But, however great her influence, we are warranted in asserting that it was never exercised in an illegitimate manner. She was ever, as history informs us, the good, the wise, the learned, the eloquent Aspasia. It was her goodness, her wisdom, her rare and varied accomplishments, her clear insight and noble purposes that gave her the wonderful power she possessed and which enabled her, probably more than any one person, to make the age of Pericles not only the most brilliant age of Greek history, but also the most brilliant age of all time.[11] But, notwithstanding the beneficent influence which Aspasia ever exerted on those about her, notwithstanding the heroic efforts she had made to liberate her own sex from the restrictions that had so long harassed and degraded it, the wives and daughters of the citizens of Athens were still kept in almost absolute seclusion and denied the opportunities of mental culture which were so generously accorded the free-born hetaerae from Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean. Socrates, as we learn from Xenophon, asserted woman's equality with man, while Plato taught that mentally there was no essential difference between man and woman. He concluded, accordingly, that women of talent should have the same educational advantages as men. In _The Republic_ as well as in the _Laws_, when he refers to education--which he would make compulsory for "all and sundry, as far as possible"--his views are far in advance of those which have been entertained until the last half century. He would have girls as well as boys thoroughly instructed in music and gymnastic--"music for the mind and gymnastic for the body."[12] In the _Laws_ he contends that "women ought to share, as far as possible, in education and in other ways with men. For consider:--if women do not share in their whole life with men, then they must have some other order of life." Again he asserts "Nothing can be more absurd than the practice which prevails in our own country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strength and with one mind, for thus the state, instead of being a whole, is reduced to a half."[13] In _The Republic_ he expresses the same idea when he affirms that "the gifts of nature are alike diffused in both"--men and women--"all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women."[14]