"And if I am right nothing can be more foolish than our modern fashion of training men and women differently, whereby one-half of the power of the city is lost. For reflect-if women are not to have the education of men some other must be found for them, and what other can we propose?"-PLATO, Laws (Jowett), p. 82. Scribner, 1902. CYCLES OF FEMININE EDUCATION AND INFLUENCE* NOTHING is commoner than to suppose that what we are doing at the present day is an improvement over whatever they were doing at any time in the past in the same line. We were rather proud during the nineteenth century to talk of that century as the century of evolution. Evolutionary terms of all kinds found their way even into everyday speech and a very general impression was produced that we are in the midst of progress so rapid and unerring, that even from decade to decade it is possible to trace the wonderful advance that man is making. We look back on the early nineteenth century as quite hopelessly backward. They had no railroads, no street-car lines, no public street lighting, no modes of heating buildings that gave any comfort in the cold weather, no elevators, and when we compare our present comfortable condition with the discomforts of that not so distant period, we feel how much evolution has done for us, and inevitably * The material for this was gathered for a lecture on the History of Education delivered for the Academy of the Sacred Heart, Kenwood, Albany, N. Y., and St. Joseph's College, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pa. Very nearly in its present form the address was delivered before the League for the Civic Education of Women, at the Colony Club, New York City, in the winter of 1910. conclude that just as much progress as has been made in transportation and in comfort, has also been made in the things of the mind, and, above all, in education, so that, while the millennium is not yet here, it cannot surely be far off; and men are attaining at last, with giant strides, the great purpose that runs through the ages. Probably in nothing is the assumption that we are doing something far beyond what was ever accomplished before, more emphatically expressed than in the ordinary opinions as to what is being done by and for women in our generation. We have come to think that at last in the course of evolution woman is beginning to come into something of her rights, she is at last getting her opportunity for the higher education and for professional education so far as she wants it, and as a consequence is securing that influence which, as the equal of man, she should have in the world. Now there is just one thing with regard to this very general impression which deserves to be called particularly to attention. This is not the first time in the world's history, nor the first by many times, that woman has had the opportunity for the higher education and has taken it very well. Neither is it the first time that she has insisted on having an influence in public affairs, but on the contrary, we can readily find a very curious series of cycles of feminine education and of the exercise of public influence by women, with intervals of almost negative phases in these matters that are rather difficult to explain. Let us before trying to understand what the feministic movement means in our own time and, above all, before trying to sum up its ultimate significance for the race, study some of the corresponding movements in former times. The most interesting phase of the woman movement in history is that which occurred at the time of the Renaissance. Because it is typical of the phases of the feministic movement at all times, and then, too, because it is closer to us and the records of it are more complete, it will be extremely interesting to follow out some of the details of it. It may be necessary for that to make a little excursion into the history of the period. During the early fifteenth century the Turks were bothering Constantinople so much, that Greek scholars, rendered uncomfortable at home, began making their way over into Italy rather frequently, bringing with them precious manuscripts and remains of old Greek art. Besides commerce aroused by the Crusades was making the intercourse between East and West much more intimate than it had been and, as a result, a taste for Greek letters and art was beginning to be felt in certain portions of Italy. When Constantinople fell, about the middle of the fifteenth century, the prestige of the old capital of the Greek empire was lost, and scholars abandoned it for Italy in large numbers. This is the time of the Renaissance. The rebirth that the word |