ABSTRACT
The education of women in the seventeenth century reflects the sentiment of the age as to their relative position in society, their rights, and destiny. However, the seventeenth century was not wanting in women of talent or genius, who might have made an eloquent plea in behalf of their sex; but they were content to give personal examples of a high order, without any anxiety to be imitated. The education directed by Madame de Maintenon is the beginning of a rupture with tradition. The rules of Jacqueline Pascal exhibit the effects of an ascetic belief on education, human nature is corrupt. It is a great establishment devoted to the lay education of young women of noble birth. Consequently, children of the tenderest years, from six or seven, were received at Saint Cyr, there to be cared for till the age of marriage, till eighteen and twenty. The ladies of Saint Cyr were ordinarily taken from the pupils of the school.
