On the other hand, we find children described as-- “most ongracious grafftes, ripe and redy in all lewd libertie,” through the fault of the parents and schoolmasters, “which do nother teach ther children good, nother yet chastice them when thei do evill.” In the following century people looked back with regret to the time when daughters were-- “obsequious and helpful to their parents,” when “there was no supposed humiliation in offices which are now accounted menial, but which the peer received as a matter of course from ‘the gentlemen of his household,’ and which were paid to the knights or gentlemen by domestics chosen in the families of their own most respectable tenants; whilst in the humbler ranks of middle life it was the uniform and recognized duty of the wife to wait on her husband, the child on his parents, the youngest of the family on his elder brothers and sisters.” CHAPTER II. THE SCHOLARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Revival of learning in the sixteenth century--Attitude of the nobility towards Letters and Arts--No age so productive of learned ladies--The Tudor princesses and Lady Jane Grey--Sir Anthony Coke’s daughters--Mary Sidney--Learned women held in esteem--Learning confined to the upper classes--A sixteenth-century schoolmaster on women’s education. The sixteenth century was England’s great literary renaissance. Fresh streams of intellectual life were poured into the nation. There was activity in all departments of thought. The study of poetry, of theology, of the classics, went on apace. The printing press was letting loose floods of knowledge. The tide swept the women of the nobility along in its course. They stand out prominently among the ranks of scholars. In place of the domestic arts, they are found immersed in classics, divinity, and philosophy. Education was not conducted on the easy, pleasant lines of our own day. Knowledge was hard to obtain. It was locked up out of reach of the indolent in languages to which there were none of the modern keys. Literature was the great study, and familiarity with Greek and Latin essential. The tree of science had only just begun to grow, and was sorely beset by the brambles of superstition and mysticism. The arts in England could scarcely be said to exist. Foreign painters came from time to time, and rich noblemen went abroad and brought back treasures from Italy. All decorative work other than tapestries, which were sometimes of English make, was imported. Music, like dancing, was cultivated as a polite accomplishment, for private uses; but there was not the stimulus of excellent public performances by first-rate artists.