The question of the admission of ladies to the learned societies was
already being mooted, and a letter to Sir Charles Lyell gives his ideas
thus early not only on this point, but on the general question of
women's education.]

March 17, 1860.

My dear Sir Charles,

To use the only forcible expression, I "twig" your meaning perfectly,
but I venture to think the parable does not apply. For the Geological
Society is not, to my mind, a place of education for students, but a
place of discussion for adepts; and the more it is applied to the former
purpose the less competent it must become to fulfil the latter--its
primary and most important object.

I am far from wishing to place any obstacle in the way of the
intellectual advancement and development of women. On the contrary, I
don't see how we are to make any permanent advancement while one-half of
the race is sunk, as nine-tenths of women are, in mere ignorant
parsonese superstitions; and to show you that my ideas are practical I
have fully made up my mind, if I can carry out my own plans, to give my
daughters the same training in physical science as their brother will
get, so long as he is a boy. They, at any rate, shall not be got up as
man-traps for the matrimonial market. If other people would do the like
the next generation would see women fit to be the companions of men in
all their pursuits--though I don't think that men have anything to fear
from their competition. But you know as well as I do that other people
won't do the like, and five-sixths of women will stop in the doll stage