And Henry's defence

In the end, all Henry Tilney can manage is to argue that history is good for teaching us how to read. Worse, he begins slyly mocking Catherine's intelligence; this is a strange thing for the "love interest" in our story to be doing.

“Very probably. But historians are not accountable for the difficulty of learning to read; and even you yourself, who do not altogether seem particularly friendly to very severe, very intense application, may perhaps be brought to acknowledge that it is very well worth–while to be tormented for two or three years of one’s life, for the sake of being able to read all the rest of it. Consider — if reading had not been taught, Mrs. Radcliffe would have written in vain — or perhaps might not have written at all.”

And then Catherine, having been given the opening to talk about what really interests her, gives what Austen describes as a "a very warm panegyric" on Radcliffe, although she does not report its contents.

"Panegyric" is an interesting word choice here. It is the sort of thing you might give if you were talking on a subject of some importance—perhaps even historical importance. Irony? If it is, it's heavy-handed irony of a particularly obvious kind—like making fun of evangelicals at a Darwin convention—that Austen rarely stoops to.

The thing I want to make clear, however, is that neither Henry nor his sister give us a single reason why history should be read in its own right. Nor do they answer any of Catherine's three cogent criticisms: why aren't more women featured; why aren't there more good qualities displayed in the people history is about; why is it so boring.

Catherine does not say, but could, "It's wonderful that people learn to read with history texts but they could just as easily be learned with other, more entertaining books."