Joseph, maybe he means they were backwards because they took longer to realize that nowadays school is necessary for girls.
The answer is that the other places may have needed it sooner (because they were more exposed to the modern culture) and that is why they had it sooner.
On the same topic, sometimes people like to criticize more insulated Frum communities for being slower to take on modern solutions to problems. They forget that those same communities were also slower to have those problems (precisely because of that same insulation).
It is Time – I am not trying to imply that that was what you were doing here.