Why should girls be sent to school? Today, we would say it's because education is a fundamental human right. However, only 150 years ago the answer would have differed wildly – as shown by a parliamentary report from 1860. According to that report, girls should be educated purely so they may become “decorative, modest, marriageable beings”.
From the Middle Ages, female education was tailored to the belief that a woman's place is in the home, and that she does not have the same intellectual capacity as a man. Therefore, instruction in spinning, sewing and knitting from a female relative was the most education offered to any medieval girl. Schooling as we know it did not start
