During most of the nineteenth century, many French women continued to be educated according to models long established by custom and religious tradition.
Central Topic / Purpose
The failure of the French Revolution to institute meaningful educational reform for women / to defend against criticism
Main Point
Even though reforms weren't enacted at the end of the Revolution, two progressive reforms were proposed, and those ultimately were valuable in the eventual reforms that came nearly 100 years later.
Passage Map
P1: Opposing point of view (French Revolution's failure to get real educational reform was a missed opportunity) + Author's Thesis P2: Summary of the two proposed reforms P3: Author's assessment of why they failed to be enacted but what ultimate value they still provided
Other Commentary
The first paragraph has a classic opening paragraph structure: Background / Opposing Point / Author's Pivot. And the last sentence of the first paragraph is pretty much the thesis (most common place to find it). However, we would also want to include the author's takeaways in the 3rd paragraph, that although these reforms couldn't initially break through the strong cultural headwinds, they laid down a precedent that was critical to eventually moving forward a century later.