human
as one of the necessary elements of female education. She thus combined in her person two of the principal tendencies of the century: a strong religious spirit and an intense interest in literature, and both became important factors in her educational system, in which she aimed at reconciling the exigencies of the world with the demands of piety in forming society women who were devout Christians. She was a woman of practical common sense, actuated by the most unselfish motives, and devoted to the exercise of that Reason which she held ought to be the constant regulator of Piety and the governing motive of all human actions. Nothing could be more directly opposed to the monastic spirit. Her principles therefore stamped her as a reactionary of Fénelon's school, save for the fact that