themselves are in no way accountable. When Françoise de Saintonges, in the
sixteenth century, wished to establish girls' schools in France, she was
hooted in the streets, and her father called together four doctors of law
to decide whether she was possessed of a devil in planning to teach
women,--"_pour s'assurer qu'instruire des femmes n'était pas un oeuvre du
démon_." From that day to this we have seen women almost always more ready
to be taught than was any one else to teach them. Talk as you please about
their wishing or not wishing to vote: they have certainly wished for
instruction, and have had it doled out to them almost as grudgingly as if
it were the ballot itself.

Consider the educational history of Massachusetts, for instance. The wife
of President John Adams was born in 1744; and she says of her youth that
"female education, in the best families, went no farther than writing and
arithmetic." Barry tells us in his "History of Massachusetts," that the
public education was first provided for boys only; "but light soon broke
in, and girls were allowed to attend the public schools two hours a
day."[1] It appears from President Quincy's "Municipal History of
Boston,"[2] that from 1790 girls were there admitted to such schools, but
during the summer months only, when there were not boys enough to fill
them,--from April 20 to October 20 of each year. This lasted until 1822,
when Boston became a city. Four years after, an attempt was made to
establish a high school for girls, which was not, however, to teach Latin
and Greek. It had, in the words of the school committee of 1854, "an
alarming success;" and the school was abolished after eighteen months'
trial, because the girls crowded into it; and as Mr. Quincy, with exquisite
simplicity, records, "not one voluntarily quitted it, and there was no
reason to suppose that any one admitted to the school would voluntarily
quit for the whole three years, except in case of marriage!"