PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS OF RIO DE JANEIRO. 479 
f 
years of age, and are considered to have finished their edu- 
cation at thirteen or fourteen. The next step in their life is 
marriage. Of course there are exceptions ; some parents 
wisely leave their children at school, or direct their in- 
struction at home, till they are seventeen or eighteen years 
of age, and others send their girls ahroad. But usually, 
with the exception of one or two accomplishments, such 
as French or music, the education of women is neglected, 
and this neglect affects the whole tone of society. It does 
not change the general truth of this statement, that there 
are Brazilian ladies who would be recognized in the best 
society as women of the highest intelligence and culture. 
But they are the exceptions, as they inevitably must be 
under the present system of instruction, and they feel its 
influence upon their social position only the more bitterly. 
Indeed, many of the women I have known most intimate- 
ly here have spoken to me with deep regret of their limited, 
imprisoned existence. There is not a Brazilian senhora, 
who has ever thought about the subject at all, who is not 
aware that her life is one of repression and constraint. She 
cannot go out of her house, except under certain conditions, 
without awakening scandal. Her education leaves her 
wholly ignorant of the most common topics of a wider inter- 
est, though perhaps with a tolerable knowledge of French 
and music. The world of books is closed to her ; for there 
is little Portuguese literature into which she is allowed to 
look, and that of other languages is still less at her com- 
mand. She knows little of the history of her own country, 
almost nothing of that of others, and she is hardly aware 
that there is any religious faith except the uniform one 
of Brazil ; she has probably never heard of the Reforma- 
tion, nor does she dream that there is a sea of thought 
