Aspasia

For my writing class we get the pleasure of reading a very different kind of text book. Most text books are very dry and are essentially just a list of a bunch of facts, this text book reads like somebody talking to you. The first chapter discusses many commonly heard names of scholars such as Pericles and and Socrates, but there was one name that had been completely unheard of to me and that was Aspasia.
Aspasia was a great teacher of rhetoric far beyond her years. But what was most interesting to me is that she actually opened a school of rhetoric and philosophy where she offered higher education to women! The classes were attended by many upper class women and men like Socrates. All in all, Aspasia was far before her time.