Introduction

Abstract

Women’s education, their access to learning, and what uses they should make of their reason, were intensely controversial subjects in eighteenth-century Europe. In fact it can be argued that education, broadly defined to include intellectual, moral, emotional and physical formation, was at the centre of early modern debates on gender. It was the focal point of discussions of women’s intellectual and moral character and potential, and their appropriate social responsibilities and locations; education was regarded as crucial in determining whether gender-ascribed traits were natural or a product of acquired patterns of behaviour, thinking and feeling.