feminine education.
Like mother, like son--and the Spartan ideal of the son was the warrior
strong, brave, and resolute, enduring hardship and living solely for
the State. Hence the mother must be strong, brave, and resolute,
sacrificing every womanly tenderness to the prevailing conception of
patriotism.

Great is the contrast between the women of the various peoples of
Greece. The Achaean woman, in Homeric times, played no prominent part in
public affairs; her home was her palace, and she manifested those
domestic traits and womanly qualities that in this day still constitute
womanly charm. The life of the Ionian woman was a secluded one; she was
under the domination of the sterner sex, and compelled to devote herself
largely to the varied duties of the household. The AEolian woman, on the
contrary, had asserted her freedom, and lived on terms of social and
intellectual comradeship with men. She devoted herself to the
cultivation of every womanly grace, and was the earnest follower of
Aphrodite and the Muses. In contrast to these, the Spartan woman
presents an altogether unique type. She was merely a creature of the
State, the cultivation of her higher nature being under the control of a
rigid system. As such, she contributed in a large degree to the public
welfare, but it was at the sacrifice of many feminine attributes. In
her, natural affection and womanly sympathy were sacrificed to a single
virtue--patriotism. But one function was emphasized--that of motherhood.
All her training was devoted to but one end--that of producing soldiers.
The life of the individual was strictly subordinated to the good of the
State. Such a system evolved a remarkable type of womanhood, and the
Spartan matron has won an immortal name in history.

From the central mass of the mountain system of the Peloponnesus in
Arcadia, two chains, Taygetus and Parnon, detach themselves and extend
southward, terminating in the two dangerous promontories of Taenarum and
Malea. Between the two ridges the river Eurotas winds its way in a
southeasterly course. In the undulating valley formed by the bed of the
stream, and shut in by the mountain ranges, lay ancient Sparta. The
country, by nature and climate, was such as to make men hardy and
determined. Euripides styles it "a country rich in productions, but
difficult to cultivate; shut in on all sides by a barrier of stern
mountains; almost inaccessible to the foe." Its hidden situation in the
Eurotas