e places of general resort, they attracted as much
attention as did women of rank.

The prosperous and well-domiciled woman of the middle classes could
rest in the comfortable feeling that the demarcations of society no
longer absolutely precluded the possibility of her daughters' entering
the ranks of those famous for their signal worth of one sort or
another; but as yet the great movements of modern society had not come
into close touch with the lives of ordinary women. Newspapers were
published, but women seldom read them. Philanthropy was making
headway, but women had little part in its movement, nor had they fully
entered as yet into their birthright in the realm of literature.
In the rural districts, their life was so contracted that a weekly
newsletter, passed from hand to hand, was the chief medium of
information as to the outside world; but even this was not usually
read by the womenfolk, who were content to receive their news by
hearsay. Unlike the women of the aristocracy, the women of the middle
classes did not become beneficiaries to any large degree in the wider
connections of their husbands, because such connections were for the
most part of a business nature and not social. They were women
of mediocrity, and their role was domestic. It was still thought
unimportant to widen woman's horizon beyond the elements of an
education. To these, in the case of the more prosperous, were added
those accomplishments which are still looked upon by ignorant persons
with disdain, but which serve to bridge the chasms of society by
establishing tests of good breeding irrespective of social birth;
so that to reading, writing, geography, and history there were added
music, French, and Italian. Such a curriculum, faithfully followed,
prepared young women to move in polite circles.

The old cry of women's incapacity for intellectual attainments of
the same order as those of men is audible throughout the eighteenth
century. One writer, after speaking of the regard in which the sex
were held in England, discusses the matter of their education and
concludes that it is not easy to comprehend the possibility of raising
them to a higher plane than that to which they had been lifted,
because of their natural incapacity for other than the domestic and
social functions which they so gracefully fulfilled. To English people
generally, it was a matter of pride that their women received greater
respect and were held in greater affection