Double word space between sentences a quaint Victorian habit?

So says Robert Bringhurst, in The Elements of Typographic Style:

In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victoria habit. As a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, a colon or any other mark of punctuation. Large spaces (e.g., en spaces) are themselves punctuation.