Mary and Fanny and Education

Given all the conversation about the differences between Mary and Fanny, and connections back to Adeline Mowbray, I was interested to notice how Austen comments on education influencing both of these characters. When Edmund is most caught up in questioning if Mary could be the woman for him, he notes that "She does not think evil, but she speaks it--speaks it in playfulness--and though I know it to be playfulness, it grieves me to the soul" (278). Fanny "gently" replies, "The effect of education." Mary's habit it to be guided by those around her, taking on their ideas of what is important as her own, which Edmund seems to notice. This sounds to me a little like Mrs. Mowbray. Like Mary, she absorbs the ideas of those around her (in books), and then takes them as her own, ignoring the larger social context in which she lives. Mary also tends to ignore the realities of her social context, and instead focuses on her internal perception of what is happening. Only a few paragraphs later, Austen uses another buzzword that reminded me of Opie. When Edmund approaches Fanny to ask her to listen to his anxieties about Mary and the ball, he "[says] enough to shake the experience of eighteen" (279). Though Fanny lacked the "education" of women like Mary who were born into higher social classes, Austen points to her reliance on experience to guide her actions. Fanny is shown to be the more perceptive, if less lively, woman of the two. Perhaps through this nod to the theory/experience debate of educational practice so discussed alongside Adeline Mowbray, we can see how Austen was aware of and engaging in the debate.