In the first case (that is if we adopt the time-honoured theory) the mother was preparing a blank page. She had little to do except to promote as hardy a vegetation as possible, a blossoming out into strength and beauty, to maintain absolutely unbroken quietude, to respect and even prolong the days of childhood.[80] There is no need here for lengthy dissertations: the system consisted in proscribing everything that involved the slightest mental exertion, even in the form of little pastimes; in preserving an absolute simplicity, a cloistral existence;[81] in shunning even physical exercises if they were at all energetic. From the intellectual standpoint it allowed, on the artistic side, some trifling pieces of needlework (tapestry, netting, or the like); music, not suggestive or light, but classical music; as recreative reading, some elementary books of religion or morality; in science, some notions of physics, agriculture, medicine, some philosophical expositions of great moral questions, such as original sin, the Redemption, the immortality of the soul, and the Creed in general. That was what had gone to form the little bride, the robust, sedate, matter-of-fact, shy little creature whom at the beginning of this book we saw led to the altar. She was ignorant, but so much the better: she was only being born into life, but she brought as her stake a solid health and a well-balanced character generally; and at thirteen years, that was a good deal. The husband would do the rest. And it must not be imagined that this system, barbarous as it may seem to some, was regarded as at all ill-conceived. It had numerous friends. The learned of the Middle Ages, from the venerable Egidio Colonna[82] to the illustrious Gerson,[83] had formed no other idea of women’s needs. Gerson even enunciated the aphorism (which, however, must not be pressed): “All instruction for women should be looked at askance.” In this the philosophers were at one with the physicians, whose advice was to err on the side of caution. In support of their position, they invoked the great name of St. Chrysostom,[84] and that of Lycurgus also, who wished to prolong the childhood of young girls to the eighteenth year (and this in Greece), and to devote the whole period to the care of the body.