Women have reached summits throughout recorded history and their accomplishments have been touted by contemporaries as evidence that women could achieve greatness, contrary to accepted wisdom. But it has taken considerably longer for substantial numbers of women, not just a few tokens, to reach...

America led other nations by a wide margin in the provision of general, formal education to the masses and did so because of characteristics -virtues -that were shaped by New World endowments and republican ideology. Almost all of these virtues are now being questioned, and in the twenty-first...