Puritans to refine the sex by the fires of relentless
criticism and to produce the severer, but much nobler, Christian
woman, who became the normal type, not only for the middle classes,
but, to an extent, for the women of the higher circles as well.

The state of society was not favorable for intellectual expression
on the part of woman, although it can hardly be said that it retarded
intellectual progress. The character of the English woman was being
affected in a way to save it from becoming merely superficial and
volatile, like that of her French sister, and her intellect was being
sobered for literary production that should have worthier qualities
than mere brilliancy to recommend it. When the women of the middle
classes stepped out into the arena of authorship, the value of the
Puritan period as a corrective of the frivolity and false standards
for women which had previously obtained becomes manifest in their
writings.

The loss of opportunities of education for the women of the middle
classes, which was a result of the dissolution of the religious
houses, had never quite been made good, and even down to the second
half of the seventeenth century there was no adequate system of
popular education. In the case of the children of the nobility,
suitable education and training for their station in life could be
obtained only by sending them abroad to Italy, France, or Germany,
or by bringing foreign teachers into the country. Girls were never
sent abroad for their education; and in the case of the daughters of
middle-class society, all that was regarded as needful was training
in the practical affairs of housewifery--to which, in the case of the
Puritans, was added inculcation of the Scriptures and the reading
of other devout books. The current opinion is well expressed in the
following citation from _The Art of Thriving_: "Let them learne plaine
workes of all kind, so they take heed of too open seeming. Instead of
song and musick, let them learne cookery and laundry, and instead of
reading Sir Philip Sydney's _Arcadia_, let them read the grounds
of huswifery. I like not a female poetesse at any hand: let greater
personages glory their skill in musicke, the posture of their bodies,
the greatnesse and freedome of their spirits, and their arts in
arraigning of men's affections at their flattering faces: this is not
the way to breed a private gentleman's daughter."

Even if higher education for women were not recognize