There religion was, and still is, a part of education; it consisted in a high respect for form and was of small ethical worth.
The daughters of the well-to-do families did not receive instruction in the humanities in the convents, but probably from the same teachers to whom the education of the sons was entrusted.

It is no exaggeration to say that the women of the better classes during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were as well educated as are the women of to-day.
Their education was not broad; it was limited to a few branches; for then they did not have the almost inexhaustible means of improvement which, thanks to the evolution of the human mind during the last three hundred years, we now enjoy.

The education of the women of the Renaissance was based upon classical antiquity, in comparison with which everything which could then be termed modern was insignificant.

They might, therefore, have been described as scholarly.

Feminine education is now entirely different, as it is derived wholly from modern sources of culture.