Until the 1860s, almost all Europeans viewed the United States as “primitive,” “backward,” or at least “undeveloped.” By 1900, however, many began to view it as the “Land of the Future” in terms of industry, urbanization, and democracy. One area where the United States appeared particularly “modern,” whether for good or ill, was that of female education and women’s rights. This paper, based on dozens of reports by foreign visitors to the USA between 1865 and 1914, as well as broad reading in European debates about girls’ schooling before World War I, will examine how Europeans perceived and misperceived, used and misused, American models in this era. Of particular interest will be three themes: the difficulty in defining what American institutions qualified as “secondary,” the great ambivalence expressed with regard to coeducation, and the concerns raised about the dominance of women teachers in American schools.