The lady seemed to understand from her companion's countenance, that he did not exactly comprehend the signification of her words; but as this had occurred on other occasions, and with other persons, she felt no surprise at the circumstance, attributing it, as was natural, to her own extreme cultivation and philological proficiency.

In female education, the modern languages are taught without all this preparation; nor do I find that our fair rivals are at all inferior to the generality of our sex in their proficiency.

At the same time used to visit her the bitter, bilious, discontented David, the painter, who, though very young, was annoyed at a woman having such incontestable proficiency in his own art, and whose democratic ideas were hurt at her receiving such a number of what he styled "great people."

To magnify any branch of human knowledge beyond its just importance may, indeed, tend to weaken the force of religious faith; but many acute metaphysicans have been good Christians; and before the question thus agitated can be set at rest, we must suppose a certain proficiency in those inquiries which he would proscribe as dangerous.

erudition, learning, lore, scholarship, reading, letters; literature; book madness; book learning, bookishness; bibliomania^, bibliolatry^; information, general information; store of knowledge &c; education &c (teaching) 537; culture, menticulture^, attainments; acquirements, acquisitions; accomplishments; proficiency; practical knowledge &c (skill) 698; liberal education; dilettantism; rudiments &c (beginning) 66.

That was a proficiency that tempted me; and I practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with myself.

The part of a courtier is always degrading enough to play; but to be courtier to a prince whose favour was to be won by proficiency in vice, and audacity in follies, to truckle to his tastes, to win his smiles by the invention of a new pleasure and his approbation by the plotting of a new villany, what an office for the author of 'The School for Scandal,' and the orator renowned for denouncing the wickednesses of Warren Hastings!

For Severus, on learning his proficiency, prevented his being executed.

The girls were then examined in the same studies and exercises, except arithmetic, and displayed the same gratifying proficiency.

The Governor made a few remarks, in which he gave some good advice, and expressed himself highly pleased with the appearance and proficiency of the school.

He is undoubtedly guilty of pedantry, who, when he has made himself master of some abstruse and uncultivated part of knowledge, obtrudes his remarks and discoveries upon those whom he believes unable to judge of his proficiency, and from whom, as he cannot fear contradiction, he cannot properly expect applause.

In less than a month his mother declared her satisfaction at his proficiency by a triumphant observation, that she believed nothing would make him blush.

The whole number in the asylum at the present time being thirty-two, several of whom have made great proficiency in drawing.

A brief instruction in surgery gave him such a plausible appearance of proficiency in the art as to permit his public lectures to be favorably received, and to lead to his employment in the royal household.

Add to these a proficiency in poetry and music, a person of unusual symmetry and grace, a face of almost feminine softness, yet not descending from the dignity of manhood, and we have an idea of the youth who was already meditating the means of throwing off the chains that bound him to the inkhorn and ledger, and embracing a more brilliant and glorious career.

From the same source it appears that then, as now, one of the favorite accomplishments of a young lady was to sing well, and that her prospects for marriage were in proportion to her proficiency in this art.

Some have been beguiled with the idea, that great proficiency in grammar was to be made by means of a certain fanciful method of induction.

Grudgingly, girls have been allowed to enter the grammar and higher schools; and here, too, by their proficiency, they have proved their right to enter.

But however he disappointed his friends with respect to the proficiency they expected him to make in the Law; yet it is certain he was not negligent in those studies to which his genius led him.

It did seem as if they had all reached office through their great proficiency as cabin-boys.

Two prizes were given, half-yearly to each remove; one for "marks" indicating the boy who had generally been highest throughout the half year, and the other for the test proofs of proficiency in a special examination.

No inference can, of course, be drawn from this as to Sterne's proficiency, or even industry, in his academical studies: it is scarcely more than a testimony to the fact of decent and regular behaviour.

His writings contain not a few musical metaphors and allusions to music, which seem to indicate a competent acquaintance with its technicalities; but the specimen of his powers as an artist, which Mr. Fitzgerald has reproduced from his illustrations of a volume of poems by Mr. Woodhull, does not dispose one to rate highly his proficiency in this accomplishment.

Even then, with foresight, technical proficiency, the investment of labor and capital, agricultural land can be restored to fertility.

These contributors are selected with a view to their proficiency and celebrity in their several departments.