Especially since the beginning of the eighteenth century have Germany and England produced numbers of highly cultivated and even learned women.

The superficiality of the education of woman in general in Germany is not the fault of the Church, but of the fashion, of society, and also of lack of means in our families.
A learned woman, whom men are more apt to fear than respect, is called, when she writes books, a blue-stocking.

During the Renaissance she was called a _virago_, a title which was perfectly complimentary.

Jacopo da Bergamo constantly uses it as a term of respect in his work, _Concerning Celebrated Women_, which he wrote in 1496.[13] Rarely do we find this word used by Italians in the sense in which we now employ it,--namely, termigant or amazon.

At that time a _virago_ was a woman who, by her courage, understanding, and attainments, raised herself above the masses of her sex.