Topic summary
Finishing schools
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Finishing school.
Graeme Donald claims that the educational ladies' salons of the late 19th century led to the formal finishing institutions common in Switzerland around that time. At the schools' peak, thousands of wealthy young women were sent to one of the dozens of finishing schools available, starting at age 16. The primary goals of such institutions were to teach students the skills necessary to attract a good husband and to become interesting socialites and wives.