It is precisely its many-sidedness to which is due the superficiality of the education of contemporary woman when compared with that of her sister of the Renaissance.
The education of women at the present time, generally,--even in Germany, which is famous for its schools,--is without solid foundation, and altogether superficial and of no real worth.

It consists usually in acquiring a smattering of two modern tongues and learning to play the piano, to which a wholly unreasonable amount of time is devoted.
During the Renaissance the piano was unknown, but every educated woman performed upon the lute, which had the advantage that, in the hands of the lady playing it, it presented an agreeable picture to the eyes, while the piano is only a machine which compels the man or the woman who is playing it to go through motions which are always unpleasant and often ridiculous.

During the Renaissance the novel showed only its first beginnings; and even to-day Italy is the country which produces and reads the fewest romances.

There were stories from the time of Boccaccio, but very few.

Vast numbers of poems were written, but half of them in Latin.