Now, Ong discusses the spirit of education in Latin in his 1959 article "Latin Language Study as a Renaissance Puberty Rite." Our human ancestors instituted both male puberty rites and female puberty rites. However, I am not aware of any puberty rites for both boys and girls together.
Ong reprinted his 1959 article in his book RHETORIC, ROMANCE, AND TECHNOLOGY: STUDIES IN THE INTERACTION OF EXPRESSION AND CULTURE (1971, pages 113-141).
At that time, English women did not receive a university education. However, certain English women such as Queen Elizabeth and Thomas More's daughter learned Latin. As a young woman, Virginia Stephen did not receive a university education, just as young Elizabeth Tudor did not. But young Virginia Stephen studied Latin and Greek with tutors, just as young Elizabeth Tudor did.
In the spirit of turning lemons (no university education) into lemonade, Virginia Woolf as an adult writer at times turned her attention to certain writings by women who did not have a university education. For example, in her brief fragment of an essay "The Reader" she discusses Lady Anne Clifford's diary (pages 599-600).
Virginia Woolf herself was a dedicated diarist.
THE DIARY OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, edited by Anne Olivier Bell and assisted by Andrew McNellie, was published in five volumes between 1977 and 1984.
Virginia Woolf's earlier diary from 1897 to 1909 was not included, but it was subsequently published as A PASSIONATE APPRENTICE, edited by Mitchell A. Leaska (1990).
Virginia Woolf's autobiographical writings have been gathered together in the book MOMENTS OF BEING, edited with an introduction and notes by Jeanne Schulkind (2nd ed., 1985; 1st ed., 1976).
No doubt Virginia Woolf's novels contain autobiographical elements, as do most modern novels. Nevertheless, regardless of how much autobiographical material she may incorporate in her novels, they also obviously contain fictional elements that, strictly speaking, are not deliberate attempts at autobiography. On the contrary, they are deliberate attempts to sidestep autobiography. In effect, the deliberate fictional elements are attempts to enter into Anon's realm of impersonal storytelling.
In addition, THE LETTERS OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, edited by Nigel Nicolson with the assistance of Joanne Trautmann, were published in six volumes between 1975 and 1980.
Subsequently, additional letters came to light, many of which were also published.
In short, Virginia Woolf was a writer, which makes her tribute to Anon all the more impressive. I may be mistaken about this, but I do not detect a note of sentimentality in her essay "Anon." She does not come across as nostalgic for the world of Anon. But she does come across as enormously respectful of the world of Anon.
In "Anon" Virginia Woolf is aware of the educational tradition in Latin, but she centers her attention on vernacular English in "Anon" and "The Reader" -- and on the impact of the printing press. At one point in "Anon," she characterizes vernacular English as a mother tongue (page 592).
In contrast, Latin in medieval and Renaissance England could be characterized as a father tongue. It was a lingua franca, but it was not a living language that children would typically learn from their mothers as part of growing up.
In his book ORALITY AND LITERACY: THE TECHNOLOGIZING OF THE WORD (1982), Ong discusses mother tongues and various historical examples of learned second languages that could be characterized as father tongues, but not as mother tongues.
Male puberty rites and female puberty rites were instituted cross-culturally to help boys and girls, respectively, to separate from the world of childhood and move into the adult world. In terms of common stereotypes, the child's world of childhood is stereotypically thought of as the child's mother-world. By contrast, the adult world is stereotypically thought of as the father-world.
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