ned woman," and "folly is reckoned so much
our proper sphere, we are sooner pardoned any excesses of that than the
least pretensions to reading and good sense." Pursuant to the prevailing
sentiment on the education of women, the subjects which they studied and
the books which they were allowed to read were carefully regulated. As
to their reading, it was confined to romantic tales whereof the
exceeding insipidity could not awaken any symptom of intelligence. Lyly
dedicated his _Euphues_ to the "Ladies and Gentlewomen of England" and
Sidney's _Arcadia_ owed its vast success to its female readers.

The subjects studied followed the orthodox views. Beginning with the
reign of Queen Anne boarding-schools for girls became very numerous. At
these schools "young Gentlewomen" were "soberly educated" and "taught
all sorts of learning fit for young Gentlewomen." The "learning fit for
young Gentlewomen" comprised "the Needle, Dancing, and the French
tongue; a little Music on the Harpsichord or Spinet, to read, write, and
cast accounts in a small way." Dancing was the all-important study,
since this was the surest route to their Promised Land, matrimony. The
study of French consisted in learning parrot-like a modicum of that
language pronounced according to the fancy of the speaker. As, however,
the young beau probably did not know any more himself, the end justified
the means. Studies like history, when pursued, were taken in
homoeopathic doses from small compendiums; and it was adequate to know
that Charlemagne lived somewhere in Europe about a thousand or so years
ago. Yet even this was rather advanced work and exposed the woman to be
damned by the report that she was educated. Ability to cook was not
despised and pastry schools were not uncommon. Thus in the time of
Queen Anne appears this: "To all Young Ladies: at Edw. Kidder's Pastry
School in little Lincoln's Inn Fields are taught all Sorts of Pastry and
Cookery, Dutch hollow works, and Butter Works," etc.

At last in the first decades of the nineteenth century the civilised
world began slowly to take some thought of women's higher education and
to wake up to the fact that because a certain system has been in vogue
since created man does not necessarily mean that it is the right one; a
very heretical and revolutionary idea, which has always been and still
is ably opposed by that great host of people who have steadily
maintained that when men and women once begin to think for