When we read of women discoursing in Latin, writing in Greek, discussing philosophy and science, we must be on our guard, says M. Rousselot, from believing that the initiators of the modern spirit had any idea that the moment was come to institute for women a rational system of instruction and education. Certainly in England there were no women of the burgess class who could discourse in Latin, and the wives and daughters of country squires were equally guiltless of any such accomplishments. No systematic attempt was made to raise the standard of women’s education in the middle ranks. The founders of the endowed grammar schools in the sixteenth century never thought of girls; they only provided for boys. Queen Elizabeth, excellent scholar as she was, and keen as was her appreciation of learning, did nothing for the intellectual advancement of her female subjects. The Virgin Queen only acted like her compeers. “Scarcely has there ever appeared, in any period or in any nation, a legislator who has made it the subject of his serious attention, and the men who are greatly interested that women should be sensible and virtuous, seem, by their conduct towards that sex, to have entered into a general conspiracy to order it otherwise.”[38] Sir Thomas Overbury’s poem, “A Wife,” expresses the sentiment of the age-- “Give me next Good, an understanding Wife, By nature wise, not learned by much Art. Some knowledge on her side will all my Life More scope of Conversation impart. * * * * * “A passive understanding to conceive, And judgment to discern, I wish to finde. Beyond that, all as hazardous I leave; Learning and pregnant wit in Woman-kinde, What it findes malleable maketh frail, And doth not adde more ballast, but more sail. “Domesticke charge doth best that Sexe befit, Contiguous businesse so to fix the minde, That leasure space for fancies not admit, Their leasure ’tis corrupteth Womankinde. Else, being plac’d from many vices free, They had to Heav’n a shorter cut then we. Books are a part of Man’s Prerogative, In formall Ink they Thoughts and Voices hold, That we to them our Solitude may give, And make Time present travel that of old.” Hitherto there had been two careers open to women--marriage and the conventual life. With the sweeping away of the religious houses there remained only the first. English family life has been lauded as the _beau idéal_ of domesticity, but, as far as women were concerned, it was a very narrow ideal. There seemed no place for the daughters who failed to find husbands. One wonders what became of the unmarried women. They were probably condemned to drudge for their relatives, like Samuel Pepys’ sister, who came into his household as a servant.