[mobilefriendly]

Most of the Ivies were much more academically rigorous in the past. There were no ideological, unrigorous majors like Sociology or Gender Studies. Graduates were expected to read both Greek and Latin.

[cabalamat]

In the 19th century you could get a degree in Divinity, which is clearly ideological and unrigorous.

[eigenvalue]

Those divinity students at a good school in the 1800s were incredibly smart and erudite. Even if you think theology is wrong or silly, it doesn’t mean the people were silly.

[mplanchard]

Weirdly, I don’t think society and the role of gender in it are worthless topics of study, and I don’t think intellectual rigor should be measured primarily by knowledge of the languages that form the roots of the non-Germanic portion of English.

[ghaff]

While I'm equally skeptical of certain modern majors, I'm not convinced that just because the "educated Western man" (and, yes, we're mostly talking men) of the 19th century were expected to be well-versed in certain subjects doesn't mean there aren't better options for many today.

[pclmulqdq]

Almost all of those men went on to marry women who were also very well-educated on the classics. Education was about social class much more than gender.

The fact that we only hear about "great educated men" in the history books has more to do with a bias in society than with who actually got educated.