the desire for evil.” These opinions, I opine, stand in no true opposition to our demand. For we are not advising that women be educated in such a way that their tendency to curiosity shall be developed, but so that their sincerity and contentedness may be increased, and this chiefly in those things which it becomes a woman to know and to do; that is to say, all that enables her to look after her household and to promote the welfare of her husband and her family.
