quickly took knowledge
into her own keeping, forbade its extension, and increasingly held
before woman, as her highest ideal, the negative virtues of the
cloister.

The humanistic and theological changes which came with the awakening of
the European mind at the close of the Middle Ages, did much to set free
the accumulated treasures of knowledge. Protestantism, by exalting
individual judgment and insisting on the necessity of each one reading
and judging the sacred records for himself, made it possible for even
women to enter into the heritage of the ages. At least, the key to
learning, reading, was given into her hands. Later Protestant sects
broke down the limits of sacerdotalism, until women found that they
could look forward a little way without losing their Edens, or could
even glance backward without being turned into pillars of reproach.

The political revolutions of the eighteenth century also affirmed in
their point of view the same intellectual freedom for women as for men.
It has taken a long time to make the practical adjustments, but they are
now well under way. Since 1870, women have had very great freedom in
their approach to knowledge; and having knowledge, they have been
allowed to impart it to others.

In America, freedom for women to study has moved more rapidly than in
Europe. Even in the colonial period, there were emancipated women, as
we have seen; and in the last half of the eighteenth century several
schools were opened for girls, which were more than polite finishing
schools. Notable among these institutions were the seminary at
Bethlehem, Pa., opened in 1753 by the Moravians, and the school
established by the Society of Friends, in Providence, R.I., in 1784. But
nearly all girl's schools before 1800 were limited to terms of a few
months, where girls attended to learn needle-work, music and dancing,
and to cultivate their morals and manners.

At the close of the Revolutionary War, the leaders of public opinion
universally recognized that their new experiment in government would
succeed only if the voters were intelligent. This statement of belief
became the major premise on which all arguments for free and compulsory
education were based; and while we have practically accepted a much
wider justification for education, in connection with the care of
defectives, industrial training, and other recent movements, we have not
yet changed our formulated philosophy concerning the relation of the
s