The Romans of the last century of the Republic had, like ourselves, their corrupt politicians, their struggles for office, their demagogues, and their wars for liberty--meaning their own. They had also their plutocrats, their parvenus, their love of glittering splendor, their rage for culture, their patrons of art, who brought the masterpieces over the seas, and, not least, their “new woman.” I use the phrase in its best, not in its extreme, sense; the exaggeration of a good type is always a bad one. This last product of a growing civilization did not claim political rights or industrial privileges, as we understand them; she did not write books of any note, or seek university honors in cap and gown; nor did she combine in world-wide organizations to better herself and other people: but she did a great many things in similar directions, that were quite as new and vital to the world in which she lived. If she did not say much about the higher education, she was beginning to have a good deal of the best that was known. The example of the learned as well as virtuous and womanly Cornelia had not been lost. It was no longer sufficient to say, in the language of an old epitaph, that a woman was “good and beautiful, an indefatigable spinner, pious, reserved, chaste, and a good housekeeper.” The conservative matron still prided herself on these qualities which had so long constituted the glory of her sex, but it was decreed that she must have something more. In the new order of things, she shared in the cultivation of the intellect, and ignorance had lost its place among the virtues. Girls were educated with boys, read the same books, and studied the same subjects. To keep pace with the age, a woman must be familiar with Greek as well as Roman letters. She must also know how to sing and dance. “This helps them to find husbands,” says Statius, who had little money to give his daughter, but felt sure she could marry well because she was a “cultivated woman.” The line of co-education, however, was drawn at singing and dancing, where it began with us. In earlier times these accomplishments and the knowledge of various languages were among the attractions of the courtezan.