is famous for its schools,--is without solid foundation, and
altogether superficial and of no real worth. It consists usually in
acquiring a smattering of two modern tongues and learning to play the
piano, to which a wholly unreasonable amount of time is devoted.

During the Renaissance the piano was unknown, but every educated woman
performed upon the lute, which had the advantage that, in the hands of
the lady playing it, it presented an agreeable picture to the eyes,
while the piano is only a machine which compels the man or the woman who
is playing it to go through motions which are always unpleasant and
often ridiculous. During the Renaissance the novel showed only its first
beginnings; and even to-day Italy is the country which produces and
reads the fewest romances. There were stories from the time of
Boccaccio, but very few. Vast numbers of poems were written, but half of
them in Latin. Printing and the book trade were in their infancy. The
theater likewise was in its childhood, and, as a rule, dramatic
performances were given only once a year, during the carnival, and then
only on private stages. What we now call universal literature or culture
consisted at that time in the passionate study of the classics. Latin
and Greek held the place then which the study of foreign languages now
occupies in the education of women. The Italians of the Renaissance did
not think that an acquaintance with the classics, that scientific
knowledge destroyed the charm of womanliness, nor that the education of
women should be less advanced than that of men. This opinion, like so
many others prevalent in society is of Teutonic origin. The loving
dominion of the mother in the family circle has always seemed to the
Germanic races to be the realization of the ideal of womanliness. For a
long time German women avoided publicity owing to modesty or a feeling
of decorum. Their talents remained hidden except in cases where peculiar
circumstances--sometimes connected with affairs of court or of
state--compelled them to come forth. Until recently the history of
German civilization has shown a much smaller number of famous female
characters than Italy, the land of strong personalities, produced during
the Renaissance. The influence which gifted women in the Italian salons
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and later in those of France,
exercised upon the intellectual development of society was completely
unknown in England and Germany.