Nunneries also were good Shee-schools, wherein the girles and maids of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work; and sometimes a little Latine was taught them therein. Yea, give me leave to say, if such Feminine Foundations had still continued ... haply the weaker sex (besides the avoiding modern inconveniences) might be heightened to a higher perfection than hitherto hath been obtained[891]. Aubrey, speaking of Wiltshire convents says: There the young maids were brought up ... at the nunneries, where they had examples of piety, and humility, and modesty, and obedience to imitate, and to practise. Here they learned needle-work, the art of confectionary, surgery (for anciently there were no apothecaries or surgeons--the gentlewomen did cure their poor neighbours: their hands are now too fine), physic, writing, drawing etc.[892] One would have thought the familiar note of the _laudator temporis acti_ to be plainly audible in both these extracts. But a host of modern writers have gravely transcribed their words and even, taking advantage no doubt of Aubrey's "etc." (much virtue in etc.), improved upon them. In the work of one more recent writer the list has become "reading, writing, some knowledge of arithmetic, the art of embroidery, music and French 'after the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,' were the recognised course of study, while the preparation of perfumes, balsams, simples and confectionary was among the more ordinary departments of the education afforded"[893]. Another adds a few more deft touches: "the treatment of various disorders, the compounding of simples, the binding up of wounds, ... fancy cookery, such as the making of sweetmeats, writing, drawing, needlework of all kinds and music, both vocal and instrumental"[894]. The most recent writer of all gives the list as "English and French ... writing, drawing, confectionary, singing by notes, dancing, and playing upon instruments of music, the study also of medicine and surgery"[895]. Though the historian must groan, the student of human nature cannot but smile to see music insinuate itself into the list and then become "both instrumental and vocal"; confectionery extend itself to include perfumes, balsams, simples, and the making of sweetmeats; arithmetic appear out of nowhere; and (most magnificent feat of the imagination) dancing trip in on light fantastic toe. From this compound of Aubrey, memories of continental convents in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and familiarity with the convent schools of our own day, let us turn to the considered opinion of a more sober scholar, who bases it only upon contemporary evidence: