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Title: Woman in Science

Author: J. A. Zahm

Release date: January 11, 2011 [eBook #34912]

Language: English

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WOMAN IN SCIENCE
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
ON WOMAN'S LONG STRUGGLE
FOR THINGS OF THE MIND

BY

H. J. MOZANS, A.M., Ph.D.
AUTHOR OF "UP THE ORINOCO AND DOWN THE MAGDALENA,"
"ALONG THE ANDES AND DOWN THE AMAZON," ETC.

Que e piu bella in donna que savere?

Dante, Convito.

NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1913

Copyright, 1913, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

TO
MRS. CHARLES M. SCHWAB
AS A SLIGHT TRIBUTE
TO HER CHARMING PERSONALITY
GOODNESS OF HEART AND NOBILITY OF SOUL
THIS VOLUME
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

WITH THE BEST WISHES OF
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE
The following pages are the outcome of studies begun many years ago in
Greece and Italy. While wandering through the famed and picturesque land
of the Hellenes, rejoicing in the countless beauties of the islands of the
Ionian and Ægean seas or scaling the heights of Helicon and Parnassus, all
so redolent of the storied past, I saw on every side tangible evidence of that
marvelous race of men and women whose matchless achievements have
been the delight and inspiration of the world for nearly three thousand
years. But it was especially while contemplating, from the portico of the
Parthenon, the magnificent vista which there meets the charmed vision, that
I first fully experienced the spell of the favored land of Hellas, so long the
home of beauty and of intellect. The scene before me was indeed
enchanting beyond expression; for, every ruin, every marble column, every
rock had its history, and evoked the most precious memories of men of
godlike thoughts and of

"A thousand glorious actions that may claim
Triumphal laurels and immortal fame."

It was a tranquil and balmy night in midsummer. The sun, leaving a
gorgeous afterglow, had about an hour before disappeared behind the azure-
veiled mountains of Ithaca, where, in the long ago, lived and loved the hero
and the heroine of the incomparable Odyssey. The full moon, just rising
above the plain of Marathon, intensified the witchery of that memorable
spot consecrated by the valor of patriots battling victoriously against the
invading hordes of Asia. Hard by was the Areopagus, where St. Paul
preached to the "superstitious" Athenians on "The Unknown God." Almost
adjoining it was the Agora, where Socrates was wont to hold converse with
noble and simple on the sublimest questions which can engage the human
mind. Not distant was the site of the celebrated "Painted Porch," where
Zeno developed his famous system of ethics. In another quarter were the
shady walks of the Lyceum, where Aristotle, "the master of those who
know," lectured before an admiring concourse of students from all parts of
Hellas. Farther afield, on the banks of the Cephissus, was the grove of

Academus, where the divine Plato expounded that admirable idealism
which, with Aristotelianism, has controlled the progress of speculative
thought for more than twenty centuries, and enunciated those admirable
doctrines which have become the common heritage of humanity.
But where, in this venerable city—"the eye of Greece, mother of arts and
eloquence"—was the abode of Aspasia, the wife of Pericles and the inspirer
of the noblest minds of the Golden Age of Grecian civilization? Where was
that salon, renowned these four and twenty centuries as the most brilliant
court of culture the world has ever known, wherein this gifted and
accomplished daughter of Miletus gathered about her the most learned men
and women of her time? Whatever the location, there it was that the wit and
talent of Attica found a congenial trysting-place, and human genius burst
into fairest blossom. There it was that poets, sculptors, painters, orators,
philosophers, statesmen were all equally at home. There Socrates
discoursed on philosophy; there Euripides and Sophocles read their plays;
there Anaxagoras dilated upon the nature and constitution of the universe;
there Phidias, the greatest sculptor of all time, and Ictinus and Callicrates
unfolded their plans for that supreme creation of architecture, the temple of
Athena Parthenos on the Acropolis. Like Michaelangelo, long centuries
afterwards, who "saw with the eyes and acted by the inspiration" of Vittoria
Colonna, these masters of Greek architecture and sculpture saw with the
eyes and acted by the sublime promptings of Aspasia, who was the greatest
patron and inspirer of men of genius the world has ever known.
I felt then, as I feel now, that this superb monument to the virgin goddess of
wisdom and art and science was in great measure a monument to the one
who by her quick intelligence, her profound knowledge, her inspiration, her
patronage, her influence, had so much to do with its erection—the wise, the
cultured, the richly dowered Aspasia.
This thought it was that started the train of reflections on the intellectual
achievements of women which eventually gave rise to the idea of writing a
book on woman's work in things of the mind.
The following day, as I was entering the University of Athens, I noticed
above the stately portal a large and beautiful painting which, on inspection,
proved, to my great delight, to be nothing less than a pictorial

representation of my musings the night before on the portico of the
Parthenon. For there was Aspasia, just as I had fancied her in her salon,
seated beside Pericles, and surrounded by the greatest and the wisest men of
Greece. "This," I exclaimed, "shall be the frontispiece of my book; it will
tell more than many pages of text." Nor did I rest till I had procured a copy
of this excellent work of art.
Shortly after my journey through Greece I visited the chief cities and towns
of Italy. I traversed the whole of Magna Græcia and, to enjoy the local color
of things Grecian and breathe, as far as might be, the atmosphere which
once enveloped the world's greatest thinkers, I stood on the spot in Syracuse
where Plato discoursed on the true, the beautiful and the good, before
enthusiastic audiences of men and women, and wandered through the land
inhabited by the ancient Bruttii, where Pythagoras has his famous school of
science and philosophy—a school which was continued after the founder's
death by his celebrated wife, Theano. For in Crotona, as well as in Athens,
and in Alexandria in the time of Hypatia, women were teachers as well as
scholars, and attained to marked distinction in every branch of intellectual
activity.
As I visited, one after the other, what were once the great centers of
learning and culture in Magna Græcia, the idea of writing the book
aforementioned appealed to me more strongly from day to day, but it did
not assume definite form until after I had tarried for some weeks or months
in each of the great university towns of Italy. And as I wended my way
through the almost deserted streets of Salerno, which was for centuries one
of the noblest seats of learning in Christendom, and recalled the
achievements of its gifted daughters—those wonderful mulieres
Salernitanæ, whose praises were once sounded throughout Europe, but
whose names have been almost forgotten—I began to realize, as never
before, that women of intellectual eminence have received too little credit
for their contributions to the progress of knowledge, and should have a
sympathetic historian of what they have achieved in the domain of learning.
But it was not until after I had visited the great university towns of Bologna,
Padua and Pavia, had become more familiar with their fascinating histories
and traditions, and surveyed there the scenes of the great scholastic
triumphs of women as students and professors, that I fully realized the

importance, if not the necessity, of such a work as I had in contemplation.
For then, as when standing in silent meditation on the pronaos of the
Parthenon, the past seemed to become present, and the graceful figures of
those illustrious daughters of Italia la Bella, who have conferred such honor
on both their country and on womankind throughout the world, seemed to
flit before me as they returned to and from their lecture halls and
laboratories, where their discourses, in flowing Latin periods, had
commanded the admiration and the applause of students from every
European country, from the Rock of Cashel to the Athenian Acropolis.
Only then did the magnitude and the difficulty of my self-imposed task
begin to dawn upon me. I saw that it would be impossible, if I were to do
justice to the subject, to compass in a single volume anything like an
adequate account of the contributions of women to the advancement of
general knowledge. I accordingly resolved to restrict my theme and confine
myself to an attempt to show what an important rôle women have played in
the development of those branches of knowledge in which they are usually
thought to have had but little part.
The subject of my book thus, by a process of elimination, narrowed its
scope to woman's achievements in science. Many works in various
languages had been written on what women had accomplished in art,
literature, and state-craft, and there was, therefore, no special call for a new
volume on any of these topics. But, with the exception of a few brief
monographs in German, French and Italian, and an occasional magazine
article here and there, practically nothing had been written about woman in
science. The time, then, seemed opportune for entering upon a field that had
thus far been almost completely neglected; and, although I soon discovered
that the labor involved would be far greater than I had anticipated, I never
lost sight of the work which had its virtual inception in the peerless
sanctuary of Pallas Athena in the "City of the Violet Crown."
Duties and occupations innumerable have retarded the progress of the work.
But not the least cause of delay has been the difficulty of locating the
material essential to the production of a volume that would do even partial
justice to the numerous topics requiring treatment. My experience, parva
componere magnis, was not unlike that of Dr. Johnson, who tells us in the
preface to his Dictionary of the English Language, "I saw that one inquiry

only gave occasion to another, that book referred to book, that to search was
not always to find, and that thus to pursue perfection was, like the first
inhabitants of Arcadia, to chase the sun, which, when they reached the hill
where he seemed to rest, was still beheld at the same distance from them."
Although I have endeavored to give a place in this work to all women who
have achieved special distinction in science, it is not unlikely that I may
have inadvertently overlooked some, particularly among those of recent
years, who were deserving of mention. Should this be the case, I shall be
grateful for information which will enable me to correct such oversights and
render the volume, should there be a demand for more than one edition,
more complete and serviceable. And, although I have striven to be as
accurate as possible in all my statements, I can scarcely hope, in traversing
so broad a field, to have been wholly successful. For all shortcomings,
whether through omission or commission,

"Quas aut incuria fudit,
Aut humana parum cavit natura,"

I crave the reader's indulgence, and trust that the present volume will have
at least the merit of stimulating some ambitious young Whewell to explore
more thoroughly the interesting field that I have but partially reconnoitred,
and give us ere long an adequate and comprehensive history of the
achievements of woman, not only in the inductive but in all the sciences.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE

I. Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind 1

II. Woman's Capacity for Scientific Pursuits 106

III. Women in Mathematics 136

IV. Women in Astronomy 167

V. Women in Physics 197

VI. Women in Chemistry 214

VII. Women in the Natural Sciences 233

VIII. Women in Medicine and Surgery 266

IX. Women in Archæology 309

X. Women as Inventors 334

XI. Women as Inspirers and Collaborators in Science 356

XII. The Future of Women in Science: Summary and Epilogue 390

Bibliography 419

Index 427

Le donne son venute in excellenza
Di ciascun'arte, ove hanno posta cura;
E qualunque all'istorie abbia avvertenza,
Ne sente ancor la fama non oscura.

What art so deep, what science so high,
But worthy women have thereto attained?
Who list in stories old to look may try,
And find my speech herein not false nor fain'd.

Ariosto, Orlando Furioso,
Canto XX, Strophe 2.

Ad omnem igitur doctrinam ... muliebres animos natura
comparavit.

Maria Gaetana Agnesi.

WOMAN IN SCIENCE

CHAPTER I
WOMAN'S LONG STRUGGLE FOR THINGS OF THE
MIND

WOMAN AND EDUCATION IN ANCIENT GREECE

I purpose to review the progress and achievements of woman in science
from her earliest efforts in ancient Greece down to the present time. I shall
relate how, in every department of natural knowledge, when not inhibited
by her environment, she has been the colleague and the emulatress, if not
the peer, of the most illustrious men who have contributed to the increase
and diffusion of human learning. But a proper understanding of this subject
seems to require some preliminary survey of the many and diverse obstacles
which, in every age of the world's history, have opposed woman's
advancement in general knowledge. Without such preliminary survey it is
impossible to realize the intensity of her age-long struggle for freedom and
justice in things of the mind or fully to appreciate the comparative liberty
and advantages she now enjoys in almost every department of intellectual
activity. Neither could one understand why woman's achievements in
science, compared with those of men, have been so few and of so small
import, especially in times past, or why it is that, as a student of nature or as
an investigator in the various realms of pure and applied science, we hear so
little of her before the second half of the nineteenth century.
To exhibit the nature of the difficulties woman has had to contend with in
every age and in every land, in order to secure what we now consider her
inalienable rights to things of the mind, it is not necessary to review the
history of female education, or to enter into the details of her gradual
progress forward and upward in the New and Old Worlds. But it is
necessary that we should know what was the attitude of mankind toward
woman's education during the leading epochs of the world's history and
what were, until almost our own day, the opinions of men—scholars and
rulers included—respecting the nature and the duties of woman and what

was considered, almost by all, her proper sphere of action. Understanding
the numerous and cruel handicaps which she had so long to endure, the
opposition to her aspirations which she had to encounter, even during the
most enlightened periods of the world's history, and that, too, from those
who should have been the first to extend to her a helping hand, we can the
better appreciate the extent of her recent intellectual enfranchisement and of
the value of the work she has accomplished since she has been free to
exercise those God-given faculties which were so long held in restraint.
The first great bar to the mental development of woman was the assumed
superiority of the male sex, the opinion, so generally accepted, that, in the
scheme of creation, woman was but "an accident, an imperfection, an error
of nature"; that she was either a slave conducing to man's comfort, or, at
best, a companion ministering to his amusement and pleasure.
From the earliest times she was regarded as man's inferior and relegated to a
subordinate position in society. She was, so it was averred, but a diminutive
man—a kind of mean between the lord of creation and the rest of the
animal kingdom. By some she was considered a kind of half man; by
others, as was cynically asserted, she was looked upon as a mas
occasionatus—a man marred in the making. She was, both mentally and
physically, what Spencer would call a man whose evolution had been
arrested, while man, as in the modern language of Darwin, was a woman,
whose evolution had been completed.
When such views prevailed, it was inevitable that, so long as physical force
was the force majeure, a woman should be relegated to the position of a
slave or to that of "a mere glorified toy." Every man then said, in effect, if
not in words, of the woman who happened to be in his power what
Petruchio said of Katherine:

"I will be master of what is mine own,
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my everything."

Even after civilization had superseded savagery and barbarism, it was still
inevitable, so long as such views found acceptance, that woman should

continue to be held in vassalage and ignorance and to suffer all the
disabilities and privations of "the lesser man." She was studiously excluded
from civic and social functions and compelled to pass her life in the
restricted quarters of the harem or gyneceum. This was the case among the
Athenians, as well as among other peoples; for, during the most brilliant
period of their history, women, when not slaves or hetæræ, were considered
simply child-bearers or housekeepers.[1] A girl's education, when she
received any at all, was limited to reading, writing and music, and for a
knowledge of these subjects she was dependent on her mother. From her
earliest years the Athenian maiden was made to realize that the great
fountains of knowledge, which were always available for her brothers, were
closed to her. Her duty was to become proficient in the use of the needle
and the distaff, and, later on, to learn how to embroider, to ply the loom and
make garments for herself and for the other members of her family.
Until she was seven years old, she was brought up with her brothers under
the eye of her mother. During this period of childhood she had a certain
amount of freedom, but, after her seventh year, she was kept in the
gyneconitis—women's quarters—"under the strictest restraint, in order," as
Xenophon informs us in his Œconomicus, "that she might see as little, hear
as little and ask as few questions as possible." On rare occasions she was
permitted to be a spectator at a religious procession, or to take part in
certain of the choral dances that constituted so important a part in the
religious ceremonies of ancient Greece. Whether in public or in private,
silence was always considered an imperative duty for a woman.
But more than this. Not only was she expected to observe silence herself,
but she was also expected so to conduct herself that no one would have
occasion to speak about her. Pericles, in a celebrated discourse, gave
expression to the prevailing opinion regarding this phase of female
excellence when, on a notable occasion, he addressed to a certain number of
women the following words: "Great will be your glory in not falling short
of your natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of
among men whether for good or for evil."[2]
From the foregoing observations it will be seen that the general attitude of
the Athenians toward woman was anything but favorable to her intellectual
development, or to her exerting any influence beyond the limits of her own

household. And what is said of the Greeks can be affirmed, with still greater
emphasis, of the other nations of antiquity. Indeed, it can be safely asserted
that, had they all entered into a solemn compact systematically to discredit
woman's mental capacity and to repress all her noblest aspirations, they
could not have succeeded more effectually than by the methods they
severally adopted. In ancient Greece the condition of woman was little
better than it is in India to-day under the law of Manu, where the husband,
no matter how unworthy he may be, must be regarded by the wife as a god.
And yet, notwithstanding the dominant force of public opinion and the
strange traditional prejudices that possessed for the majority of people all
the semblance and commanding power of truth, woman was here and there
able to break through the barriers that impeded her progress in her quest of
knowledge and to defy the social conventions that precluded her from being
seen or heard in the intellectual arena.
One of the first and most notable of Greek women to assert her
independence and to emerge from the intellectual eclipse which had so long
kept her sex in obscurity, was the Lesbian Sappho, who, as a lyric poet,
stands, even to-day, without a superior. So great was her renown among the
ancients that she was called "The Poetess," as Homer was called "The
Poet." Solon, on hearing one of her songs sung at a banquet, begged the
singer to teach it to him at once that he might learn it and die. Aristotle did
not hesitate to endorse a judgment that ranked her with Homer and
Archilochus, while Plato, in his Phædrus, exalts her still higher by
proclaiming her "the tenth Muse." Horace and Ovid and Catullus strove to
reproduce her passionate strains and rhythmic beauty; but their efforts were
little better than paraphrase and feeble imitation. Her features were stamped
on coins, "though she was but a woman," and, after her death, altars were
raised and temples erected in honor of this "flower of the Graces," of

"That mighty songstress, whose unrivaled powers
Weave for the Muse a crown of deathless flowers."

Second only to the "violet-crowned, pure, sweetly-smiling Sappho," as her
rival, Alcæus, calls her, were Gorgo, Andromeda and Corinna. The last of
these was the teacher of Pindar, the celebrated lyric poet, whom she
defeated five times in poetic contests in Thebes.[3] She was one of the nine

lyrical muses, corresponding to "the celestial nine," who dwelt on the
sacred slopes of Helicon.[4] Telesilla and Praxilla were two others. The last
named was by her countrymen ranked with Anacreon.
Scarcely inferior to Corinna were those ardent pupils of Sappho, who had
flocked from the sunny isles of the Ægean and the laurel-crowned hills of
Greece around "the fair-haired Lesbian" in her island home, which was, at
the same time, a school of poetry and music. The most gifted of these were
Danophila, the Pamphylian, and Erinna, whose hexameters were said by the
ancients to reveal a genius equal to that of Homer. She died at the early age
of nineteen and has always excited a pathetic interest because, like so many
others of her sex since her time—women and maidens of the loftiest
spiritual aspirations,—she was condemned to the spindle and the distaff
when she wished to devote her life to the service of the Muses. The
following is her own epitaph:

"These are Erinna's songs, how sweet, though slight!
For she was but a girl of nineteen years.
Yet stronger far than what most men can write;
Had death delayed, whose fame had equaled hers?"

Never before nor since did such a wave of feminine genius pass over the
fragrant valleys and vine-clad plains of Greece. Never in any other place or
time shone so brilliant a galaxy of women of talent and imagination; never
was there a more perfect flowering of female intelligence of the highest
order. According to tradition, there appeared in the favored land of Hellas,
when the entire population of the country was not equal to that of a fair-
sized modern city, within the brief space of a century, no fewer than
seventy-six women poets. When we remember that the Renaissance
produced only about sixty female poets, though in a more extended territory
and with a much larger population, and that none of them could approach
the incomparable Sappho, or even many of her pupils, in the perfection of
their work, we can realize the splendor of the achievements of the female
intellect in the Hellenic world during the golden age of feminine poetic art.
[5]

One would think that this phenomenal outburst of mental vigor, and
especially the marvelous achievements of Sappho, Corinna and those of

their pupils and followers, would have compelled the world for all
subsequent time to recognize the innate power of the female mind, and
perceive the wisdom—not to say justice—of according to women the same
advantages for the development of their inborn gifts as were afforded to
men. They had proved that, under favorable conditions, there was
essentially no difference between the male and the female intellect, and that
genius knows no sex. And this they demonstrated not only in poetry, but
also in philosophy and in other branches of human knowledge as well.
Among those who had especially distinguished themselves were
Hipparchia, the wife of the philosopher Crates; Themista, the wife of Leon
and a correspondent of Epicurus, who was pronounced "a sort of female
Solon"; Perictione, a disciple of Pythagoras, who distinguished herself by
her writings on Wisdom and The Harmony of Woman, and Leontium, a
disciple and companion of Epicurus, who wrote a work against
Theophrastus, which was pronounced by Cicero a model of style.
And was not the school of Pythagoras at Crotona continued after his death
by his daughter and his wife, Theano? And did not this fact alone manifest
woman's capacity for abstract thought, as effectively as the Lesbian school
had demonstrated her talent for consummate verse?[6]
But it was all to no purpose. The comparative freedom and advantages
which Sappho, Corinna and their friends had enjoyed was soon—for some
reason scarcely comprehensible by us—taken from all the women of
Greece except the peculiar class known in history as hetæræ—companions.
These we should now rank among the demimonde, but the Greek point of
view was different from ours. The hetæræ were the friends and companions
of the men who spent most of their time in public resorts, and they
accompanied them to the gymnasium, to banquets, the games, to the theater
and other similar assemblies from which the wives and daughters of the
Athenians, during the golden age of Greece, were rigorously excluded. For
so great was the seclusion in which the wives of the Greeks then lived that
they never attended public spectacles and never left the house, unless
accompanied by a female slave. They were not permitted to see men except
in the presence of their husbands, nor could they have a seat even at their
own tables, if their husbands happened to have male guests.

It was by reason of this strict seclusion and the enforced ignorance to which
they were subjected that we hear very little of the virtuous women of this
period of Greek history. We have records of a few instances of filial and
conjugal affection, but, outside of this, the names of the wives and
daughters of even the most distinguished citizens have long since passed
into oblivion. Only the hetæræ attracted public notice, and only among
them, during the period to which reference is now made, do we find any
women who achieved distinction by their intellectual attainments, or by the
influence which they exerted over those with whom they were associated.
But strange as it may appear, these extra-matrimonial connections, far from
incurring the censure which they would now provoke, received the cordial
recognition of both legislators and moralists, and even those who were
considered the most virtuous among men openly entered into these relations
without exposing themselves to the slightest stigma or reproach. Many of
the hetæræ, contrary to what is sometimes thought, were "of highly moral
character, temperate, thoughtful and earnest, and were either unattached or
attached to one man, and to all intents and purposes married. Even if they
had two or three attachments but behaved in other respects with temperance
and sobriety, such was the Greek feeling in regard to their peculiar position
that they did not bring down upon themselves any censure from even the
sternest of the Greek moralists."[7]
The most famous men of Greece, married as well as unmarried, had their
"companions," many of whom were as distinguished for their
accomplishments as for their wit and beauty. Thus Epicurus had Leontium,
Menander Glycera, Isocrates Metaneira, Aristotle Herpyllis, and Plato
Archlanassa, while Aristippus, the philosopher, Diogenes, the cynic, and
Demosthenes, the great orator, each had a companion bearing the name of
Lais.[8] More than this. So strongly had many of the hetæræ impressed
themselves on the esthetic sense of the beauty-loving Greeks that not a few
of them had statues erected in their honor, especially in Athens and Corinth,
and thus shared in the honor that hitherto had been reserved exclusively for
the goddess of beauty and love, fair Aphrodite.
The hetæræ from Ionia and Ætolia were particularly conspicuous for their
intelligence and culture. And all of them, whencesoever they came, enjoyed
unrestricted liberty and, unlike the wives of the citizens of Athens, had free

access to the Portico and the Academy and the Lyceum, and were permitted
to attend the lectures of the philosophers on the same footing as the men.
Thus, to mention only a few, Thais was a pupil of Alciphron, Nicarete of
Stilpo, and Lasthenia of Plato.
And so keen were their intellects and so marked was their progress in the
most abstract studies, that many of them were recognized as the most
distinguished pupils of their masters. This accounts, in part, for the
popularity of their salons, at which were gathered the most eminent
statesmen, poets, artists, philosophers and orators of the day. The nearest
approach in modern times to such trysting-places, where beauty, wit and
talent found a congenial atmosphere, were the celebrated salons of Ninon
de Lenclos, Mlle. de l'Espinasse and Mme. du Deffand. At these reunions
were discussed, not only the news of the day, but also, and especially, art,
science, literature and politics, and always to the advantage of both guests
and hostesses.
Possessing such freedom and enjoying such splendid opportunities for
culture and intellectual advancement, it is not surprising that the hetæræ
played so remarkable a rôle in the social and civic life of Greece, and that
they were able to wield such influence over their associates, and that they
often attained even the highest royal honors. Nor is it surprising to read in
Plato's Symposium the splendid tribute which Socrates renders to Diotima
of Mantinea, when, in discussing the true nature of divine and eternal
beauty, he speaks of her as his teacher.
Many of the hetæræ were not only the models but also the inspirers of the
most famous painters and sculptors of antiquity. Thus, Lais was the
companion and inspirer of Apelles, the most noted painter of Greece, while
Phryne, said to have been the most beautiful woman who ever lived, was
the inspirer of the peerless Praxitiles, who, in reproducing her form,
succeeded in bequeathing to the world what was undoubtedly the most
lovely representation of "the human form divine" that ever came from a
sculptor's chisel.[9]
On account of the relations of the hetæræ, especially those of the fourth and
fifth centuries B.C., with the greatest men of their time, the writers of
antiquity thought them of sufficient importance to preserve their history.

One author has left us an account of no fewer than one hundred and thirty-
five of them. But, of all those whose names have come down to us, by far
the most noted, accomplished and influential was the famous Aspasia of
Miletus. In many respects she was the most remarkable woman Greece ever
produced. Of rare talent and culture, of extraordinary tact and finesse, of a
fascinating personality combined with the grace and sensibility of her sex,
together with a masculine power of intellect, "this gracious Ionian," as has
well been said, "stands with Sappho on the pinnacle of Hellenic culture,
each in her own field the highest feminine representative of an esthetic
race."
At an early age she won the passionate love of the great statesman Pericles,
after which she entered upon that marvelous career which secured for her a
place in the front rank of the most eminent women of all time. "Her house
became the resort of all the great men of Athens. Socrates was often there.
Phidias and Anaxagoras were intimate acquaintances, and probably
Sophocles and Euripides were in constant attendance. Indeed, never had
any woman such a salon in the whole history of man. The greatest sculptor
that ever lived, the grandest man of all antiquity, philosophers and poets,
sculptors and painters, statesmen and historians, met each other and
discussed congenial subjects in her rooms. And probably hence has arisen
the tradition that she was the teacher of Socrates in philosophy and politics,
and Pericles in rhetoric. Her influence was such as to stimulate men to their
best, and they attributed to her all that was best in themselves. Aspasia
seems especially to have thought earnestly on the duties and destiny of
women. The cultivated men who thronged her assemblies had no hesitation
in breaking through the conventionalities of Athenian society, and brought
their wives to the parties of Aspasia; and she discussed with them the duties
of wives. She thought they should be something more than mere mothers
and housewives. She urged them to cultivate their minds, and be in all
respects fit companions for their husbands."[10]
She is said to have written some of the best speeches of Pericles—among
them his noted funeral oration over those who had died in battle before the
walls of Potidæa. As to Socrates, he himself explicitly refers to her, in the
Memorabilia, as his teacher. She is a notable character in the Socratic
dialogues and appears several times in those of Æschines, while there is
every reason to believe that she strongly influenced the views of Plato, as

expressed by him in the Republic respecting the equality of woman with
man.
She was continually consulted regarding affairs of state, and her influence
in social and political matters was profound and far-reaching. This is
evidenced by the abuse heaped upon her by the comic dramatists of the
time. Referring to the ascendancy which she had over Pericles, she was
called Dejanira, the wife of Hercules; Hera, the queen of the gods and wife
of the Olympian Jove. It was asserted by her enemies that the Samian war
had been brought about at her instigation and that the Peloponnesian war
had been undertaken to avenge an insult which had been offered her. These
and similar statements which, when not absurd, were greatly exaggerated,
show the boundless influence she wielded over Pericles, and what an
important part she took in the government of Greece in the zenith of its
glory.
But, however great her influence, we are warranted in asserting that it was
never exercised in an illegitimate manner. She was ever, as history informs
us, the good, the wise, the learned, the eloquent Aspasia. It was her
goodness, her wisdom, her rare and varied accomplishments, her clear
insight and noble purposes that gave her the wonderful power she possessed
and which enabled her, probably more than any one person, to make the age
of Pericles not only the most brilliant age of Greek history, but also the
most brilliant age of all time.[11]
But, notwithstanding the beneficent influence which Aspasia ever exerted
on those about her, notwithstanding the heroic efforts she had made to
liberate her own sex from the restrictions that had so long harassed and
degraded it, the wives and daughters of the citizens of Athens were still kept
in almost absolute seclusion and denied the opportunities of mental culture
which were so generously accorded the free-born hetæræ from Asia Minor
and the islands of the Ægean. Socrates, as we learn from Xenophon,
asserted woman's equality with man, while Plato taught that mentally there
was no essential difference between man and woman. He concluded,
accordingly, that women of talent should have the same educational
advantages as men. In The Republic as well as in the Laws, when he refers
to education—which he would make compulsory for "all and sundry, as far
as possible"—his views are far in advance of those which have been

entertained until the last half century. He would have girls as well as boys
thoroughly instructed in music and gymnastic—"music for the mind and
gymnastic for the body."[12]
In the Laws he contends that "women ought to share, as far as possible, in
education and in other ways with men. For consider:—if women do not
share in their whole life with men, then they must have some other order of
life."
Again he asserts "Nothing can be more absurd than the practice which
prevails in our own country of men and women not following the same
pursuits with all their strength and with one mind, for thus the state, instead
of being a whole, is reduced to a half."[13]
In The Republic he expresses the same idea when he affirms that "the gifts
of nature are alike diffused in both"—men and women—"all the pursuits of
men are the pursuits of women."[14]
These opinions of Socrates and Plato are so at variance with those of their
contemporaries, and so contrary to the custom that then obtained of
excluding all but free-born hetæræ from the advantages of education and
culture, that we cannot but think that they were due to the profound
influence which had been exercised directly or indirectly by Aspasia on
both of these great philosophers. Be this as it may, neither the efforts of
Aspasia nor the teachings of Socrates and Plato were able to remove the
bars to intellectual development from which the women of Greece had so
long suffered. A change in customs and laws concerning the rigid, oriental
seclusion of women did not come until much later, and then it was under a
new régime—that of the Cæsars—while complete equality of men and
women in school and college was not recognized until long centuries
afterward.
It is interesting to speculate regarding what Greece would have become had
she developed her women as she developed her men. Never in the history of
the world were there in any one city so many eminent men—poets, orators,
statesmen, painters, sculptors, architects, philosophers—as in Athens, and
yet not a single native-born Athenian woman ever attained the least
distinction in any department of art or science or literature. We cannot

conceive for a moment that Greece's fertility in great men and barrenness in
great women was due to the fact that the mothers of such illustrious men
were ordinary housewives and entirely devoid of the talent and genius
which gave immortality to their distinguished sons. The careers of Aspasia
and the achievements of Sappho, Corinna, Myrtides, Erinna, Praxilla,
Telesilla, Myrus, Anytæ and Nossidis, Theano and her daughter, to mention
no others, absolutely preclude such an assumption.
The women in Greece, there can be no doubt about it, were as richly
endowed by nature as were the men, and only lacked the opportunities that
men enjoyed to achieve, in every sphere of intellectual activity, a
corresponding measure of success. They were extraordinary types, these
women of ancient Greece; for among them we find the dignified Roman
matron, the chatelaine of the Middle Ages, the brilliant woman of the
Renaissance and the cultured mistress of the French salon. But all their
talent, power and genius counted for naught.
Had the civilization of Greece been a woman's civilization, as well as a
man's civilization, had there been a federation of all the Greek states, as
Aspasia seems to have striven for, instead of a number of small and
independent city-states; had the women of Hellas been allowed the same
liberty of action in intellectual work as was granted to the Italian women
during and after the revival of letters, and had they been encouraged to
develop all their latent powers that were so systematically suppressed, and
to work in unison with the men for the welfare and advancement of a united
nation, it is difficult to imagine what a dazzling intellectual zenith a
supremely gifted people, "full summ'd in all their powers," would have
attained. Their capacity for work and for achieving great things would have
been doubled and their power as a political organization would have been
practically irresistible.
"We are the only women that bring forth men," said Gorgo, the wife of
Leonidas. The Spartan mothers, who had more of liberty than their
Athenian sisters, did, indeed, bring forth warriors of undying renown; but it
was the mothers of Athens who, notwithstanding all their grievous
disabilities, gave to the world all the greatest masters in art, literature, and
philosophy—the men who through the ages have been the leaders and the

teachers of humanity, and who seem destined to hold their exalted position
until the end of time.
The failure of the men of Greece to avail themselves of the immense
potential power, which they always kept latent in their women, was the
occasion of a terrible nemesis in the end. For this failure, coupled with the
frightful license introduced by a class of educated women, like the hetæræ,
without legal status or domestic ties, and the wave of corruption that
subsequently followed the advent of the countless dissolute women who
flocked to the Hellenic cities from every part of the East, paved the way for
the nation's downfall and for its ultimate conquest by the resistless Roman
legions that swept the once glorious but ill-fated country of Pericles and
Aspasia.

WOMAN AND EDUCATION IN ANCIENT ROME

The condition of women in Rome, especially from 150 B.C. to 150 A.D.,
was quite different from what it was in Athens, even during her palmiest
days. Owing to the lack of authentic documents we know but little of the
history of the Roman people during the first five hundred years of their
existence, but we do know that during this period many and important
changes were effected regarding the social and civil status of women.
In the first place the Roman matron had much more freedom than was
accorded the Greek wife during the age of Pericles. Far from being kept in
oriental seclusion, like her Athenian sister, she was at liberty to receive and
dine with the friends of her husband, and to appear in public whenever she
desired. She went to the theater and the Forum; she took part in all
reputable entertainment, whether public or private. Besides this, she had
more and greater legal rights than Greek women had ever known, and was
treated rather as the peer and companion of man than as his toy or his slave.
Besides this, foreign women were never so conspicuous in Rome as in
Athens. Even after Greece had become a Roman province, and after Græcia
capta Romam cepit—when Greek ideas and Greek customs were introduced
into the capital of the Roman world—it was still the Roman matron that
was supreme. And, although many Greek women, some of them of rare
beauty and culture, found their way to Rome, especially under the empire,

they were always kept in the background and never succeeded in achieving
anything approaching the ascendancy which distinguished them during the
time of Aspasia. Their influence in literature and politics was almost nil.
In the case of the women of Rome, on the contrary, it may well be
questioned whether woman has ever wielded a greater influence than she
did during the three centuries that followed the reign of Augustus. But she
did not attain to this position of preëminence without a long and bitter
struggle. Every advance toward the goal of social and intellectual equality
was strenuously contested by the men, who wished to limit the activities of
their wives to the spindle, the distaff and the loom and the other occupations
of the household. For, as in Greece, the generally accepted view was that
woman, in the language of Gibbon, "was created to please and obey. She
was never supposed to have reached the age of reason or experience." And
her noblest epitaph, it was averred, was couched in the following words:
"She was gentle, pious, loved her husband, was skillful at the
loom and a good housekeeper."[15]
As to her mental work, far from being considered on its own merits or as a
factor in the world's growth, it was flouted as

"Mere woman's work
Expressing the comparative respect
Which means the absolute scorn."

As early as 450 B.C., when the laws of the Twelve Tables were
promulgated, the girls of Rome received instruction in reading, writing and
arithmetic. "Up before dawn, with a lamp to light the way, and an attendant
to carry her satchel, the little Roman maiden of seven years, or over, would
trudge off to the portico where the schoolmaster wielded his rod.[16] For
some years this life continued, with but few holidays, and those far
between, until she attained some proficiency in the rudiments. Then, most
probably, her education in the scholastic sense came to an end. Her brothers
and boy schoolmates, if their parents wished it, could proceed from the
primary school to the secondary, where geography, history and ethics were
taught; where the art of elocution was assiduously practiced and the works
of the great Greek and Roman poets were carefully read and expounded;

but it was enough for the girl to have learned how to read, write and cipher;
she had then to learn her domestic duties."[17]
With the extension of the empire and the consequent enormous increase in
wealth and the rapid progress in social and intellectual freedom, there was a
notable change in the character of the education given to women, at least to
those of the wealthier and patrician families. This was, in great measure,
due to the wave of Hellenism which, shortly after the conquest of Greece,
broke upon the Roman capital with such irresistible force. To the large and
rapidly increasing number of women of keen intellect and lofty aspirations,
whose minds had hitherto been confined to the comparatively barren field
of Roman letters, the splendid creations of Greek genius came as a
revelation. To become thoroughly versed in Greek poetry and proficient in
the teachings of Greek philosophy was the ambition of scores of Roman
women, who soon became noted for the extent and variety of their
attainments, as well as for their rare culture and charming personality.
Among the pioneers of the intellectual movement in Rome, and one of the
most beautiful types of the learned women of her time, was the celebrated
daughter of the elder Scipio Africanus—Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi.
She is famous on account of her devotion to her two sons, Tiberius and
Caius. She was their teacher; and it was her educated and refined mind that,
more than anything else, contributed to the formation of those splendid
characters for which they were so highly esteemed by their countrymen.
Plutarch informs us that these noble sons of a noble mother "were brought
up by her so carefully that they became beyond dispute the most
accomplished of Roman youth; and, thus, they owed perhaps more to their
excellent upbringing than to their natural parts."[18] One is not surprised to
learn that this noble lady was almost idolized by the Romans, and that they
erected a statue to her with the inscription, "Cornelia, Mother of the
Gracchi."
Scarcely less distinguished and accomplished was another Cornelia, the
wife of Pompey, the Great. "Besides her youthful beauty," writes Plutarch,
in his Life of Pompey, "she possessed other charms, for she was well versed
in literature, in playing on the lyre, and in geometry, and she had been used
to listen to philosophical discourses with profit. Besides this, she had a

disposition free from all affectation and display of pedantry—blemishes
which such acquirements usually breed in women."[19]
Then there was the cultured and devoted Aurelia, the mother of Julius
Cæsar. It is safe to say that this eminent man was as much indebted to his
mother for his success and greatness as were Tiberius and Caius Gracchus
to the benign influence and careful teachings of the gentle and virtuous
Cornelia. Highly educated and of commanding personalities, both these
women, like many others of their time, contributed much to the making of
Roman history by the success they achieved in molding the characters of
some of the greatest men of their own or of any age.
It is a splendid tribute that Cicero, in his Orator, pays to Lælia when he tells
of the purity of her language and the charm of her conversation. "When I
listen," he declares, "to my mother-in-law, Lælia—for women preserve the
traditional purity of accent the best because, being limited in their
intercourse with the multitude, they retain their early impressions—I could
imagine that I hear Plautus or Nævius speaking, the pronunciation is so
plain and simple, so perfectly free from all affectation and display; from
which I infer that such was the accent of her father and his ancestors—not
harsh like the pronunciation to which I have just referred, not broad nor
rustic nor rugged, but terse, smooth and flowing."[20]
These are a few of the cultured and learned women who shed glory on their
country by the refining influence which they exerted in the quiet and
unostentatious precincts of the family circle. But there were others who
chose a wider field for their activities, and who, by reason of their unerring
judgment, well-poised and highly cultivated minds, had so won the
confidence of the nation's greatest leaders that they were frequently
consulted on important affairs of state. Thus, Cicero tells us of an interview
which he had at Antium with Brutus and Cassius. Besides the men, there
were present on this occasion three women, who took an active part in the
discussion. These were Servilia, the mother of Brutus, Porcia, the wife of
Brutus and the daughter of Cato, and Tertulla, the wife of Cassius and sister
of Brutus. The views of the women were not without effect, and so
confident was Servilia of her power that she engaged to have a certain
clause in one of the decrees of the Senate expunged. This is but one of
many similar instances which might be adduced from the lives of the

women of Rome who took an active part in politics. As we learn from
Tacitus, their counsels and assistance were considered of peculiar value by
the Commonwealth. For, when some of the sterner old moralists wished to
exclude women from all participation in public affairs, the Senate, after a
heated debate, decided by a large majority that the coöperation of women in
questions of administration, far from being a menace, as some contended,
was so beneficial to the state that it should be continued.
Among other noteworthy makers of Roman history, besides those just
mentioned, is Livia, the wife of Augustus and the mother of Tiberius. So
great was her influence and so persistent was her activity in government
affairs, that it is sometimes asserted that she was the prime mover of most
of the public acts of both these rulers. This woman, whom Ovid describes
as having the features of Venus and the manner of Juno, and who, he
declares, "held her head above all vices," was credited with having the
benevolence of Ceres, the purity of Diana and the wisdom and craft of
Minerva—"a woman," as was said by one of her contemporaries, "in all
things more comparable to the gods than to men, who knew how to use her
power so as to turn away peril and advance the most deserving."
Then there was the gracious, the virtuous, the self-sacrificing Octavia, sister
of the Emperor Augustus, who was so successful in composing grave
differences between her brother and her husband, and who so exerted her
influence for peace during the troublous times in which she lived that she
lives in history as a peacemaker. In marked contrast to this gentle and
sympathetic woman was the energetic and heroic Agrippina, the wife of
Germanicus. In many respects she was the most commanding personality of
her age, and exhibited in an eminent degree those sterling qualities which
we are wont to associate with the strong, dignified, courageous women of
ancient Rome, who gave to the world so many and so great men in every
sphere of human endeavor. "She was," as Tacitus informs us, "a greater
power in the army than legates and commanders, and she, a woman, had
quelled a mutiny which the emperor's authority could not check."[21] She
was, indeed, as has well been said, "a woman to whom one might address
an epic but never a sonnet."
I have referred to these distinguished women because they are embodiments
of the best types of the noble, patrician families who made the great Roman

empire the admiration of all time, and because they exhibit the wonderful
advance that had been made in the general status of women since the days
of Pericles and Aspasia. I have referred to them, also, to show what women
are capable of achieving in the difficult and complicated affairs of public
life, when they are accorded the necessary freedom of action and when they
are properly equipped for work by education and by association with men
of learning and experience. Comparing the secluded and illiterate Greek
wife with the free and highly accomplished Roman matron, we find almost
as much difference between the two as there is between a child and a fully
developed woman—all the difference there was between the
unsophisticated young wife, not quite fifteen, of whom Xenophon gives us
such a charming picture,[22] and the highly educated and competent mother
of the Gracchi.
Of the Greek maiden we are told that, before her marriage she "had been
most carefully brought up to see and hear as little as possible and to ask the
fewest questions"; that her whole experience before her marriage "consisted
in knowing how to take the wool and make a dress, and in seeing how her
mother's handmaidens had their daily spinning tasks assigned to them."
Cornelia, on the contrary, was not only, as we have seen, highly
accomplished, but also one who, after her husband's death, was quite
prepared, as Plutarch assures us, to undertake the management of the
extensive property which he left his family, and who, we may well believe,
would also have been qualified, had the occasion demanded it, to perform
with distinction the same duties that fell to the lot of the gifted wives of
Germanicus and Augustus.
Nothing in the history of Greek and Roman womanhood more strikingly
illustrates than the two instances given the vast difference in the status of
the wives of Greece and Rome, or exhibits more clearly the advantages
accruing to early training and thorough mental development. If there was
any difference in talent or intellect between the Greek and the Roman
woman it was, so far as we can determine, in favor of the Greek. The sole
reason, then, for such a marked difference in their capacity for work and for
achieving distinction in intellectual and administrative fields of action arose
from the lack of education in the Athenian wife and the fullest measure of
educational freedom enjoyed by the Roman. That Aspasia, in spite of all the
odds against her, was able to rise to such a pinnacle of glory does not prove

that she was the superior of her countrywomen—the mothers of the greatest
poets, artists and philosophers of all time—but it exhibits rather her good
fortune in being able to effect a partnership with the greatest statesman of
Greece, and one who was at the same time fully able to appreciate all her
rare mental attainments and give her marvelous genius free scope for
development by coöperating with him in making the period during which he
held the reign of power the most brilliant one in the annals of human
progress.
Plato, referring to the oriental seclusion to which Athenian wives were
condemned, speaks of them as "a race used to living out of the sunshine,"
and that, too, among a people that habitually lived out of doors. We have
already seen how much greater freedom Roman women enjoyed and how
much more important was the rôle they played in public as well as private
life; but we have not told all. They not only went to, but presided over,
public games and religious ceremonies. They were admitted to aristocratic
clubs and had, under the empire, a regular assembly or senate of their own,
known as the Conventus Matronarum. Hortensia, the daughter of the great
orator Hortensius, pleaded the cause of her sex before the tribunal of the
triumvirs, and so eloquent and effective was her speech that she not only
won her case, but also won the praise of the critic, Quintilian, for her
splendid oratorical effort.
Yet more. A certain woman in the Roman possessions in Africa had so
impressed her fellow citizens by her intellectual capacity and administrative
ability that she was chosen as one of the two chief magistrates of the place.
She is known in history as Messia Castula, duumvira. It is true that the men
of the older school, who would limit woman's activities to the distaff and
the loom, strongly objected to the increasing freedom and power of women,
and endeavored to counteract their influence; but all to no purpose. And it
was the crabbed old Cato, the Censor, who growled in undisguised disgust:
—"We Romans rule over all men and our wives rule over us."
But great as were the freedom and educational advantages of the Roman
women, the startling fact remains that, with the exception of a few
fragmentary verses of slight merit and of questionable authenticity, we have
absolutely no tangible evidence of the Roman woman's literary ability while
under pagan influence. We have seen, in considering her intellectual

attainments—especially after the introduction of Greek art and letters into
the City of the Seven Hills—that every woman who pretended to culture
was obliged to be familiar with the Greek as well as with the Latin authors,
that her education was deemed incomplete without a knowledge of Greek
poetry, oratory, history and philosophy, but the fact is indisputable that
Roman women were not producers like their Greek sisters, and that in no
instance did their productions reach anything like the supreme excellence of
the creations of a Corinna or a Sappho. There was, it is true, Sulpicia, of
whom Martial writes: "Let every girl, whose wish it is to please a single
man, read Sulpicia; let every man, whose wish it is to please a single maid,
read Sulpicia;" but, if the few amatory verses that are credited to her
represent the highest flights of the Roman women in the domain of poetry,
then, indeed, were they far behind not only Sappho and Corinna, but also
far behind scores of their pupils. Martial does indeed speak of a young
maiden in whom were combined the eloquence of Plato with the austere
philosophy of the Porch, and who wrote verses worthy of a chaste Sappho;
but this was evidently a great exaggeration, for we have no other evidence
of her existence.
The creative work of Roman women was, so far as we are able to judge,
quite as limited in prose as it was in poetry. Agrippina, the mother of Nero,
was one of the few prose writers whose name has come down to us. From
her memoirs it was that Tacitus received much of the material incorporated
in his Annals.
That some of the women had literary ability of a high order is indicated by a
letter of Pliny to one of his correspondents, in which occurs the following
passage:
"Pomponius Saturninus recently read me some letters which he averred had
been written by his wife. I believed that Plautus or Terence was being read
in prose. Whether they were really his wife's, as he maintains, or his own,
which he denies, he deserves equal honor, either because he composes them
or because he has made his wife, whom he married when a mere girl, so
learned and so polished."[23]
Scarcely less distinguished for her taste in literature, and for her talent as a
letter writer, was Pliny's wife, Calphurnia, who, at his request, wrote to him

in his absence every day and sometimes even twice a day. According to
Cicero, his daughter Tulia was "the best and most learned of women"; but
her literary work, it is probable, did not extend much beyond her letters to
her illustrious father. Nevertheless, what would we not give to possess these
letters—to have as complete a collection of them as we have of those of the
great orator and philosopher. They would be of inestimable value and would
be absolutely beyond compare, except, possibly, with the letters of Mme. du
Deffand or of Elizabeth Barrett Browning of a much later age.
Considering the number of educated women that lived in the latter days of
the Republic and during the earlier part of the Empire, and their well known
culture and love of letters, it is reasonable to suppose that they may have
written much in both prose and verse of which we have no record. Literary
productions must have more than ordinary value to survive two thousand
years, and especially two thousand years of such revolutions and upheavals
as have convulsed the world since the time of the Pax Romana, when all the
world was at peace under Augustus.
How much of the literary work of the women of to-day will receive
recognition twenty centuries hence? Some of it may, it is true, find a place
in the fireproof libraries of the time; but who, outside of a few antiquarians,
will take the trouble to read it or estimate its value? A few anthologies
containing our gems of prose and poetry will probably be all that our
fortieth century readers will deem worthy of notice. In view of the chaotic
condition of Europe for so many centuries, the wonder is not that we have
so little of the literary remains of Greece and Rome, but rather that we have
anything at all.
As one might expect, the literary women of Rome, as well as those who
ventured to take part in public affairs, had their critics. The satirists of the
time were as unsparing of their ridicule as they were long afterward when
Molière wrote his Femmes Savantes and his Précieuses Ridicules. And as
for men of the old conservative type, a learned woman was as much an
object of horror as is a militant suffragette in conservative England to-day.
"No learned wife for me," exclaims Martial, "but rather a well-fed slave."
[24]

And Juvenal had no more love for educated women than have some of our
contemporaries for a blue-stocking housekeeper. He gives his opinion of
them in the following characteristic fashion:
"That woman is a worse nuisance than usual who, as soon as she reclines on
her couch, praises Virgil; makes excuses for doomed Dido; pits bards
against one another and compares them, and weighs Homer and Mars in the
balance. Teachers of literature give way, professors are vanquished, the
whole mob is hushed, and so great is the torrent of words that no lawyer or
auctioneer may speak, nor any other woman."[25]
But if learned women had their enemies and detractors they also had friends
and defenders. Among these was the Stoic philosopher, C. Musonius Rufus,
who lived in the time of Nero. Like Plato, he contended that women should
have the same training as men and that the faculties of both should be
equally developed. The gist of his teaching is contained in the statement
that:
"If the same virtues must pertain to men and women, it follows, necessarily,
that the same training and education must be suitable for both."[26]
Our brief sketch of women's work in ancient Rome would be incomplete
without some reference to the famous Ecclesia Domestica—Church of the
Household—on the Aventine, and the distinguished women who were its
chief ornaments. During the time of Pope Damasus, and not long before the
sacking of Rome by Alaric, the Ecclesia Domestica was a kind of
conventual home to which had retired, or in which were frequently
gathered, some of the most noble and learned women of the city. Among the
most notable of these were Marcella and her friends, Paula and Eustochium.
For beauty of character and nobility of purpose and rare mental
endowments they recall the best traditions of a Cornelia or a Calphurnia,
while so great was their purity of life and so unbounded was their charity to
the poor and suffering that they were honored by being numbered among
the saints of the early church. But what specially distinguished them among
all the great women of the Roman world was their great and varied
learning. In this respect they probably were far in advance of all their
predecessors. For, in addition to a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek
literature, history and philosophy, they had, under the great theologian and

orientalist, St. Jerome, become proficient in Hebrew and deeply versed in
Scripture.
Special mention should be made of Paula and her daughter Eustochium; for
it is probable that, had it not been for their influence on Jerome, and their
active coöperation in his great life work, we should not have the Latin
version of the Scriptures that is to-day known as the Vulgate. This is
evinced from the letters of the saint himself and from what we know of the
lives of these two remarkable women, who, as St. Jerome informs us in the
epitaph which he had engraved on Paula's tomb in the Church of the
Nativity in Bethlehem, were descended from the Scipios, the Gracchi and
the Pauli on the mother's side, and on the father's side from the half-
mythical kings of Sparta and Mycenæ.[27]
They aided him not only by their sympathy and by purchasing for him,
often at a great price, the manuscripts he needed for his colossal
undertaking, but also assisted him by their thorough knowledge of Latin,
Greek and Hebrew in translating the Sacred Books from the original
Hebrew into Latin. So great was Jerome's confidence in their scholarship
and so high was his appreciation of their ability and judgment that he did
not hesitate to submit his translations to them for their criticism and
approval. After he had completed his version of the first Book of Kings, he
turned it over to them, saying: "Read my Book of Kings—read also the
Latin and Greek translations and compare them with my version." And they
did read and compare and criticise. And more than this, they frequently
suggested modifications and corrections which the great man accepted with
touching humility and incorporated in a revised copy.
More wonderful still, the Latin Psalter, as it has come down to us, is not, as
is generally supposed, the translation from the Hebrew of Jerome, but rather
a corrected version made from the Septuagint by his illustrious
collaborators—Paula and Eustochium.
It is safe to say that no two women were ever engaged in a more important
or more difficult literary undertaking—one requiring keener critical sense
or more profound learning—than were Paula and Eustochium, or one in
which their efforts were crowned with more brilliant success than were
those of these two supreme exemplars of the grace, the knowledge, the

culture, the refinement of Roman womanhood—the crowning glories of
womanhood throughout the ages.
St. Jerome showed his grateful recognition of the invaluable assistance
received from his devoted and talented co-workers by dedicating to them a
great number of his most important books. This scandalized the pharisaical
men of the time, who looked askance at all learned women and resented
particularly the preëminence given to Paula and her accomplished daughter.
But their reproaches provoked a reply from the saint that was worthy of the
most chivalrous champion of woman, and revealed, at the same time, all the
nobility of soul of the roused "Lion of Bethlehem." It is not only a defence
of his course, but also a splendid tribute to his two illustrious friends, and a
tribute also to the great and good women of all time.
"There are people, O Paula and Eustochium," exclaims the Christian
Cicero, vibrant with emotion and in a burst of eloquence that recalls one of
the burning philippics of Marcus Tullius, "who take offence at seeing your
names at the beginning of my works. These people do not know that Olda
prophesied when the men were mute; that while Barach was atremble,
Deborah saved Israel; that Judith and Esther delivered from supreme peril
the children of God. I pass over in silence Anna and Elizabeth and the other
holy women of the Gospel, but humble stars when compared with the great
luminary, Mary. Shall I speak now of the illustrious women among the
heathen? Does not Plato have Aspasia speak in his dialogues? Does not
Sappho hold the lyre at the same time as Alcæus and Pindar? Did not
Themista philosophize with the sages of Greece? And the mother of the
Gracchi, your Cornelia, and the daughter of Cato, wife of Brutus, before
whom pale the austere virtue of the father and the courage of the husband—
are they not the pride of the whole of Rome? I shall add but one word more.
Was not it women to whom our Lord first appeared after His resurrection?
Yes, men could then blush for not having sought what the women had
found."[28]
Time has spared a joint letter of Paula and Eustochium to their friend
Marcella—a letter which exhibits so well the rare culture and literary ability
of the writers that we cannot but lament that we have not more of the
correspondence which was carried on between the learned inmates of the
Church of the Household on the Aventine and Paula's convent home near

the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Such a collection would be
beyond price, as it would complete the picture of the age so well sketched
by St. Jerome; and, as a contribution to the literary world, it would have a
value not inferior to that of those exquisite classics of a later age—the
letters of Madame Sevigné to her daughter.[29]

WOMAN AND EDUCATION DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

The period of nearly a thousand years intervening between the downfall of
Rome in A.D. 476 and the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 is
usually known in history as the Middle Ages. By some it is considered as
synonymous with the Dark Ages, because of the decline of learning and
civilization during this long interval of time. The former designation seems
preferable, for, as we shall see, the latter is more or less misleading. During
the "wandering of the nations" in the fourth and fifth centuries, and the long
and fierce struggles between the barbarian hordes from the north with the
decadent peoples of the once great Roman empire, there was, no doubt, a
partial eclipse of the sun of civilization; but the consequent darkness was
not so dense nor so general and long-continued as is sometimes imagined.
The progress of intellectual culture was, indeed, greatly retarded, but there
was no time when the light of learning was entirely extinguished. For even
during the most troublous times there were centers of culture in one part of
Europe or another. At one time the center was in Italy, at another in Gaul,
and, at still another, it was in Britain or Ireland or Germany.
But whether it was in the south, or the west or the north of Europe that
letters flourished, it was always the convent or the monastery that was the
home of learning and culture. Within these holy precincts the literary
treasures of antiquity were preserved and multiplied. Here monks and nuns
labored and studied, always keeping lighted the sacred torch of knowledge
—Et quasi cursores vitaï lampada tradunt—and passing it on to the
generations that succeeded them. That any of the great literary masterpieces
of Greece and Rome have come to us, in spite of the destructive agencies of
time and the wreck of empires, is due wholly to the unremitting toil through
long ages of the zealous and intelligent inmates of the cloister.

Of the monastic institutions for men there is no occasion to speak, except in
so far as they contributed to the intellectual advancement of woman. In
some cases the women of the cloister owed much to ecclesiastics for their
literary training; but there are not wanting instances in which the nuns took
the lead in education and had the direction of schools which gave to the
church priests and bishops of recognized scholarship.
Practically the only schools for girls during the Middle Ages were the
convents. Here were educated rich and poor, gentle and simple. And in
these homes of piety and learning the inmates enjoyed a peace and a
security that it was impossible to find elsewhere. They were free from the
dangers and annoyances that so often menaced them in their own homes
and were able to pursue their studies under the most favorable auspices.
Among the first convent schools to achieve distinction were those of Arles
and Poitiers in Gaul, in the latter part of the sixth century. The Abbess of
Poitiers is known to us as St. Radegund. She not only had a knowledge of
letters rare for her age, but wrote poems of such merit that they were until
recently accepted as the productions of her master, the poet Fortunatus,[30]
who subsequently became bishop of Poitiers.
Far more notable, however, than the convents of Arles and Poitiers was the
celebrated convent of St. Hilda at Whitby. Hilda, the foundress and first
abbess of Whitby, was a princess of the blood-royal and a grand-niece of
Edwin, the first Christian king of Northumbria. Her convent and adjoining
monastery for monks soon became the most noted center of learning and
culture in Britain. And so great was her reputation for knowledge and
wisdom that not only priests and bishops, but also princes and kings sought
her counsel in important matters of church and state.
As to the monks subject to her authority, she inspired them with so great a
love of knowledge, and urged them to so thorough a study of the Scriptures,
that her monastery became, as Venerable Bede informs us, a school not only
for missionaries but for bishops as well. He speaks in particular of six
ecclesiastical dignitaries who were sent forth from this noble institution—
all of whom were bishops. Five of them he describes as men of singular
merit and sanctity—"singularis meriti et sanctitatis viros," while the sixth,
he declared, was a man of rare ability and learning—"doctissimus et

excellentis ingenii." Of this number was St. John of Beverly, who, we are
told, "attained a degree of popularity rare even in England, where the saints
of old were so universally and so readily popular."[31] Hilda governed her
double monastery with singular wisdom and success; and, so great was the
love and veneration she inspired among all classes that she merited the
epithet of "Mother of her Country."
Celebrated, however, as Hilda was for her great educational work at
Whitby, she is probably better known to the world as the one who first
recognized and fostered the rare gifts of the poet Cædmon. "It is on the lips
of this cowherd," as Montalembert beautifully expresses it, "that the Anglo-
Saxon speech first bursts into poetry. Indeed, nothing in the whole history
of European literature is more original or more religious than this first
utterance of the English muse."[32]
As soon as Hilda discovered the extraordinary poetic faculty of Cædmon,
she did not hesitate to regard it "as a special gift of God, worthy of all
respect and of the most tender care." And, in order that she might the more
readily develop the splendid talents of this literary prodigy, the keen
discerning abbess received Cædmon into the monastery of monks, and had
him translate the entire Bible into Anglo-Saxon. "As soon as the Sacred
Text was read for him he forthwith," as Bede declares, "ruminated it as a
clean animal ruminates its food, and transformed it into songs so beautiful
that all who heard were delighted."
As his poetical faculty became more developed, his profoundly original
genius became more marked, and his inspiration more earnest and
impassioned. It was this Northumbrian cowherd, transformed into a monk
of Whitby, who sang before the abbess Hilda the revolt of Satan and
Paradise Lost, a thousand years earlier than Milton, in verses which may
still be admired even beside the immortal poem of the British Homer. So
remarkable, indeed, in some instances is the similarity in the productions of
the two poets that F. Palgrave, one of the most competent of English critics,
does not hesitate to declare that certain of Cædmon's verses resembled so
closely certain passages of the Paradise Lost that some of Milton's lines
seem almost like a translation from the work of his distinguished
predecessor. And M. Taine, in his History of English Literature, referring to
the "string of short, accumulated, passionate images, like a succession of

lightning flashes," of the old Anglo-Saxon poet, asserts that "Milton's Satan
exists in Cædmon's as the picture exists in the sketch."[33]
Well could Cædmon's first biographer, the Venerable Bede, say of him,
"Many Englishmen after him have tried to compose religious poems, but no
one has ever equaled the man who had only God for a master." And not
without warrant does the eloquent Montalembert, in the masterly work just
quoted, pen the following statement: "Apart from the interest which
attaches to Cædmon from a historical and literary point of view, his life
discloses to us essential peculiarities in the outward organization and
intellectual life of those great communities which in the seventh century
studded the coast of Northumbria, and which, with all their numerous
dependents, found often a more complete development under the crozier of
such a woman as Hilda than under the superiors of the other sex."[34]
Space precludes my telling of other convents which were centers of literary
activity, and of nuns who distinguished themselves by their learning and by
the benign influence which they exerted far beyond the walls of the cloister.
I cannot, however, refrain from referring to that group of learned English
nuns who are chiefly known by their Latin correspondence with St.
Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, and by the assistance which they gave
him in his arduous labors. Conspicuous among these was St. Lioba, who, at
the request of Boniface, left her home in England to found a convent at
Bischopsheim in Germany, which, under the direction of its learned and
zealous abbess, soon became the most important educational center in that
part of Europe. Teachers were formed here for other schools in Germany
and Lioba's biographer tells us that there were few monasteria feminarum—
monasteries of women—within the sphere of Boniface's missionary
activities for which Lioba's pupils were not sought as instructresses.
Like her illustrious countrywoman, St. Hilda, the abbess of Bischopsheim
was the friend and counselor of spiritual and temporal rulers. Charlemagne,
that eminent patron of scholars, had a great admiration for her and gave her
many substantial proofs of his esteem and veneration. "Princes," writes her
biographer, "loved her, noblemen received her, and bishops gladly
entertained her and conversed with her on the Scriptures and on the
institutions of religion, for she was familiar with many writings and careful
in giving advice. She was so bent on reading that she never laid aside her

book except to pray or to strengthen her slight frame with food or sleep."[35]
She was thoroughly conversant with the books of the Old and the New
Testaments and was, at the same time, familiar with the writings of the
Fathers. It is not surprising, then, that she was regarded as an oracle, and
that all classes flocked to her as they did to the abbess of Whitby for
guidance and assistance.
From what has been said of the accomplishments and achievements of the
Anglo-Saxon nuns just mentioned, it is evident that they were, of a truth,
women of exceptional worth and of sterling character. And it is equally
clear that their pupils must have shared in the education and culture of their
distinguished teachers.[36] Many of them, in addition to having a wide
acquaintance with literature, sacred and profane, were also mistresses of
several languages. A woman's education, at this time, was not complete
unless she could write Latin and speak it fluently. The author of that most
interesting early English work, Ancren Riwle—Rule of Anchoresses—
presupposes in his auditors, for whose benefit his instructions were given, a
knowledge of Latin and French, as well as of English. In certain convents
Latin was almost the sole medium of communication,—to such an extent,
indeed, that a special rule was made prohibiting "the use of the Latin tongue
except under special circumstances."
"As long as the conventual system lasted the only schools for girls in
England were the convent schools where, says Robert Aske, 'the daughters
of gentlemen were brought up in virtue.' From an educational point of view,
the suppression of the convents was decidedly a blunder." Thus writes
Georgiana Hill in her instructive work on Women in English Life, and there
are, we fancy, but few readers of her instructive pages who will not be
inclined to agree with her conclusions.[37] Lecky speaks of the dissolution
of convents at the time of the Reformation as "far from a benefit to women
or the world."[38] And Dom Gasquet declares "that destruction by Henry
VIII of the conventual schools where the female population, the rich as well
as the poor, found their only teachers, was the absolute extinction of any
systematic education of women for a long period."[39]
But this is not all. The strangest and saddest result, consequent on the
suppression of the convents, was that men were made to profit by the loss
which women had sustained. The revenues of the houses that were

suppressed had been intended for the sole use and behoof of women, and
had been administered by them in this sense for centuries. When they were
appropriated by Henry VIII, it never occurred to him or his ministers to
make any provision for the education of women in lieu of that which had so
ruthlessly been wrested from them. Thus the nunnery of St. Radegund,
together with its revenues and possessions, was transformed into Jesus
College, Cambridge, while from the suppressed convents of Bromhall in
Berkshire and Lillechurch in Kent funds were secured for the foundation
and endowment of St. John's College, also at Cambridge. Similarly, the
properties of other nunneries, large and small, were appropriated for the
foundation of collegiate institutions at Oxford, all of which were for the
benefit of men.
And so it was that, in a few short years, the great work of centuries was
undone and women were left little better educational facilities than when
the Anglo-Saxon nuns began their noble work in a land that was enveloped
in "one dark night of unillumined barbarism."
One would have thought that Elizabeth, who was so highly educated, and
who did so much for the supremacy of her country on land and sea, would
have bethought herself of the necessity of doing something for the
education of her female subjects. But no. She did nothing for them, and the
founders of the endowed grammar schools, during her reign, gave never a
thought to the educational necessities of the girls. They made provision only
for the boys. In this respect, however, the "Virgin Queen" was but following
in the footsteps of the male sovereigns and legislators who had preceded
her, and who, although affecting an interest in having women "sensible and
virtuous, seem by their conduct toward the sex to have entered into a
general conspiracy to order it otherwise."
The truth is, when anything was achieved for the intellectual advancement
of women it was due either to private instruction or to the result of a
protracted struggle on the part of women themselves for what they deemed
their indefeasible rights. Had they relied on the spontaneous action of men
and on legislation in favor of female education to which men had given the
initiative, they would to-day be in the same condition of ignorance and
seclusion and servitude as was the Athenian woman twenty-five centuries

ago, and would occupy a status but little above that of the inmates of
oriental harems and zenanas.
The Anglo-Saxon nuns were, as we have seen, specially distinguished for
their learning and for the splendid work they performed for the education of
their sex during the long period of the Middle Ages. But however great their
preëminence in these respects, they were not without rivals. There were,
besides the schools, already named, conducted by St. Lioba and her
companions, also flourishing schools in Germany under the direction of
native nuns, whose success as educators was as marked as that of Lioba or
Hilda, and who, in addition to their labors in the class-room, achieved
distinction by their productive work. The Anglo-Saxon convents developed
few writers, whereas those of Germany produced several who not only shed
luster on their sex but who also showed what woman is capable of
accomplishing when accorded some measure of encouragement and full
liberty of action.
One of the most noted writers of her age was the famous nun of
Gandersheim, Hroswitha, who was born in the early part of the tenth
century. She was the pupil of the abbess Gerberg, who was of royal lineage,
and one of the most zealous promoters of learning and culture in Saxony
during the forty-two years of her rule in the convent to which she and her
favorite pupil gave undying renown.
Hroswitha's literary work consists of legends and contemporary history in
metrical form and of her dramas written in the style of Terence. As a writer
of history and legends she ranks with the best authors of her time, while as
a writer of dramas she stands absolutely alone. Hers, indeed, were the first
dramatic compositions given to the world during the long interval that
elapsed between the last comedies of classic antiquity and the first of the
miracle plays which had such a vogue between the twelfth and the sixteenth
century.
Her dramas, which, of all her works, have attracted the most attention, are
seven in number. They deal with the moral and mental conflicts which
characterized the period of transition from heathendom to Christianity.
Some of them exhibit poetic talent of a high order as well as the inspiration
and courage of genius. They reveal also a wide acquaintance with the

classic authors of Rome and Greece, besides a knowledge of many of the
Christian writers. They are, likewise, distinguished by originality of
treatment, complete mastery of the material used, as well as by genuine
beauty of rhyme and rhythm. In form, all the plays preserve the simple
directness of their model, Terence, while, in conception, they embody the
noblest ideals of Christian teaching. In marked contrast to her model, who
invariably exhibits the frailties and lapses of woman, Hroswitha's plays turn
on the resistance of her sex to temptation, and on their steadfast adherence
to duty and to vows voluntarily assumed. A recent English writer, W. H.
Hudson, in an appreciative estimate of the work of this learned Benedictine
nun expresses himself as follows:
"It is on the literary side alone that Hroswitha belongs to the classic school.
The spirit and essence of her work belong entirely to the Middle Ages; for
beneath the rigid garb of a dead language"—she wrote in Latin—"beats the
warm heart of a new era. Everything in her plays that is not formal but
essential, everything that is original and individual, belongs wholly to the
Christianized Germany of the tenth century. Everywhere we can trace the
influence of the atmosphere in which she lived; every thought and every
motive is colored by the spiritual conditions of her time. The keynote of all
her works is the conflict of Christianity with paganism; and it is worthy of
remark that in Hroswitha's hands Christianity is throughout represented by
the purity and gentleness of woman, while paganism is embodied in what
she describes as the vigor of men—virile robur."[40]
Among her legends the one entitled The Lapse and Conversion of
Theophilus has a special interest as being the precursor of the well-known
legend of Faust.
In Hroswitha's time, as in our own, there were people who were strongly
opposed to the higher education of women. There were others who would
deny them even the elements of an education—who declared that they
should be taught anything rather than reading and writing, which were a
cause of temptation and sin—that their knowledge should be confined
solely to the duties of an ordinary housewife, that their books should consist
solely of thimble, thread and needles—"Et leurs livres, un dé, du fil et des
aguilles." Some, it is true, were willing to make an exception in favor of
nuns; but, as to all others, the less they knew the better it was for their

spiritual, if not for their temporal, welfare also.[41] To those who were thus
minded, Hroswitha pithily replied that it was not knowledge itself but the
bad use of it that was dangerous—"Nec scientia scibilis Deum offendit, sed
injustitia scientis."
Among other women who were Hroswitha's equals in knowledge, if not in
literary attainments, were several other nuns who illumined the closing
centuries of the Middle Ages. Chief among these were St. Hildegard, "the
sybil of the Rhine"; Herrad, the noted author of the Hortus Deliciarum—
Garden of Delights—and Matilda and Gertrude, those remarkable mystical
writers, whose descriptions of heaven and hell so closely resemble those in
the Divina Commedia that many writers are of the opinion that the great
Florentine poet must have been familiar with the accounts which they gave
of their visions.
St. Hildegard was for a third of a century the abbess of the convent of St.
Rupert at Bingen. So great was her reputation for sanctity and for the extent
and variety of her attainments that she was called "the marvel of Germany."
She is without doubt one of the most beautiful and imposing as well as one
of the greatest figures of the Middle Ages—great beside such eminent
contemporaries as Abelard, Martin of Tours and Bernard of Clairvaux.
People from all parts of the Christian world sought her counsel; and her
convent at Bingen became a Mecca for all classes and conditions of men
and women. But nothing shows better the immense influence which she
wielded than her letters of which nearly three hundred have been preserved.
Among her correspondents were people of the humble walks of life as well
as the highest representatives of Church and State. There were simple
monks and noble abbots; dukes, kings and queens; archbishops and
cardinals and no fewer than four Popes. Letters came to her from the orient
and the occident, from the patriarch of Jerusalem, from Queen Bertha of
Greece, from Frederick Barbarossa, Philip the Count of Flanders, St.
Bernard, the professors of the University of Paris; from Henry II of
England, and from his grand-daughter Eleonora, "The Damsel of Brittany."
It is safe to say that no woman during the Middle Ages exercised a wider or
more beneficent influence than did this humble Benedictine abbess of
Bingen on the Rhine and had unsought so large a number of distinguished
correspondents. And, if we accept the criterion that influence is measured

by the number and nature of one's relations, it would be difficult to find in
any age relations that were more select or more cosmopolitan.
But her astonishing collection of letters is the slightest product of her
intellectual activity. She is without doubt the most voluminous woman
writer of the Middle Ages. Her works on theology, Scripture and science
make no less than six or eight large octavo volumes. The Bollandists, than
whom there is no more competent authority, express their amazement at the
amount and quality of Hildegard's work. Witness the following language of
one of their number: "Although we may not be surprised that our saint was
interrogated regarding secret things by so many men eminent both by
reason of their dignity and their learning, I am nevertheless forced to
recognize with stupefaction that a woman without instruction, and who had
not acquired knowledge by study, was consulted concerning the most
difficult questions of theology and the most subtle of Holy Scriptures, and
that she gave, without hesitation, the answers that were demanded by
theology and Scripture."[42]
Is it, then, surprising that the famous William of Auxerre, after a critical
examination of her works, should compare her with Peter Lombard, the
celebrated "Master of the Sentences,"[43] and one of the most learned of the
Schoolmen, and write that Hildegard is Sententiarum Magistra—Mistress
of the Sentences—and that "in her works the words are not human but
divine"? Has any woman writer ever received higher praise, and from one
so competent to express an opinion as the scholarly divine of Auxerre?
Herrad, the gifted abbess of Hohenburg in Alsace, was a contemporary of
Hildegard, and, like her, was noted for her culture and wide range of
knowledge. She is chiefly known for her Hortus Deliciarum, a remarkable
work, encyclopædic in character, which she wrote for the nuns of her
convent and which was designed to embody in words and in pictures the
knowledge of her age.
Nothing that time has bequeathed to us gives us a clearer conception of the
manifold activities of a mediæval nunnery, of the industry, talents and
enthusiastic love of learning of its inmates, than Herrad's wonderful Garden
of Delights. Nor is there any other work that gives us a better knowledge of
the manners, customs and ideals of the twelfth century, or one that, in its

particular sphere, is of more value to the student of art, philology and
archæology. It exhibits Herrad's intense interest in the intellectual
advancement of her nuns and pupils as well as her superior talent and
acquirements. Unfortunately the manuscript copy of this work was
destroyed at the time of the bombardment of Strasburg by the Germans in
1870, and our knowledge of it is limited to portions of it which had
previously been transcribed or to accounts left of it by those who had
examined it before its destruction. Of such exceptional value was this
unique work that the editor of the great collection of pictures, which
illustrates this remarkable book, does not hesitate to declare that "Few
illuminated manuscripts had acquired a fame so well deserved as the Hortus
Deliciarum of Herrad."[44]
No sketch, however brief, of the literary nuns of mediæval Germany would
be complete without some reference to the learned religious of the convent
of Helfta, near Eisleben in Saxony. Of the abbess Gertrude we read that her
enthusiasm for knowledge was so great that she not only inspired others
with the same enthusiasm, but that she was an incessant collector of books,
which she had her nuns transcribe. Among her most distinguished subjects
were two religious by the name of Matilda, one of whom was her sister, and
a third, who, to distinguish her from the abbess, is known as "Gertrude the
Great."
The writings of these nuns were inspired by that great mystic movement
which then prevailed in various parts of Europe and are among the most
impassioned productions of the age. For this reason they still have a special
claim on the attention of students of art and literature, as well as those of
theology and mysticism. Impressed by the similarity of their ideas and
descriptions as compared with those found in Dante's great masterpiece,
there are not wanting scholars who contend that the prototype of the
Matelda in the earthly paradise of the Purgatorio was none other than one
of the Matildas of the famous convent of Helfta.[45]
The writings of Hroswitha, Hildegard, Herrad, Gertrude and the Matildas,
to speak of no others, are the best evidence of the studious character of the
nuns of mediæval times, and of their devotion to the cause of education.
They command, likewise, our admiration for the system of training which
made such development possible, and show that, in certain departments, the

schools as then conducted were on as high a plane as any we have to-day.
[46]
They show us, too, that nuns and convent-bred women of the age in
question were of quite different mental calibre from that of the "gentle lady
of chivalry living in her bower, playing upon her lute and waiting patiently
for the return of her triumphant knight," and quite different, too, from that
of the castle lady-loves—whose sole attractions were often no more than
youth and beauty—who inspired the impassioned lyrics of troubadour and
minnesinger.
A recent writer sums up in a few words the status and the accomplishments
of the lady of the abbey in the following paragraph:
"No institution of Europe has ever won for the lady the freedom and
development that she enjoyed in the convent in early days. The modern
college for women only feebly reproduces it, since the college for women
has arisen at a time when colleges in general are under a cloud. The lady-
abbess, on the other hand, was part of the two great social forces of her
time, feudalism and the Church. Great spiritual rewards and great worldly
prizes were alike within her grasp. She was treated as an equal by the men
of her class, as is witnessed by letters we still have from popes and
emperors to abbesses. She had the stimulus of competition with men in
executive capacity, in scholarship, and in artistic production, since her work
was freely set before the general public; but she was relieved by the
circumstances of her environment from the ceaseless competition in
common life of woman with woman for the favor of the individual man. In
the cloister of the great days, as on a small scale in the college for women
to-day, women were judged by each other as men are everywhere judged by
each other, for sterling qualities of head and heart and character."[47]
Nor is this all. Never was woman more highly honored, never was her
power and influence greater than during the period of conventual life
extending from Hilda of Whitby to Gertrude and the Matildas of Helfta, and
especially during that golden period of monasticism and chivalry when
cloister and court were the radiant centers of learning and culture. Abbesses
took part in ecclesiastical synods and councils and assisted in the
deliberations of national assemblies. In England, they ranked with lords
temporal and spiritual, and had the right to attend the king's council or to
send proxies to represent them, while in Germany, where they held property

directly from the king or emperor, they enjoyed the rights and privileges of
barons and, as such, took part in the proceedings of the imperial diet either
in person or through their accredited representatives. In Saxony, the
abbesses had the right to strike coins bearing their own portraits, notably the
abbesses of Gandersheim and Quedlinburg. In England they were invested
with extraordinary powers, and in certain cases owed obedience to none
save the Pope. In Kent abbesses, as representatives of religion, came
immediately after bishops.
Possessing such power and prestige, it is not surprising to learn that
abbesses wielded great influence in temporal as well as spiritual matters;
that it pervaded politics and extended to the courts of kings and emperors.
Thus, Matilda, the abbess of Quedlinburg, together with Adelheid, the
mother of Otto III who was but three years old at the time of his father's
death, practically ruled the empire. At a later period during the prolonged
absence in Italy of Otto III, the control of affairs was entrusted to the abbess
alone; and so successful was her administration, and so vigorous were the
measures which she adopted against the invading Wends, that she
commanded the admiration of all. In view of these facts, the learned
authoress of Woman Under Monasticism is fully warranted in declaring as
she does "The career open to the inmates of convents in England and on the
Continent was greater than any other ever thrown open to women in the
course of modern European history."[48]
"The educational influence of convents during centuries," continues the
same writer, "cannot be rated too highly. Not only did their inmates attain
considerable knowledge but education in a nunnery, as we see from
Chaucer and others, secured an improved standing for those who were not
professed."[49] It prepared the way for, if it did not train, those highly
educated women who appeared during the time of the transition between
the Middle Ages and what is now designated as the Modern Period.
Among these were Christine de Pisan, who was a prolific writer on many
subjects in both prose and verse, and who, it is said, was the first woman to
earn a livelihood by her pen.[50] There were also some of those remarkable
women who lectured on law in the University of Bologna, among whom
were Bettina Gozzadini,[51] who, some writers will have it, occupied the
chairs of law in her alma mater as early as 1236, and the celebrated Novella

d'Andrea, of the following century, who frequently acted as a substitute for
her father, a professor of canon law in the university, and who, by reason of
her varied and profound knowledge, held a prominent place among the
most learned men of her time. Both of these noted women were worthy
prototypes of that long list of learned Italian women who, during the
Renaissance, won such honor for themselves and such undying glory for
their country. Not less remarkable were several women of the school of
Salerno, who, during its palmiest days, distinguished themselves as
teachers, writers and medical practitioners,[52] and the still more remarkable
daughters of one Mangord, a professor of Paris, whose daughters taught
Sacred Scripture.[53] There were few in number, it is true, but they were the
worthy prototypes of those learned and brilliant women who achieved such
distinction and glory for their sex during that most interesting period of
history known as the Renaissance.

WOMAN AND EDUCATION DURING THE RENAISSANCE

By the Renaissance we understand not only a phase in the development of
the nations of Europe but also that period of transition between the
mediæval and the modern world during which the latent spiritual energies
of the Middle Ages developed into the intellectual forces and moral habits
of thought which now pervade the civilized world. Various dates are
assigned for its starting point. Among them is the fall of Constantinople in
1453, when there was a great influx of scholars from the famed metropolis
on the Bosphorus to the Italian peninsula, who brought with them those
forgotten treasures of science and literature which were so instrumental in
producing that interesting phenomenon known in history as the Revival of
Learning. But whatever date be assigned for the beginning of the
Renaissance, whether it be the year when Constantinople fell into the hands
of the Turk or the fateful millennial year which was to witness the
termination of all things, there certainly was never at any period a distinct
breach of historical continuity between the old order and the new.
This is particularly true of Italy where the Renaissance had its origin. For
here, during the entire mediæval period, there never was a time when the
study of antiquity was completely neglected; when the traditions of the old
Roman culture had died out, or when the art and the literature of the

classical ages of the past had ceased to exert an influence on artists and
scholars. Ozanam was, then, right when he declared that the night of the
Dark Age, which in Italy intervened between "the intellectual daylight of
antiquity and the dawn of the Renaissance," was, in reality, like "one of
those luminous nights in which the fading brightness of evening is
prolonged into the first beaming of the morning."[54]
So much, indeed, was this the case that those who have made the most
profound study of the Middle Ages recognize a first Renaissance in the
twelfth century, which was not less real than the Renaissance par excellence
of the fifteenth century, a renaissance which counts such masters of Latinity
as Abelard, John of Salisbury and Hildebert of Tours, and such schools as
that of Chartres, where classical Latin was taught with as much
thoroughness as in the great universities of Europe during the brilliant age
of the humanists. It was then, as Rashdall truly observes, that "a revival of
architecture heralded, as it usually does, a wider revival of Art. The schools
of Christendom became thronged as they were never thronged before. A
passion for enquiry took the place of the old routine. The Crusades brought
different parts of Europe into contact with one another and into contact with
the new world of the East—with a new religion and a new philosophy, with
the Arabic Aristotle, with the Arabic commentators on Aristotle, and
eventually even with Aristotle in the original Greek."[55]
Roughly speaking, the Renaissance attained its culmination during the
second half of the fifteenth century. It was during this period that
gunpowder and printing with movable types were invented—the first
completely revolutionizing the methods of warfare and the second
marvelously facilitating the diffusion of knowledge. And it was during the
same period also that Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope, that
Columbus crossed the Sea of Darkness and that Copernicus laid the
foundation of modern astronomy.
But this wonderful half-century constituted only a small portion of the
period embraced by the Renaissance. From the fall of Constantinople until
it attained the highest phase of development in England, the Renaissance
covers a period of nearly two centuries. The progress of the intellectual and
moral movement which it represented, from the land of its birth, to the
northern and western parts of Europe, was comparatively slow. Thus, while

Italy was exhibiting the full effulgence of the re-birth, England was still in
the feudal condition of the Middle Ages. A striking illustration of this truth
is seen in the fact that "a brother of the Black Prince banqueted with
Petrarch in the palace of Galeazzo Visconti—that is to say, the founder of
Italian humanism, the representative of Italian despotic state-craft, and the
companion of Froissart's heroes met together at a marriage feast." "In Italy,"
as Symonds has shown, "the keynote was struck by the Novella, as in
England by the drama."[56] The supreme exponents of the Renaissance as
manifested in literature were, without doubt, Ariosto in Italy, Rabelais in
France, Cervantes in Spain, Camoens in Portugal, Erasmus in the
Netherlands and Shakespeare in England.
Considering the splendid achievements of men during the Renaissance in
every department of intellectual activity, one would imagine that women
also would have attained to a somewhat proportionate distinction, at least in
literature and the arts. But, outside of Italy, this was far from being the case.
In France, Spain, Portugal and England there were, it is true, a certain
number of women who won distinction by their talents and learning, but
these were the exceptions which but served to throw into greater relief the
prevailing ignorance of the great mass of their sex, which had few, if any, of
the advantages of instruction, even in the most elementary branches of
knowledge.
The Italian women, as we have already seen, had commanded marked
recognition for their talents and learning even before the close of the
Middle Ages. The most famous of these were among those who, having
obtained the doctorate, became lecturers and professors in the great
university of Bologna. The existence and accomplishments of some of these
may, perhaps, be more or less legendary, but there can be no doubt that
many of them, some before the time of the Renaissance, had gained a
European reputation for the breadth and variety of their attainments. But it
was during the Renaissance that the remarkable flowering of the intellect of
the Italian woman was seen at its best. While the women in the other parts
of Europe, especially in England and Germany, were suffering the ill effects
consequent on the suppression of the convents, which, for centuries, had
been almost the only schools available for girls, the women of Italy were
taking an active part in the great educational movement inaugurated by the
revival of learning, and winning the highest honors for their sex in every

department of science, art and literature. Not since the days of Sappho and
Aspasia had woman attained such prominence, and never were they,
irrespective of class-condition, accorded greater liberty, privileges or honor.
The universities, which had been opened to them at the close of the Middle
Ages, gladly conferred upon them the doctorate, and eagerly welcomed
them to the chairs of some of their most important faculties. The
Renaissance was, indeed, the heydey of the intellectual woman throughout
the whole of the Italian peninsula—a time when woman enjoyed the same
scholastic freedom as men, and when Mme. de Staël's dictum, Le génie n'a
pas de sexe, expressed a doctrine admitted in practice and not an academic
theory.
It would require a large volume, or rather many volumes, to do justice to the
learned women of Italy who conferred such honor upon their sex during the
period we are considering. Suffice it to mention a few of those who
achieved special distinction and whose memories are still green in the land
which had been made so illustrious by their talent and genius.
That which the modern reader finds the most surprising in the Italian
women of the Renaissance is their enthusiasm for the literæ humaniores—
the Latin and Greek classics—and the proficiency which so many of them,
even at an early age, attained in the literature and philosophy of antiquity. It
was no uncommon thing for a girl in her teens to write and speak Latin,
while many of them were almost equally familiar with Greek.[57] Thus
Laura Brenzoni, of Verona, had such a mastery of these two languages that
she wrote and spoke them with ease, while Alessandra Scala was so familiar
with them that she employed them in writing poetry. Lorenza Strozzi, who
was educated in a convent and eventually became a nun, was distinguished
for her great versatility, for her profound knowledge of science and art, as
well as for her proficiency in Latin and Greek. Her Latin poems were so
highly valued that they were translated into foreign languages. Livia
Chiavello, of Fabriano, was celebrated as one of the most brilliant
representatives of the Petrarchan school. Her style was so pure and noble
that, had Petrarch not lived, she alone would have upheld the honor of the
vulgar tongue. So successful was Isotta of Rimini in the cultivation of the
Muses that she was hailed as another Sappho. Cassandra Fedele, of Venice,
deserved, according to Polizian, the noted Florentine humanist, to be ranked
with that famous universal genius, Pico de la Mirandola. So extensive were

her attainments that in addition to being a thorough mistress of Latin and
Greek, she was likewise distinguished in music, eloquence, philosophy and
even theology. Leo X, Louis XII of France, and Isabella of Spain were
eager to have her as an ornament for their courts, but the Venetian senate
was so proud of its treasure that it was unwilling to have her depart.
Catarina Cibo, of Genoa, was another prodigy of learning; for, besides a
knowledge of Latin and Greek, philosophy and theology, she was well
acquainted with Hebrew. Donna Felice Rasponi, of Ravenna, devoted
herself to the study of Plato and Aristotle, of Scripture and the Fathers. But,
for the extent and variety of her attainments, Tarquinia Molza seems to have
eclipsed all her contemporaries. She had as teachers the ablest scholars of
an age of distinguished scholars. Not only did she excel in poetry and the
fine arts, but she also had a rare knowledge of astronomy and mathematics,
Latin, Greek and Hebrew. And so great was the esteem in which she was
held that the senate of Rome conferred on her the singular honor of Roman
citizenship, transmissible in perpetuity to her descendants. The Sovereign
Pontiff and the flower of the Roman prelacy begged her to take up her
residence in the Eternal City, but she could not be prevailed upon to leave
the land of her birth.
In the arts of sculpture and painting the women of Italy, during the
Renaissance, were no less illustrious than they were in science, literature
and philosophy. Indeed, many of the treasures in the Italian churches and art
galleries that still delight all lovers of the beautiful are from the chisel and
the brush of women who achieved distinction between three and four
centuries ago.[58]
Probably the most famous sculptress was Properzia de Rossi, whose ability
was so remarkable that she excited the envy of the men who were her
competitors.[59] Among painters there was Suor Plantilla Nelli, who was a
nun and prioress in the convent of Santa Catarina in Florence. Both Lanzi
and Vasari bestow high praise on her work and declare some of her
productions to be of rare excellence. There were also Maria Angela
Crisculo, of whose splendid work many examples are still preserved in the
churches of Naples, and Lavinia Fontana of Bologna, who exhibited such
extraordinary ability as an artist that some of her pictures passed for the
work of her great contemporary, Guido Reni.[60] Still more remarkable were

the achievements of four sisters of the noted family Anguisciola of
Cremona. So admirable was the work of the eldest sister, Sofonisba, that
Philip II invited her to his court in Spain, where she excited the amazement
of every one by the splendid canvases which she executed for her illustrious
patron and for the members of the royal family.
Of the fifty female poets who flourished in Italy during the Renaissance the
most eminent were Gaspara Stampa, Veronica Gambara, and Vittoria
Colonna. Of such merit and exquisite finish were the productions of their
Muse that they are still read with never failing pleasure. So highly did
Cardinal Bembo,—the famous "dictator of letters"—value the scholarship
and critical acumen of Veronica Gambara that he never published anything
without previously submitting it to her judgment. But far more eminent as a
poet was the noble and accomplished Marchesa of Pescara, Vittoria
Colonna, who, on account of her talents and virtues, was named La Divina.
The friend and adviser of scholars and the confidante of princes, she
represented, as has truly been said, "the best phases of the Renaissance, its
learning, its intelligence, its enthusiasm, its subtle Platonism, combined
with a profound religious faith and the trace of the mysticism of a simpler
age." The chorus of universal praise which was sung by her contemporaries
is well echoed by Ariosto when he writes of her: "She has not only made
herself immortal by her beautiful style, of which I have heard not better, but
she can raise from the tomb those of whom she speaks or writes and make
them live forever." But it was as the friend and inspirer of Michaelangelo
that she is best known to us to-day. "Without wings," he writes to her, "I fly
with your wings; by your genius I am raised to the skies; in your soul my
thought is born."
Among those who specially distinguished themselves for their profound
scholarship, as exhibited in the halls of universities, were Dorotea Bucca,
who occupied a chair of medicine in the University of Bologna, where, by
reason of her rare eloquence and learning, she had students from all parts of
Europe; Laura Ceretta, of Brescia, who, during seven years, gave public
lectures on philosophy; Battista Malatesta, of Urbino, who taught
philosophy with such marked success that the most distinguished professors
of the day were forced to recognize themselves as her inferiors; and Fulvia
Olympia Morati, who "at the age of fourteen wrote Latin letters and
dialogues in Greek and Latin in the style of Plato and Cicero," and who,

when she was scarcely sixteen, "was invited to give lectures in the
University of Ferrara on the philosophical problems of the Paradoxes of
Cicero." So great, indeed, was her knowledge of the ancient languages that
she was offered the professorship of Greek in the University of Heidelberg;
but death cut short her brilliant career before she could enter upon her
duties in this famed institution of learning. It was female professors of this
type—masters of Greek and Latin letters, who in the words of a recent
writer, "sent forth from Italy such students as Moritz von Spiegelberg and
Rudolph Agricola, to reform the instruction of Deventer and Zwoll and
prepare the way for Erasmus and Reuchlin."
In the preceding list of learned women—and but a few only have been
named of the many who in every city of importance conferred undying
glory on their sex—it is clear that the Renaissance in Italy was, indeed, the
golden age of women. Never in history had they greater freedom of action
in things of the mind; never were they, except probably in the case of the
English and German abbesses of the Middle Ages, treated with more
marked deference and consideration or fairness; never were their efforts
more highly appreciated or more generously rewarded, and never was their
success more highly and enthusiastically applauded. Temporal and spiritual
rulers, princes and cardinals, Popes and emperors vied with one another in
paying just tribute to woman's genius as well as to woman's virtue. The nun
in the cloister as well as the lady in the palace shared in the general
enthusiasm for learning, and they enjoyed throughout the peninsula the
same opportunities as men and received the same recognition for their
work. Everywhere the intellectual arena was open to them on the same
terms as to men. Incapacity and not sex was the only bar to entrance.
But the men of those days, especially scholars of the type of Bembo,
Politian and Ariosto, were liberal and broad-minded men, who never for a
moment imagined that a woman was out of her sphere or unsexed because
she wore a doctor's cap or occupied a university chair. And far from
stigmatizing her as a singular or strong-minded woman, they recognized her
as one who had but enhanced the graces and virtues of her sex by the added
attractions of a cultivated mind and a developed intellect. Not only did she
escape the shafts of satire and ridicule, which are so frequently aimed at the
educated woman of to-day, but she was called into the councils of temporal
and spiritual rulers as well.

Woe betide the ill-advised misogynist who should venture to declaim
against the inferiority of the female sex, or to protest against the honors
which an appreciative and a chivalrous age bestowed upon it with so lavish
a hand. The women of Italy, unlike those of other nations, knew how to
defend themselves, and were not afraid to take, when occasion demanded,
the pen in self-defense. This is evidenced by numerous works which were
written in response to certain narrow-minded pamphleteers—miseri
pedanti, pitiful pedants,—who would have the activities of women limited
to the nursery or the kitchen.[61]
A striking characteristic of these learned women was the entire absence of
all priggism or pedantry. Whether lecturing on law or philosophy, or
discoursing in Latin before Popes and cardinals, or taking part in
discussions on art and literature with the eminent humanists of the day, they
ever retained that beautiful simplicity which gives such a charm to true
greatness of mind and is the best index of true scholarship and noble,
symmetrical womanhood.
Nor did the rare intellectual attainments of these daughters of Italy destroy
that harmony of creation which, some will have it, is sure to be jeopardized
by giving women the same educational advantages as men. So far was this
from being the case that there were never more loyal and helpful wives nor
more devoted and stimulating mothers than there were among those women
who wrote verses in the language of Sappho, or delivered public addresses
in the tongue of Cicero. Still less did their serious and long-protracted
studies entail any of the dangers we hear so much of nowadays. The large
and healthy families of many of them prove that intellectual work, even of
the highest order, is not incompatible with motherhood; and still less that it,
per se, conduces, as is so often asserted, to race-suicide. These facts are
commended to the consideration of our modern opponents of the higher
education of women and to those militant conservatives and old-time
reactionaries who are still averse to opening the doors of some of our older
universities to women—even such universities as Oxford, several of whose
colleges were founded on the revenues derived from suppressed educational
institutions which had been built and used for generations for the sole
behoof of women.

But distinguished as were the women of Italy for their culture and
scholarship, they were yet more distinguished as patrons of learning, as
leaders and inspirers of the eminent men who were the chief representatives
of the Renaissance. Reference has already been made to the influence of
Vittoria Colonna on Michaelangelo—"who saw with her eyes, acted by her
inspiration, was lifted by her beyond the stars"—but this is only one of
many similar instances that might be adduced. Indeed, to the student of the
Italian Renaissance, the most interesting feature of it was, not its women
doctors and professors, but those noble and accomplished ladies who made
the courts of Ferrara, Mantua, Milan and Urbino the most noted intellectual
centers of Europe.
The most beautiful ornaments of the first three courts were Renée, duchess
of Ferrara; Isabella d'Este, marchioness of Mantua, and Beatrice d'Este,
duchess of Milan. They were all women of exceptional learning and culture,
and each was the center of a galaxy of talent such as is rarely witnessed in
any one place.
Among the men attracted to their courts were the most illustrious scholars,
artists, poets and musicians of the Renaissance. Here they found congenial
homes and breathed an atmosphere made fragrant by the appreciation
shown by their charming hostesses for their power and genius. Here they
found inspiration and a stimulus that spurred them on to their greatest
achievements. In Ferrara, where it was said that "there were as many poets
as there were frogs in the country round about," were gathered the most
gifted poets of the Renaissance who had been attracted there to recite their
latest masterpieces. Among them were Clement Marot, the first poet of
modern France, and Ariosto, the immortal author of Orlando Furioso.
There were the great painters, Titian and Bellini, and the illustrious poet,
Torquato Tasso, whose love subsequently immortalized Renée's youngest
daughter Leonora.
A similar artistic and intellectual supremacy was held by Isabelle d'Este.
For portrait painters she had Titian and Leonardo da Vinci, while, as
decorators of her home, she had Bellini and Perugino, whose compositions
she herself arranged, even in the minutest details. So it was likewise in the
gay and brilliant court of Beatrice d'Este, in Milan,—a place where artists
and scholars of all nationalities were always sure of a cordial welcome.

But the ideal center of intellectual culture was the court of Urbino, the
central figure of which was the learned and accomplished Elizabetta
Gonzaga. This picturesque city of the eastern slope of the Apennines was
then to Italy what Athens had been to Greece in the days of Pericles; and
Elizabetta was to its court what Aspasia was in her own matchless salon—
the magnet which attracted all the artists and men of letters of the age.
Castiglione, whose great work, The Courtier, was partly written as a
memorial of the peerless woman who inspired it, gives us a vivid picture of
"the fair ladies, with their quick intelligence and ready sympathy,"
discussing questions of art, literature, philosophy and Platonism, with the
most eminent scholars and artists of Europe. But Castiglione confesses that
he is unable to give us more than the mere outline of the picture. "To paint
the polished society of Urbino," as has been well said, "we should need
colors no palette contains—transparencies of the Grecian sky, the indigo of
certain seas, the liquid azure of certain eyes. For more than a century the
court of Urbino was regarded as the supreme exemplar. In the seventeenth
century, the Hotel de Rambouillet was still striving to make itself a copy of
it; unluckily such things as these are not easily copied."[62]
We are not surprised, then, at being told that "men moulded by Italian
ladies"—such ladies as graced the court of Urbino—"could be distinguished
among a thousand." Still less are we surprised to note the immense
difference between the refined and brilliant discussions of The Courtier as
compared with the coarse tales of the Decameron and Heptameron. And we
can understand the marvelous influence which Castiglione's matchless work
—inspired by the beloved Duchess Elizabetta—had upon the masters of
English literature—on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Spenser, Marlow, Shelley.
Cardinal Bembo, who was one of the most assiduous frequenters of this
famous court, in writing of Elizabetta, does not hesitate to declare: "I have
seen many excellent and noble women, and have heard of some who were
as illustrious for certain qualities, but in her alone among women, all virtues
were united and brought together. I have never seen nor heard of any one
who was her equal, and know very few who have even come near her."
It was Castiglione's experience at the court of Urbino, where he was a daily
witness of the irresistible influence of Elizabetta, that made him give

expression to the sentiment, "Man has for his portion physical strength and
external activities; all doing must be his, all inspiration must come from
woman." It was also this keen student of the mysterious workings of
woman's genius and of her secret, all-pervading influence, at times and in
places least suspected, who penned the notable statement—worthy of the
Renaissance—"Without women nothing is possible, either in military
courage, or art, or poetry, or music, or philosophy, or even religion. God is
truly seen only through them."
Only a few words are necessary to tell of the learned women of the
Renaissance outside of Italy. On account of its intimate connection with the
Italian peninsula, Spain was the second country in Europe to experience the
effects of the new intellectual movement. Among the educated Italians
whom Isabella, the Catholic, had attracted to her court were the brothers
Geraldini, whom she appointed as teachers of her children. Of her daughter,
Juana, Juan Vivès, the eminent Spanish scholar, says she was able to make
impromptu speeches in Latin, while Catherine, who became the wife of
Henry VIII, excited the admiration of Erasmus by the extent and accuracy
of her knowledge. It was from Salamanca that Isabella summoned her own
teacher of Latin, the learned Beatrix Galindo,[63] who was a professor of
rhetoric in the university long before Elizabeth of England had studied the
language of Virgil under Ascham.
Then there was Francisca de Lebrixa who often filled the chair of her father,
who was professor of history and rhetoric in the University of Alcala, and
Isabella Losa, of Cordova, who, among her other acquirements, counted a
knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. To his learned daughters, Gregoria and
Luisa, Antonio Perez, minister of Philip II, wrote saying: "Do not imagine,
when you are writing to me, that you are addressing Cicero or some Greek
author; lower your style to my level." There were also Isabella de Joya, who
commented on Scotus Erigena; Catherine Ribera, the bard of love and faith;
Doña Maria Pacheco de Mendoza; Bernarda Ferreyra, to whom, on account
of her rare scholarship, Lopez de Vega dedicated his beautiful elegy Phillis;
Juana Morella, who, besides having a profound knowledge of music,
philosophy, divinity and jurisprudence, was the mistress of fourteen
languages; Juana de la Cruz, the famous Mexican nun whose poetry of
superior merit, as well as her exceptional attainments in many branches of
knowledge, won for her the epithet of the "Tenth Muse"; Luisa Sigea, who

besides being a poet was a mistress of the classical and several oriental
languages, including Hebrew and Syro-Chaldaic, and other learned women
whom "no one was astonished to see taking by main force the first rank in
the spheres of literature, philosophy and theology."
So profoundly had the Renaissance affected the women of a limited circle
in England, that Erasmus could declare without exaggeration: "It is
charming to see the female sex demand classical instruction. The queen is
remarkably learned and her daughter writes good Latin. The home of More
is truly the abode of the Muses."
The queen of whom Erasmus speaks is Catherine of Aragon, who was
educated in Spain, who was a pupil of Vivès, and who, besides having a
thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek, was well acquainted with several
modern languages. The daughters of Sir Thomas More were among the
most learned women of their time and were, indeed, worthy of dwelling in
"the home of the Muses."

Lady Jane Grey read Plato in the original at the age of thirteen.[64] Anne,
Margaret and Jane Seymour were likewise celebrated for their knowledge
of the classics, as were Anne Boleyn and Mary Stuart, who both received
their education in France, and especially Queen Elizabeth, who was not
only one of the most learned women of her time but was probably also the
most learned queen England has ever produced. There were, however, no
university professors or poets of eminence among the English women, as
there were in Italy and Spain, and their creative work was practically
nothing.
Since the time of Hroswitha, Gertrude, the Matildas and Hildegard, the
learned woman has never been the ideal woman in Germany. When
Olympia Morati was on her way from Ferrara to Heidelberg to take the
chair of Greek, she found the daughters of professors and humanists
devoting themselves to sewing and embroidery instead of art and literature.
Anna, the eldest daughter of Melanchthon, was almost alone among the
German women of the Renaissance who had a knowledge of Latin.
In France the most learned woman of her time was undoubtedly Margaret of
Angoulême, queen of Navarre. So great was her knowledge and so
enthusiastic was she in promoting the study of the Latin and Greek classics

that Michelet, with something of exaggeration, perhaps, calls her "the
amiable mother of the Renaissance in France."[65] She was noted for her
devotion to the study of Scripture and theology as well as Greek and
Hebrew. She always had around her, or was in correspondence with, the
most distinguished scholars, poets, artists, philosophers and theologians of
the age, and undoubtedly did much, as a patroness of men of letters, toward
furthering the literary movement in France. She is, however, chiefly known
to modern readers by her Heptameron—a work which reveals too clearly
the tastes of her associates and the manners and customs of the time.
With the exception of Margaret of Navarre, there were but few literary
women of more than ephemeral reputation during the French Renaissance.
Among these Louise Labé deserves mention, as she was the most
distinguished poetess in France during the sixteenth century.[66] She, like
Margaret, was the center of a coterie of men of letters; but the reunions over
which she presided, as well as those of the author of the Heptameron, were
entirely lacking in the dignity and refinement of those of the polished court
of Urbino in the days of the peerless Elizabetta Gonzaga.
From what has been said respecting the rare learning of the women of the
Renaissance, one might infer that women in general enjoyed special
educational facilities during this period of intellectual activity. Paradoxical
as it may seem, the very contrary was the case. For, as history tells us, the
education of the Renaissance was essentially aristocratic. It was only for the
women of the nobility and for the wives and daughters of scholars, while
the great majority of the sex remained in a state of complete illiteracy.
The environment of the daughters of scholars was peculiarly favorable to
their intellectual development, and learning was in a certain measure their
natural heritage. They did not receive their education in schools, for there
were then few or no schools for girls, but from their fathers or from the men
of letters who frequented their homes. A typical home of this kind was that
of the noted savant, Robert Estienne of Paris, printer to Francis I. Here the
language of conversation was Latin, not only for the members of the family
but also for the servants as well.[67] Under such conditions we are not
surprised to be informed that the girls, as well as the boys, learned to speak
Latin as well as their mother tongue. And listening, as they did, to the daily
discussions on art and literature by the most learned men of a most learned

age, it was inevitable that they should acquire those vast stores of
knowledge on all subjects that so excite the astonishment of our less
studious women of to-day.
With the daughters of the nobility it was the same. In their youth they had,
under the paternal roof, the benefit of the instruction of the most eminent
masters of the time. And as they grew up their constant intercourse with
learned men and the part they took in all literary and social assemblies,
which were so prominent a feature of the period, enabled them to complete
their education under the most favorable auspices, and to have, before they
were out of their teens, a fund of information on all subjects that could not
be obtained so well, even in the best of our modern institutions of learning.
It was to these daughters of the élite—ingenuæ puellæ—that Erasmus and
Vivès addressed their treatises on education. They were the privileged class
at whose disposition were placed all the treasures of Greek and Latin letters.
It was, then, an easy matter for them to write poetry and dissertations in the
languages of Horace and Plato. And it was often a necessity for them to
speak Latin, for it was then the universal language of the learned—the
language that was understood everywhere—in England as in Italy, in
Germany as in France, in Flanders as well as in Spain and Portugal.
It was then that The Republic of Letters was a reality as never before; that
the man of letters was, of a truth, "a citizen of the world"; that his country
was wherever the cult of letters had priests or devotees. He was what the
ballad singer was during the Middle Ages, but with more dignity and
seriousness. He was the agent and representative of intellectual life, the
living symbol of the unity and solidarity of the human mind. And as in time
he linked the past to the present so likewise in space he bound all peoples
together and belonged equally to all. Such was Erasmus of Holland, who
was equally at home in France and Switzerland, in Italy and England—
everywhere received with the honor accorded to princes of the blood royal.
Such was Vivès, of Spain, the teacher of Catherine of Aragon, of Mary, the
daughter of Henry VIII—at one time professor in Louvain, at another in
Oxford—always and everywhere an ardent exponent of humanism for
women as well as for men. Such was Politian and such were scores of his
contemporaries, who carried the torch of knowledge from castle to castle
and from court to court, where maidens equally with youths enjoyed all the

advantages derivable from the lessons of such distinguished teachers and
such eminent leaders of culture.
For it was a peculiarity of the scholar of the Renaissance that he was a great
traveler—seeking knowledge wherever it was to be found—and carrying it
with him whithersoever he went. He journeyed from university to
university, everywhere exchanging views with his intellectual compeers,
and everywhere diffusing the knowledge he had so laboriously acquired.
The consequence was a wonderful uniformity of education among the
higher classes—among women as well as among men—something that was
never known before. Through the generally diffused knowledge of Latin,
the common literary medium of communication, all the nations of Europe,
even those at war with one another, were brought together in an intellectual
brotherhood and in a way which gave scholarship a power and a prestige
that accrued to the benefit of women and men alike.
But the educational advantages enjoyed by the women of the Renaissance
were not for the bourgeoisie—not for the daughters of peasants, tradesmen
and artisans. They were solely, as has been stated, for the benefit of the
children of princes or of scholars—of those only who could claim either
nobility of birth or nobility of genius.[68] Even the most zealous of the
humanists would have been surprised if they had been asked to diffuse a
portion of their light among the women of the masses. For education, as
they viewed it, was something solely for the elect—for ladies of the court
and not for women of a lower condition. So far as the rest of womankind
was concerned, their occupation was limited, according to a Breton saying,
to looking after altar, hearth, and children—"La femme se doit garder
l'autel, le feu, les enfants."
It was about this time, too, that men began, especially in France and
Germany, to revive the anti-feminist crusade which had so retarded the
literary movement among the women of ancient Greece and Rome. They
refused to hear women and intellect spoken of together. The Germans
recognized no intelligence in them apart from domestic duties, and seemed
to belong to that strange race, that has not yet died out, which believes
woman to be "afflicted with the radical incapacity to acquire an individual
idea." "What the Italians called intelligence a German would call tittle-

tattle, trickery, the spirit of opposition. They rejected such gratifications and
had no intention of allowing Delilah to shear them."[69]
In the estimation of Luther, the intellectual aspirations of women were not
only an absurdity, but were also a positive peril. "Take them," he says,
"from their housewifery and they are good for nothing." He treated the
humanist Vivès, preceptor of Mary Tudor, as "a dangerous spirit," because
the learned Spaniard was an ardent advocate of the higher education of
women. As to abstract and severe studies they were for girls, according to
one of Luther's contemporaries, but "vain and futile quackeries." For an
accomplished woman to quote the Fathers or the ancient classical writers
was to provoke ridicule, because to do so was considered an indication of
pedantry or affectation. Montaigne gave expression to the age-old prejudice
against woman by refusing to regard her as anything but a pretty animal,
while Rabelais, the coryphæus of the French Renaissance, declared that
"Nature in creating woman lost the good sense which she had displayed in
the creation of all other things."
Such being the views of the great leaders of thought and formers of public
opinion respecting the mental inferiority of woman—views which, outside
of Italy, had, with few exceptions, the cordial approval of the supercilious,
cockahoop male—is it necessary to add that the Renaissance did nothing for
popular education? The masses of women, especially after the suppression
of the convent schools in England and Germany, were, in many parts of
Europe, and notably in the two countries mentioned, in a worse condition
than they were during the Dark Ages.[70]

WOMAN AND EDUCATION BETWEEN THE RENAISSANCE AND
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The period following the Renaissance was not a brilliant one for woman,
especially outside of Italy. For in this favored land, even after the decadence
in literature that followed the glorious cinquecento, intellectual life opposed
so effective a barrier to the forces of extinction which were at work in other
parts of Europe, notably Germany and England, that there were still in
every part of the peninsula from the fertile plains of Lombardy to the sunny
Ionian sea, learned and cultured women who were eager to emulate the

achievements of their illustrious sisters of Italy's golden age of art, and
letters. We do not, it is true, find among them a Properzia de Rossi, a
Veronica Gambara, or a Vittoria Colonna; but we find many earnest and
enthusiastic students in every department of knowledge.
That which most impresses the student of education during this period of
Italian history is not the splendor of art and letters in court and castle, which
so dazzled Europe during the time of Renée of Ferrara and Elizabetta
Gonzaga of Urbino. We find, it is true, a goodly number of women who
won distinction as poets and artists; but it is rather those who were devoted
to more serious studies that arrest our attention—women who attained
eminence in physical and natural science, in mathematics, in the classical
and oriental languages, in philosophy, law and theology. Space precludes
the mention of more than a few of these, but these few may be accepted as
typical of many others almost equally distinguished.
Chief among those of whom their countrymen are specially proud are
Rosanna Somaglia Landi, of Milan, linguist and translator of Anacreon;
Maria Selvaggia Borghini, of Pisa, translator of the works of Tertullian;
Eleonora Barbapiccola, of Salerno, who translated into Italian the Principa
Philosophiæ of Descartes; Maria Angela Arginghelli, of Naples, who was
famed for her profound knowledge of physics and the higher mathematics
and who gave an Italian version of Stephen Hales' Vegetable Statics. Then
there was Clelia Grillo Borromeo, of Genoa, who was so distinguished in
science, mathematics, mechanics and languages that a medal was struck in
her honor bearing the inscription, Gloria Genuensium—glory of the
Genoese; and the still more famous Elena Cornaro Piscopia, of Venice, who
was truly a prodigy of learning as well as a paragon of virtue. In addition to
a knowledge of many modern, classical and oriental tongues, she exhibited
remarkable proficiency in astronomy, mathematics, music, philosophy and
theology. After a course of study in the University of Padua and after the
usual examination and discourse in classic Latin on some of the questions
of Aristotelian philosophy, she had the doctorate of philosophy conferred on
her in the cathedral of Padua, in the presence of thousands of learned men
and applauding students from all parts of Europe. But not content with
conferring on this extraordinary woman the ring, wreath of laurel and the
ermine mozetta—the usual insignia of the doctorate—the University, as a
special mark of distinction, had a medal coined in honor of the illustrious

graduate bearing her effigy, with the words, as the decree of the University
expressed it, ad perpetuam rei memoriam. That there was nothing
superficial about this young woman's knowledge of languages, it suffices to
state that she was able to speak Latin and Greek as fluently as her own
Italian, and that so profound was her knowledge of divinity that there were
many distinguished ecclesiastics in both Italy and France who favored
conferring on her the doctorate in theology.
Among other young women who obtained the doctorate in various
universities were Maddalena Canedi-Noe and Maria Vittoria Dosi who,
after the usual course of study in the university of Bologna, obtained the
degree of doctor of civil law, and Maria Pellegrina Amoretti, who received
the degree of doctor in both canon and civil law in the University of Pavia
and with it the doctor's cap—berreto dottorale. But more remarkable for
learning than any of these university graduates was Maria Gaetana Agnesi,
one of the most extraordinary women scholars of all time. On account of
her wonderful knowledge of languages she was called "The Oracle of
Seven Tongues." This, however, is not her chief title to fame. It is rather her
marvelous achievements in the domain of the higher mathematics. After the
appearance of her most noted work, Instituzioni Analytiche, she would at
once have been elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences had
not the laws of this learned body precluded the admission of women.[71]
That great Mæcenas of learning, Benedict XIV, showed his appreciation of
Maria Gaetana's exceptional attainments by appointing her—motu proprio
—to the chair of higher mathematics in the University of Bologna. A similar
honor had, in the preceding century, been conferred on Marta Marchina, of
Naples, when, on account of her rare knowledge of letters, philosophy and
theology, she was offered a chair in the Sapienza, in Rome, an honor which
her modesty and love of retirement caused her to decline.
We have seen that women professors achieved distinction in the Italian
universities even as early as the closing centuries of the Middle Ages. The
same was true during the Renaissance, and it has been equally true during
the period that has elapsed since the cinquecento.
Among the most eminent of those who taught in the universities were Laura
Bassi, who had the chair of physics in the University of Bologna, and
Clotilde Tambroni, professor of the Greek language and literature in the

same institution of learning. So thorough was her knowledge of the
language of Plato that it was the opinion of her contemporaries that there
were then only three persons in Europe who equaled her in her mastery of
this classic tongue. It was this distinguished Hellenist who graciously
delivered the address when one of her countrywomen, Maria dalle Donne,
received her doctorate in medicine and surgery. After her graduation Dr.
dalle Donne was given charge of a school for midwives in which she
rendered the greatest service to her sex. Even the chair of anatomy in the
University of Bologna was held by a woman, Anna Morandi-Menzolini,
and her work was of the highest order. The same position was held by
another woman, Maria Petraccini-Terretti, in the University of Ferrara.
What a contrast between the attitude of the universities of Italy and those of
other parts of the world toward women as students and professors! For a
thousand years the doors of the Italian universities have been open to
women, as well as to men; and for a thousand years women, as well as men,
have received their degrees from these noble and liberal institutions, and
occupied the most important positions in their gift, and that, too, with the
approval and encouragement of both spiritual and temporal rulers. For these
wise and broad-minded men did not regard it unwomanly for Laura Bassi to
teach physics, for Clotilde Tambroni to teach Greek, for Dorotea Bucca to
teach medicine, for Maria Gaetana to teach differential and integral
calculus, for Anna Morandi to teach anatomy, for Novella d'Andrea to teach
canon law, or even, if we may believe Denifle, one of the best of authorities,
for the daughters of a Paris professor to teach theology.[72] Yes, what a
contrast, indeed, between the Universities of Bologna and Padua, with their
long and honored list of women graduates and professors, and the
Universities of Cambridge and Oxford from which women have always
been and are still excluded, both as students and professors.
Contrast, also, the honors shown to women as students and professors of
medicine in Salerno, in the thirteenth century, with the riots excited among
the chivalrous male students of the University of Edinburgh, when, less
than a half century ago, seven young women applied for the privilege of
attending the courses of lectures on medicine and surgery in that institution.
And contrast the sympathy and encouragement of Italy with the almost
brutal opposition which women in our own country encountered when, but
a few decades ago, they applied for admittance to the medical schools of

New York and Philadelphia. The difference between the Italian and the
Anglo-Saxon attitude toward women in the all-important matters in
question requires no comment.[73]
One reason for the great difference between the women of Italy and those of
other parts of Europe in the matter of higher education during the period we
have been considering was the old Roman spirit of independence of the
former and their always insisting on what they regarded as their natural and
indefeasible rights. Following the example of the matrons of ancient Rome,
they insisted on being treated as the equals of men, and, as a consequence,
they demanded in the intellectual order all the advantages that were
accorded to men. They would never admit their mental inferiority to man,
and woe betide the luckless wight who even insinuated such inferiority. The
shafts of satire and ridicule were at once directed against him by a score of
women who were able to use the pen as well as, if not better than, himself.
Sometimes, however, such an one was taken seriously, and then the result
was a book by some clever woman to prove that there was no difference in
the intellectual power of the two sexes—that, if there was a difference, it
was in favor of the gentler sex. There is quite a large number of such works
in Italian; and it must be said that the women always met the arguments of
their adversaries in a manner that does them the greatest credit.
It was probably because of their insistence on the equality of the sexes, as
well as because of their achievements in every department of mental
activity, that the educated women of Italy enjoyed so many privileges
denied their sisters in other parts of Europe. Thus, in addition to being
treated as the equals of men in the universities, they met them on an equal
footing in the art, literary and scientific societies and academies, in the
proceedings of which they always exhibited an active and enthusiastic
interest. In these reunions the women gained strength of mind and
independence of character from the men, while the men imbibed refinement
and gentleness from the women. Compare this condition with the
systematic exclusion of women from similar societies in other countries—
even in this twentieth century of ours—and one of the not least potent
reasons for the intellectual supremacy of the women of Italy will be
apparent.

Next after Italy, France was the country in which, during the post-
Renaissance period, women enjoyed the greatest advantages of mental
development. But we look in vain, even during the age of Louis XIV, for
that flowering of the female intellect that, at the same period, rendered the
daughters of Italy so famous. It is true that there was a certain number of
learned women in France during the seventeenth century, and notably
during the golden age of Louis XIV, for during this period the traditions of
the Renaissance were perpetuated and there was still a lingering love of
letters, at least among certain classes of the aristocracy.
Prominent among those who attracted attention for their learning were
Gilberte and Jaqueline Pascal, of the celebrated convent of Port Royal;
Marie-Eleanore de Rohan and Gabrielle de Rochechouart, both, like the
Pascal sisters, inmates of the cloister; Marie Cramoisy, wife of the first
director of the royal printing office, and Mlle. de Luynes, a friend of Pascal.
All these counted among their attainments a writing knowledge of Latin,
but were far from being able, like the Italian women above mentioned, to
speak it with the same fluency as they did their mother tongue.
In addition to the learned French women just named, there was Elisabeth de
Rochechouart, a niece of Mme. de Montespan, who was able to read Plato
in Greek, and Anne de Rohan, Princess of Guéméné, who surprised her
countrymen by studying Hebrew. Then there were Mme. de Grignan, Marie
Dupré, Louise Serment, Anne de La Vigne, who, like the Princess Palatine,
Elisabeth, and Christine of Sweden, were ardent disciples of Descartes, and
took the lead among the femmes philosophes of their time.
But for profound and varied scholarship Mme. Dacier, the daughter of the
erudite Tanquil Le Fevre, was the most famous of all the women of her time
in France. Possessed of rare power of eloquence and beauty of style,
together with an extraordinary capacity for criticism, there was not a man in
Europe who did not respect her judgment in matters of literature and
culture. But that for which she was specially celebrated was her exceptional
knowledge of Latin and Greek. She not only translated the Iliad and the
Odyssey but also several other of the ancient classics. None of her
contemporaries had a more thorough mastery of the tongues of Homer and
Virgil, nor did any of her countrymen contribute more than she toward the
advancement of the knowledge of the literature of ancient Greece and

Rome. So highly prized was her version of the Iliad that it was translated by
Ozell into English. Her version of Plato's Phædo was also translated into
English and published by a New York bookseller more than a century after
her death. The scholarly Menagius, in his Historia Mulierum
Philosopharum, did not hesitate to pronounce her the most learned woman
of all time—Feminarum quot sunt, quot fuere doctissima.[74]
To Mme. de Maintenon, the morganatic wife of the Great Monarch, is due
the Institut de Saint-Cyr, the first state school for girls founded in France. It
was, however, solely for the daughters of the nobility. And, although it was
from the first under the direction of the foundress, a woman who was before
all else a teacher as well as one of the most enlightened women of the most
literary and philosophic age France ever knew—the age when the French
language was perfected, the age of the Academy, of Boileau, Molière,
Racine, Bossuet, Descartes—the studies prescribed in this institution, which
was under the special patronage of the king, were of the most elementary
character. They comprised reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, music,
drawing, dancing, and the elements of history, mythology and geography.
As to history, Mme. de Maintenon was satisfied if the pupils of Saint-Cyr
knew enough not to confound the kings of France with those of other
nations, and were able to avoid mistaking a Roman emperor for the
Emperor of China or Japan; or the King of Spain or England for the King of
Persia or Siam. And yet, restricted as it was, her programme of studies was
more complete than that of any other girls' school in the kingdom. One of
her reasons for not insisting on a more thorough course was that "women
never know but by halves, and the little that they do know usually makes
them proud, haughty and talkative and disgusted with solid things."[75]
In Saint-Cyr, the best girls' school in the kingdom, there was not a word
about the first principles of philosophy, nor about the physical and natural
sciences recommended by Fénelon. The elements just referred to, combined
with a goodly amount of esprit—bien de l'esprit—were considered quite
sufficient to prepare the future wives of the nobility for all the duties they
would be called upon to perform.
Mme. de Maintenon had probably been unconsciously influenced by what
she had seen at the court of her liege lord, where the greater part of the
women were extremely ignorant. Even Mme. de Montespan, the king's

favorite, and for years the leading figure at the court, was no exception. So
ignorant was she that she was not even able to spell the simplest and most
common words.[76]
And so it was with the most illustrious ladies of France. Many of them were
so devoid of instruction that they were unable either to read or to write.
Even the teachers in Saint-Cyr were so deficient in the simplest rudiments
of an education that Mme. de Maintenon found it necessary to correct their
letters, in order to teach them the most essential rules of epistolary
correspondence. In reality, the women of the age of Louis XIV did not
trouble themselves about an education as we understand it. Endowed with
esprit, with a natural and acquired taste for things intellectual, they were
satisfied with such knowledge as they could glean from reading or
conversation, and with comparatively few exceptions, showed no
disposition to devote long years to study in school, much less in a
university, as did their sisters to the south of the Alps.
The foundress of Saint-Cyr had likewise been influenced by her
environment as well as by the court—an environment which was becoming
daily more and more unfavorable to the education, especially anything
approaching the higher education, of women. A young woman's education
was considered complete when she was able to read, write, dance and play
some musical instrument. Anything more was deemed superfluous and
deserving of censure and ridicule rather than praise.
It was at this time that Molière's two celebrated plays, Les Femmes
Savantes and Les Précieuses Ridicules, were given to the world. These
well-known productions, replete with the author's brightest flashes of wit,
and abounding in his most effective shafts of satire, produced at once an
immense sensation. As soon as published, they were in the hands of
everybody. Those who were opposed to the education of women—and the
number was daily increasing—had recourse to them as to arsenals which
supplied them with just the arms they had so long needed to decide in their
favor the long warfare which they had been conducting against the gentler
sex. The views of the bourgeois Chrysale as expressed to his sister, Belise,
were so in harmony with their own that they loved on every occasion to
repeat with him:

"No,
It isn't decent, and for many reasons,
That womankind should study and know too much.
To teach her children what is right and wrong,
Manage her household, oversee her servants,
And keep expenses within bounds, should be
Her only study and philosophy.
Our fathers, on this point, showed great good sense;
They said a woman always knows enough
If but her understanding reaches
To telling, one from t'other, coat and breeches.
Their wives, who couldn't read, led honest lives,
Their households were their only learned theme,
And all their books were thimble, thread and needles.
With which they made their daughters' wedding outfits.
But now our women scorn to live like that;
They want to write and all be authoresses.
They think no knowledge is too deep for them."[77]

Molière's intention in writing these justly famous comedies was not, as is so
often asserted, to ridicule women of learning, but only those superficial
pedants who affected knowledge or loved to make a display of the little
knowledge they happened to possess. The result, however, was quite
different from what had been intended, for the poet's pleasantries were
taken so seriously, that even women of real learning, in order to avoid
ridicule, were condemned to absolute silence. The comic dramatist,
Destouches, expressed the prevailing opinion when he wrote:

"Une femme savante
Doit cacher son savoir, ou c'est une imprudente."[78]

Few French women thereafter had the courage to defend their sex, as did
their sisters in Italy, and the result was that, with a few exceptions, like
Mme. du Châtelet, Sophie Germain, and Mme. Lepaute, there were no more
learned women in France for fully two centuries.

Never did satire and ridicule accomplish more, except probably in the case
of Don Quixote—that masterly creation of Cervantes which dealt the death-
blow to knight-errantry—than did Les Femmes Savantes and Les Précieuses
Ridicules. The learned woman became as much an object of derision in
France as was the knight-errant in Spain.
It was not, however, in the nature of the French woman, with all her
vivacity and energy, to be suppressed entirely or to be relegated for long to
the background in things of the mind. But, not then daring to face the
ridicule which was inevitable, if she devoted herself to science or
philosophy, she sought a substitute for her intellectual activity in the salon.
The first salon was established by an Italian woman, the Marquise de
Rambouillet, in 1617, and was modeled after the famous reunions held at
the court of Urbino under Elizabetta Gonzaga, a century before. Although it
never exhibited the splendor of its Italian prototype, the Hôtel de
Rambouillet was for more than fifty years the most important literary center
of the kind in France. Here, owing to the tact, esprit, and magnetic
personality of Mme. de Rambouillet, were gathered the most distinguished
men and women of the time. Among them were poets, philosophers,
statesmen, ecclesiastics and ladies of rank, whose names still dazzle us by
their brilliancy. Bossuet, Molière, La Fontaine, Corneille and the great
Condé were there; so were Fléchier, Balzac, Voiture, Saint-Evremont,
Descartes and La Rochefoucauld; and so, too, were Mme. de Sevigné, the
Duchess of Montpensier, Madeleine de Scudéry, La Comtesse de La
Fayette, Charlotte de Montmorency, and Cardinal Richelieu who got from
this noted salon the idea which led to his greatest foundation—the French
Academy.
It was Mme. de Rambouillet who, through her reunions in her exquisite
Chambre Bleue, for the first time brought together elements that were
previously considered as belonging to different castes. It was she, also, who
created modern society with its purely intellectual hierarchy, by having the
representatives of the nobility meet men of science and letters on an equal
footing. It seems to us now the most natural thing in the world for a great
savant, a great poet, or a great philosopher, to be received in the same salon
with the Duchess of Montpensier—La Grande Mademoiselle—but it was
far from being so when the brilliant young Italian matron—for she was a

daughter of the noble Roman family of the Savelli—began her epoch-
making work in the Hôtel de Rambouillet, where, after overcoming
countless difficulties and prejudices, she eventually succeeded in bringing
together, and in enlisting in a common cause, the nobility of birth and the
nobility of intellect, and introducing into the exclusive set of Paris the same
kind of social coteries that had so long been popular in Urbino and Ferrara.
The Hôtel de Rambouillet was the exemplar of that long series of salons
which, for two centuries, were the favorite trysting-places of the talent, the
wit, the beauty of Europe, and which exerted such a potent influence on
society and on the progress of science and literature. The mistress of the
salon was supreme, and she maintained her supremacy by her tact,
sympathy, intelligence and mental alertness, rather than by learning and
superior mental power.
Indeed, it is a singular fact that very few of the salonières were learned
women. The most gifted and the most learned of them were Mlle.
Lespinasse, Mme. de Staël, and Mme. Swetchine. Mme. Geoffrin, who was
of bourgeois origin, was so devoid of education that Voltaire said she was
unable to write two lines correctly. And yet, despite her educational
limitations, she became, by her own unaided efforts, the queen of
intellectual Europe.
And, if we may judge by their portraits, most of the great leaders of salons
were homely, if not positively ugly, and many of them were advanced in
years. Thus, Mme. du Deffand—the female Voltaire—was sixty-eight years
old and blind when her friendship with Horace Walpole, one of the wittiest
Englishmen who ever lived, began—a friendship that endured until her
death at the age of eighty-three. The face of Mlle. de Lespinasse was
disfigured by small-pox and her eyesight was impaired; and yet, without
rank, wealth or beauty, she was the pivot around which circled the talent
and fashion of Paris, and whose personal magnetism was so great that the
state, the church, the court, as well as foreign countries, had their most
distinguished representatives in her salon.
Here she received and entertained her friends every evening from five until
nine o'clock. "It was," writes La Harpe, "almost a title to consideration to be
received into this society." So great was the influence exerted by Mlle. de

Lespinasse that she bent savants to her will by the sheer force of genius.
Her salon became known as "the ante-chamber of the French Academy"; for
it was asserted that half the academicians of her time owed their fauteuils to
her active canvass in their behalf. And so successful was she in opening the
lips and minds of her habitués, whether an historian like Hume, a
philosopher like Condillac, a statesman like Turgot, a mathematician like
d'Alembert, a litterateur like Marmontel or an encyclopedist like Condorcet,
that it was said of her that she made "marble feel and matter think."
She was a veritable enchantress of the great and the learned of her time. She
did not, however, wield her magic wand through her learning, or the
accident of birth, or the physical attractions of person, but solely by reason
of her wonderful vivacity, charm of mind, and exquisite tact, which
consisted, as those who knew her well tell us, "in the art of saying to each
that which suits him," and in "making the best of the minds of others, of
interesting them, and of bringing them into play without any appearance of
constraint or effort." This rare faculty it was which secured for her a
supremacy in the world of thought and action that has been accorded to but
few women in the world's history. Vibrant with emotion and passion, she
reminds one of the gifted but hapless Heloise. Marmontel, who had such a
high opinion of her judgment that he submitted his works for her criticism,
as Molière had submitted his to Ninon de Lenclos, describes her as "the
keenest intelligence, the most ardent soul, the most inflammable
imagination that has existed since Sappho."
But aside from what she achieved indirectly through the habitués of her
salon, what has this supremely clever woman left to the world? Only a few
love letters to a heartless coxcomb.
And what have the other noted salonières from the time of the Marquise de
Rambouillet to that of Mme. Swetchine—full two centuries—bequeathed to
us that is worth preserving? With the exception of the works of Mme. de
Staël, whom Lord Jeffrey declared to be "the greatest female writer in any
age or country," we have little more than certain Mémoires and
Correspondances whose chief claims to fame rest on the vivid pictures
which they present of the manners and customs of the time and of the
celebrities who were regarded as the chief ornaments of the salons which
they severally frequented. Most of these works were posthumous; for few

women, after Molière's merciless scoring of learned women, had the
courage to appear in print. Even Mme. de Scudéry, one of the most gifted
and prolific writers of the period, gave her first novel to the world under her
brother's name. And so tabooed was female authorship that Mme. de La
Fayette, one of the most brilliant of the précieuses, disclaimed all
knowledge of her Princesse de Clèves, while her masterpiece, Histoire
d'Henriette d'Angleterre, was not published until after her death.
The truth is that the period of the salon was for the most part a period of
contrasts and contradictions. At first the better educated salonières were
chiefly interested in belles-lettres. Then they devoted themselves more to
science and philosophy, and finally, during the years immediately preceding
the Revolution, they found their greatest pleasure in politics. As for the
men, while professing to adore women, they had little esteem for them, and
still less respect. Often, it is true, the women who frequented the salons
were deserving neither of respect nor of esteem.
Sydney Smith spoke of those under the old régime as "women of brilliant
talents who violated all the common duties of life and gave very pleasant
little suppers." It was certainly true of many of them—even of some of the
most distinguished—such, for instance, as Mme. d'Epinay, Mme. du
Deffand, Ninon de Lenclos and Mme. Tencin, the mother of D'Alembert.
There was little in their manner of life to distinguish them from the hetæræ
of ancient Athens, and it was probably owing to this fact, as well as their
wit and brilliancy, that many of them attained such preëminence as social
leaders. The statesmen, philosophers, men of science and letters of France,
like those of Greece more than two thousand years before, wanted
distraction and amusement. That the mistresses of the salons should be
women of learning was of little moment. The all important thing for their
habitués was that they should be good entertainers—that they should be
witty, tactful and sympathetic—and, if ignorant, that they should be
brilliantly ignorant, and, at the same time, enchantingly frank and naïve.
Strange as it may appear there was as much hostility to learned women at
the close of the eighteenth century as there was in the time of Louis XIV.
And the remarkable fact is that the strongest opponents of women's
education were found among the most prominent writers and scholars of the
day—men who, like their predecessors of old, based their opposition on the

assumed mental inferiority of woman. Thus, to Rousseau, woman was at
best but "an imperfect man," and, in many respects, little more than "a
grown-up child." Search after abstract and speculative truths, principles and
axioms in science, "everything that tends to generalize ideas is outside of
her competence." That means that women are to be excluded from the study
of mathematics and the physical sciences, because they are incapable of
generalization, abstraction, and the mental concentration that these subjects
demand. Even the masterpieces of literature, according to him, are beyond
their comprehension. In a word, feminine studies, Rousseau will have it,
should relate exclusively to practical and domestic matters and he endorses
the words of Molière that

"It is not seemly, and for many reasons,
That a woman should study and know so many things."

Diderot, Montesquieu, Voltaire and the Encyclopedists share the views of
Rousseau. Diderot declares that serious studies do not comport with
woman's sex, while Montesquieu would limit female education to mere
accomplishments.
But this is not all. Antagonistic as these men were to the education of the
daughters of the nobility and the well-to-do, they were entirely opposed to
the education of the children of the poor. "The good of society," it was
averred, "demands that the instruction of the people extend not beyond their
occupations." "The poor," declares Rousseau, "have no need of instruction,"
and Voltaire and the Encyclopedists say, "Amen."[79]
Very little need be said about the education of women in Germany during
the period we have been considering. When there was any at all, it was of
the most rudimentary character, while as to books, they were limited to the
kind recommended by Byron for the women of modern Greece—"books of
piety and cookery." The attitude of the Germans generally toward female
education, for centuries past, was clearly defined by the Kaiser Wilhelm II,
when, a few years ago, he publicly stated: "I agree with my wife. She says
women have no business to interfere with anything outside of the four K's,
that is, Kinder, Kirche, Küche, Kleider—children, church, kitchen, clothes."

There was, however, during the period we are now considering, one
remarkable example of a learned woman of Teutonic origin. This was the
famous Anna Maria van Schurman, who was one of the most gifted women
that ever lived. She was, probably, as near to being a universal genius as
any one of her sex of whom we have knowledge. Artist, musician, poet,
philosopher, theologian, linguist, she was the admiration of the scholars of
the world and the pride of the Low Countries—the land of her birth. She
lived when Holland was in the van of human progress and amidst of the
splendors of the Dutch Renaissance. She was the friend and correspondent
of the most distinguished scholars and most noted celebrities of her time.
Among these were Voet, Spanheim, Descartes, Gassendi, Constantine
Huyghens, Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, Queen Christina of Sweden, and
Cardinal Richelieu. To go to the Netherlands, it was then said, without
seeing Anna van Schurman, was like going to Paris without seeing the king.
She was hailed as "The Tenth Muse," "The Sappho of Holland," "The
Oracle of Art," "The Star of Utrecht."
That, however, which gave the greatest renown to the "Learned Maid," as
Anna was called, was her extraordinary knowledge of languages. For,
besides being proficient in the chief modern tongues of Europe, she was
well acquainted with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syro-Chaldaic and Ethiopic.
The oriental languages she studied as an aid to the better understanding of
Holy Scripture.
She was the author of several works, among which was an Ethiopic
grammar which was acclaimed by the professors of the Dutch universities
as a marvelous achievement. Her best known volume is designated
Opuscula. It was brought out by the Elzevirs in Leyden and went through
several editions. It is composed of letters and short treatises in French,
Latin, Greek and Hebrew—in verse as well as prose.
Of more value, if less striking, than the productions named were the
"Learned Maid's" writings in favor of the intellectual enfranchisement of
her own sex. In a letter to Dr. Rivet, Professor of Theology in Leyden, she
declares:
"My deep regard for learning, my conviction that equal justice is the right
of all, impel me to protest against the theory which would allow only a

minority of my sex to attain to what is in the opinion of all men most worth
having. For, since wisdom is admitted to be the crown of human
achievement, and is within every man's right to aim at in proportion to his
opportunities, I cannot see why a young girl, in whom we admit a desire of
self-improvement, should not be encouraged to acquire the best that life
affords."
To those who objected that the distaff and the needle were sufficient to
occupy women's minds, Anna Maria made answer that the words of
Plutarch—"It becomes a perfect man to know what is to be known and to
do what is to be done"—applied with equal truth to a perfect woman.[80]
In England, until the latter part of the nineteenth century, the educational
status of women was but little better than in Germany. During the Stuart
period schools for girls were so scarce that most of those who received any
education at all obtained it at home under private tutors. Even then it rarely
embraced more than reading, writing, needlework, singing, dancing and
playing on the lute or virginal.[81]
As to the higher studies for women, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writes as
follows: "My sex is usually forbid studies of this nature and folly reckoned
so much our proper sphere that we are sooner pardoned any excesses of that
than the least pretensions to reading or good sense. We are permitted no
books but such as tend to the weakening or effeminating of the mind. Our
natural defects are in every way indulged, and it is looked upon as in a
degree criminal to improve our reason or fancy we have any.... There is
hardly a creature in the world more despicable or more liable to universal
ridicule than that of a learned woman: these words imply, according to the
received sense, a tattling, impertinent, vain and conceited creature."[82]
Higher studies for their daughters were regarded by the generality of men,
the same writer tells us, "as great a profanation as the clergy would do if the
laity would presume to exercise the functions of the priesthood."
Referring to the handicaps suffered by the women of England in the pursuit
of knowledge, the same writer declares: "We are educated in the grossest
ignorance, and no art is omitted to stifle our natural reason; if some few get

above their nurses' instructions, our knowledge must be concealed and be as
useless to the world as gold in the mine."
Lord Chesterfield, in His Letters to His Son, expresses the opinion of his
contemporaries when he writes on the same subject as follows: "Women are
only children of a larger growth; they have an entertaining tattle, sometimes
wit; but, for solid reasoning, good sense, I never in my life knew one who
had it, or who reasoned or acted consequentially for twenty-four hours
together.... A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors
and flatters them as he does a sprightly forward child; but he neither
consults them about nor trusts them with serious matters, though he often
makes them believe he does both, which is the thing in the world which
they are proud of; for they love mightily to be dabbling in business, which,
by the way, they always spoil, and, being distrustful that men in general
look upon them in a trifling light, they almost adore that man who talks to
them seriously and seems to consult and trust them."[83]
And this was written by that "mirror of politeness and chivalry" whose
name has for two centuries been synonymous with that of a perfect
gentleman! And Lady Montagu was compelled to pen her caustic and
pathetic plaints during the age of Pope, Steele, Addison, Swift,[84] Johnson,
Dryden and Goldsmith—the most brilliant pleiad of literary men that
England had known since the days of Shakespeare.
So unnatural for women were literary and scientific pursuits regarded by all
classes that the few who attained any eminence in them were classed as
abnormal creatures who deserved no more consideration than did the
Précieuses across the Channel. And so great was the power of public
sentiment against women writers that Fanny Burney was afraid to
acknowledge the authorship of Evelina. Even in Jane Austen's days, the
feeling that a woman, in writing a book, was overstepping the limitations of
her sex was so pronounced that she never actually avowed the authorship of
those charming works which have been the delight of three generations of
readers. It was this same sentiment that caused the Brontë sisters and
George Eliot, as well as many other notable women, to write under
pseudonyms. They feared to disclose their sex lest their works, if known as
the productions of women, should be ipso facto branded as of inferior merit.

During the period in question women fared no better in the United States
than in England. They were subject to the same educational debarment and
were the victims of the same snobbery and intolerance. The Pilgrim Fathers
and their descendants for many generations made no secret of their belief in
the mental inferiority of woman, and applied to her the gospel of liberty
contained in the following words of Eve to Adam as given in Paradise Lost:

"My author and dispenser, what thou bidst
Unargued I obey; so God ordains;
God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise."

To the Puritan of New England, as to the Puritan Milton, the relative
attainments of woman and man were tersely expressed in Tennyson's
couplet:

"She knows but matters of the house,
And he, he knows a thousand things."

To us one of the most astounding facts in the educational history of New
England is the long time during which girls were without free school
opportunities. Thus, although schools had been established within twenty
years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, it was not until a century
and a half later that their doors were opened to girls. The public schools of
Boston were established in 1642, but were not opened for girls until 1789;
and then only for instruction in spelling, reading and composition, and that
but one half of the year. There was no high school in Boston, the vaunted
Athens of America, until 1852.
Harvard College was founded in 1636 for the education of "ye English and
Indian youth of this country in knowledge and godlyness," but in this
institution no provision was made for women and its doors are still closed
to them.
"The prevailing notion of the purpose of education," declares Charles
Francis Adams, in speaking of Harvard College, "was attended with one
remarkable consequence—the cultivation of the female mind was regarded

with utter indifference; as Mrs. Abigail Adams says in one of her letters, 'it
was fashionable to ridicule learning.'"[85]
It was not until 1865 that Matthew Vassar, "recognizing in women the same
intellectual constitution as in man," founded the first woman's college in the
United States. This was soon followed by similar institutions in various
parts of this country and Europe. In less than ten years thereafter Girton and
Newnham colleges were founded at Cambridge, England, in order that
women might be enabled to enter upon a regular university career.
In all the universities of England, Scotland and Ireland, except Oxford,
Cambridge[86] and Trinity College, Dublin, women are now admitted to all
departments, pass the same examinations as the men and receive the same
academic degrees. Germany, whose institutions for the higher education of
men have so long been justly famous, was exceedingly slow to open its
universities to women, and then only after the most stubborn opposition of
those who still maintained that the studies of women should be limited to
the three R's and their occupations confined to the four K's. But even in this
conservative country the cause of woman has at length triumphed, and she
now enjoys educational advantages that a few decades ago were deemed
forever impossible.
And so it is in every civilized country. Woman's long struggle for complete
intellectual freedom is almost ended, and certain victory is already in sight.
In spite of the sarcasm and ridicule of satirists and comic poets, in spite of
the antipathy of philosophers and the antagonism of legislators who
persisted in treating women as inferior beings, they are finally in view of
the goal toward which they have through so many long ages been bending
their best efforts. Moreover, so effective and so concentrated has been their
work during recent years that they have accomplished more toward
securing complete intellectual enfranchisement than during the previous
thirty centuries.
From the former home of the Vikings to the romantic land of the Cid, from
the capital of Holy Russia to the fair metropolis of the Golden Gate, women
are now welcomed to the very institutions from which but a few years ago
they were so systematically excluded. They attend the same courses as men,
pass the same examinations and receive the same degrees and honors. Their

sex is no longer a bar to positions and employment that only a generation
ago were considered proper only for the proud and imperious male. They
have proved beyond cavil that genius knows not sex, and that, given a fair
opportunity, they are competent to achieve success in every department of
human effort.
Thus, to speak only of Europe, there are to-day women professors in the
universities of Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Greece and Russia,
as there have been in Italy since the closing years of the Dark Ages. They
lecture on science, literature, law and medicine, and in a manner to extort
the admiration of their erstwhile antagonists. In Germany and Hungary
there are women chemists and architects, while it is a matter of record that
the best construction work done on the trans-Siberian railroad was that in
charge of a woman engineer.
As an illustration of the marvelous change which has been brought about
during the last three-quarters of a century in the educational status of
woman, I can do no better than transcribe a few passages from a work by
Sir Walter Besant describing the transformation of woman during the reign
of Queen Victoria; for it applies to all civilized countries as well as to
England.
"The young lady of 1837 has been to a fashionable school; she has learned
accomplishments, deportment and dress. She is full of sentiment; there was
an amazing amount of sentiment in the air about that time; she loves to talk
and read about gallant knights, crusaders and troubadors; she gently touches
the guitar; her sentiment, or her little affectation, has touched her with a
graceful melancholy, a becoming stoop, a sweet pensiveness. She loves the
aristocracy, even although her home is in that part of London called
Bloomsbury, whither the belted earl cometh not, even though her papa goes
into the City; she reads a deal of poetry, especially those poems which deal
with the affections, of which there are many at this time. On Sunday she
goes to church religiously and pensively, followed by a footman carrying
her prayerbook and a long stick; she can play on the guitar and the piano a
few easy pieces which she has learned. She knows a few words of French,
which she produces at frequent intervals; as to history, geography, science,
the condition of the people, her mind is an entire blank; she knows nothing
of these things. Her conversation is commonplace, as her ideas are limited;

she can not reason on any subject whatever because of her ignorance; or, as
she herself would say, because she is a woman. In her presence, and indeed
in the presence of ladies generally, men talk trivialities. There was indeed a
general belief that women were creatures incapable of argument, or of
reason, or of connected thought. It was no use arguing about the matter. The
Lord had made them so. Women, said the philosophers, can not understand
logic; they see things, if they do see them at all, by instinctive perception.
This theory accounted for everything, for those cases when women
undoubtedly did 'see things.' Also it fully justified people in withholding
from women any kind of education worthy the name. A quite needless
expense, you understand."
Her amusements, we are told, were "those of an amateur—a few pieces on
the guitar and the piano and some slight power of sketching or flower
painting in water-colors." The literature she read "endeavored to mold
woman on the theory of recognized intellectual inferiority to man. She was
considered beneath him in intellect as in physical strength; she was
exhorted to defer to man; to acknowledge his superiority; not to show
herself anxious to combat his opinions....
"This system of artificial restraints certainly produced faithful wives, gentle
mothers, loving sisters, able housewives. God forbid that we should say
otherwise, but it is certain that the intellectual attainments of women were
then what we should call contemptible, and the range of subjects of which
they knew nothing was absurdly narrow and limited. I detect the woman of
1840 in the character of Mrs. Clive Newcome, and, indeed, in Mrs. George
Osborne, and in other familiar characters of Thackeray."
Then Sir Walter, turning to the young Englishwoman of 1897, thus
describes her:
"She is educated. Whatsoever things are taught to the young man are taught
to the young woman; the keys of knowledge are given to her; she gathers of
the famous tree; if she wants to explore the wickedness of the world she can
do so, for it is all in the books. The secrets of nature are not closed to her;
she can learn the structure of the body if she wishes. The secrets of science
are all open to her if she cares to study them.

"At school, at college, she studies just as the young man studies, but harder
and with greater concentration. She has proved her ability in the Honors
Tripos of every branch; she has beaten the senior wrangler in mathematics;
she has taken a 'first-class' in classics, in history, in science, in languages.
She has proved, not that she is a man's equal in intellect, though she claims
so much, because she has not yet advanced any branch of learning, of
science, one single step, but she has proved her capacity to take her place
beside the young men who are the flower of their generation—the young
men who stand in the first class of honors when they take their degree....
"Personal independence—that is the keynote of the situation. Mothers no
longer attempt the old control over their daughters; they would find it
impossible. The girls go off by themselves on their bicycles; they go about
as they please; they neither compromise themselves nor get talked about;
for the first time in man's history it is regarded as a right and proper thing to
trust a girl as a boy insists upon being trusted. Out of this personal freedom
will come, I dare say, a change in the old feelings of young man to maiden.
He will not see in her a frail, tender plant which must be protected from
cold winds; she can protect herself perfectly well. He will not see in her any
longer a creature of sweet emotions and pure aspirations, coupled with a
complete ignorance of the world, because she already knows all that she
wants to know....
"Perhaps the greatest change is that woman now does thoroughly what
before she only did as an amateur."[87]
Yes, the world is beginning at last to realize the truth of the proposition
which the learned Maria Gaetana Agnesi so eloquently defended nearly two
centuries ago—to wit, that nature has endowed the female mind with a
capacity for all knowledge, and that, in depriving women of an opportunity
of acquiring knowledge, men work against the best interests of the public
weal.[88]
We are at the long last near that millennium which Emerson had in mind
when, in 1822, he predicted "a time when higher institutions for the
education of young women would be as needful as colleges for young
men"—that millennium for which women have hoped and striven ever

since Sappho sang and Aspasia inspired the brightest, the noblest minds of
Greece.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] Demosthenes In Neæram, 122. Τας μεν γαρ ἑταιρας ἡδονης ἑνεκ' εχομεν, τας
δε παλλακας της καθ' ἡμεραν θεραπεις του σωματος, τας δε γυναικας του
παιδοποιεισθαι γνησιως και των ενδον ζυλακα πιστην εχειν.
As indicative of the comparative value of men and women, as members of
society, in the estimation of the Greeks, Euripides makes Iphigenia give
utterance to the following sentiment:

"More than a thousand women is one man
Worthy to see the light of life."

[2] Της τε γαρ, ὑπαρχουσης ζυσεως μη χειροσι γενεσθαι ὑμιν μεγαη η δοξα'και
ἡς αν επ' ελαχιστον αρετης περι η ψογου εν αρσεσι κλεος η. Thucidides, History
of the Peloponnesian War, II, 45.
"Phidias," Plutarch tells us in his Conjugal Precepts, "made the statue of Venus
at Elis with one foot on the shell of a tortoise, to signify two great duties of a
virtuous woman, which are to keep at home and be silent. For she is only to
speak to her husband or by her husband."
[3] Ariosto, referring to the undying fame of Sappho and Corinna, expresses
himself in words as beautiful as they are true, as witness the following couplet:

Saffo e Corinna, perche furon dotte,
Splendono illustri, e mai non veggon notte.
—Orlando Furioso, Canto XX, strophe I.

[4] The nine "Terrestrial Muses" were Sappho, Erinna, Myrus, Myrtis, Corinna,
Telesilla, Praxilla, Nossis and Anyta.
The Greek poet Antipater embodies the names of the "Terrestrial Nine" in an
epigram which is well rendered in the appended Latin translation:

Has divinis linguis Helicon nutrivit mulieres
Hymnis, et Macedon Pierias scopulus,
Prexillam, Myro, Anytæ os, fœminam Homerum,
Lesbidum Sappho ornamentum capillatarum.
Erinnam, Telesillam nobilem, teque Corinna,
Strenuum Palladis scutum quæ cecinit.
Nossidem muliebri lingua, et dulsisonam Myrtin,
Omnes immortalium operatrices librorum.
Novem quidem Musas magnum cœlum, novem vero illas
Terra genuit hominibus, immortalem lætitiam.

[5] Cf. Poetriarum octo, Erinnæ, Myrus, Mytidis, Corinnæ, Telesillæ, Praxillæ,
Nossidis, Anytæ fragmenta et elogia, by J. C. Wolf Hamburg, 1734. See also the
charming memoir "Sappho" by H. T. Wharton, London, 1898, and Griechische
Dicterinnen, by J. C. Poestion, Vienna, 1876.
[6] See Mulierum Græcarum quæ oratione prosa usæ sunt fragmenta et elogia
Græce et Latine, by J. C. Wolf, London, 1739, Historia Mulierum
Philosopharum, scriptore Ægidio Menagio, Lugduni, 1690, Griechische
Philosophinnen, by J. C. Poestion, Norden, 1885, and Le Donne alle Scuole dei
Filosofi Greci in Saggi e Note Critiche, by A. Chiappelli, Bologna, 1895.
[7] Woman: Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome and Among
the Early Christians, pp. 58 and 59, by James Donaldson, London, 1907.
[8] There were several hetæræ named Lais. One of them, apparently a native of
Corinth, was celebrated throughout Greece as the most beautiful woman of her
age.
[9] For information respecting the hetæræ the reader is referred to the Letters of
Alciphron, to Lucian's Dialogues on courtesans, and more particularly to the
Deipnosophists of Athenæus, Chap. XIII. See also The Lives and Opinions of the
Ancient Philosophers, by Diogenes Laertius, Bohn Edition, London.
[10] Donaldson, op. cit., pp. 61 and 62.
Adolph Schmidt, one of the late biographers of Aspasia, accepts these statements
as true and credits to Aspasia the making of both Pericles and Socrates. His
views are also shared by other modern writers who have made a special study of
the subject.
According to some writers an indirect allusion to Aspasia's intellectual
superiority is found in the Medea of Euripedes in the following verses of the
women's chorus:

"In subtle questions I full many a time
Have heretofore engaged, and this great point
Debated, whether woman should extend
Her search into abstruse and hidden truths.
But we too have a Muse, who with our sex
Associates to expound the mystic lore
Of wisdom, though she dwell not with us all."

[11] It is proper to add that certain modern writers will not admit that Aspasia
was ever an hetæra in the sense of being a courtesan. After Pericles had divorced
his first wife, he lived with Aspasia as his second wife, to whom he was devoted
and faithful until death. According to Greek law, which forbade Athenian
citizens to marry foreign women, he could not be her legal husband; but, there
can be no doubt that he always treated her with all the respect and affection due
to a wife. His dying words: "Athens entrusted her greatness and Aspasia her
happiness to me," clearly evince her nobility of character and the place she must
ever have occupied in the great statesman's heart.

The most important notices in ancient writings, respecting Aspasia, are found in
Plutarch's Pericles, Xenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates and Plato's Menexenus.
Among the most valuable of modern works on the same subject is Aspasie de
Milet, by L. Becq de Fouquières, Paris, 1872. Cf. also Aspasie et le Siècle de
Pericles, Paris, 1862; Histoire des Deux Aspasies, by Le Comte de Bièvre, Paris,
1736, and A. Schmidt's Sur l'Age de Pericles, 1877-79.
[12] Under the term music, Plato, like his contemporaries, included reading,
writing, literature, mathematics, astronomy and harmony. It was opposed to
gymnastic as mental to bodily training. Both music and gymnastic, however,
were intended for the benefit of the soul.
[13] The Dialogues of Plato, Laws, VII, 805, Jowett's translation, New York,
1892.
[14] Op. cit., The Republic, V, 451 et seq. and 466.
[15] It was the boast of the Emperor Augustus that all his clothes were woven by
his wife, sister or daughter. Suetonius, in his Lives of the Twelve Cæsars, informs
us that this great master of the world filiam et neptes ita instituit ut etiam
lanificio assuefaceret.
[16] This type of the old Roman schoolmaster is alluded to in the following well
known verses of Martial:

"Quid tibi nobiscum est, ludi scelerate magister,
Invisum pueris virginibusque caput?
Nondum cristati rupere silentia Galli
Murmure jam saevo verberibusque tonas."
>
—Lib. IX, 79.

which have been rendered as follows:

Despiteful pedant, why dost me pursue,
Thou head detested by the younger crew?
Before the cock proclaims the day is near
Thy direful threats and lashes stun my ear.

Martial elsewhere refers to "Ferulaeque tristes, sceptra pedagogorum"—
melancholy rods, sceptres of pedagogues—and it appears from one of Juvenal's
satires that "to withdraw the hand from the rod" was a phrase meaning "to leave
school."
[17] Woman Through the Ages, Vol. I, pp. 110, 111, by Emil Reich, London,
1908.
Schoolhouses among the Romans, as well as among the Greeks, were quite
different from our modern, well-equipped buildings. Usually, at least, in earlier
times, instruction was given in the open air, in some quiet street corner or in
tabernæ—sheds or lean-tos—as in certain Mohametan countries to-day. Horace
refers to this in Epistola XX, Lib. I, when he writes:

"Ut pueros elementa docentem
Occupet extremis in vicis balba senectus."

In such schools the pupils sat on the floor or the bare ground, or, if the lessons
were given on the street, they sat on the stones. There were no desks, or, if there
were any benches, they had no backs. The pupils were, therefore, perforce
obliged to write on their knees.
Cf. Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education, pp. 278 and 346, by S. S.
Laurie, London, 1900.
[18] Cf. his Tiberius Gracchus. Cicero says of them, "Non tam in gremio
educatos quam sermone matris."
[19] Ibidem, Life of Pompey.
[20] De Oratore, Lib. III, Cap. XII.
[21] "Potiorem iam apud exercitus Agrippinam quam legatos, quam duces;
compressam a muliere seditionem, cui nomen principis obsistere non quiverit."
Annales, Lib. I, Cap. 69.
[22] Œconomicus, VII, 5, 6.
[23] Epistolæ, Lib. I, 16.
[24] Sit mihi verna satur, sit non doctissima conjux. Epigrammata, Lib. II, 90.
Martial's taste in this respect was the same as that of Heine, who said of the
woman he loved: "She has never read a line of my writings and does not even
know what a poet is," and the same as that of Rousseau, who declared that his
last flame, Therèse Lavasseur, could not tell the time of day.
[25] Satire VI, 434-440.
[26] Joannis Stobæi Florilegium, Vol. IV, p. 212, Teubner's edition, 1857.
[27] The following is the epitaph as written by St. Jerome, "the Christian
Cicero":

Scipio quam genuit, Pauli fudere parentes,
Gracchorum soboles, Agamemnonis inclyta proles,
Hoc jacet in tumulo, Paulam dixere priores,
Euxtochii genetrix, Romani prima senatus,
Pauperiem Christi et Bethlehemitica rura secuta est.

[28] In his preface to the Commentary on Sophonius.
[29] For an exhaustive account of the lives and achievements of St. Jerome and
his noble friends, Paula and Eustochium, the reader is referred to L'Histoire de
Sainte Paule, by F. Lagrange, Paris, 1870, and Saint Jerome, La Société
Chrétienne à Rome et l'Émigration Romaine en Terre Sainte, by A. Thierry,
Paris, 1867. Cf. also Woman's Work in Bible Study and Translation, by A. H.
Johns in The Catholic World, New York, June, 1912.

[30] See Histoire de Sainte Radegonde, Reine de France, in Chap. XX, par Em.
Briand, Paris, 1897.
[31] Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, Lib. IV, Cap. 23.
[32] The Monks of the West, Book XI, Chap. II.
[33] Vol. I, pp. 46 and 49, New York, 1871.
[34] Op. cit., Book XI, Chap. II.
It will interest the reader to know that Cædmon has a place among the saints in
the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists. See the special article on him in Vol. II,
p. 552, under the caption of "De S. Cedmono, cantore theodidacto."
[35] Woman Under Monasticism. Chapter IV, § 2, by Lina Eckenstein,
Cambridge, 1896. In this chapter is an interesting account of the Anglo-Saxon
nuns who were among the correspondents of Boniface.
[36] The reader will recall Chaucer's account in the Canterbury Tales of the wife
of the well-to-do miller of Trumpyngton:

"A wyf he hadde y-comen of noble kyn;
She was y-fostred in a nonnerye.
There dorste no wight clepen hir but 'Dame;'
What for hire kynnrede and hir nortelrie,
That she had lerned in the nonnerie."
—Reeve's Tale.

[37] Pp. 78, 79, London, 1897.
[38] History of European Morals, Vol. II, p. 369, New York, 1905.
[39] Henry VIII and the English Monasteries, London, 1895.
[40] The English Historical Review, July, 1888.
Another recent writer affirms without hesitation that "Hroswitha has earned a
place apart in the Pantheon of women poets and writers. She alone in those
troublous times of the tenth century recalls to our minds the existence of
dramatic art; her name, indeed, deserves to be rescued from oblivion and to
become a household word." Fortnightly Review, p. 450, March, 1896.
[41] Histoire de l'Éducation de Femmes en France, Tom. I, p. 72 et seq. par Paul
Rousselot, Paris, 1883.
A certain jurisconsult of the thirteenth century, one Pierre de Navarre, expressed
the sentiment of many of his contemporaries when he wrote the following
paragraph:
"Toutes fames doivent savoir filer et coudre; car la pauvre en aura mestier et la
riche conoistra mieux l'œuvre des autres. A fame ne doit-on apprendre lettre ni
escrire, si ce n'est especiaument pour estre nonain, car par lire et escrire, de fame
sont maint mal avenu."

[42] Opera Omnia S. Hildegardis, Tom. 197, Col. 48 of Migne's Patrologiæ
Cursus Completus. Cf. also Nova S. Hildegardis Opera, edidit Cardinalis Pitra,
Paris, 1882, and Das Leben und Wirken der Heiligen Hildegardis, von J. P.
Schmelzeis, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1878.
[43] It was Peter Lombard, whose Sentences "became the very canon of
orthodoxy for all succeeding ages," who, in marked contrast with those of
ancient and modern times that regarded woman as the inferior or slave of man,
asserted her equality with him in a sentence that should be written in letters of
gold. "Woman," he declares, Sententiarum, Lib. II, Disp. 18, "was not taken
from the head of man, for she was not intended to be his ruler, nor from his foot,
for she was not intended to be his slave, but from his side, for she was intended
to be his companion and comfort."
In this view the great Schoolman but follows the teachings of St. Augustine. For
in his commentary, De Genesi ad Litteram, Lib. 9, Cap. 13, the learned bishop of
Hippo writes: "Quia igitur viro nec domina nec ancilla parabatur, sed socia, nec
de capite, nec de pedibus, sed de latere fuerat producenda, ut juxta se
producendam cognosceret, quam de suo latere sumptam didecisset." Again the
same illustrious doctor declares that woman was formed from man's side in
order that it might be manifest that she was created to be united with him in love
—in consortium creabatur dilectionis.
[44] Cf. Hortus Deliciarum, by Herrad de Lansberg, folio with one hundred and
ten plates, Strasburg, 1901, and Herrade de Landsberg, by Charles Schmidt,
Strasburg.
The erudite academician, Charles Jourdain, says of Herrad's great work
"L'encyclopédie qu'on lui doit, l'Hortus Deliciarum, embrasse toutes les parties
des connaissances humaines, depuis la science divine jusqu'à l'agriculture et la
métrologie, et on s'étonne à bon droit qu'un tel ouvrage, qui supposait une
érudition si variée et si méthodique, soit sorti d'une plume féminine. Quelle
impression produirait aujourd'hui l'annonce d'une encyclopédie qui aurait pour
auteur une simple, religieuse? Parlerons-nous des femmes du monde? Il n'existe
d'elles, au XXe siècle, non plus que dans les siècles précédents aucun ouvrage
comparable à l'Hortus Deliciarum." Excursions Historiques et Philosophiques,
p. 480, Paris, 1888.
[45] See Revelationes Mechtildianæ ac Gertrudianæ, edit, Oudin, for the
Benedictines at Solesmes, 1875.
[46] In her scholarly work on Woman Under Monasticism, p. 479, Lina
Eckenstein writes as follows regarding the studies pursued in the convents of the
Middle Ages:
"The contributions of nuns to literature, as well as incidental remarks, show that
the curriculum of study in the nunnery was as liberal as that accepted by the
monks, and embraced all available writing whether by Christian or profane
authors. While Scripture and the writing of the Fathers of the Church at all times
formed the groundwork of monastic studies, Cicero at this period was read by
the side of Boethus, Virgil by the side of Martianus Capella, Terence by the side
of Isidore of Seville. From remarks made by Hroswitha we see that the

coarseness of the Latin dramatists made no reason for their being forbidden to
nuns, though she would have seen it otherwise; and, Herrad was so far impressed
by the wisdom of the heathen philosophers of antiquity that she pronounced this
wisdom to be the 'product of the Holy Spirit also.' Throughout the literary world,
as represented by convents, the use of Latin was general, and made possible the
even spread of culture in districts that were widely remote from each other and
practically without intercourse."
[47] The Lady, p. 71, by Emily James Putnam, New York, 1910.
[48] Eckenstein, op. cit., p. 478.
[49] Ut. Sup., 479-480.
[50] See Womankind in Western Europe, p. 288 et seq., by Thomas Wright,
London, 1869.
[51] "Pertinere videtur ad hæc tempora Betisia Gozzadini non minus generis
claritate quam eloquentia ac legum professione illustris.... Betisiam
Ghirardaccius et nostri ab eo deinceps scriptores eximiis laudibus certatim
extulerunt." De Claris Archigymnasii Bononiensis Professoribus a Sæculo XI
usque ad Sæculum XIV, Tom. I, p. 171, Bologna, 1888-1896.
[52] L'École de Salerne, p. 18, par C. Meaux, Paris, 1880. Among the most
noted of these women was Trotula, who, about the middle of the eleventh
century, wrote on the diseases of women as well as on other medical subjects.
Compare the attitude of the school of Salerno towards women with that of the
University of London, eight hundred years later. When, in the latter half of the
nineteenth century, women applied to this university for degrees in medicine,
they were informed, as H. Rashdall writes in The Universities of Europe in the
Middle Ages, Vol. II, Part II, p. 712, Oxford, 1895, that "the University of
London, although it had been empowered by Royal Charter to do all things that
could be done by any University, was legally advised that it could not grant
degrees to women without a fresh Charter, because no University had ever
granted such degrees." Cf. also Hæser's Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medicin,
Band I, p. 645, et seq., Jena, 1875. Verily, the so-called dark ages have risen up
to condemn our vaunted age of enlightenment!
[53] Die Entstehung der Universitäten des Mittelalters bis 1400, Band I, p. 233,
Berlin, 1885, von P. Heinrick Denifle, assistant archivist of the Vatican Library,
and Histoire Litéraire de la France, Commencé par des Religieux Bénédictins de
S. Maur et Continué par des Membres de l'Institut, Tom. IX, 281, Paris, 1733-
1906.
[54] "Une de ces nuits lumineuses ou les dernières clartés du soir se prolongent
jusqu'aux premières blancheurs du matin." Documents Inédits, p. 78, Paris,
1850.
[55] The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, Vol. I, p. 31, Oxford, 1895.
[56] A Short History of the Renaissance in Italy, p. 277, London, 1893.
[57] Cecelia Gonzaga, a pupil of the celebrated humanist, Vittorino da Feltre,
read the Gospels in Greek when she was only seven years old. Isotta and

Ginevra Nogorola, pupils of the humanist, Guarino Verronese, likewise
distinguished themselves at an early age by their rare knowledge of Latin and
Greek. In later years all three enjoyed great celebrity for their learning, and
were, like Battista di Montefeltro, women of genuine humanist sympathies.
Cecelia Gonzaga's scholarship was in no wise inferior to that of her learned
brothers, who were among the most noted students of the famous Casa Zoyosa
in Mantua, where Vittorino da Feltre achieved such distinction as an educator in
the early part of the Italian Renaissance. The learned Italian writer, Sabbadini,
beautifully expressed the relation of women to Humanism, when he declares, in
his Vida di Guarino, "L'Humanismo si sposa alla gentilezza feminile,"—
humanism weds feminine gentility.
[58] Among them are the pictures of Caterina Vigri, which are preserved in the
Pinacoteca of Bologna and in the Academia of Venice.
[59] No less an authority than the illustrious sculptor, Canova, declared that her
early death was one of the greatest losses ever suffered by Italian art.
[60] It was also said of the Venetian artist, Irene di Spilimbergo, that her pictures
were of such excellence that they were frequently mistaken for those of her
illustrious master, Titian.
[61] Among these works may be mentioned Il Merito delle Donne, by Modesta
Pozzo di Zorgi, Venice, 1600; La Nobilità e l'Excellenza delle Donne, by
Lucrezia Marinelli, Venice, 1601; De Ingenii Muliebris ad Doctrinam et
Meliores Litteras Aptitudine, by Anna van Schurman, Leyden, 1641; Les Dames
Illustres, by Jaquette Guillame, Paris, 1665, and L'Egalité des Hommes et des
Femmes, by Marie le Jars de Gournay, Paris, 1622. The last named work was by
the celebrated fille d'alliance—adopted daughter—of Montaigne. It is to her that
we owe the textus receptus of the Essais of the illustrious litterateur.
[62] The Women of the Renaissance, p. 290, by R. de Maulde la Clavière, New
York, 1901.
[63] Called La Latina, because of her thorough knowledge of the Latin
language.
[64] The famous Hellenist, Roger Ascham, tells of his astonishment on finding
Lady Jane Grey, when she was only fourteen years of age, reading Plato's Phædo
in Greek, when all the other members of the family were amusing themselves in
the park. On his inquiry why she did not join the others in their pastime, she
smilingly replied: "I wit all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that
pleasure I find in Plato. Alas, good folk, they never knew what true pleasure
meant."
[65] To the poet Ronsard, she was a woman beyond compare, as is evinced by
the following lines of a pastoral ode addressed to her:

"La Royne Marguerite,
La plus belle fleur d'élite
Qu'onques la terre enfanta."

[66] Cf. Œuvres de Lovize Labé, nouvelle edition emprimée en caractères dits
de civilité, Paris, 1871.
[67] The French poet, Jean Dorat, who was then professor of Latin in the
Collège de France, expresses this fact in the following strophe:

"Nempe uxor, ancillæ, clientes, liberi,
Non segnis examen domus,
Quo Plautus ore, quo Terentius, solent
Quotidiane loqui."

[68] A prominent writer of the time, Jean Bouchet, expressed the prevailing
opinion regarding the education of the women of the masses in the following
quaint sentence: "Je suis bien d'opinion que les femmes de bas estat, et qui sont
contrainctes vaquer aux choses familières et domestiques, ne doivent vaquer aux
lettres, parce que c'est chose repugnante à rusticité; mais, les roynes, princesses
et aultres dames qui ne se doib vent pour révérence de leur estat, appliquer à
mesnage." Cf. Rousellot's Histoire de l'Éducation des Femmes en France, Tom.
I, p. 109, Paris, 1883.
His ideal of a woman of the peasant type was apparently Joan of Arc, who,
according to her own declaration, did not know a from b—"elle déclarait ne
savoir ni a ni b."
[69] Clavière, op. cit., p. 415.
[70] The noted English divine, Thomas Fuller, chaplain to Charles II, recognized
the irreparable loss to women occasioned by the destruction of the nunneries by
the Reformers. "There were," he tells us in his quaint language, "good she
schools wherein the girls and maids of the neyghborhood were taught to read
and work.... Yea, give me leave to say, if such feminine foundations had still
continued, ... haply the weaker sex, besides the avoiding modern
inconveniences, might be heyghtened to a higher perfection than hitherto hath
been attained." Church History, Vol. III, p. 336, 1845.
[71] M. Thureau Dangin, the perpetual secretary of the French Academy, wrote,
"La tradition ne veut pas d'académiciennes."
[72] Carlyle, in a lecture on Dante, and the Divina Commedia, declares that
"Italy has produced a greater number of great men than any other nation, men
distinguished in art, thinking, conduct, and everywhere in the departments of
intellect." He could with equal truth have said that Italy has produced more great
women than any other nation.
[73] Medical Women, p. 63, et seq., by Sophia Jex-Blake, Edinburgh, 1886, and
Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women, Chap. III, by
Elizabeth Blackwell, London, 1895.
[74] Mme. Dacier was a remarkable exception chiefly because she was the
daughter and pupil of one Hellenist before becoming the wife of another.
[75] Lettres et Entretiens sur l'Éducation de Filles, Tom. I, pp. 225-231.

Compare this superficial course of study at Saint-Cyr with the elaborate course
mapped out by Lionardo d'Arezzo in a letter addressed to the illustrious lady,
Baptista Malatesta. In the broad programme of education for women
recommended by this eminent man of letters, "poet, orator, historian, and the
rest, all must be studied, each must contribute a share. Our learning thus
becomes full, ready, varied, elegant, available for action or for discourse on all
subjects."
Lionardo's curriculum of studies for women was quite as comprehensive as that
required for men, "with perhaps a little less stress upon rhetoric and more upon
religion. There was no assumption that a lower standard of attainment is
inevitably a consequence of smaller capacity."
Nor was this thorough study of letters by the women of Italy "unfavorably
regarded by social opinion"; neither did it introduce "a new standard of womanly
activity. Women, indeed, at this epoch, seem to have preserved their moral and
intellectual balance under the stress of the new enthusiasm better than men. The
learned ladies were, in actual life, good wives and mothers, domestic and
virtuous women of strong judgment and not seldom of marked capacity in
affairs." Cf. Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators, pp. 122, 132,
197, by W. H. Woodward, Cambridge, 1905.
[76] Thus, in a letter of hers to Mme. de Lauzun occurs a sentence like the
following: "Il lia sy lontant que je n'ay antandu parler de vous." The duchess of
Monpensier, daughter of Gaston d'Orleans, in a letter to her father exhibits a
similar ignorance of her own language, when she writes: "J'ai cru que Votre
Altesse seret bien ése de savoir sete istoire." Quoted by Rousselot in his Histoire
de l'Éducation des Femmes en France, Tom. I, p. 287.
[77] Les Femmes Savantes, Act II, Scene 7.
[78] Destouches, in his L'Homme singulier, makes one of his female characters,
who loves study, speak in the following pathetic fashion:

"A learned woman ought—so I surmise—
Conceal her knowledge, or she'll be unwise.
If pedantry a mental blemish be
At all times outlawed by society,
If 'gainst a pedant all the world inveighs,
Shall pass unchecked in woman pedant's ways?
I hold it sure, condemned my sex is quite
To trifling nothings as its sole birthright;
Ridiculous 'tis thought outside its 'sphere';
The learned woman dare not such appear;
Nay, she must even cloak her brilliancy
So envy leave in peace stupidity;
Must keep the level of the common kind,
To subjects commonplace devote her mind,
And treating these she must be like the rest.
Lo, in such garb refinement must be dressed:
That knowledge shall not make her seem unwise,
She must herself in foolishness disguise."

—Act III, Scene 7.
[79] No one, however, went so far in his opposition to the education of women
as the notorious Silvain Maréchal, the author of Projet d'une Loi portant
Defense d'Apprendre à Lire aux Femmes, who would have a law passed
forbidding women to learn to read. He maintained that a knowledge of science
and letters interfered with their being good housekeepers. "Reason," he avers,
"does not approve of women studying chemistry. Women who are unable to read
make the best soup. I would rather," he declares in the words of Balzac, "have a
wife with a beard than a wife who is educated." See pp. 40, 50 and 51, of the
edition of this strange work, published at Brussels, 1847.
[80] In her Problema Practicum, addressed to Dr. Rivet, Anna van Schurman
states and develops in true syllogistic form a series of propositions in defense of
her thesis in favor of the higher education of women. Two of these propositions
are here given as illustrative of her points of view:
I. Cui natura inest scientiarum artiumque desiderium, ei conveniunt scientiæ et
artes. Atque feminæ natura inest scientiarum artiumque desiderium. Ergo.
II Quidquid intellectum hominis perficit et exornat, id femmæ Christianæ
convenit. Atqui scientiæ et artes intellectum hominis perficiunt et exornant.
Ergo. See Nobiliss. Virginis Annæ Schurman Opuscula, pp. 35 and 41, Leyden,
1656, and her De Ingenii Muliebris ad Doctrinam et Meliores Literas Aptitudine,
Leyden, 1641. Cf. also Anna van Schurman, Chap. IV, by Una Birch, London,
1909.
[81] A writer of the seventeenth century gives the following as the popular
programme of female study: "To learn alle pointes of good housewifery,
spinning of linen, the ordering of dairies, to see to the salting of meate, brewing,
bakery, and to understand the common prices of all houshold provisions. To
keepe account of all things, to know the condition of the poultry—for it
misbecomes no woman to be a hen-wife. To know how to order your clothes and
with frugality to mend them and to buy but what is necessary with ready money.
To love to keep at home." How like the German four K's and the words on the
sarcophagus of a Roman matron—lanifica, frugi, domiseda—a diligent plyer of
the distaff, thrifty and a stay-at-home.
[82] The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Vol. II, p. 5, Bohn
Edition, 1887.
[83] Letter XLIX, London, Sept. 5, O. S., 1748.
Walpole, writing in 1773, makes the following curious declaration: "I made a
discovery—Lady Nuneham is a poetess, and writes with great ease and sense
some poetry, but is as afraid of the character, as if it was a sin to make verses."
And Lord Granville tells us of an eminent statesman and man of letters who, in
the early part of the last century, was so troubled on discovering in his daughter
a talent for poetry that he "appealed to her affection for him, and made a request
to her never to write verses again. He was not afraid of her becoming a good
poetess, but he was afraid of the disadvantages which were likely to be suffered
by her, if she were supposed to be a lady of literary attainments."

[84] It was Swift who had such a low opinion of woman's intellect that in
writing to one of his fair correspondents he told her that she could "never arrive
in point of learning to the perfection of a schoolboy." Lady Pennington, strange
to say, seems to have shared his views, for in a manual of advice to young ladies,
she declares: "A sensible woman will soon be convinced that all the learning the
utmost application can make her master of will be in many points inferior to that
of the schoolboy." "At the time the Tatler first appeared in the female world any
acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured," and it was then
considered "more important for a woman to dance a minuet well than to know a
foreign language."
[85] The wife of President John Adams, descended from the most illustrious
colonial families, writing in 1817, regarding the educational opportunities of the
girls of her time and rank, expressed herself as follows:
"Female education in the best families went no farther than writing and
arithmetic, and, in some few and rare instances, music and dancing." According
to her grandson, Charles Francis Adams, "The only chance for much intellectual
improvement in the female sex was to be found in the families of the educated
class, and in occasional intercourse with the learned of the day. Whatever of
useful instruction was secured in the practical conduct of life came from
maternal lips; and, what of farther mental development depended more upon the
eagerness with which the casual teachings of daily conversation were treasured
up than upon any labor expended purposely to promote it." Familiar Letters of
John Adams and His Wife, Abigail Adams, During the Revolution, With a
Memoir of Mrs. Adams, by Charles Francis Adams, pp. X and XI, New York,
1876.
[86] When the students of Girton and Newnham in 1897, after passing the
Cambridge examinations—many of them with the highest honors—applied for
degrees, "the undergraduate world was stirred to a fine frenzy of wrath against
all womankind," and an astonished world saw re-enacted scenes scarcely less
disgraceful than those which characterized the riotous demonstrations which,
seventeen years before, had greeted seven young women at the portals of the
University of Edinburgh.
[87] The Queen's Reign, Chap. V, London, 1897.
[88] Proposition third, of her Propositiones Philosophicæ, Milan, 1738, reads as
follows:
"Optime etiam de universa Philosophia infirmiorem sexum meruisse nullus
infirmabitur; nam præter septuaginta fere eruditissimas, Mulieres, quas recenset
Menagius, complures alias quovis tempore floruisse novimus, quæ in
philosophicis disciplinis maximam ingenii laudem sunt assecutæ. Ad omnem
igitur doctrinam, eruditionemque etiam muliebres animos Natura comparavit:
quare paulo injuriosius cum feminis agunt qui eis bonarum artium cultu omnino
interdicunt, eo vel maxime, quod hæc illarum studia privatis, publicisque rebus
non modo haud noxia futura sint verum etiam perutilia."

This admirable work, with its one hundred and ninety-one propositions, is
commended to those who may have any doubt regarding the learning or capacity
of the Italian women who have been referred to in the preceding pages.

CHAPTER II
WOMAN'S CAPACITY FOR SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS

In a curious old black-letter volume entitled The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes,
published in England in 1521 by Henry Pepwell, occurs the following
passage: "I mervayle gretely of the opynyon of some men that say they
wolde in no wyse that theyr daughters or wyves or kynnes-women sholde
lerne scyences, and that it sholde apayre theyr condycyons. This thing is not
to say ne to sustayne. That the woman apayreth by conynge it is not well to
beleve. As the proverb saythe, 'that nature gyveth may not be taken away.'"
The book from which this remarkable quotation is taken is a translation of
Christine de Pisan's La Cité des Dames, which was written early in the
fifteenth century. It is a capital defence against the slanderers of the gentler
sex and an armory of arguments for all time against those men who declare
that "women are fit for nothing but to bear children and spin." It shows
conclusively that conynge—knowledge—far from tending to injure
women's character—apayre theyr condycyons—as was asserted by
Christine's antagonists, contributes, on the contrary, to elevate and ennoble
them and to render them better mothers and more useful members of
society.
Notwithstanding that it was written five hundred years ago, and
notwithstanding its "antiquated allegorical dress and its quaint pre-
Renaissance notions of history," it is in many of its aspects a surprisingly
modern production. The line of argument adopted by the writer is virtually
the same as that which is adopted to-day in the discussion of the same
questions which are so ably treated in this long-forgotten book[89] and show
that Christine de Pisan was in every way a worthy champion of her sex.
No woman of her time was more competent to discuss the capacity of her
sex for science as well as for other intellectual pursuits than was this
learned daughter of Italy. She was not only a woman of profound and varied
knowledge, but was also, as stated in the preceding chapter, the first woman

to earn her living by her pen. Besides writing The City of Ladies and more
verses—mostly ballads and virelays—than are contained in the Divina
Commedia, she was also the author of many other works on the most
diverse subjects. She is best known to historians as the author of Livre des
Fais et Bonnes Meurs du sage Roy Charles V, which is a graphic account of
the court and policy of this monarch, and of the Livre des Faits d'Armes et
de Chevalerie. The latter work is not, as might be imagined from its title, a
collection of tales of chivalry, but, incredible as it may seem, a profound
and systematic treatise on military tactics and international law. It deals
with "many topics of the highest policy, from the manners of a good general
and the minutiæ of siege operations to the wager of battle, safe-conducts
and letters of marque," and was deemed so important by Henry VII that at
his expressed desire it was translated into English and published by Caxton
under the title of The Boke of Fayettes of Armes and Chyvalrye. Even so
late as the time of Henry VIII it was regarded as an authoritative manual on
the topics treated.
So great, indeed, was the extent and variety of Christine's attainments, so
thoroughly had she studied the Latin and Greek authors, sacred and profane,
and so profound was her knowledge of all the subjects which she dealt with
in her numerous books that "one cannot but feel a certain astonishment
when one finds in a woman in the fourteenth century an erudition such as is
hardly possessed by the most laborious of men."
When we read the eloquent plea which this learned woman of five centuries
ago makes in behalf of her sex, when we note the examples she quotes of
women "illumined of great sciences," and consider the arguments by which
she demonstrated the capacity of women for all scientific pursuits, we can
easily fancy that we are reading the brief of some modern exponent of the
woman's rights movement and are almost disposed to believe that La
Bruyière was right when he declared, Les anciens ont tout dit. For so cogent
is Christine's reasoning and so thoroughly does she traverse her subject
from every point of view that she has left later writers little to add to the
controversy except matters of detail which were not available in her time.
In spite, however, of Christine's Cyte of Ladyes, "in which," according to
our mediæval paragon, "women, hitherto scattered and defenceless, were
forever to find refuge against all their slanderers," in spite of the fact that

the foundations of this city were laid by Reason, that its walls and cloisters
were built on Righteousness, and its battlements and high towers on Justice,
in spite of the fact that the material entering into its construction was
"stronger and more durable than any marble," and that it was, as our author
declares, "a city right fair, without fear and of perpetual during to the world
—a city that should never be brought to nought," Christine's work was soon
lost sight of, and the right of women to the same intellectual advantages as
men was as strongly denied as it had been before she had so valiantly
championed their cause, and denied, too, on the assumed ground of their
innate incapacity.
It mattered not that during the succeeding centuries other women took up
the cause for which the author of La Cité des Dames had so nobly battled; it
mattered not that countless women in every civilized country of the globe
distinguished themselves by their achievements in every department of
science and gave evidence of talent and genius of the highest order; it
mattered not that chivalrous representatives of the sterner sex, like John
Stuart Mill, came forward to plead the case of that half of humanity which
had so long been held in cruel subjection. The attitude of the world toward
the intellectually disfranchised sex remained unchanged almost until our
own time.
But, although women now enjoy advantages in the pursuit of science which
were undreamed of only a generation ago, the age-old prejudices respecting
woman's mental powers and her capacity for the more abstract branches of
science still prevail. It is useless to cite instances of women who have
attained eminence in astronomy, mathematics, archæology, or in any other
science whatever. Such instances, we are assured, are only exceptions and
prove nothing. Men like Lombroso are willing to admit the existence of an
occasional woman of talent, but they deny the existence of genius in one
who is truly a womanly woman.[90] For, with Goncourt, they flippantly
assert, Il n'y a pas de femmes de génie: lorsqu'elles sont des génies, elles
sont des hommes—there are no women of genius; when they have genius
they are men.
The reasons that now influence men for affirming the intellectual disparity
of the sexes are, it must be observed, quite different from what they were in
the time of Christine de Pisan—quite different from what they were half a

century ago. Our forebears, in their endless disputations regarding woman's
mental inferiority, based their arguments on a priori deductions, or on
metaphysical considerations which proved nothing and which were often
irrelevant, if not absurd.
Thus the Aristotelians, accepting as true the doctrine of the four elements as
well as the superimposed doctrine of the four elemental qualities, sought to
explain the properties of all compound bodies by these primal qualities. In
this way they explained the various virtues of drugs and medicines. And by
the same process of reasoning they explained the assumed difference
between male and female brains. They assumed, to begin with, that there
was a difference between the intellectual capacities of men and women.
They then assumed that this difference in capacity was due to the difference
in character and texture of the female as compared with those of the male
brain. They next further assumed that the doctrines of the four elements and
of the four elemental qualities were established beyond question, and then
assumed again that the reason of woman's inferior capacity was due to the
fact that her brain was moister and softer, and, therefore, more
impressionable than that of man. No wonder that the old Spanish
Benedictine, Benito Jeronimo Feijoo, in his chivalrous Defensa de la Mujer,
lost all patience with such fantastic theorizers and wrote: "Did I write ... to
display my wit, I could easily, by deducting a chain of consequences from
received principles, shew that man's understanding, weighed in the balance
with female capacity, would be found so light as to kick the beam."[91]
Abandoning the Aristotelian method of envisaging the question under
discussion, our modern philosophers have recourse to the recent sciences of
biology and psycho-physiology to prove what they, too, assume to be true—
viz., woman's incurable mental weakness. Like their predecessors, they are
dominated by passion, prejudice, the errors of countless centuries, and, like
them, they approach the subject on which they are to pronounce judgment,
with minds warped by long ages of imperious instincts, ignorant
preconceptions and social bias. They will quote the opinions of Proudhon
and Schopenhauer—as if they had the value of mathematical
demonstrations—on the mental inferiority of women, and will declare with
unblushing assurance that no woman has ever produced a single work of
any kind of enduring worth. With the German pessimist, they will blatantly
declare, taken as a whole, "women are and remain thoroughgoing

Philistines and quite incurable."[92] With the French socialist they will
assert, as if it were an axiomatic truth, that "thought in every living being is
proportional to force"—that "physical force is not less necessary for thought
than for muscular labor."
They have apparently no more doubt respecting the truth of these
assumptions than had their predecessors, the Aristotelians, respecting their
assumptions of the four elements and their first qualities. Their process of
reasoning is somewhat as follows: "Woman is smaller and weaker than
man. This is a matter of simple observation, confirmed by the teachings of
physiology. Therefore, woman is physically and intellectually inferior to
man. Therefore she is incapable of any of those great conceptions and
achievements in science or philosophy which have so distinguished the
male sex in every age of the world's history. That she is thus weaker and
inferior physically and intellectually and forever incapacitated from
successfully competing with man in the intellectual arena is a fatality for
which, we are gravely told, there is no remedy, and to which women,
consequently, must resign themselves as to one of the inexorable laws of
nature."
It would be difficult to cite a more preposterous example of ratiocination. If
it were true that there is a necessary relation between vigor of body and
vigor of mind; that mental power is proportional to physical power; that
thought is but a special form of energy and capable of transformation, like
heat, light and electricity; that it, like the various physical forces, has its
chemical and mechanical equivalents; that psychic work corresponds to a
certain amount of chemical or thermic action; that intellectual capacity in
man is proportional to muscular strength; it would follow that the great
leaders of thought and action through the ages have been Goliaths in stature
and Herculeses in strength. But so far is this conclusion from being
warranted that it is almost the reverse of the truth. For many, if not the
majority, of the great geniuses of the world in every age have been either
men of small frame or men of delicate and precarious health.
Among the men of genius who were noted for their diminutive stature were
Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Archimedes, Epicurus, Horace,
Albertus Magnus, Montaigne, Lipsius, Spinoza, Erasmus, Lalande, Charles
Lamb, Keats, Balzac and Thiers. Many others were remarkable for their

spare form. Among these in the prime of life were Aristotle, Demosthenes,
Cicero, St. Paul, Kepler, Pascal, Boileau, Fénelon, D'Alembert, Napoleon,
Lincoln and Leo XIII. Others, like Æsop, Brunelleschi, Leopardi,
Magliabecchi, Parini, Scarron, Talleyrand, Pope, Goldsmith, Byron, Sir
Walter Scott, to mention only a few of the most eminent, were either
hunchbacked, lame, rachitic or clubfooted.
Others, still, were the victims of chronic ill health, or of nervous disorders
of the most serious character. Virgil was of a delicate and frail constitution.
He essayed the bar, but shrank from it and turned to the "contemplation of
diviner things." Nor was Horace, though less completely a recluse and more
of a bon vivant, a strong man. Both of them, as scholars will remember,
sought the couch, while Mæcenas went off to the tennis court. Pope's life,
says Johnson, was a long disease. Johnson himself, though large and
muscular, had queer health and a tormenting constitution. Schiller wrote
most of his best work while struggling against a painful malady, and Heine's
"mattress grave" is proverbial. France furnishes an excellent example in
Pascal.[93]
Some of the most noted leaders of thought in our own era were likewise
chronic invalids. Among these were the scholarly theologian, E. B. Pusey,
and J. A. Symonds, the historian of the Renaissance. There was also Herbert
Spencer, who was frequently forced by nervous breakdowns to take long
periods of absolute rest. More remarkable still was the case of the famous
naturalist, Charles Darwin. "It is," writes his son, "a principal feature of his
life that for nearly forty years he never knew one day of the health of
ordinary men, and that thus his life was one long struggle against the
weariness and the strain of sickness."[94] But, notwithstanding his continued
ill health and the spinal anemia from which he suffered, he was able to
conduct those epoch-making researches which put him in the forefront of
men of science, and to write those famous books which have completely
revolutionized our views of nature and nature's laws.
But a still more remarkable illustration of the fact that there is no necessary
relation between muscular and mental power, between physical well-being
and intellectual energy, is afforded by the illustrious discoverer of the world
of the infinitely little, Louis Pasteur. Stricken by hemiplegia shortly after he
had begun those brilliant investigations which have rendered him immortal,

he remained affected by partial paralysis until the end of his life. His friends
had reason to fear that this attack, even if he should survive it, would
weaken or extinguish his spirit of initiative, if it did not make further work
entirely impossible. But this was far from the case. For a quarter of a
century he continued with unabated activity those marvelous labors which
are forever associated with his name. And it was after, not before, his
misfortune that he made his most famous discoveries in the domain of
microbian life, and placed in the hands of physicians and surgeons those
infallible means of combatting disease which have made him one of the
greatest benefactors of suffering humanity. The complete separation of the
intellectual from the motor faculties was never more clearly exhibited than
in this case, nor was it ever more completely demonstrated by an
experiment, whose validity no one could question, that power of mind does
not necessarily depend on strength or health of body. It proved, also, in the
most telling manner that it is not muscular but psychic force which avails
most, whether to the individual or to society. And it showed, at the same
time, the utter absurdity of those theories which would fatally connect
intellectual with physical debility in woman, and would forever adjudge the
physically weaker sex to be of hopeless inferiority in all things of the mind.
What has been said of men achieving renown, notwithstanding ill health,
may likewise be affirmed of women. The case of Elizabeth Barrett
Browning is scarcely less remarkable than that of Darwin. In spite of being
a chronic invalid the greater part of her life, she attained a position in letters
reached by but few of her contemporaries. The same almost may be said of
the three Brontë sisters. The deadly seeds of consumption were sown in
their systems in early youth, but, although fully aware that life had "passed
them by with averted head," they were, through their indomitable wills, able
to send forth from their bleak home in the wild Yorkshire moors works of
genius that still instruct and delight the world.
From the foregoing it is clear that valetudinarianism, if it prove anything,
proves not that it renders intellectual effort impossible, but that it serves as a
discipline for the soul. It forces the mind to husband its strength, and thus
enables it to accomplish by economy and concentration of effort that which
the same mind in a healthy body, with the distractions of society and the
allurements of life, would be unable to accomplish. It exemplifies in the
most striking manner the truth of what Socrates says in Plato's Republic

about the beneficent action of the "bridle of Theages," preventing an infirm
friend of his from embracing politics and keeping him true to his first love
—philosophy.
Failing to show any necessary connection between superior physique and
intellectual capacity, between health of body and mental activity, between
the amount of food consumed and the degree of intelligence, the class of
thinkers whose theories are now under consideration found themselves
forced to abandon the argument based on robust health and physical
strength and seek elsewhere for support of their views. This, they soon
announced, was found in the greater cranial capacity and greater brain
weight of the male as compared with that of the female. Following up this
fancied clew, anthropologists the world over began measuring skulls and
weighing brains in order to determine the supposed ratio of sex-difference.
The results of these investigations were far from corroborating the
preconceived notions of those who had fancied a necessary correlation
between mental capacity and size of cranium, between the weight of
encephalon and degree of intelligence. For it was soon discovered that
cranial capacity depended on many causes—many of them unknown—and
that people having the largest skulls were often far from being the ones
dowered with the greatest intellectual power. It was found, for instance, that
climate was a determining factor—that the inhabitants of northern regions
have larger heads than those who live farther south. Thus the Lapps, in
proportion to their stature, have the largest heads in Europe. After these
come in order the Scandinavians, the Germans, the French, the Italians, the
Arabs.
It was found also that the least cranial capacity of the ancient Egyptians
coincides with the most brilliant period of their civilization—that of the
eighteenth dynasty. Measurements of skulls unearthed at Pompeii showed
that the heads of the Romans who lived two thousand years ago were larger
than the heads of the Romans of to-day. Similarly, the skulls of the lake-
dwellers of Switzerland were larger than those of the Swiss people of the
present time, while the average circumference of the skulls measured in the
catacombs of Paris is more than an inch greater than that of the Parisians
who have died during the last half century. The circumference of the skulls
of a large number of mound-builders, excavated some years ago near

Carrollton, Illinois, exceeded that of the average head of white men in New
York of our day by nearly three inches. This shows that the culture of the
white race during long centuries has not developed its cranial capacity to
equal that of the uncultured Indians who flourished in the Mississippi valley
untold generations ago.
The skulls of Quaternary men were likewise very voluminous, although
they belonged to a race whose mental manifestations were infantile in the
extreme. Even the celebrated Engis skull, one of the most ancient in
existence, has been described by the late Professor Huxley as well formed
and considerably larger than the average of the European skulls of to-day,
not only in the width and height of the forehead, but also in the cubic
capacity of the whole. Furthermore, the eminent craniologist, Broca, has
proved that the illiterate peasants of Auvergne have a much greater cranial
capacity than that of the learned and cultured denizens of Paris. And, as if to
show conclusively that there is no necessary connection between
intellectual capacity and size of cranium, authentic measurements disclose
the fact that some of the most gifted men the world has known had small
heads. Among these were Dante and Voltaire. The skull of the latter is one
of the smallest which has thus far been observed.
What has been said regarding the relation of cranial volume to intellectual
capacity, as revealed by the measurements of the skulls of ancient and
modern, savage and civilized peoples may likewise be predicated of the
differences in the sizes of the crania of men and women. No argument as to
the greater or less intelligence of either sex can be based on mere
craniometric determinations. "At the best, cranial capacity is but a rough
indication of brain size; and to measure brain size by the external size of the
skull furnishes still rougher and more fallacious approximations, since the
male skull is more massive than the female."
Even the slight morphological differences between male and female skulls
—some anthropologists deny that there are any at all—afford no more
ground for conclusions in favor of the superiority of one or the other sex
than the relative differences in size. Such trifling differences as do exist
exhibit, as Virchow has pointed out, an approximation of men to the savage,
simian and senile type, and an approach of women to the infantile type.
Havelock Ellis, commenting on this difference, pertinently remarks, "It is

open to a man in a Pharisaic mood to thank God that his cranial type is far
removed from the infantile. It is equally open to woman in such a mood to
be thankful that her cranial type does not approach the senile."[95]
But much stress as has been laid on physical power, health and cranial
capacity, as determining factors of intellectual capacity and sexual
differences, far greater stress has been laid on conclusions deducible from
the relative brain weights of different classes of people as well as of
different sexes. It was assumed that by a critical study of the brain, by
careful weighings of many brains of both sexes and of many races, it would
be easy to secure conclusive evidence that the size and weight of the brain
increase with the amount of intelligence of the individual. It was also
assumed that function not only makes the organ, but also develops it. Brain
became synonymous with mind. A large brain implied vigor of thought; a
small brain was evidence of mental inferiority.
Physiology had demonstrated unquestionably that the muscles of the body
are enlarged by exercise. It was assumed by those who are wont to measure
mind in terms of matter that the brain, being the organ of thought, was also
developed by exercise. It was also assumed that the development of the
brain was in a direct ratio to its activity. The greater its activity the greater
its mass, and the greater the mass the greater the degree of intelligence. In
other words, it was assumed that there was an exact and invariable
proportion between weight of brain and amount of brain power.
None of the theories which have already been adverted to have been so full
of assumptions and prejudices or vitiated by so many fallacies and over-
hasty generalizations as this. No subject has possessed a greater fascination
for anthropologists, and no subject has been prolific in more diverse and
conflicting conclusions. Many men of science who, in other matters, were
noted for their care in weighing evidence, before formulating theories,
completely lost the scientific spirit when they began to weigh brains and to
draw conclusions respecting the relations of brain weight and mental power,
and to establish ratios between the character of the convolutions of the
organ of thought and the degree of intelligence of its possessor.
Contrary to what is generally believed, a large brain is not always an
indication of superior capacity or intelligence. There have been, it is true, a

number of men of genius who were the possessors of large brains, but there
have also been others whose brains were of but medium weight.
The largest known brains of intellectual workers were those of Cuvier, the
noted zoölogist, and Turgenieff, the distinguished novelist. The brain of the
Frenchman weighed 1830 grams, while that of the Russian totaled 2012
grams. Among other large brains—even larger than Cuvier's—were those of
a bricklayer, which weighed 1900 grams, and of an ordinary laborer, which
reached 1924 grams. The largest brains on record were that of an ignorant
laborer named Rustan, which weighed 2222 grams; that of a weak-minded
London newsboy, which weighed 2268 grams, and that of a twenty-one-
year-old epileptic idiot, which had the unheard of weight of 2850 grams.[96]
The seven largest recorded female brains were three weighing 1580 grams
each, one of which belonged to a medical student of marked ability, while
the other two belonged to quite undistinguished women. There were two
others weighing 1587 each, one of which belonged to an insane woman.
Still heavier than these by far were the brains of an insane woman who died
of consumption, and of a dwarfed Indian squaw. The brain of the first
weighed 1742 grams; while that of the second was no less than 2084 grams.
From the foregoing examples it is evident that a large brain is far from
being a certain index of mental capacity or of superior intelligence. It is
frequently the very reverse. If, for instance, it fail to receive the necessary
supply of blood, it will be inert or disordered and will prove to be a
dangerous possession rather than a precious endowment. Epileptics usually
have brains that are large relatively to the size of the body. And, while it is
probably true that the great thinkers and men of action of the world have, in
most instances, had comparatively large brains, it is also true that the brain
weights of but few of them exceeded 1500 grams, while those of many fall
below 1200 grams.
Thus the brain of Gambetta, "the foremost Frenchman of his time," weighed
only 1159 grams, while the weight of the brain of Napoleon I was 1502
grams—barely equal to that of a negro described by the anthropologist
Broca, and but little superior to that of a Hottentot mentioned by Dr. Jeffries
Wyman.[97]

The late Dr. Joseph Simms found the average brain weight of sixty persons
who were either imbeciles, idiots, criminals or men of ordinary mind to be
1792 grams, while that of sixty famous men was 1454 grams, a difference
in favor of men not noted for intellectual greatness of 338 grams. These
figures are far from showing that large brains are a necessary concomitant
of mental capacity.
In view of these and many similar facts, we are not surprised that the
eminent German anatomist and anthropologist, Rudolph Wagner, should
declare that "very intelligent men do not differ strikingly in brain weight
from less gifted men," and that the noted French physician, Esquirol, should
assert that "no size or form of head or brain is incident to idiocy or superior
talent."
So far as civilized races are concerned, there can be no doubt that the
absolute weight of the male is greater than that of the female brain.
According to the investigations of seven of the most notable
anthropologists, who have given special attention to the subject under
consideration, and who, collectively, have carefully weighed many
thousands of brains, the average brain weight of men in Europe is 1381
grams, while that of women is 1237 grams. This shows a difference
between the average weight of the brain in man and woman of 144 grams.
But, if it must be conceded that the absolute weight of man's brain is greater
than woman's, is it likewise true that the relative weight is greater? This is a
question which demands an answer, as it is impossible to come to any just
conclusion respecting the intellectual capacity of woman expressed in terms
of brain weight, unless we can affirm with certainty that men's brains are
relatively, as well as absolutely, larger than those of women.
Speaking of the relative weight of brain in man implies a term of
comparison. Several methods of estimating the sexual proportions of brain
mass have been suggested, but only two of them have met with any favor.
These are determining the ratio of brain weight to body weight or body
height.
According to the investigations of anthropologists of acknowledged
authority, the average brain weight of woman is to that of man in England
and France as 90 is to 100. The average stature of men and women in the

same countries is as 93 to 100. This gives man an excess of brain weight
over that of woman of something more than an ounce. But this slight
difference in weight has been considered sufficient to constitute it "a
fundamental sexual distinction." When, however, it is considered that men
are not only taller but also larger than women, this apparent advantage of an
ounce in favor of the male entirely disappears, and the result is that the
relative amount of brain mass in the two sexes is practically equal.
Because of the manifest inaccuracy of the stature criterion, many eminent
anthropologists have prepared to estimate sexual differences in brain weight
by adopting the method based on the ratio of brain mass to body weight.
According to this method, women are found to possess brains which are
equal to or even somewhat larger than those of men. If the comparative
excess of non-vital tissue in the form of fat in woman be eliminated and
estimates be based only on the active organic mass of her body, as
compared with the same mass in man, the excess of brain weight in woman
over that in man will be still more marked.
A careful study, then, of the brain as a whole, far from proving woman's
inferiority to man, rather proves her superiority. The same may be said
regarding sexual distinctions based on certain parts of the brain.
Some years ago it was positively asserted that the development of the
frontal lobe exhibited a pronounced difference in the two sexes. It was said
to be much greater in man than in woman and was regarded as a
distinguishing characteristic of the male sex. This was in keeping with the
generally accepted assumption that this portion of the brain is the seat of the
higher intellectual processes. Further investigation, however, showed that
there was practically no sexual difference in the frontal lobe of the brain, or,
if there was a difference, it was probably in favor of woman.
It has also become recognized that there is no valid reason for considering
the anterior portion of the brain as the seat of the higher mental functions. It
is possible, but in the present state of science it can neither be affirmed nor
denied. So far as our present knowledge goes, it seems more likely that the
whole of the brain, especially the sensori-motor regions of its middle part,
have a part in mental operations. At all events, it can certainly be affirmed

that Huschke's distinction of man and woman into homo frontalis et homo
parietalis is utterly devoid of foundation in fact.
Many anthropologists have fancied that a certain index of the degree of
intelligence is to be found in the convolutions of the brain. The tortuous
foldings of the female brain, it is asserted, are less ample, less pronounced
and less beautiful. "Behold," they exclaim, "a most positive evidence of
inferiority." These men overlook the fact that certain animals, notably the
elephant and divers species of cetaceans, have cerebral convolutions that
are more complex than those of man. If, then, brain convolutions were, as
claimed, a certain index of the degree of intelligence, the whale or the
elephant, and not man—pace Shakespeare—would be "the paragon of
animals."
But men of science are by no means at one on this alleged sexual difference
in brain convolutions. On the contrary, there are many eminent
physiologists and anatomists who contend that the superficies of brain
convolutions in women is relatively greater than in men. For those who
believe—and they are probably the majority at present—that the seat of
mental activity is in the gray matter of the brain, this greater brain surface,
due to its convolutions, would be a decided compensation for woman's
relatively smaller brain volume.[98]
In whatever way, then, we consider the brains of men and women, whether
we compare the ratio of brain weight to height of body or to weight of body,
or compare the relative amounts of gray matter in the two sexes, the
advantage, in spite of her smaller body, is distinctly in favor of woman.
From the preceding considerations it seems clear that there is no ground
from the point of view of brain anatomy for considering one sex as superior
to the other. They evince, too, that quality as well as quantity of brain tissue
must be considered in all our discussions on the relations between the
volume of brain and the intelligence of its possessor. Whales and elephants
have much larger brains than men, but they nevertheless stand far below
him in intelligence.
It must be remembered, also, that the brain is not only an organ of mental
function. It is likewise the center of the entire nervous system, and its
volume, therefore, must correspond with the size and number of nerve

trunks under its control. In man, as in animals, the brain elements are to a
great extent but sensori-motor delegates whose function is the regulation
and government of every part of the body. The superior size of the whale's
brain, as compared with that of man, can readily be understood when we
reflect on the much greater amount of territory which these sensori-motor
delegates represent. When this fact is borne in mind it will be found that the
whale's brain, relatively to that of man, is extremely small. For while the
ratio of man's brain weight to that of his body is as 1 to 36, the ratio of the
whale's brain weight to its immense body is but 1 to 3,000.
As an evidence that quality often counts for more than quantity, brain
anatomists would do well to reflect on the marvelous intelligence displayed
by ants and termites, those mites of animated nature which so excited the
admiration of the naturalist Pliny and caused Darwin to declare, "The brain
of an ant is one of the most marvelous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps
more so than the brain of man."[99]
Moreover, when discussing the relative brain weights of the two sexes, we
must not lose sight of the fact that we have, with the solitary exception of
the eminent Russian mathematician, Sónya Kovalévsky,[100] no record of
the brain weights of any eminently intellectual woman. The brains of scores
of men of genius and exceptional mentality have been weighed, but we are
utterly ignorant of the weight of brain of such women as Maria Gaetana
Agnesi, Madame de Staël, Maria Theresa, Sophie Germain, George Sand,
Harriet Martineau, George Eliot, Eleanor Ormerod, Mary Somerville, and
others of the same caliber. The only data so far available, regarding the
average brain weight of women, are such as have been obtained from the
inmates of hospitals, prisons and pauper institutions. And yet we are asked
to accept the average based on such data as a fair term of comparison with
the average male brain weight as increased by the superior weight of brain
of such men as Cuvier and Turgenieff. And this is called science![101]
The attempt, then, to prove by weighing and measuring and studying brains
that man is the intellectual superior of woman has been an ignominious
failure. The old belief that woman is by nature and cerebral organization
less intelligent than man is not borne out by the investigations of those best
qualified to pronounce an opinion on the subject. To assert, as so many do,
that woman was created man's intellectual inferior is begging the question.

Science can adduce no proof of such a gratuitous statement. Broca, the most
eminent of French anthropologists, regarded as an absurdity the attempt to
establish a necessary relation between the development of intelligence and
the volume and weight of the encephalon. With the ripe knowledge of his
mature years he was inclined to believe that the apparent difference in
intelligence in the two sexes was owing, not to a difference of brain
organization, but rather to a difference of education, physical as well as
mental, and that, with equal opportunities for intellectual and physical
development, the present sexual differences that we have been considering
—differences which are due not to nature but to the long ages of restraint
and subjection under which women have lived—would gradually be
lessened, and that men and women would eventually approach that equality
which characterizes them in the state of nature.[102]
Realizing the impossibility of arriving, by the study of brain sizes and
structure, at any satisfactory conclusion respecting the relative intellectual
capacities of men and women, seekers after truth cast about for other
methods that were free from the errors and fallacies of those which had
proved so unreliable. The attempt to base the alleged mental inferiority of
woman upon the facial angle of Camper, the metafacial angle of Serres, the
craniofacial angle of Huxley, the sphenoidal angle of Welcker, or the
nasobasal angle of Virchow had issued in utter failure, and had proved for
the thousandth time that it is easier to formulate theories than to establish
their validity. It was evident, notwithstanding the assertions of certain
materialistic theorists, that the brain did not secrete thought as the liver
secretes bile; it was evident, too, that intelligence could not be estimated in
terms of any kind of mechanical units. Psycho-physiologists had no sort of
dynamometer for measuring brain power as they would measure muscular
energy. By means of the plethysmograph they might determine the amount
of blood sent to the brain in a given time, but they had no psychometer of
any description which would enable them to estimate the quantity, much
less the quality, of psychic force such a blood supply was competent to
produce.
Many, of course, still remained adherents of the old view that woman must
ever remain the mental inferior of man because she is by nature physically
weaker. These persons, however, seemed to lose sight of the fact that
women who lead a rational life—who are not the slaves of fashion or the

victims of luxury—have little to complain of on the score of physical
weakness. This is evidenced by the life and habits of the women of the
people, as well as by the tasks performed by women among savage tribes,
who in health and strength are little, if at all, inferior to their male
companions.
The late Professor Huxley, in referring to this subject, exhibited his usual
acumen and sanity in such matters when he indited the following paragraph:
"We have heard a great deal lately about the physical disabilities of women.
Some of these alleged impediments, no doubt, are really inherent in their
organization, but nine-tenths of them are artificial—the products of their
mode of life. I believe that nothing would tend so effectually to get rid of
these creations of idleness, weariness and that 'over-stimulation of the
emotions' which in plainer spoken days used to be called wantonness, than a
fair share of healthy work, directed toward a definite object, combined with
an equally fair share of healthy play, during the years of adolescence; and
those who are best acquainted with the acquirements of an average medical
practitioner will find it hardest to believe that the attempt to reach that
standard is like to prove exhausting to an ordinarily intelligent and well-
educated woman."[103]
Substantially the same views are held by Mrs. Henry Fawcett and Dr. Mary
Putnam Jacobi, whose rare experience and knowledge give their opinions
on the subject under consideration special weight and value.
After men of science had tried the various theories above enumerated and
found them wanting, they finally bethought themselves of investigating the
relative intellectual standing of male and female students in coeducational
institutions, and inquiring into their comparative capacity for different
branches of knowledge, as made known by their professors and by the
results of oral and written examinations. Considering the simplicity of this
method and the fact that it is the more rational way to reach reliable
conclusions, the wonder is that it was not thought of sooner. It excludes the
bias of prepossessions and preconceived theories and lends itself to the
discussion of results based on incontestable facts.
The first coeducational institution in which the intellectual capacity of
women, in competition with men, was fairly tested was, strange to say, in

the Royal College of Science for Ireland. This was somewhat more than
half a century ago. When the time of examinations came, both the men and
women students were handed the same examination papers. At the public
distribution of prizes, at the close of the session, "the ladies," in the words
of a Dublin paper, "vindicated the genius of their sex by carrying off the
highest prizes." In zoölogy, botany, physics, chemistry and mathematics
they proved themselves the peers, and frequently the superiors, of their
male competitors.
"The success of the female students disturbed, of course, very much the
preconceived notions of some people, who had always taken for granted
that the female intellect was inferior to the male; and, not being able to
combat the stubborn facts that appeared from time to time in the
newspapers, when the results of the examinations were published, they tried
to account for them."[104]
These cavillers, however, soon discovered that there was no way of
accounting for the disconcerting fact which confronted them, except by
confessing that their theory regarding the mental inferiority of women was
not substantiated by fact. This unexpected demand for the unconditional
surrender of their long-cherished theory of male superiority was a crushing
and humiliating blow to their pride of intellect, but there was no remedy for
it, nor was it accompanied by any balm of consolation that they, at the time,
felt disposed to regard as adequate compensation for their lost prestige—a
prestige which their overweening sex had claimed from time immemorial.
Similar experiments under even more trying conditions were subsequently
made in the United States and in other parts of the world, and everywhere
with the same results. In the universities of Switzerland, France, England,
Germany and Russia women, when given a fair opportunity, were able to
demonstrate to the satisfaction of all unprejudiced judges that the long-
vaunted superiority of the male intellect was a myth; that intelligence, like
genius, has no sex.
One of the most interesting and comprehensive investigations ever
undertaken regarding this long-debated question was made some years ago
by Arthur Kirchhoff, an enterprising German journalist.[105] It consisted in
collecting and collaborating the opinions of more than a hundred of the

most distinguished professors of the Fatherland, besides the opinions of a
number of eminent writers and teachers in girls' high schools. These
constitute a volume of nearly four hundred pages, and embody the views on
the capacity of woman for science of professors of theology, jurisprudence,
anatomy, physiology, surgery, psychology, history, gynecology, psychiatry,
philology, philosophy, art, mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry,
zoölogy, botany, geology, paleontology and technology. The investigation,
indeed, covered every branch of knowledge and evoked the deliberate
views of those who were looked upon as the leading representatives of
German thought and culture.
This book possesses a special value from the fact that, of all peoples in
Europe, the Germans have been the most refractory to the claims of women
to be received at the universities on the same footing as men. The German
professors, naturally, share the conservatism of their countrymen, and, like
them, are wedded to routine when there is question of introducing
innovations into their social, political or educational systems. One would
anticipate, then, that, when called upon to give their honest opinions
respecting the intellectual capacity of women, as compared with that of
men, their answer would be decidedly in favor of the sterner sex. "For,"
they will ask, "have not all the achievements in science which have given
the Fatherland such prestige in the eyes of the world been due entirely to
men? Have the women of Germany ever undertaken the solution of any
great scientific problem, or have they ever made any notable contribution to
scientific advancement? They have not."
Yet, notwithstanding all these facts, notwithstanding all traditions and
prejudices and social bias, the unexpected has happened, even in
conservative, old-fashioned Germany. The German professor may be
tenacious of preconceived views; he may be a stickler for ancient customs
and usages; nevertheless, when he is called upon to give a question a
categorical answer which can be arrived at by observation or experiment, he
may generally, in spite of his likes or dislikes, be counted on to give a
decision in accord with the principles of legitimate induction. He may have
his prejudices—and who has not?—but, when one appeals to him in the
name of science and justice, he will rarely be found wanting. Regardless of
all personal consideration, he will feel that loyalty to science, of which he is
the avowed devotee, requires him to consider a question proposed to him as

he would a scientific problem—something to be decided solely by such
evidence as may be available.
To the exceeding gratification of the believers in the intellectual equality of
the sexes, this proved to be the case in Herr Kirchhoff's investigation. The
answers of the German professors, contrary to what most people would
have anticipated, were, by a surprising majority, in favor of women. But
their answers were in keeping with the changed educational conditions in
Germany, as well as in other parts of the civilized world. Had Herr
Kirchhoff undertaken his investigation a few decades earlier, the result
would undoubtedly have been different, for women were then excluded
from the universities and the professors had not had an opportunity of
accurately testing their intellectual capacities. But having, during the latter
part of the nineteenth century, had them as students in their lecture halls and
laboratories, where they were able to study their mental powers and
determine the value of their work by strict scientific methods, they were in
a better position to express an opinion on the question at issue than would, a
few years previously, have been possible.
Accordingly, even the declared enemies of the woman's movement among
the German professorate were forced to admit the intellectual equality of
the two sexes. For they, too, as well as men of science in other parts of
Europe, had been measuring skulls and weighing brains; they, too, had been
studying woman's mental caliber in the light of the new psychology; they,
too, had been watching her work in the various departments of the
university; and, notwithstanding all their observations and experiments,
they were unable to detect any difference between men and women in brain
organization or in intellectual capacity. And, as might have been foreseen,
results harmonized perfectly with those arrived at by investigators in other
parts of the world—namely, that in things of the mind there is perfect
sexual equality.
Among the hundred and more professors whose opinions are given in Herr
Kirchhoff's book there were, of course, a few who were not prepared to
subscribe to the findings of the great majority of their colleagues. But the
reasons they assign for dissent were, at least in some instances, little better
founded than that of a certain professor of chemistry in the University of
Geneva, who, a few years ago, gravely declared that women have no

aptitude for science because, forsooth, in chemical manipulations they
break more test-tubes than men. Verily, "a Daniel come to judgment."
What probably more deeply impressed the German professors than anything
else was the marked talent and taste of many of the women students for the
abstract sciences, especially for the higher mathematics. For it had always
been asserted that these branches of knowledge were beyond woman's
capacity and that she had an instinctive antipathy for abstruse reasoning and
for abstractions of all kinds. When, however, they discovered women whose
delight was to discuss the theory of elliptic functions or curves defined by
differential equations; when they found a mathematical genius like Sónya
Kovalévsky speculating on the fourth dimension, and carrying away from
the mathematicians of the world the most coveted prize of the French
Academy of Sciences, they were forced to confess that another of their
illusions was dissipated, and to acknowledge that they had no longer
anything on which to base their long and fondly cherished opinion of the
mental inequality of the sexes.
As an evidence of the extraordinary change that had been effected among
the conservative Germans in the course of a few years respecting their
attitude toward the admission of the "Academic Woman" to the universities,
and, consequently, toward her intellectual capacity, it will suffice to
reproduce a sentence from the elaborately expressed opinion of Dr. Julius
Bernstein, professor of physiology in the University of Halle. "After
reflection on the subject," he declares, "I am convinced that neither God nor
religion, neither custom nor law, and still less science, warrants one in
maintaining any essential difference in this respect between the male and
the female sex."[106]
The controversy of centuries regarding woman's intellectual capacity was
now virtually settled beyond all peradventure. Woman had conquered, and
her final victory had been won in the heart of the enemy's country, yea,
even in what was thought to be the impregnable fortress of her relentless
foes. It was achieved where the proud Teuton male had imagined that he
was unapproachable and beyond compare—in the laboratories and lecture
rooms of his great universities—more irresistible, in his estimation, than the
Kaiser's trained legions in battle array.

It finally dawned upon the leaders of thought in the Fatherland, as it had but
shortly before dawned upon philosophers and men of science in other lands,
that the reputed sexual difference in intelligence was not due to difference
in brain size or brain structure, or innate power of intellect, but rather to
some other factors which had been neglected, or overlooked, as being
unessential or of minor importance. These factors, on further investigation,
proved to be education and opportunity.
As far back as 1869 that keen observer and philosopher, John Stuart Mill,
had expressed himself on the subject in the following words: "Like the
French compared with the English, the Irish with the Swiss, the Greeks or
Italians compared with the German races, so women compared with men
may be found, on the average, to do the same things with some variety in
the particular kind of excellence. But that they would do them fully as well,
on the whole, if their education and cultivation were adapted to correcting
instead of aggravating the infirmities incident to their temperament, I see
not the smallest reason to doubt."[107]
It would be difficult to find a better illustration of the sluggishness of the
male as compared with the female mind than the tardiness of men of
science in arriving at a sane conclusion respecting the subject of this
chapter. For five hundred years ago Christine de Pisan arrived at the same
conclusion which the learned professors of Germany reached only in the
last decade of the nineteenth century. Discussing in La Cité des Dames the
question at issue she writes as follows: "I say to thee again, and doubt never
the contrary, that if it were the custom to put the little maidens to the school,
and they were made to learn the sciences as they do to the men-children,
that they should learn as perfectly, and they should be as well entered into
the subtleties of all the arts and sciences as men be. And peradventure, there
should be more of them, for I have teached heretofore that by how much
women have the body more soft than the men have, and less able to do
divers things, by so much they have the understanding more sharp there as
they apply it."
Christine de Pisan's statement is virtually a challenge demanding the same
educational opportunities for women as were accorded to men. But it was a
challenge that men did not see fit to accept until full five centuries had
elapsed, and until it was no longer possible to deny giving satisfaction to

the long-aggrieved half of humanity. It was also an appeal to experiment
and an appeal, likewise, to the teachings of history in lands where women
have enjoyed the same educational advantages as men.
Having reviewed the many disabilities which so long retarded woman's
intellectual advancement, and considered some of the objections which
were urged against her capacity for scientific pursuits, we are now prepared
to consider the appeal of Christine de Pisan and deal with it on its merits.
This we shall do by a brief survey of woman's achievements in the various
branches of science in which she has been accorded the same intellectual
opportunities that were so long the exclusive privilege of her male compeer.

FOOTNOTES:
[89] An edition of this work, based on an old manuscript in La Bibliotheque
Nationale of Paris, in French, is announced to appear in France at an early date.
An interesting account of this precious volume has recently been published by
Mlle. Mathilde Laigle, Ph. D., under the title of Le Livre de Trois Vertus de
Christine de Pisan et son Milieu Historique et Littéraire. It is to be hoped that
some enterprising English publisher will soon favor us with a reprint of the
quaint old, but none the less valuable, volume, The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes.
[90] Quando la genialita compare nella donna è sempre associata a grandi
anomalie: e la più grande è la somiglianza coi maschi—la virilità. L'Uomo di
Genio, sesta edizione, p. 261, Torino, 1894.
[91] An Essay on the Learning, Genius and Abilities of the Fair Sex, Proving
Them Not Inferior to Man, p. 142, London, 1774.
[92] Schopenhauer, Studies in Pessimism, p. 115, London, 1891.
[93] The Literary Advantages of Weak Health, in the Spectator for October,
1894.
[94] The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, edited by his son, Francis Darwin,
Vol. I, p. 136, New York, 1888.
[95] Man and Woman, p. 94, London, 1898.
[96] Cf. Das Hirngewicht des Menschen, pp. 21 and 137, by Theodor L. W. von
Bischoff, Bonn, 1880, and Dr. G. van Walsem in Neurologisches Centralblatt,
pp. 578-580, Leipsic, July 1, 1899.
[97] L'Anthropologie, pp. 336-337, by Paul Topinard, Paris, 1876.
[98] The importance of gray matter in mental processes has evidently been
greatly overestimated, for it has been found to be thicker in the brains of
negroes, murderers and ignorant persons than it was in the encephalon of Daniel
Webster. It is also much thicker in the brains of dolphins, porpoises and other
cetaceans than it is in the most intellectual of men.
[99] The Descent of Man, Vol. I, p. 145, London, 1871.
[100] The brain of Sónya Kovalévsky was not weighed until it had been four
years in alcohol. Prof. Gustaf Retzius then wrote an elaborate account of it and
estimated that its weight, at the time of Sónya's death, was 1385 grams. The
brain-weight of her illustrious contemporary, Hermann von Helmholtz, was 1440
grams. But when the body-weights of these two eminent mathematicians are
borne in mind—Sónya was short and slender—it will be seen that the relative
amount of brain tissue was greater in the woman than in the man. Cf. Das
Gehirn des Mathematikers Sónja Kovaléwski in Biologische Untersuchungen,
von Prof. Dr. Gustaf Retzius, pp. 1-17, Stockholm, 1900.

[101] The reader who desires more detailed information respecting the brain-
weights of men and women of various races and the relation of brain-weight to
intelligence may consult with profit the following works and articles: Mémoires
d'Anthropologie de Paul Broca, 5 Vols., Paris, 1871-1888; Alte und Neue Gehirn
Probleme nebst einer 1078 Falle umfassenden Gehirngewichstatistik aus den
Kgl. pathologisch-anatomischen Institut zu München, von W. W. Wendt,
München, 1909; Gehirngewicht und Intelligenz, by Dr. F. K. Walter, Rostok,
1911; Gehirngewicht und Intelligenz, by Dr. J. Dräseke, Hamburg, in Archiv für
Rassen und Gesellschafts Biologe, pp. 499-522, 1906; Brain Weights and
Intellectual Capacity, by Joseph Simms, M. D., in the Popular Science Monthly,
December, 1898, and The Growth of the Brain, by H. H. Donaldson, London,
1895.
[102] "Quand on songe à la différence qui sépare de notre temps l'éducation
intellectuelle de l'homme de celle de la femme, on se demande si ce n'est pas
cette influence qui rétrécit le cervaux et le crane féminins, et si, les deux sexes
étant livres a leur spontanéité, leur cervaux ne tendraient pas à se ressembler,
aussi qu'il arrive chez les sauvages." Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie, p.
503, Paris, July 3, 1879.
[103] Times, London, July 8, 1874. Cf. Chap. XVII, on "Adolescent Girls and
Their Education," in Adolescence, Vol. II, by G. Stanley Hall, New York, 1904.
[104] The Study of Science by Women in the Contemporary Review for March,
1869.
[105] Die Akademische Frau. Gutachten hervorragender Universitäten-
professoren, Frauenlehrer und Schriftsteller über die Befähigung der Frau zum
wissenschaftlichen Studium and Berufe herausgegeben von Arthur Kirchhoff,
Berlin, 1897.
[106] "Ich komme beim Nachdenken hieruber zu der Ueberzeigung, dass kein
Gott und keine Religion, kein Herkommen und kein Gesetz, aber ebensowenig
die Wissenschaft uns das Recht erteilen, in dieser Beziehung zwischen dem
mannerlichen und weiblichen Geschlect einen principiellen Unterschied zu
statuiren." Die Akademische Frau, p. 41.
[107] The Subjection of Women, p. 91, London, 1909.

CHAPTER III
WOMEN IN MATHEMATICS

"All abstract speculations, all knowledge which is dry, however useful it
may be, must be abandoned to the laborious and solid mind of man.... For
this reason women will never learn geometry."
In these words Immanuel Kant, more than a century ago, gave expression to
an opinion that had obtained since the earliest times respecting the
incapacity of the female mind for abstract science, and notably for
mathematics. Women, it was averred, could readily assimilate what is
concrete, but, like children, they have a natural repugnance for everything
which is abstract. They are competent to discuss details and to deal with
particulars, but become hopelessly lost when they attempt to generalize or
deal with universals.
De Lamennais shares Kant's opinion concerning woman's intellectual
inferiority and does not hesitate to express himself on the subject in the
most unequivocal manner. "I have never," he writes, "met a woman who
was competent to follow a course of reasoning the half of a quarter of an
hour—un demi quart d'heure. She has qualities which are wanting in us,
qualities of a particular, inexpressible charm; but, in the matter of reason,
logic, the power to connect ideas, to enchain principles of knowledge and
perceive their relationships, woman, even the most highly gifted, rarely
attains to the height of a man of mediocre capacity."
But it is not only in the past that such views found acceptance. They prevail
even to-day to almost the same extent as during the ages of long ago. How
far they have any foundation in fact can best be determined by a brief
survey of what woman has achieved in the domain of mathematics.
Athenæus, a Greek writer who flourished about A.D. 200, tells us in his
Deipnosophistæ of several Greek women who excelled in mathematics, as
well as philosophy, but details are wanting as to their attainments in this
branch of knowledge. If, however, we may judge from the number of

women—particularly among the hetæræ—who became eminent in the
various schools of philosophy, especially during the pre-Christian era, we
must conclude that many of them were well versed in geometry and
astronomy as well as in the general science of numbers. Menagius declares
that he found no fewer than sixty-five women philosophers mentioned in
the writings of the ancients[108]; and, judging from what we know of the
character of the studies pursued in certain of the philosophical schools,
especially those of Plato[109] and Pythagoras, and the enthusiasm which
women manifested in every department of knowledge, there can be no
doubt that they achieved the same measure of success in mathematics as in
philosophy and literature.[110]
The first woman mathematician, regarding whose attainments we have any
positive knowledge, is the celebrated Hypatia, a Neo-platonic philosopher,
whose unhappy fate at the hands of an Alexandrian mob in the early part of
the fifth century has given rise to many legends and romances which have
contributed not a little toward obscuring the real facts of her extraordinary
career. She was the daughter of Theon, who was distinguished as a
mathematician and astronomer and as a professor in the school of
Alexandria, which was then probably the greatest seat of learning in the
world. Born about the year 375 A. D., she at an early age evinced the
possession of those talents that were subsequently to render her so
illustrious. So great indeed was her genius and so rapid was her progress in
this branch of knowledge under the tuition of her father that she soon
completely eclipsed her master in his chosen specialty.
There is reason to believe—although the fact is not definitely established—
that she studied for a while in Athens in the school of philosophy conducted
by Plutarch the Younger and his daughter Asclepigenia. After her return
from Athens, Hypatia was invited by the magistrates of Alexandria to teach
mathematics and philosophy. Here in brief time her lecture room was filled
by eager and enthusiastic students from all parts of the civilized world. She
was also gifted with a high order of eloquence and with a voice so
marvelous that it was declared to be "divine."
Regarding her much vaunted beauty, nothing certain is known, as antiquity
has bequeathed to us no medal or statue by which we could form an
estimate of her physical grace. But, be this as it may, it is certain that she

commanded the admiration and respect of all for her great learning, and that
she bore the mantle of science and philosophy with so great modesty and
self-confidence that she won all hearts. A letter addressed to "The Muse," or
to "The Philosopher"—Τη Φιλοσοφω—was sure to be delivered to her at
once. Small wonder, then, to find a Greek poet inditing to her an epigram
containing the following sentiment:
"When I see thee and hear thy word I thee adore; it is the ethereal
constellation of the Virgin, which I contemplate, for to the heavens thy
whole life is devoted, O august Hypatia, ideal of eloquence and wisdom's
immaculate star."[111]
But it was as a mathematician that Hypatia most excelled. She taught not
only geometry and astronomy, but also the new science of algebra, which
had but a short time before been introduced by Diophantus. And, singular to
relate, no further progress was made in the mathematical sciences, as taught
by Hypatia, until the time of Newton, Leibnitz and Descartes,—more than
twelve centuries later.
Hypatia was the author of three works on mathematics, all of which have
been lost, or destroyed by the ravages of time. One of these was a
commentary on the Arithmetica of Diophantus. The original treatise—or
rather the part which has come down to us—was found about the middle of
the fifteenth century in the Vatican Library, whither it had probably been
brought after Constantinople had fallen into the possession of the Turks.
This valuable work, as annotated by the great French mathematicians
Bachet and Fermat, gives us a good idea of the extent of Hypatia's
attainments as a mathematician.
Another of Hypatia's works was a treatise on the Conic Sections by
Apollonius of Perga—surnamed "The Great Geometer." Next to
Archimedes, he was the most distinguished of the Greek geometricians; and
the last four books of his conics constitute the chief portions of the higher
geometry of the ancients. Moreover, they offer some elegant geometrical
solutions of problems which, with all the resources of our modern analytical
method, are not without difficulty. The greater part of this precious work
has been preserved and has engaged the attention of several of the most
illustrious of modern mathematicians—among them Borelli, Viviani,

Fermat, Barrow and others. The famous English astronomer, Halley,
regarded this production of Apollonius of such importance that he learned
Arabic for the express purpose of translating it from the version that had
been made into this language.
A woman who could achieve distinction by her commentaries on such
works as the Arithmetica of Diophantus, of the Conic Sections of
Apollonius, and occupy an honored place among such mathematicians as
Fermat, Borelli, and Halley, must have had a genius for mathematics, and
we can well believe that the glowing tributes paid by her contemporaries to
her extraordinary powers of intellect were fully deserved. If, with Pascal,
we see in mathematics "the highest exercise of the intelligence," and agree
with him in placing geometers in the first rank of intellectual princes—
princes de l'esprit—we must admit that Hypatia was indeed exceptionally
dowered by Him whom Plato calls "The Great Geometer."
There is still a third work of this ill-fated woman that deserves notice—
namely, her Astronomical Canon, which dealt with the movements of the
heavenly bodies. It is the general opinion that this was but a commentary on
the tables of Ptolemy, in which event it is still possible that it may be found
incorporated in the work of her father, Theon, on the same subject.
In addition to her works on astronomy and mathematics, Hypatia is credited
with several inventions of importance, some of which are still in daily use.
Among these are an apparatus for distilling water, another for measuring the
level of water, and a third an instrument for determining the specific gravity
of liquids—what we should now call an areometer. Besides these apparatus,
she was likewise the inventor of an astrolabe and a planisphere.
One of her most distinguished pupils was the eminent Neo-platonist
philosopher, Synesius, who became the Bishop of Ptolemais in the
Pentapolis of Libya. His letters constitute our chief source of information
respecting this remarkable woman. Seven of them are addressed to her, and
in four others he makes mention of her. In one of them he writes: "We have
seen and we have heard her who presides at the sacred mysteries of
philosophy." In another he apostrophizes her as "My benefactress, my
teacher,—magistra—my sister, my mother."

In science Hypatia was among the women of antiquity what Sappho was in
poetry and what Aspasia was in philosophy and eloquence—the chiefest
glory of her sex. In profundity of knowledge and variety of attainments she
had few peers among her contemporaries, and she is entitled to a
conspicuous place among such luminaries of science as Ptolemy, Euclid,
Apollonius, Diophantus and Hipparchus.[112]
It is a matter of regret to the admirers of this favored daughter of the Muses
that she is absent from Raphael's School of Athens; but, had her
achievements been as well known and appreciated in his day as they are
now, we can readily believe that the incomparable artist would have found a
place for her in this masterpiece with the matchless form and features of his
beloved Fornarina.
After the death of Hypatia the science of mathematics remained stationary
for many long centuries. Outside of certain Moors in Spain, the only
mathematicians of note in Europe, until the Renaissance, were Gerbert,
afterward Pope Silvester II, and Leonardo da Pisa. The first woman to
attract special attention for her knowledge of mathematics was Heloise, the
noted pupil of Abelard. According to Franciscus Ambrosius, who edited the
works of Abelard and Heloise in 1616, the famous prioress of The Paraclete
was a prodigy of learning, for besides having a knowledge of Latin, Greek
and Hebrew, which was something extremely rare in her time, she was also
well versed in philosophy, theology and mathematics, and inferior in these
branches only to Abelard himself, who was probably the most eminent
scholar of his age.[113]
Many Italian women, as we have seen in a preceding chapter, were noted
for their proficiency in the various branches of mathematics. Some of the
most distinguished of them flourished during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Among these were Elena Cornaro Piscopia, celebrated
as a linguist as well as a mathematician; Maria Angela Ardinghelli,
translator of the Vegetable Statics of Stephen Hales; Cristina Roccati, who
taught physics for twenty-seven years in the Scientific Institute of Rovigo,
and Clelia Borromeo, fondly called by her countrymen gloria Genuensium
—the glory of the Genoese. In addition to a special talent for languages, she
possessed so great a capacity for mathematics and mechanics that no
problem in these sciences seemed to be beyond her comprehension.[114]

Then there was also Diamante Medaglia, a mathematician of note, who
wrote a special dissertation on the importance of mathematics in the
curriculum of studies for women, Alle matematiche, alle matematiche
prestino l'opera loro le donne, onde non cadano in crassi paralogismi—"To
mathematics, to mathematics," she cries, "let women devote attention for
mental discipline."[115]
The most illustrious, by far, of the women mathematicians of Italy was
Maria Gaetana Agnesi, who was born in Milan in 1718 and died there at the
age of eighty-one. At an early age she exhibited rare intelligence and soon
distinguished herself by her extraordinary talent for languages. At the age of
five she spoke French with ease and correctness, while only six years later
she was able to translate Greek into Latin at sight and to speak the former as
fluently as her own Italian. At the early age of nine she startled the learned
men and women of her native city by discoursing for an hour in Latin on
the rights of women to the study of science. This discourse—Oratio—was
not, as usually stated, her own composition, but a translation from the
Italian of a discourse written by her teacher of Latin. That a child of nine
years should speak in the language of Cicero for a full hour before a learned
assembly and without once losing the thread of her discourse was, indeed, a
wonderful performance, and we are not surprised to learn that she was
regarded by her countrymen as an infant prodigy.[116]
In addition to Italian, French, Latin and Greek, she was acquainted with
German, Spanish and Hebrew. For this reason she was, like Elena Cornaro
Piscopia, the famous "Venetian Minerva," called Oracolo Settilingue—
Oracle of Seven Languages.[117]
But it was in the higher mathematics that Maria Gaetana was to win her
chief title to fame in the world of learning. So successful had she been in
her prosecution of this branch of science that she was, at the early age of
twenty, able to enter upon her monumental work—Le Instituzioni Analitiche
—a treatise in two large quarto volumes on the differential and integral
calculus. To this difficult task she devoted ten years of arduous and
uninterrupted labor. And if we may credit her biographer, she consecrated
the nights as well as the days to her herculean undertaking. For frequently,
after working in vain on a difficult problem during the day, she was known
to bound from her bed during the night while sound asleep and, like a

somnambulist, make her way through a long suite of rooms to her study,
where she wrote out the solution of the problem and then returned to her
bed. The following morning, on returning to her desk, she found, to her
great surprise, that while asleep she had fully solved the problem which had
been the subject of her meditations during the day and of her dreams during
the night. Could the psychiatrist who so loves to deal with obscure mental
phenomena find a more interesting case to engage his attention or one more
worthy of the most careful investigation?
Finally Maria Gaetana's opus majus was completed and given to the public.
It would be impossible to describe the sensation it produced in the learned
world. Everybody talked about it; everybody admired the profound learning
of the author, and acclaimed her: "Il portento del sesso, unico al Mondo"—
the portent of her sex, unique in the world. By a single effort of her genius
she had completely demolished that fabric of false reasoning which had so
long been appealed to as proof positive of woman's intellectual inferiority,
especially in the domain of abstract science. Maria Gaetana's victory was
complete, and her victory was likewise a victory for her sex. She had
demonstrated once for all, and beyond a quirk or quibble, that women could
attain to the highest eminence in mathematics as well as in literature, that
supreme excellence in any department of knowledge was not a question of
sex but a question of education and opportunity, and that in things of the
mind there was essentially no difference between the male and the female
intellect.
The world saw in Agnesi a worthy accession to that noble band of gifted
women who count among their number a Sappho, a Corinna, an Aspasia, a
Hypatia, a Paula, a Hroswitha, a Dacier, an Isabella Rosales who, in the
sixteenth century, successfully defended the most difficult theological
theses in the presence of Paul III and the entire college of cardinals. And so
delighted were the women—especially those in Italy—with the signal
triumph of their eminent sister that they defied the traducers of their sex—
muliebris sapientiæ infensissimis hostibus—to continue any longer their
unreasonable campaign against the rights of women which were based on
the intellectual equality of the two sexes.
So highly did the French Academy of Science value Agnesi's achievement
that she would at once have been made a member of this learned body had

it not been against the constitutions to admit a woman to membership. M.
Motigny, one of the committee appointed by the Academy to report on the
work, in his letter to the author, among other things, writes: "Permit me,
Mademoiselle, to unite my personal homage to the plaudits of the entire
Academy. I have the pleasure of making known to my country an extremely
useful work which has long been desired, and which has hitherto"—both in
France and in England—"existed only in outline. I do not know any work of
this kind which is clearer, more methodic or more comprehensive than your
Analytical Institutions. There is none in any language which can guide more
surely, lead more quickly, and conduct further those who wish to advance in
the mathematical sciences. I admire particularly the art with which you
bring under uniform methods the divers conclusions scattered among the
works of geometers and reached by methods entirely different."
As an indication of the exceptional merit of Agnesi's work, even long after
its publication in 1748, it suffices to state that the second volume of the
Instituzioni Analitiche was translated into French in 1775 by Antelmy and
annotated by the Abbé Bossuet, a member of the French Academy and a
collaborator of D'Alembert on the mathematical part of the famous
Encyclopédie.
A still greater proof of the estimation in which Agnesi's work was held by
men of science is the fact that it was translated in its entirety into English by
the Rev. John Colton, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in the University
of Cambridge, and published in 1801, fifty-two years after it had appeared
in Italian. His impression of the methods followed by the Milanese savante
was so favorable that, in the words of a contemporary writer, it "gave rise to
his very spirited resolution of learning a new language at an advanced
period of life, that he might make himself perfect master of them."[118]
Gratifying, however, as were the tributes of admiration and appreciation
which came to Agnesi from all quarters, from learned societies, from
eminent mathematicians, from sovereigns—the Empress Maria Theresa sent
her a splendid diamond ring and a precious crystal casket bejeweled with
diamonds—that which touched her most deeply was, undoubtedly, the
recognition which she received from the great Mæcenas of his age, Pope
Benedict XIV. As Cardinal Lambertini and Archbishop of Bologna, he had
taken a conspicuous part in the honors showered on Laura Bassi when she

received her doctorate, and was specially delighted when she was made
professor of physics in his favored university. Being himself familiar with
the higher mathematics, he recognized at once the exceptional merit of
Maria Gaetana's work and showed his appreciation of it not only by letters
and presents, but also by having her, motu proprio, appointed by the
Bolognese senate as professor of higher mathematics in the University of
Bologna.
In advising her of this appointment, he writes her that he had in view the
honor of the University in which he had always taken a special interest, and
that the appointment carried with it no obligation of thanks on her part but
rather on his—che porta seco ch'ella non deve ringraziar Noi, ma che Noi
dobbiamo ringraziar lei. The interest that this wise and broad-minded
pontiff exhibited in the advancement of learned women and the rewards he
was ever ready to accord to their achievements in science and literature—
especially in the cases of Laura Bassi and Maria Gaetana Agnesi—is in
keeping with the policy pursued by his predecessors, and accounts in great
measure for that large number of learned women in Italy who, since the
opening of the first universities, have been the glory of their sex and
country.
But ardent as was the desire of the Supreme Pontiff to have Agnesi occupy
the chair of mathematics, and numerous as were the appeals of her friends
and the members of the university faculty to have her accept the
appointment that carried with it such signal honor, she could never be
induced to leave her beloved Milan. For, after completing her masterpiece,
she resolved to retire from the world and devote the rest of her life to the
care of the poor, the sick and the helpless in her native city. She did not,
however, as is so frequently asserted, enter the convent and become a nun.
[119]
During many years after her retirement from the world, she lived in her
own home, a part of which she had converted into a hospital. During the
last fifteen years of her life she had charge of the Pio Albergo Trivulzio—a
large institution founded by Prince Trivulzio for the aged poor who were
without home or assistance.
She had devoted ten years of the flower of her life to the writing of her
Instituzioni Analitiche—prepared primarily for the benefit of one of her
brothers who had a taste for mathematics—and, after it was finished, she

entered upon that long career of heroic charity which was terminated only
at her death at the advanced age of eighty-one.
One loves to speculate regarding Maria Gaetana's possible achievements if
she had continued during the rest of her life that science in which, during a
few short years, she had won such distinction. She had made her own the
discoveries of Newton, Leibnitz, Roberval, Fermat, Descartes, Riccati,
Euler, the brothers Bernouilli, and had mastered the entire science of
mathematics then known. Her pinions were trimmed for essaying loftier
flights than any hitherto attempted, and her intellect was prepared, as one of
her scientific friends expressed it, "for fixing the limits of the infinite." But
while the world of science was still sounding her praises and predicting for
her still greater triumphs in the field of analysis, it learned with surprise and
sorrow that she had bid adieu to those studies in which she had achieved
such extraordinary success, and had consecrated her life to the service of
the poor and the afflicted. She disappeared completely from those literary
and scientific reunions where she had so long been the most conspicuous
figure, and was thenceforth known only as the ministering angel of the
suffering and the abandoned. For half a century hers was a life of the most
heroic charity and self-abnegation. Very readily, therefore, we can
understand why a recent representative of the scientific world should desire
to see her name placed on the calendar of saints.[120]
Had Agnesi devoted her entire life to science instead of abandoning it just
when she was prepared to do her best work, she might to-day be ranked
among such supreme mathematicians as Lagrange, Monge, Laplace and the
Bernouillis, all of whom were her contemporaries. Even as it was, she has
been placed beside Cardan, Leibnitz and Euler for her remarkable powers
of analysis of infinitesimals, while the best proof of the literary value of her
Instituzioni Analitiche is the fact that it has been selected by the famous
society Della Crusca as a testo di lingua—a work considered as a classic of
its kind and used in the preparation of the great authoritative dictionary of
the Italian language.
But by consecrating herself to charity she probably accomplished far more
for humanity and for the well-being of her sex than if she had elected to
continue her work in the higher mathematics. There had been many learned
women in Italy before her time and many since; many who were

distinguished as Hellenists, as Latinists, as polyglots, as mathematicians—
women like the Roccati, the Borghini, the Brassi, the Ardinghelli, the
Barbapiccola, the Caminer Turra, the Tambroni; but Maria Gaetana Agnesi
surpasses them all, not only in knowledge, but as a potent influence for the
diffusion of culture and the spirit of brotherhood, for the expansion of
benevolence and charity, and, above all, for the elevation of woman. She
was also, as her latest and best biographer beautifully expresses it, "an
inspired condottiera who, in the field of civility, anticipated the conquests
of these latter days." She was, indeed, as her epitaph informs us, pietate,
doctrina, beneficentia insignis, and as such she will live in the memory of
our race as long as men shall admire genius and love virtue.
In the year following the publication of Agnesi's Instituzioni Analitiche was
recorded the premature and tragic death of the distinguished French
mathematician, the Marquise Émilie du Châtelet. She has been described as
a "thinker and scientist, précieuse and pedant, but not the less a coquette—
in short, a woman of contradictions."[121] To most readers she is better
known by reason of her liaison with Voltaire, of whom she is regarded as a
mere satellite, than for her work in science. But she was far more than a
satellite that shone by the light received from the sage of Ferney. For there
can be no doubt that she was a highly gifted woman who, besides having a
thorough knowledge of several languages, including Latin, possessed a
special talent for mathematics. It was said of her that "she read Virgil, Pope
and algebra as others read novels," and that she was able "to multiply nine
figures by nine others in her head." No less an authority than the illustrious
Ampère declared her to be "a genius in geometry."
Among her teachers in mathematics were Clairaut, Koenig, Maupertuis,
Père Jaquier and Jean Bernouilli, the immediate predecessors of such
distinguished mathematicians as Monge, Lagrange, d'Alembert and
Laplace. At her Chateau of Cirey, where she and Voltaire spent many years
together, she was visited by learned men from various parts of Europe.
Among these was the Italian scholar, Francisco Algarotti, who was the
author of a work entitled Newtonism for Women. And as Mme. du Châtelet
was an ardent admirer of Newton, the author of the Principia soon became
a strong bond of union between her and the brilliant Italian. She called the
savants who frequented her château at Cirey the Émiliens and purposed

writing memoirs to be entitled Emiliana—a design, however, which she
was never able to execute.
The first work of importance from the pen of the Marquise was entitled
Institutions de Physique. In it she gave an exposition of the philosophy of
Leibnitz and dissertations on space, time and force. In the discussion of the
last topic she seems to have anticipated some of the later conclusions of
science respecting the nature of energy.
Her most noted achievement, however, was her translation of Newton's
Principia, the first translation into French of this epoch-making work. To
translate this masterpiece from its original Latin, it was necessary that the
Marquise, in order to make it intelligible to others, should have a thorough
understanding of it herself. To the translation she added a commentary,
which shows that Mme. du Châtelet had a mathematical mind of undoubted
power. She labored assiduously on this great undertaking for many years
and completed it only shortly before her death; but it was not published
until ten years after her demise.
In his Élogie Historique on the Marquise's translation of the Principia,
Voltaire, in his usual flamboyant style, declares "Two wonders have been
performed: one that Newton was able to write this work, the other that a
woman could translate and explain it." In an effort to express in a single
sentence all his admiration for his talented friend he does not hesitate to
state: "Never was woman so learned as she, and never did anyone less
deserve that people should say of her, 'She is a learned woman.'" Again he
refers to her with characteristic Frenchiness as "a woman who has
translated and explained Newton, in one word a very great man—en un mot
un très grand homme."[122]
But, although the extent of her attainments and her ability as a
mathematician were unquestionable, she fell far short of her great
contemporary, Gaetana Agnesi, both in the depth and breadth of her
scholarship and in her power of infinitesimal analysis. As to her moral
character, she was infinitely inferior to the saintly savante of Milan. She
was by inclination and profession an Epicurean and an avowed sensualist.
In her little treatise, Réflexions sur le Bonheur—Reflections on Happiness
—she unblushingly asserts "that we have nothing to do in this world except

procure for ourselves agreeable sensations." Considering her profligate life,
bordering at times on utter abandon, we are not surprised that one of her
countrymen has characterized her as "Femme sans foi, sans mœurs, sans
pudeur,"—a woman without faith, without morals, without shame.[123]
Anna Barbara Reinhardt of Winterthur in Switzerland was another woman
of exceptional mathematical talent. She is remarkable for having extended
and improved the solution of a difficult problem that specially engaged the
attention of Maupertuis. According to so competent an authority as Jean
Bernouilli, she was the superior, as a mathematician, of the Marquise de
Châtelet.
Of a more original and profound mathematical mind was Sophie Germain, a
countrywoman of the Marquise du Châtelet. Hers was the glory of being
one of the founders of mathematical physics. A pupil of Lagrange and a co-
worker with Biot, Legendre, Poisson and Lagrange, she has justly been
called by De Prony "the Hypatia of the nineteenth century."
Her success, however, was not achieved without overcoming many and
great difficulties. In the first place, she had to overcome the opposition of
her family, who were decidedly averse to her studying mathematics. "Of
what use," they asked, "was geometry to a girl?" But in trying to extinguish
her ardor for mathematics they but augmented it. Alone and unaided she
read every work on mathematics she could find. The study of this science
had such a fascination for her that it became a passion. It occupied her mind
day and night. Finally her parents, becoming alarmed about her health and
resolved to force her to take the necessary repose, left her bedroom without
fire or light, and even removed from it her clothing after she had gone to
bed. She feigned to be resigned; but when all were asleep, she arose and,
wrapping herself in quilts and blankets, she devoted herself to her favorite
studies, even when the cold was so intense that the ink was frozen in her
ink-horn. Not infrequently she was found in the morning chilled through,
having been so engrossed in her studies that she was not aware of her
condition. Before such a determined will, so extraordinary for one of her
age, the family of the young Sophie had the wisdom to permit her to
dispose of her time and genius according to her own pleasure. And they did
well. Like the great geometer of Syracuse, Archimedes, who had ever been

her inspiration in the study of mathematics, she would have died rather than
abandon a problem which, for the time being, engaged her attention.
She first attracted the attention of savants by her mathematical theory of
Chladni's figures. By the order of Napoleon, the Academy of Science had
offered a prize for the one who would "Give the mathematical theory of the
vibration of elastic surfaces and compare it with the results of experiment."
Lagrange declared the problem insoluble without a new system of analysis,
which was yet to be invented. The consequence was that no one attempted
its solution except one who, until then, was almost unknown in the
mathematical world; and this one was Sophie Germain.
Great was the surprise of the savants of Europe when they learned that the
winner of the grand prix of the Academy was a woman. She became at once
the recipient of congratulations from the most noted mathematicians of the
world. This eventually brought her into scientific relations with such
eminent men as Delambre, Fourier, Cauchy, Ampère, Navier, Gauss[124] and
others already mentioned.
It was in 1816, after eight years of work on the problem, that her last
memoir on vibrating surfaces was crowned in a public séance of the Institut
de France. After this event Mlle. Germain was treated as an equal by the
great mathematicians of France. She shared their labors and was invited to
attend the sessions of the Institut, which was the highest honor that this
famous body had ever conferred on a woman.
The noted mathematician, M. Navier, was so impressed with the
extraordinary powers of analysis evinced by one of Mlle. Germain's
memoirs on vibrating surfaces that he did not hesitate to declare that "it is a
work which few men are able to read and which only one woman was able
to write."
Biot, in the Journal de Savants, March, 1817, writes that Mlle. Germain is
probably the one of her sex who has most deeply penetrated the science of
mathematics, not excepting Mme. du Châtelet, for here there was no
Clairaut.[125]
Like Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Mlle. Germain was endowed with a profoundly
philosophical mind as well as with a remarkable talent for mathematics.

This is attested by her interesting work entitled Considérations Générales
sur l'État des Sciences et des Lettres aux Différentes Époques de Leur
Culture. All things considered, she was probably the most profoundly
intellectual woman that France has yet produced. And yet, strange as it may
seem, when the state official came to make out the death certificate of this
eminent associate and co-worker of the most illustrious members of the
French Academy of Sciences he designated her as a rentière—annuitant—
not as a mathématicienne. Nor is this all. When the Eiffel tower was
erected, in which the engineers were obliged to give special attention to the
elasticity of the materials used, there were inscribed on this lofty structure
the names of seventy-two savants. But one will not find in this list the name
of that daughter of genius, whose researches contributed so much toward
establishing the theory of the elasticity of metals,—Sophie Germain. Was
she excluded from this list for the same reason that Agnesi was ineligible to
membership in the French Academy—because she was a woman? It would
seem so. If such, indeed, was the case, more is the shame for those who
were responsible for such ingratitude toward one who had deserved so well
of science, and who by her achievements had won an enviable place in the
hall of fame.[126]
Four years after the birth of Sophie Germain was born in Jedburgh,
Scotland, one whom an English writer has declared was "the most
remarkable scientific woman our country has produced." She was the
daughter of a naval officer, Sir William Fairfax; but is best known as Mary
Somerville. Her life has been well described as an "unobtrusive record of
what can be done by the steady culture of good natural powers and the
pursuit of a high standard of excellence in order to win for a woman a
distinguished place in the sphere naturally reserved for men, without parting
with any of those characteristics of mind, or character, or demeanor which
have ever been taken to form the grace and the glory of womanhood."[127]
The surroundings of her youth were not conducive to scientific pursuits. On
the contrary, they were entirely unfavorable to her manifest inclinations in
that direction. Having scarcely any of the advantages of a school education,
she was obliged to depend almost entirely on her own unaided efforts for
the knowledge she actually acquired. She, like Sophie Germain, was
essentially a self-made woman; and her success was achieved only after

long labor and suffering and in spite of the persistent opposition of family
and friends.
When she was about fifteen years old, the future Mrs. Somerville received
her first introduction to mathematics; and then, strange to say, it was
through a fashion magazine. At the end of a page of this magazine, "I read,"
writes Mrs. Somerville, "what appeared to me to be simply an arithmetical
question; but in turning the page I was surprised to see strange-looking lines
mixed with letters, chiefly X's and Y's, and asked 'What is that?'" She was
told it was a kind of arithmetic, called algebra.
Her interest was at once aroused; and she resolved forthwith to seek
information regarding the curious lines and letters which had so excited her
curiosity. "Unfortunately," she tells us, "none of our acquaintances or
relatives knew anything of science or natural history; nor, had they done so,
should I have had courage to ask of them a question, for I should have been
laughed at."
Finally she was able to secure a copy of a work on algebra and a Euclid.
Although without a teacher she immediately applied herself to master the
contents of these two works, but she had to do so by stealth in bed after she
had retired for the night. When her father learned of what was going on, he
said to the girl's mother, "Peg, we must put a stop to this, or we shall have
Mary in a straightjacket one of these days." The mother, who had no more
sympathy with her daughter's scientific pursuits than had the father, and,
fully convinced, like the great majority of her sex, that woman's duties
should be confined to the affairs of the household, strove to divert her
daughter's mind from her "unladylike" pursuits. But her efforts were
ineffectual. The young woman, in spite of all obstacles and opposition,
contrived to continue her cherished studies; and, through her uncle, the Rev.
Dr. Somerville, afterward her father-in-law, she was able to become
proficient in both Latin and Greek. When she was thirty-three years of age
she became the happy possessor of a small library of mathematical works.
"I had now," she writes, "the means, and pursued my studies with increased
assiduity; concealment was no longer necessary, nor was it attempted. I was
considered eccentric and foolish, and my conduct was highly disapproved
of by many, especially by some members of my own family."[128]

In March, 1827, Mrs. Somerville received a letter from Lord Brougham,
who had heard of her remarkable acquirements, begging her to prepare for
English readers a popular exposition of Laplace's great work—Mécanique
Céleste. She was overwhelmed with astonishment at this request, for her
modesty made her diffident of her powers; and she felt that her self-
acquired knowledge of science was so far inferior to that of university men
that it would be sheer presumption for her to undertake the task proposed to
her. She was, however, finally persuaded to make the attempt, with the
proviso that her manuscript should be consigned to the flames unless it
fulfilled the expectations of those who urged its production.
In less than a year her work, to which she gave the name of The Mechanism
of the Heavens, was ready for the press. But it was far more than a
translation and epitome, as originally intended by its projector, Lord
Brougham; for, in addition to the views of Laplace, it contained the
independent opinions of the translator respecting the propositions of the
illustrious French savant. No sooner was the work published than Mrs.
Somerville found herself famous. She had, as Sir John Herschel expressed
it, "written for posterity," and her book placed her at once among the
leading scientific writers and thinkers of the day. She was elected an
honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society at the same time as
Caroline Herschel, they being the first two women thus honored. Her bust,
by Chantry, was placed in the great hall of the Royal Society, and she was
made a member of many other scientific societies in Europe and America.
In recognition of her services to science she was granted by the government
a pension of £200 a year—a sum which was shortly afterward increased to
£300. In addition to all this, Mrs. Somerville had the satisfaction of learning
that her work was so highly esteemed by Dr. Whewell, the great master of
Trinity, that it was, chiefly on his recommendation, introduced as a textbook
in the University of Cambridge and prescribed as "an essential work to
those students who aspire to the highest places in the examinations." What
Mme. du Châtelet had done for Newton, Mrs. Somerville did for Laplace.
Among other books from the pen of this highly gifted woman is her
Connection of the Physical Sciences and a work entitled Physical
Geography, which, together with the Mechanism of the Heavens, was the
object of the "profound admiration" of Humboldt. Then there is a number of
very abstruse monographs on mathematical subjects, one of which is a

treatise of two hundred and forty-six pages On Curves and Surfaces of
Higher Orders, which, she tells us, she "wrote con amore to fill up her
morning hours while spending the winter in Southern Italy."
Her last work was a treatise On Molecular and Microscopic Science
embodying the most recondite investigations on the subject. This book,
begun after she had passed her eightieth birthday, occupied her for many
years and was not ready for publication until she was close upon her
ninetieth year. Her last occupations, continued until the day of her death at
the advanced age of ninety-two, were the reading of a book on Quaternions
and the review and completion of a volume On the Theory of Differences.
Like her illustrious friend, the great Humboldt, Mary Somerville was
possessed of extraordinary physical vigor, and, like him, she retained her
mental powers unimpaired until the last. And like her great rival in
mathematics, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, she was always "beautifully
womanly." Her scientific and literary occupations did not cause her to
neglect the duties of her household or to disregard "the graceful and artistic
accomplishments of an elegant woman of the world." Her daughter Martha
writes of her: "It would be almost incredible were I to describe how much
my mother contrived to do in the course of the day. When my sister and I
were small children, although busily engaged in writing for the press, she
used to teach us for three hours in the morning, besides managing her house
carefully, reading the newspapers—for she was always a keen and, I must
add, a liberal politician—and the most important new books on all subjects,
grave and gay. In addition to this, she freely visited and received her
friends.... Gay and cheerful company was a pleasant relaxation after a hard
day's work."[129]
The life of Mary Somerville, like that of Gaetana Agnesi, proves that the
pursuit of science is not, as so often asserted, incompatible with domestic
and social duties. It also disposes of the fallacy, so generally entertained,
that intellectual labor is detrimental to the health of women and antagonistic
to longevity. The truth is that it is yet to be demonstrated that intellectual
work, even of the severest kind, is, per se, more deleterious to women than
to those of the stronger sex.

Scarcely less remarkable as a mathematician was Mrs. Somerville's
distinguished contemporary, Janet Taylor, who was known as the "Mrs.
Somerville of the Marine World." She was the author of numerous works on
navigation and nautical astronomy which in their day were highly prized by
seafaring men. In recognition of her valuable services to the marine world
she was placed on the civil list of the British government.
As an eminent mathematician as well as a "representative of the highest
intellectual accomplishments to which women have attained," Sónya
Kovalévsky will ever occupy an honored place among the votaries of
science. In many respects this richly endowed daughter of Holy Russia was
par excellence the woman of genius of the latter half of the nineteenth
century.
She was born in Moscow in 1850, but although her career was brief it was
one of meteoric splendor. At an early age she exhibited an unusual talent for
mathematics and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Not being able to
obtain in her own country the educational advantages she desired, she
resolved at the age of eighteen to go to Germany with a view of pursuing
her studies there under more favorable auspices.
She first matriculated in the University of Heidelberg, where she spent two
years in studying mathematics under the most eminent professors of that
famous old institution. Thence she went to Berlin. She could not enter the
University there, as its doors were closed to female students; but she was
fortunate enough to prevail on the illustrious Professor Weierstrass,
regarded by many as the father of mathematical analysis, to give her private
lessons. He soon discovered to his astonishment that this child-woman had
"the gift of intuitive genius to a degree he had seldom found among even
his older and more developed students." Under this eminent mathematician
Sónya spent about three years, at the end of which period she was able to
present to the University of Göttingen three theses which she had written
under the direction of her professor. The merit of her work and the
testimonials which she was able to present from Weierstrass, Kirchhoff and
others were of such supreme excellence that she was exempted from an oral
examination and was enabled, by a very special privilege, to receive her
doctorate without appearing in person.

Not long after receiving her doctor's degree—one of the first to be granted
to a woman by a German university—she was offered the chair of higher
mathematics in the University of Stockholm. She was the first woman in
Europe, outside of Italy, to be thus honored. But her appointment had to be
made in the face of great opposition. No other university, it was urged by
the conservatives, had yet offered a professor's chair to a woman.
Strindberg, one of the leaders of modern Swedish literature, wrote an article
in which he proved, "as decidedly as that two and two make four, what a
monstrosity is a woman who is a professor of mathematics, and how
unnecessary, injurious and out of place she is."[130]
The fame that came to Sónya through her achievements in the German and
Swedish universities was immensely enhanced when, on Christmas eve,
1888, "at a solemn session of the French Academy of Sciences, she received
in person the Prix Bordin—the greatest scientific honor which any woman
had ever gained; one of the greatest honors, indeed, to which any one can
aspire."
She became at once the heroine of the hour and was thenceforth "a
European celebrity with a place in history." She was fêted by men of
science whithersoever she went and hailed by the women of the world as
the glory of her sex and as the most brilliant type of intellectual
womanhood.
Mme. Kovalévsky's printed mathematical works embrace only a few
memoirs including those which she presented for her doctorate and for the
Prix Bordin. But brief as they are, all of these memoirs are regarded by
mathematicians as being of special value. This is particularly true of the
memoirs, which secured for her the Prix Bordin; for it contains the solution
of a problem that long had baffled the genius of the greatest
mathematicians.
The prize had been opened to the competition of the mathematicians of the
world, and the astonishment of the committee of the French Academy was
beyond expression when it was found that the successful contestant was a
woman.[131]
Everyone admired her varied and profound knowledge, but, above all, her
amazing powers of analysis. A German mathematician, Kronecker, did not

hesitate to declare that "the history of mathematics will speak of her as one
of the rarest investigators."[132]
Shortly before her premature death, she had planned a great work on
mathematics. All who are interested in the intellectual capacities and
achievements of woman must regret that she was unable to complete what
would undoubtedly have been the noblest monument of woman's scientific
genius. She was then in the prime of life and perfectly equipped for the
work she had in mind. Considering the extraordinary receptive and
productive power of this richly dowered woman, there can be little doubt,
had she lived a few years longer, that she would have produced a work that
would have caused her to be ranked among the greatest mathematicians of
the nineteenth century.
It is pleasant to record that this woman of masculine mind, masculine
energy and masculine genius, far from being mannish or unwomanly, was,
on the contrary, a woman of a truly feminine heart; and that, although a
giantess in intellectual attainments, she was in grace and charm and
delicacy of sentiment one of the noblest types of beautiful womanhood. She
could with the greatest ease turn from a lecture on Abel's Functions or a
research on Saturn's rings to the writing of verse in French or of a novel in
Russian or to collaborating with her friend, the Duchess of Cajanello, on a
drama in Swedish, or to making a lace collar for her little daughter, Fouzi,
to whom she was most tenderly attached.[133]
Little more than a quarter of a century has elapsed since Strindberg,
expressing the sentiment of the great majority of the men of his time,
declared that a woman professor of mathematics is a monstrosity. But
during this short period what a change has been effected in the attitude of
the world toward women who devote themselves to the study and the
teaching of science! Women mathematicians are found to-day in all
civilized countries, and no sane person now considers it any more
"unwomanly" or more "monstrous" for them to study or teach mathematics
than for them to teach music or needlework. Yet more. They are now
frequent contributors to mathematical magazines and to the official
bulletins of learned societies, and not infrequently they are on the editorial
staffs of publications devoted exclusively to mathematics. They are also
found as computers in some of the largest astronomical observatories,

where the speed and accuracy of their work have evoked the most favorable
comment.
Of women in America, who have distinguished themselves by their work in
the higher mathematics, it suffices to mention the name of Miss Charlotte
Angas Scott, recently deceased, who was for years professor of
mathematics in the College of Bryn Mawr. Her writings on various
problems of the higher mathematics show that she faithfully followed in the
footsteps of her illustrious predecessors,—Hypatia, Agnesi, du Châtelet,
Germain, Somerville and Kovalévsky.

FOOTNOTES:
[108] "Ipse mulieres Philosophas in libris Veterum sexaginta quinque reperi,"
Historia Mulierum Philosopharum, p. 3, Amstelodami, 1692.
[109] Plato had inscribed above the entrance of his school, Ουδεις αγεωμετρητος
εισιτη. Let no one enter here who is not a geometer.
[110] Menagius in referring to this matter, op. cit., p. 37, writes as follows:
"Meritrices Græcas plerasque humanioribus literis et mathematicis disciplinis
operam dedisse notat Athenæus."
[111] The sentiment of the Greek epigram is well expressed in the following
Latin verses:

"Quando intueor te, adoro, et sermones,
Virginis domum sideream intuens.
E coelis enim tua sunt opera,
Hypatia casta, sermonum venustas,
Impollutum astrum sapientis doctrinæ."

[112] Among modern works on Hypatia may be mentioned Hypatia, die
Philosophin von Alexandria, by St. Wolt, Vienna, 1879; Hypatia von Alexandria,
by W. A. Meyer, Heidelberg, 1886; Ipazia Alessandrina, by D. Guido Bigoni,
Venize, 1887, and De Hypatia, by B. Ligier, Dijon, 1879.
[113] Ambrosius in his preface to the works of Abelard and Heloise refers to the
latter as "Clarum sui sexus sidus et ornamentum," and declares "necnon
mathesin, philosophiam et theologiam a viro suo edocta, illo solo minor fuit."
[114] Mazzuchelli says of her in his Museo, "Sembra non avervi nella Natura
cosa la piu intralciata ed oscura nelle storie, ne finalemente la piu astrusa nelle
matematiche e nelle mecchaniche, che a lei conta non sia e palese, e che sfugga
la capacita del suo spirito." Dizionario Biografico, Vol. I, p. 122, by Ambrogio
Levati, Milano, 1821.

[115] Delle Donne Illustri Italiane del XIII al XIX Secolo, p. 268, Roma.
[116] The full title of this celebrated discourse is Oratio qua ostenditur Artium
liberalium studia a Fæmineo sexu neutiquam abhorere, habita a Maria de
Agnesis Rhetoricæ Operam Dante, Anno ætatis suæ nono nondum exacto, die
18, Augusti, 1727. It is found at the end of a work entitled Discorsi Academici di
varj autori Viventi intorno agli Stuj delle Donne in Padova, 1729. This subject, it
may be remarked, frequently engaged the attention of Maria Gaetana as she
advanced in years, for we find it among the questions discussed in her
Propositiones Philosophicæ, pp. 2 and 3, Mediolani, 1738.
[117] M. Charles de Brosses, in his Lettres Familières écrites de l'Italie en 1739
et 1740, speaks of Agnesi in terms that recall the marvelous stories which are
related of Admirable Crichton and Pico della Mirandola. "She appeared to me,"
he tells us, "something more stupendous—una cosa piu stupenda—than the
Duomo of Milan." Having been invited to a conversazione for the purpose of
meeting this wonderful woman, the learned Frenchman found her to be a "young
lady of about eighteen or twenty." She was surrounded by "about thirty people ...
many of them from different parts of Europe." The discussion turned on various
questions of mathematics and natural philosophy.
"She spoke," writes de Brosses, "wonderfully well on these subjects, though she
could not have been prepared beforehand any more than we were. She is much
attached to the philosophy of Newton; and, it is marvelous to see a person of her
age so conversant with such abstruse subjects. Yet, however much I was
surprised at the extent and depth of her knowledge, I was still more amazed to
hear her speak Latin ... with such purity, ease and accuracy, that I do not
recollect any book in modern Latin written in so classical a style as that in which
she pronounced these discourses.... The conversation afterwards became general,
everyone speaking in the language of his own country, and she answering in the
same language; for, her knowledge of languages is prodigious."
[118] At the conclusion of an elaborate review of Colton's translation of Agnesi's
Instituzioni Analitiche in the Edinburgh Review for January, 1804, the writer
expresses himself as follows: "We cannot take leave of a work that does so much
honor to female genius, without earnestly recommending the perusal of it to
those who believe that great talents are bestowed by nature exclusively on man,
and who allege that women, even in their highest attainments, are to be
compared only to grown children, and have, in no instance, given proofs of
original and inventive powers, of a capacity for patient research, or for profound
investigation. Let those who hold these opinions endeavor to follow the author
of the Analytical Institutions through the long series of demonstrations, which
she has contrived with so much skill and explained with such elegance and
perspicuity. If they are able to do so, and to compare her work with others of the
same kind, they will probably retract their former opinions, and acknowledge
that, in one instance at least, intellectual powers of the highest order have been
lodged in the brain of a woman.
"At si gelidus obstiterit circum præcordia sanguis; and if they are unable to
attend this illustrious female in her scientific excursions, of course, they will not
see the reasons for admiring her genius that others do; but they may at least learn
to think modestly of their own."

[119] It is surprising how many legends have obtained respecting the life of
Agnesi after the publication of her Instituzioni Analitiche. Thus, the writer of the
article in the Edinburgh Review, above quoted, declares that "she retired to a
convent of blue nuns,"—a statement that has frequently been repeated in many
of our most noted encyclopedias.
In a Prospetto Biografico delle Donne Italiane, written by G. C. Facchini and
published in Venice in 1824, it is stated that Maria Gaetana was selected by the
Pope to occupy "the chair of mathematics which had been left vacant by the
death of her father," while Cavazza in his work "Le Scuole dell," Antico Studio
Bolognese, pp. 289-290, published in Milan in 1896, assures us that Gaetana
Agnesi taught analytical geometry in the University of Bologna for full forty-
eight years. The facts are that neither the father nor the daughter ever taught
even a single hour either in this or in any other university. Cf. Maria Gaetana
Agnesi, p. 273 et seq., by Luisa Anzoletti, Milano, 1900. This is far the best life
of Milan's illustrious daughter that has yet appeared. The reader may also consult
with profit the Elogio Storico di Maria Gaetana Agnesi, by Antonio Frisi,
Milano, 1799, and Gli Scrittori d'Italia, of G. Mazzuchelli, Tom. I, Par. I, p. 198
et seq., Brescia, 1795.
[120] M. Rebière, in his Les Femmes dans la Science, p. 13, Paris, 1897, writes,
"Ne pourrait-on aller plus loin et canonizer notre Agnesi? J'estime, moi profane,
que ce serait une sainte qui en vaudrait bien d'autres."
[121] An Eighteenth Century Marquise, a Study of Émilie du Châtelet, p. 5, by F.
Hamel, New York, 1911.
[122] Preface to Mme. du Châtelet's translation of the Principia of Newton,
Paris, 1740.
[123] Voltaire's last tribute, "The Divine Émilie," or, as Frederick II was wont to
call her, "Venus-Newton," concluded with the following verses:

"L'Univers a perdu la sublime Émilie;
Elle aimait les plaisirs, les arts, la veritè;
Les dieux, en lui donnant leur âme et génie,
N'avaient gardé pour eux que l'immortalité."

The universe has lost the sublime Émilie; she loved pleasure, the arts, truth; the
gods, in giving her their soul and genius, retained for themselves only
immortality.
For further information of this extraordinary woman, see Lettres de la Mme. du
Châtelet, Reunies pour la première fois, par Eugène Asse, Paris, 1882.
[124] At the beginning of her correspondence with Gauss, Legendre and
Lagrange Mlle. Germain concealed her sex under a pseudonym, "in order," as
she declared, "to escape the ridicule attached to a woman devoted to science"—
craignant le ridicule attaché au titre de femme savante. She, too, suffered from
the widespread effects of Molière's Les Femmes Savantes, as had many a gifted
woman before her time and as have many others of a much later date.

[125] This celebrated mathematician, as is well-known, was a collaborator with
Mme. du Châtelet in her translation of Newton's Principia.
[126] For further information respecting this remarkable woman the reader is
referred to Œuvres Philosophiques de Sophie Germain Suivies de Pensées et de
Lettres Inédites et Précédées d'une Étude sur sa Vie et ses Œuvres, par. H. Stupy,
Paris, 1896. One may also consult Todhunter's History of the Theory of Elasticity
and of the Strength of Materials, Vol. I, pp. 147-160, Cambridge, 1886, in which
is given a careful résumé of Mlle. Germain's mathematical memoirs on elastic
surfaces.
[127] Saturday Review, January 10, 1874.
[128] Personal Recollections, From Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville,
p. 80, Boston, 1874.
[129] Personal Recollections, ut sup., p. 5.
[130] Sónya Kovalévsky, Her Recollections of Childhood, With a Biography, by
Anna Carlotta Leffler, p. 219, New York, 1895.
[131] "The prize was doubled to five thousand francs, on account of the 'quite
extraordinary service rendered to mathematical physics by this work,' which the
Academy of Sciences pronounced 'a remarkable work.' The competing
dissertations were signed with mottoes, not with names, and the jury of the
Academy made the award in utter ignorance that the winner was a woman. Her
dissertation was printed, by order of the Academy, in the Mémoires des Savants
Etrangers. In the following year Mme. Kovalévsky received a prize of fifteen
hundred kroner from the Stockholm Academy for two works connected with the
foregoing."
[132] Men of science will realize the capacity of this gifted Russian woman as a
mathematician when they learn that she gave in the University of Stockholm
courses of lectures on such subjects as the following:
Theory of derived partial equations; theory of potential functions; applications of
the theory of elliptic functions; theory of Abelian functions, according to
Weierstrass; curves defined by differential equations, according to Poincaré;
application of analysis to the theory of whole numbers. How many men are there
who give more advanced mathematical courses than these?
[133] To a friend, who expressed surprise at her fluttering to and fro between
mathematics and literature, she made a reply which deserves a place here, as it
gives a better idea than anything else of the wonderful versatility of this gifted
daughter of Russia. "I understand," she writes, "your surprise at my being able to
busy myself simultaneously with literature and mathematics. Many who have
never had an opportunity of knowing any more about mathematics confound it
with arithmetic, and consider it an arid science. In reality, however, it is a
science which requires a great amount of imagination, and one of the leading
mathematicians of our century states the case quite correctly when he says that it
is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul. Only, of
course, in order to comprehend the accuracy of this definition, one must
renounce the ancient prejudice that a poet must invent something which does not

exist, that imagination and invention are identical. It seems to me that the poet
has only to perceive that which others do not perceive, to look deeper than others
look. And the mathematician must do the same thing. As for myself, all my life I
have been unable to decide for which I had the greater inclination, mathematics
or literature. As soon as my brain grows wearied of purely abstract speculations
it immediately begins to incline to observations on life, to narrative, and vice
versa, everything in life begins to appear insignificant and uninteresting, and
only the eternal, immutable laws of science attract me. It is very possible that I
should have accomplished more in either of these lines, if I had devoted myself
exclusively to it; nevertheless, I cannot give up either of them completely."
From Ellen Key's Biography of the Duchess of Cajanello, quoted in Anna
Leffler's biography of Sónya Kovalévsky, ut sup, pp. 317-318.

CHAPTER IV
WOMEN IN ASTRONOMY

Urania, the muse of astronomy, was a woman; and, although most of her
devotees have been men, the number of the gentler sex who have achieved
success in the cultivation of the science of the stars has been much larger
than is usually supposed.
There is reason to believe that woman's interest in astronomy dates back to
early Egyptian and Babylonian times when the star-gazers in the fertile
valley of the Nile and on the broad plains of Chaldea were so active, and
when they made so many important discoveries respecting the laws and
movements of the heavenly bodies. According to Plutarch, Aganice, the
daughter of Sesostris, King of Egypt, tried to predict future events by the
aid of celestial globes and by the study of the constellations. Her
observations, however, were in the interests of astrology rather than of
astronomy, as we now understand the science.
The first woman whose name has come down to us, who deserved to be
regarded as an astronomer, was most probably Aglaonice, the daughter of
Hegetoris of Thessaly. By means of the lunar cycle known as the Saros, a
period discovered by the Chaldean astronomers and embracing a little more
than eighteen years, during which the eclipses of the moon and sun recur in
nearly the same order as during the preceding period, this Greek woman
was able to predict eclipses. The people among whom she lived regarded
her as a sorceress; but she flouted them all, and declared that she was able
to make the sun and moon disappear at will.
The first woman, however, to attain eminence as an astronomer was
undoubtedly Hypatia, that universal genius of the ancient world, who
seemed equally at home in literature, philosophy and mathematics, and who
may justly be regarded as one of the most highly gifted women that has
ever lived. In Alexandria, where she was born and lived, this accomplished
daughter of Theon taught not only philosophy, but also algebra, geometry

and astronomy. One of her pupils, Synesius, who became Bishop of
Ptolemais, informs us that she was the inventor of two important
astronomical instruments: an astrolabe and a planisphere. In addition to two
mathematical works, a Treatise on the Conics of Apollonius and a
Commentary on the Arithmetic of Diophantus, which was in reality a
treatise on algebra, she was the author of an Astronomical Canon, which
contained tables regarding the movements of the heavenly bodies. It is
generally supposed that this was an original work; but there are some who
think it was but a commentary on the tables of Ptolemy. In this latter case
Hypatia's work may still exist in connection with that of her father, Theon,
on the same subject.[134]
If the works of Hypatia had not been destroyed by the ravages of time, they
would undoubtedly prove that she fully merited all the encomiums
bestowed on her by antiquity for her genius; and they would also prove, we
may well believe, that she deserved to be ranked not only with the eminent
mathematicians upon whose works she commented, but also with such
masters of astronomic science as Ptolemy, Eratosthenes and Aristarchus.
After the tragic death of Hypatia many centuries elapsed before any other
woman attracted attention for her work in astronomy. Indeed, so neglected
was the study of the heavens between the time of Hypatia and the Arab
prince and astronomer, Albategni, who flourished during the latter part of
the ninth century and the early part of the tenth, that only eight
observations, it is asserted, were recorded during this long period. The
works and observations of Albategni, it may be remarked, have a particular
interest from the fact that they form a connecting link between those of the
Alexandrine astronomers and those of modern Europe.
Antoine Hamilton, in his Gaufrey—a parody on The Thousand and One
Nights—tells of a Saracen princess, Fleur d'Épine, who, before she was
fifteen years of age, was able not only to speak Latin and Romance, but
who was also "better acquainted than any woman in the world with the
movements of the stars and the moon."

"Et du cours des étoiles et de la lune luisant
Savoit moult plus que fame de chest siècle vivant."

If any woman between the time of Hypatia and Galileo deserved such high
praise for her astronomical knowledge it was certainly Saint Hildegard, the
famous Benedictine abbess of Bingen on the Rhine. She has well been
called "the marvel of the twelfth century," not only on account of her
sanctity, but also on account of her extraordinary attainments in every
branch of knowledge then cultivated.
When treating of the sun, Hildegard tells us that it is in the center of the
firmament and holds in place the stars that gravitate around it, as the earth
attracts the creatures which inhabit it. This view of a twelfth century nun is
indeed remarkable. For, in her time, the earth was by everyone considered
as the center of the firmament, while universal gravitation—the sublime
discovery of Newton—had not as yet entered into the scientific theories of
that epoch.
Hildegard likewise anticipates subsequent discoveries regarding the
alternation of the seasons. "If," she writes, "it is cold in the winter time on
the part of the earth which we inhabit, the other part must be warm, in order
that the temperature of the earth may always be in equilibrium." That she
should have arrived at this conclusion before navigators had visited the
southern hemisphere is truly astonishing.[135]
"The stars," she continues, "have neither the same brightness nor the same
size. They are kept in their course by a superior body." Here again is her
idea of universal gravitation.
These stars, she further declares, are not immovable, but they traverse the
firmament in its entirety. And to make clearer her conception of the motion
of the stars, she compares this motion to that of the blood in the veins. To
hear one of this early period speaking of blood coursing through the veins
and thus traversing the whole body of man seems to presage, in a
remarkable manner, the beautiful discoveries of Cesalpino and Harvey
regarding the circulation of the blood.
The most celebrated astronomer of the early Renaissance was John Müller,
of Königsburg, better known as Regiomontanus. In his observatory in
Nuremberg he was ably assisted by his wife who exhibited a special interest
in astronomy. At the end of the sixteenth century, Sophia Brahe, the

youngest sister of Tycho Brahe, following in the footsteps of her illustrious
brother, attained great celebrity as an astronomer.
More distinguished for her astronomical work than either of these two
women was Maria Cunitz, a Silesian, who, from her tenderest years,
displayed extraordinary zeal for study and who eventually became mistress
of seven languages, among which were Latin, Greek and Hebrew. She also
cultivated poetry, music and painting; but her favorite studies were
mathematics and astronomy. At the solicitation of her husband, she
undertook the preparation of an abridgment of the Rudolphine Tables. Her
work, under the name of Urania Propitia, was published after her death by
her husband, and gained for the talented authoress the name of "The second
Hypatia."[136]
Shortly after the completion of Urania Propitia, a French woman, Jeanne
Dumée, distinguished herself by writing a work on the theory of Copernicus
entitled Entretiens sur l'Opinion de Copernic Touchant la Mobilité de la
Terre. So far as known, this work was never published, but the original
manuscript is still preserved in the National Library of Paris. The authoress
deems it necessary it apologize for writing on a subject that is usually
considered foreign to her sex and to explain why she was ambitious to
discuss questions to which the women of her time never gave any thought.
It was that she might "prove to them that they are not incapable of study, if
they wish to make the effort, because between the brain of a woman and
that of a man there is no difference."[137]
How often before had not women endeavored to prove the equality of brain
power of the two sexes, and how often since have they bent their efforts in
this direction! And yet the majority of men still remain skeptical about such
equality.
Among the contemporaries of Jeanne Dumée were two other women who
gained more than ordinary distinction by their attainments in astronomy.
These were Mme. de la Sablière, in France, and Maria Margaret Kirch, of
Germany.
Mme. de la Sablière evinced from an early age a special aptitude for
science, especially for physics and astronomy. She studied mathematics
under the eminent mathematician, Roberval, and at the age of thirty was

famous. Her home became the resort of learned and eminent men, including
some of the most noted characters of the age. Among these was Sobieski,
King of Poland. But it is as the friend and protectress of La Fontaine and as
the object of Boileau's satire that she is best known.
For a woman to devote herself to the study of science so soon after the
appearance of Molière's Les Femmes Savantes argued more than ordinary
courage. But for her to become distinguished for her scientific acquirements
was almost tantamount to defying public opinion. The great majority of
men had come to regard learned women in the same light as those who
were so mercilessly derided in the Précieuses Ridicules; and they had,
accordingly, no hesitation in treating them as unbearable pedants. No one
could have made less parade of her learning than Mme. de la Sablière, or
striven more successfully to conceal her admirable gifts. But this was not
sufficient. She was known to have devoted special study to science,
particularly to astronomy, and this was sufficient to make her the target of
the satirists of her time.
By an act that wounded the self-love of Boileau this Venus Urania, as she
has been called, soon found herself the victim of the satirist's well-directed
shafts. The poet does not name her, but refers to her as

"Cette savante
Qu'estime Roberval et que Sauveur fréquente——"

this learned woman whom Roberval esteems and whom Sauveur frequents.
And with the view of pricking the object of his spleen in her most sensitive
part, he tells, in his Satire contre les Femmes, how she, with astrolabe in
hand, spends her nights in making observations of the planet Jupiter and
how this occupation has had the effect of weakening her sight and ruining
her complexion.[138]
Mme. de la Sablière does not, however, seem to have been greatly perturbed
by the ungracious effusions of the satirist, for she continued her cultivation
of astronomy as before the poet's ill-natured outburst. She probably found
ample compensation in the writings of La Fontaine, who addressed her as
his muse and proclaimed her as one in whom were combined manly beauty
and feminine grace—beauté d'homme avec grace de femme.

Maria Kirch, born at Panitch, near Leipsic, in 1670, was the wife of a Berlin
astronomer, Gottfried Kirch. After her marriage she, like her three sisters-
in-law, became her husband's pupil in astronomy. In 1702, as his assistant in
observations and calculations, she was fortunate enough to discover a
comet. She was the friend of Leibnitz, and was by him presented to the
court of Prussia. It is a matter of regret to those of her own sex that this
comet was not, as it should have been, named after its discoverer.
The death of Herr Kirch, which took place in 1710, caused no interruption
in Frau Kirch's astronomical occupations. Among the evidences of her
activity is a work which she wrote in 1713 on the conjunction of Jupiter and
Saturn in the year following. In our day the conjunction of planets is for the
laity a mere matter of curiosity, while for professional astronomers it is
quite devoid of particular interest. But it was not so in the time of Maria
Kirch, for then astronomy was so intimately associated with astrology that
mankind attributed to such special positions of the planets a certain occult
and capricious influence on the destiny of the earth and its inhabitants. As
theoretical astronomy progressed, such erroneous notions were abandoned,
because it was then recognized that the conjunction of the superior planets
was not something fortuitous, but something that was reproduced at fixed
periods by the known movements of these bodies. Writers on the subject
made it a point to warn the public that they had nothing in common with
astrologers. Among these was Christopher Thurm, who published a work on
the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 1681. Similarly, the book of Maria
Kirch contains only astronomical calculations and nothing more—a fact
that redounds to the honor of the author and to the age in which she lived.
The daughters of Maria Kirch, even long after their mother's death,
continued to occupy themselves with astronomy. They calculated for the
Berlin Academy of Sciences its Almanac and Ephemeris, which were
among the sources of revenue of this learned body.
During the same period a number of French and Italian astronomers had
female collaborators in their own families. Celsus, the celebrated professor
of Upsala, and a pupil of the son of Gottfried Kirch, had been accorded a
most cordial reception, while passing through Paris on his way to Bologna,
by De L'Isle who had a sister who was devoted to astronomy. On his arrival
in Italy he found that his new master, the director of the observatory at

Bologna, had two sisters, Teresa and Maddalena, both of great learning,
who, like their brother, were engaged in the study of the heavens and
collaborated with him in the preparation of the Ephemeris of Bologna. This
caused Celsus, in a letter to Kirch, to declare "I begin to believe that it is the
destiny of all the astronomers whom I have had the honor of becoming
acquainted with during my journey to have learned sisters. I have also a
sister, although not a very learned one. To preserve the harmony, we must
make an astronomer of her."[139]
The Polish astronomer, Hevilius, who had an observatory at Dantzig, is
noted for having made the most accurate observations that had been known
before the adaptation of the telescope to astronomical instruments. He is
also noted for his Prodromus Astronomiæ, a catalogue of 1,888 stars; for his
Selenographia, containing accurate descriptions and drawings of the moon
in her different phases and librations, and for his Machina Cœlestis, which
contained the results of forty years of observations and labor. Much of his
success and eminence, however, was due to his intelligent and devoted
wife, Elizabeth, who, during twenty-seven years, was a zealous collaborator
and should share the credit usually given to her husband. It was she who,
after his death, edited and published their joint work, the Prodromus
Astronomiæ.
Among the women most distinguished in the eighteenth century for
astronomical pursuits was the Marquise du Châtelet, who was likewise
famous for her knowledge of mathematics. It was she who accomplished
the difficult task of translating Newton's Principia into French. "This
translation," writes Voltaire, "which the most learned men of France should
have made and which the others should study, was undertaken by a woman
and completed to the astonishment and glory of her country."[140]
France was at this time devoted to the doctrines of Descartes and to his
theory of elementary vortices; and Voltaire, who had been deeply impressed
by the admirable simplicity of Newton's theory of universal attraction as a
means of explaining the seemingly complex motions of the heavenly
bodies, resolved to make his countrymen acquainted with the teachings of
the great English geometer and, at the same time, dethrone Descartes in the
French Academy. It was, indeed, a huge undertaking; but, thanks to the

ability which Mme. du Châtelet displayed in translating and elucidating
Newton's immortal masterpiece, he lived to see his dream realized.
How proud Mme. du Châtelet's countrywomen must have been of her! How
they must have rejoiced in her success and acclaimed her as the intellectual
glory of her sex! How they must have pointed to her work as a triumphant
refutation of the age-old belief in woman's incapacity for mathematics and
all abstract science! How they must have been elated to find one of their
number successfully executing a task which would have taxed the powers
of the most eminent mathematicians of France! How they must have
associated her truly notable performance with similar achievements of
Hypatia and Maria Gaetana Agnesi and discerned in it concrete evidence of
the falsity of all those imputations of mental inferiority which had been
fostered by "man's huge egotism and woman's carefully coddled
superstition." How they must have been encouraged by her achievement
and spurred on to emulate her by similar contributions to the advancement
of science!
That is what we think now; but the light and frivolous women who
constituted the leaders of society in Mme. du Châtelet's day, and who were
devoured by envy and jealousy of one who was so much their superior in
intellect were not so minded. Far from sympathizing with her work, they
proved to be her most virulent critics and most pronounced enemies.
Neither Molière nor Boileau could have heaped more ridicule on the
pedantic women of their time than was meted out to the translator of the
Principia by certain noble dames of provincial châteaux or by distinguished
habituées of prominent Parisian salons.
Thus the petulant ennuyée, Mme. de Staël, in a letter to her friend, Mme. du
Deffand, writing of Mme. du Châtelet, who was then her guest at Sceaux,
tells us that "she is now passing in review her principles. This is a task she
performs every year, else they might, perhaps, make their escape and run to
such a distance that she would never be able to recover any of them. I verily
believe that they are in durance vile while in her possession, as they were
certainly not born with her. She does well to keep a strict watch over them."
[141]

And, in her turn, Mme. du Deffand, who was wont to pose as the intimate
friend of Mme. du Châtelet, did not hesitate to write and circulate a pen
portrait of this friend—and that after the unhappy woman was in her grave
—which for bitter reviling and brutal villification has probably never been
equalled. A witty Frenchman observed of this portrait that it reminded him
of an observation once made by a medical acquaintance of his concerning
one of his patients: "'My friend fell ill; I attended him. He died; I dissected
him.'"[142]
Among other women astronomers of the eighteenth century who deserve
mention are Mme. du Pierry, the Duchesse Louise of Saxe-Gotha, and
Mme. Hortense Lepaute.
According to Lalande, Mme. du Pierry was the first woman professor of
astronomy in Paris. He dedicated to her his Astronomie des Dames, and
incorporated in his own works many of her memoirs on astronomical
subjects. She devoted much time to calculating eclipses with a view to
accurately determining the motion of the moon, and was, besides, the
author of numerous astronomical tables which exhibit patient research and
unquestioned skill.
The Duchesse Louise had a great reputation as a rapid and accurate
computer, and was celebrated for the number and variety of her
computations. Her modesty, however, prevented her from publishing
anything or even having her work quoted.
Considering, however, the amount and character of her work, the most
eminent woman astronomer that France has yet produced was, without
doubt, Mme. Hortense Lepaute, the wife of the royal clockmaker of France.
She first distinguished herself by her investigations on the oscillations of
pendulums of different lengths, an account of which is to be found in her
husband's valuable work, Traité d'Horlogerie, published in 1755.
In 1759 Lalande, who was then the Director of the Paris Observatory,
engaged Mme. Lepaute and the celebrated mathematician, Clairaut, to
determine the amount of the attraction of Jupiter and Saturn on Halley's
comet, whose return was expected in that year. So difficult was this
problem, and so numerous were the complications involved, that Lalande
frankly confesses that he would not have dared to undertake its solution

without Mme. Lepaute's assistance. For it necessitated calculating for every
degree, and for one hundred and fifty years the distances and forces of each
of the planets with reference to the comet. "It would be difficult," declares
Lalande, "to realize the courage which this enterprise required, if one did
not know that for more than six months we calculated from morning until
night, sometimes even at meals, and that at the end of this enforced labor I
was stricken by a malady which affected me during the rest of my life."
Clairaut was so impressed by Mme. Lepaute's energy and skill during this
time that he declared "her ardor was surprising," and he did not hesitate to
call her La savante calculatrice—the learned computer.[143]
The eclipse of 1762 also engaged Mme. Lepaute's attention, as did also the
annular eclipse of 1764. The latter was a curious phenomenon for France, as
it had never before been observed. Mme. Lepaute calculated it for the
whole of Europe and published a chart showing its path for every quarter of
an hour. She also published another chart for Paris, in which were exhibited
the different phases of the eclipse.
On the occasion of the different eclipses which she had calculated, Mme.
Lepaute recognized the advantage of having a table of parallactic angles.
She accordingly prepared a very extended table of this kind which was
published by the French government. Besides this table, she was the author
of numerous memoirs on astronomical subjects. Among them was one
embracing calculations based on all the observations which had been made
on the transit of Venus in 1761.
"In 1759," again writes Lalande, "I was given charge of the Connaissance
des Temps, a work which the Academy of Sciences published every year for
the use of astronomers and navigators, the calculations for which gave
occupation to several persons. I had the good fortune to find in Mme.
Lepaute a co-worker without whom I should not have been able to
undertake the labor required. She continued in this occupation until 1774,
when another Academician assumed this laborious task. But she thereupon
began work on the Ephemeris, of which the seventh volume in quarto,
which appeared in 1774, goes to 1784, and of which the eighth, published
in 1783, extends to the year 1792. In this latter volume she made, unaided,
all the computations for the sun, the moon and all the planets.

"This long series of calculations finally enfeebled her eyesight, which had
been excellent, and she was in the last years of her life obliged to
discontinue them."[144]
In view of her extraordinary and long-continued work in her chosen
specialty, M. Lalande was quite warranted in stating that "Mme. Lepaute is
the only woman in France who has acquired veritable knowledge in
astronomy; and she is now replaced only by Mme. du Pierry, who has
published divers astronomical calculations, and who has deserved to have
dedicated to her L'Astronomie des Dames, which appeared in 1786."
It is gratifying to know that the beautiful Japan Rose—originally called
Pautia, but changed to Hortensia by Jussieu—was named after this
distinguished woman. It is also gratifying to be assured that her engrossing
work in astronomy in no wise caused her to neglect her home duties or to
lose that sweetness of character and delicacy of refinement for which she
was noted before she entered upon the absorbing and taxing career of
astronomical computer.
The wife of Lalande's nephew, Mme. Lefrançais de Lalande, proved herself
in many respects a worthy successor of Mme. Lepaute. "My niece," writes
her uncle, Jérôme Lalande, "aids her husband in his observations and draws
conclusions from them by calculation. She has reduced the observations of
ten thousand stars, and prepared a work of three hundred pages of horary
tables—an immense work for her age and sex. They are incorporated in my
Abrégé de Navigation.
"She is one of the rare women who have written scientific books. She has
published tables for finding the time at sea by the altitude of the sun and
stars. These tables were printed in 1791 by the order of the National
Assembly.... In 1799 she published a catalogue of ten thousand stars,
reduced and calculated."
This distinguished observer and computer had a daughter in whom her
grand-uncle was particularly interested. "This daughter of astronomy," he
tells us, "was born the twentieth of January, 1790, the day on which we at
Paris saw for the first time the comet which Miss Caroline Herschel had just
discovered. The child was accordingly named Caroline; her godfather was
Delambre."

The discoverer of the comet referred to was, in many ways, a most
remarkable woman. She was the sister of Sir William Herschel, the
illustrious pioneer of modern physical astronomy and the virtual founder of
sidereal science, as we know it to-day. She was also the aunt of Sir John
Herschel, who was the only rival of his uncle, Sir William, as an explorer of
the heavens.
But she was far more than a mere relative of these immortal leaders in
astronomic science. She herself was an astronomer of distinction, and is
known, in the annals of astronomy, as the discoverer of no fewer than eight
comets. Great, however, as was her skill as an observer and computer, it
was as her brother's assistant that she is entitled to the most distinction. Her
affection for him was as unbounded as her devotion to his life work was
abiding and productive of great results. For fifty years, after joining him in
England—they both had been born and bred in Hanover—she was ever at
his side, to assist him in his labors and to cheer him by her words of counsel
and encouragement. She helped him to grind and polish the mirrors that
were used in his epoch-making reflectors. This was a most arduous task;
for, at that time, there was no machinery sufficiently exact for grinding
specula, and, as a consequence, the work had all to be done by hand. So
interested was the great astronomer in his work, when polishing his larger
specula, that he forgot all about the passage of time, and on these occasions
his sister was constantly obliged, as she herself informs us, "to feed him by
putting the victuals by bits into his mouth by way of keeping him alive."
When finishing his seven-foot reflector he was on one occasion found so
intent on his work that "he had not taken his hands from it for sixteen hours
together."
In our day, when all kinds of astronomical apparatus are made by
machinery, it is difficult for us to realize what stupendous labor was
required to produce those giant telescopes with which the Herschels made
their great discoveries and by which they, at the same time, revolutionized
the science of the stars. For they had not only to design and make the
specula, but also the mountings of the mirrors as well. And, in order to
obtain the money required for material and workmen, they were obliged to
make telescopes for sale. This meant an immense loss of precious time that
would otherwise have been devoted to the study of the heavens.

After long years of struggle, during which the devoted brother and sister
overcame countless difficulties of every kind, their condition was somewhat
ameliorated by financial aid from the government and by William's
appointment to the position of astronomer royal with a salary of £200 a
year. When Sir William Watson heard that this limited sum had been
granted by George III to the discoverer of Georgium Sidus—the planet now
known as Uranus—he exclaimed, "Never bought monarch honor so cheap."
Shortly afterwards Caroline was appointed as assistant to her brother at a
salary of £50 a year. This we should now consider but a nominal sum, but
she managed to live on it. When she received the first quarterly payment of
twelve pounds she wrote in her memoirs, "It was the first money I ever in
all my lifetime thought myself to be at liberty to spend to my liking." Her
appointment as assistant to her brother is notable from the fact that she was
the first woman in England, if not in the world, to hold such a position in
the government service.
Miss Herschel held this official appointment until Sir William's death in
1822. When not acting as her brother's assistant or secretary, she devoted
her time to what she quaintly called "minding the heavens." It was during
this period that she made her most important discoveries. As assistant,
however, to so indefatigable an observer as Sir William Herschel, she had
but little time for sweeping the heavens, for, when at home, Sir William
"was invariably accustomed to carry on his observations until day-break,
circumstances permitting, without regard to seasons; it was the business of
his assistant to note the clocks and to write down the observations from his
dictations as they were made. Subsequently she assisted in the laborious
numerical calculations and reductions, so that it was only during his
absence from home or when any other interruption of his regular course of
observation occurred that she was able to devote herself to the Newtonian
sweeper, which she used to such good purpose. Besides the eight comets by
her discovered, she detected several remarkable nebulæ and clusters of
stars, previously unnoticed, especially the superb nebulæ known as No. 1,
Class V, in Sir William Herschel's catalogue. Long practice taught her to
make light of her work. 'An observer at your twenty-foot when sweeping,'
she wrote many years after, 'wants nothing but a being who can and will
execute his commands with the quickness of lightning; for you will have

seen that in many sweeps six or twice six objects have been secured and
described in one minute of time.'"[145]
It was her quick, intelligent action, combined with a patience, enthusiasm
and powers of endurance that were most extraordinary, that made Caroline
Herschel so valuable as an assistant to her brother, and enabled him to
achieve the unique position which is his among the world's greatest
astronomers. Had she been able to devote all her time to "minding the
heavens," it is certain that she would have made many more discoveries
than are now credited to her; but her service to astronomy would have been
less than it was as the auxiliary of her illustrious brother. No two ever did
better "teamwork"; no two were ever more devoted to each other or
exhibited greater enthusiasm in the task to which they so heroically devoted
their lives.[146]
In addition to her arduous and engrossing duties as secretary and assistant
to her brother, Caroline found time to prepare a number of works for the
press. Among these were a Catalogue of Eight Hundred and Sixty Stars
Observed by Flamsteed but not Included in the British Catalogue and A
General Index of Reference to Every Observation of Every Star in the
Above-mentioned British Catalogue. She had the honor of having these two
works published by the Royal Society. Another, and a more valuable work,
was The Reduction and Arrangement in the Form of Catalogue, in Zones, of
All the Star-Clusters and Nebulæ Observed by Sir W. Herschel in His
Sweeps. It was for this catalogue that a gold medal was voted to her by the
Royal Astronomical Society in 1828—a production that was characterized
as "a work of immense labor" and "an extraordinary monument to the
unextinguished ardor of a lady of seventy-five in the cause of abstract
science." To her nephew, Sir John Herschel, it proved invaluable, as it
supplied the needful data "when he undertook the review of the nebulæ of
the northern hemisphere." It was also a fitting prelude to Sir John's Cape
Observations, a copy of which great work she received from her nephew
nearly twenty years subsequently, after he had completed his famous
observations of the southern heavens in his observatory at the Cape of Good
Hope.
"By a most striking and happy coincidence," writes Mrs. John Herschel,
"she, whose unflagging toil had so greatly contributed to its successful

prosecution in the hands of her beloved brother, lived to witness its
triumphant termination through the no less persistent industry and strenuous
labor of his son; and her last days were crowned by the possession of the
work which brought to its glorious conclusion Sir William Herschel's vast
undertaking—The Survey of the Heavens."
That Miss Herschel's labors in the cause of astronomy were appreciated by
her contemporaries is evidenced by the honors of which she was the
recipient. The first of these honors came in the form of a gold medal,
unanimously awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society for her reduction
of twenty-five hundred nebulæ "discovered by her illustrious brother, which
may be considered as the completion of a series of exertions probably
unparalleled either in magnitude or importance in the annals of
astronomical labor."
It was on this occasion, when referring to the immensity of the task which
Sir William Herschel had undertaken, that the vice-president of the society
paid a deserving tribute to the great astronomer's devoted sister, in which is
found the following statement:
"Miss Herschel it was who by right acted as his amanuensis; she it was
whose pen conveyed to paper his observations as they issued from his lips;
she it was who noted the right ascensions and polar distances of the objects
observed; she it was who, having passed the night near the instrument, took
the rough manuscripts to her cottage at the dawn of day and produced a fair
copy of the night's work on the following morning; she it was who planned
the labor of each succeeding night; she it was who reduced every
observation, made every calculation; she it was who arranged everything in
systematic order; and she it was who helped him to obtain his imperishable
name."[147]
Besides this gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society, Miss
Herschel also received two others, one from the King of Denmark and the
other from the King of Prussia. The latter was accompanied by a most
eulogistic letter from Alexander von Humboldt, who informed her that the
medal was awarded her "in recognition of the valuable services rendered by
her as the fellow worker of her immortal brother, Sir William Herschel, by
discoveries, observations and laborious calculations."

In 1835, when she was eighty-five years of age, Miss Herschel had the
signal honor of being elected, along with Mrs. Somerville, an honorary
member of the Royal Astronomical Society. As they were the first two
women in England to receive such recognition for their contributions to
science, it seems desirable to reproduce here an extract from the report of
the council of the society regarding the bestowal of an honor which marked
so distinct a change in England of the attitude that should be taken toward
women who excelled in intellectual achievements. The extract reads as
follows:
"Your council has no small pleasure in recommending that the names of two
ladies distinguished in different walks of astronomy be placed on the list of
honorary members. On the propriety of such a step, in an astronomical
point of view, there can be but one voice; and your council is of the opinion
that the time is gone by when either feeling or prejudice, by whichever
name it may be proper to call it, should be allowed to interfere with the
payment of a well-earned tribute of respect. Your council has hitherto felt
that, whatever might be its own sentiment on the subject, or however able
and willing it might be to defend such a measure, it had no right to place the
name of a lady in a position the propriety of which might be contested,
though upon what it might consider narrow grounds and false principles.
But your council has no fear that such a difference could now take place
between any men whose opinion could avail to guide the society at large;
and, abandoning compliment on the one hand and false delicacy on the
other, submits that, while the tests of astronomical merit should in no case
be applied to the works of a woman less severely than to those of a man, the
sex of the former should no longer be an obstacle to her receiving any
acknowledgment which might be held due to the latter. And your council,
therefore, recommends this meeting to add to the list of honorary members
the names of Miss Caroline Herschel and Mrs. Somerville, of whose
astronomical knowledge, and of the utility of the ends to which it has been
applied, it is not necessary to recount the proofs."[148]
Three years after this splendid recognition of Miss Herschel's astronomical
labors she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy.
But exceptional as were the honors conferred on her by sovereigns and
learned societies, none of them afforded her the extreme satisfaction that

she experienced on the receipt of a copy, shortly before her death, of her
nephew's epochal Cape Observations; for, as has well been said, "nothing in
the power of man to bestow could have given such pleasure on her death-
bed as this last crowning completion of her brother's work." We are told that
a copy, just from the press, of his immortal work, De Orbium Celestium
Revolutionibus, in which he had established the heliocentric theory of the
planetary system, was placed in the hands of Copernicus on the day of his
death, just a few hours before he expired. He seemed conscious of what it
was; but, after touching it and contemplating it for a moment, he lapsed into
a state of insensibility which soon terminated in death. With Miss Herschel
the case was different. Although in her ninety-seventh year, she still
retained possession of all her faculties and was fully able to appreciate the
volume which told of the crowning of her brother's life work—a volume
which must have given her additional satisfaction when she recalled her
fifty years of loyal service at her brother's side as his associate and
ministering angel in the greatest work ever undertaken by a single man in
the history of astronomy.
Caroline Herschel died at the advanced age of ninety-seven years and ten
months, retaining to the last her interest in astronomy which had occupied
her mind for more than three-quarters of a century.
Her epitaph, composed by herself, is engraved on a heavy stone slab which
covers her grave and contains the following words: "The eyes of her who is
glorified were here below turned to the starry heavens. Her own discoveries
of comets and her participation in the immortal labors of her brother,
William Herschel, bear witness of this to future ages."
Space precludes any extended reference to Miss Herschel's distinguished
associate in the Royal Astronomical Society, Mrs. Somerville, whose
masterly translation and exposition of Laplace's Mécanique Céleste secured
for her so enviable a place among the mathematicians of her time, and
placed all English students of mathematical astronomy under such deep
obligations. It is true that she ever manifested a lively interest in celestial
phenomena; but it is rather as a mathematician than as an astronomer that
she will be remembered by the devotees of science.

The first American woman to win distinction in astronomy was Miss Maria
Mitchell. Born in the island of Nantucket in 1818, she, at an early age,
displayed remarkable talent for astronomy and mathematics. Her first
instructor was her father, who, besides being a school teacher, had from his
youth been an enthusiastic student of astronomy, and that, too, at a time
when very little attention was given to its study in this country, and when
the observatory of Harvard College consisted of only a little projection to
an old mansion in Cambridge, in which there was a small telescope.
At the age of thirteen little Maria counted seconds by the chronometer for
her father while he observed the annular eclipse of the sun in 1831; and
from that time on she was his assiduous co-worker in the study of the
heavens. After teaching school for some years, she became the librarian of
the Nantucket Atheneum, a position which she held for nearly twenty years.
Here she continued the study of her favorite science, and read all the books
on astronomy which she could obtain. It was during this period that she
read Bowditch's translation of Laplace's Mécanique Céleste and Gauss's
Theoria Motus Corporum Cælestium in the original.
On the evening of October 1, 1847, she was the discoverer of a comet that
attracted great attention because it secured for her a medal offered by the
King of Denmark in 1831 for the first one who should discover a telescopic
comet. The same comet was observed by Father de Vico in Rome two days
subsequently, by Dawes in England on October seventh, and by Madame
Rümker, wife of the director of the observatory of Hamburg, on the
eleventh of the same month. As there was no Atlantic cable in those days, it
was not known who was the fortunate winner of the prize until nearly a year
afterward, when word was received from Denmark announcing that the
priority of Miss Mitchell's discovery had been recognized and that she
would be the recipient of the prize, which, for a while, it was thought would
go to De Vico or Madame Rümker.[149]
In 1849 Miss Mitchell was appointed a compiler for the Nautical Almanac,
a position she held for nineteen years. During the same period she was
employed by the United States Coast Survey.
When Vassar College was opened in 1865 for the higher education of
women, Miss Mitchell was called to fill the chair of astronomy and to be

the first director of the observatory. In this position she soon succeeded in
giving astronomy a prominence that it never had had before in any other
college for women, and in but few for men.
Miss Mitchell was a member of several learned societies and the author of a
number of papers containing the results of her observations on Jupiter and
Saturn and their satellites. But she is notable chiefly for being the first
woman astronomer in the United States and for training up a number of
young women who have followed in her footsteps as enthusiastic
astronomers. She held her position at Vassar until 1889, when she died, a
few months before her seventy-first birthday.
Since the pioneer days of Miss Caroline Herschel, the number of women
throughout the world who have achieved distinction in astronomy has
rapidly augmented. One of the most noted of these was Caterina Scarpellini,
niece of Feliciano Scarpellini, professor of astronomy in Rome, restorer of
the Academy of the Lyncei, and founder of the Capitoline Observatory.
Born in 1808, she manifested at an early age a decided taste for astronomy,
which was carefully developed by her uncle. She it was who organized the
Meteorologico Ozonometric station in Rome and edited its monthly
bulletin. She exhibited a special interest in shooting stars and prepared the
first catalogue of these meteors observed in Italy. In 1854 she discovered a
comet. She has also left valuable studies on the probable influence of the
moon on earthquakes—studies which brought her distinction from several
of the learned societies of Europe. In 1872 the Italian government decreed
her a gold medal for her statistical labors in science. Since her death her
countrymen have recognized the value of her contributions to science by
erecting a statue to her memory.
Another woman who has won enduring fame in the annals of astronomy is
Miss Dorothea Klumpke, of San Francisco. While yet quite young, she and
her sisters were taken to Europe to be educated. There she soon became
proficient in a number of languages, and then devoted herself to the study
of mathematics and astronomy. After securing her baccalaureate and
licentiate in Paris, she applied for admission as a student to the Paris
observatory. "The directors of the observatory consulted the statutes. No
woman had hitherto proposed herself as a colleague, but there was no rule
opposing it. They themselves approved, and gave her a telescope to make

her own observations. After a time she completed the work begun by Mme.
Kovalévsky on the rings of Saturn, which she made the subject of her
thesis, and, when she had become Doctor of Science, she was given a
decoration by the Institute and made an Officier de l'Académie."
After Miss Klumpke had brilliantly defended her thesis in the Sorbonne, M.
Darboux, the president of the jury, complimented the young American
doctor on her splendid work and concluded a notable address in her honor
in the following laudatory words:
"The great names of Galileo, of Huyghens, of Cassini, of Laplace, without
speaking of those of my illustrious colleagues and friends, are attached to
the history of every serious step forward made in this attractive and difficult
theory of Saturn's rings. Your work constitutes another valuable
contribution to the same subject and places you in an honorable rank beside
those women who have consecrated themselves to the study of
mathematics. In the last century Maria Agnesi gave us a treatise on the
differential and integral calculus. Since then Sophie Germain, as remarkable
for her literary and philosophical talent as for her faculty for mathematics,
won the esteem of the great geometricians who honored our country at the
commencement of this century. It is but a few years since the Academy
awarded one of its most beautiful prizes which will place the name of Mme.
Kovalévsky beside those of Euler and Lagrange in the history of discoveries
relative to the theory of the movement of a solid body about a fixed point....
And you, mademoiselle, your thesis is the first which a woman has
presented and successfully defended before our faculty for the degree of
doctor in mathematics. You worthily open the way, and the faculty
unanimously makes haste to declare you worthy of obtaining the degree of
doctor."
Besides her thesis just referred to, Miss Klumpke is the author of numerous
communications to scientific journals and learned societies regarding her
researches on the spectra of stars and meteorites and other allied subjects.
For many years she was at the head of the bureau in the Paris Observatory
for measuring the photographic plates that are to be used in the large
catalogue of stars and map of the heavens which are to constitute the
crowning achievements of the International Astronomical Congress. She
was the first woman to be elected a member of the Astronomical Society of

France, and the character of her work as an observer as well as a computer
has given her an enviable position among the astronomers of the world.[150]
In America another woman has won renown among astronomers by
successfully executing the same kind of work as was entrusted to Miss
Dorothea Klumpke in Paris. For many years Mrs. W. Fleming, with her
large corps of women assistants, had charge of the immense collection of
astronomical photographs in the Observatory of Harvard University. To her
and her staff were assigned the reductions and measurements of the
photographic and photometric work done in Cambridge and Arequipa, Peru.
She was singularly successful in her studies of photographic plates and
made many discoveries which astronomers regard of the greatest
importance. By such studies she and her assistants detected many new
nebulæ, double and variable stars, besides spectra of different types and of
rare interest. In addition to this they examined and classified tens of
thousands of photographs of stellar spectra, a labor which involved
countless details of reduction and measurements of exceeding delicacy and
skill.
A complete list of the women who, during the past half century, have
devoted themselves to the study of astronomy and who have contributed to
its advancement by their observations and writings would be a very long
one. Among those, however, whose labors have attracted special notice,
mention must be made of the Misses Antonia C. Maury, Florence Cushman,
Louisa D. Wells, Mabel C. Stephens, Eva F. Leland, Anna Winlock, Annie
J. Cannon and Henrietta S. Leavitt, all of whom are on the staff of the
Harvard Observatory.
Then, too, there are many women who occupy important positions as
professors or assistant professors in our colleges and universities. Chief
among these in the United States are Sarah F. Whiting, of Wellesley; Mary
W. Whitney, of Vassar; Mary E. Boyd, of Smith; Susan Cunningham, of
Swarthmore, and Annie S. Young, of Mt. Holyoke. Nor must we forget such
able computers as Mrs. Margaretta Palmer, of Yale, and Miss Hanna Mace,
the clever assistant of the late Simon Newcomb in the Naval Observatory in
Washington.

In the Old World among the women who, during the last few decades, have
materially contributed to the progress of astronomy, either as observers and
computers or as writers, are Miss Alice Everett, who has done splendid
work in the observatories of Greenwich and Potsdam, Misses M. A. Orr,
Mary Ashley, Alice Brown, Mary Proctor—daughter of the late astronomer,
R. A. Proctor—Agnes M. and Ellen M. Clerke, and Lady Huggins, of
England; Mmes. Jansen, Faye, and Flammarion, in France; the Countess
Bobinski, in Russia; and Miss Pogson, in the Observatory of Madras, India.
In conclusion, it is but just to observe that women's work in astronomy has
by no means been confined to their contributions as observers, writers and
computers. Reference must also be made to the financial aid which they
have given to various observatories and learned societies for the furtherance
of astronomical research both in the New and the Old World. It must suffice
here to recall the endowment at Harvard University of the Henry Draper
Memorial, by Mrs. Henry Draper, in order that the work of photographing
stellar spectra, which occupied her husband's later years, might be
continued under the most favorable auspices, and the munificent sum of
fifty thousand dollars given by Miss C. Bruce, of New York, for the
construction of a large telescope especially designed for photographing
faint stars and nebulæ. The photographs taken with this instrument will be
used in the preparation of the great chart of the heavens which is to be the
joint production of the chief observatories of the world.

FOOTNOTES:
[134] Cf. the preceding chapter, p. 140. See also Histoire de l'Astronomie
Ancienne, Tom. I, p. 317, par. M. Delambre, Paris, 1817.
[135] "Calor etiam solis in hieme maior est sub terra quam super terram, quod si
tunc frigus tantum esset sub terra quam super terram, vel si in æstate calor tantus
esset sub terra quantus est super terram, de immoderatione ista terra tota
scinderetur." Hildegardis Causæ et Curæ, p. 7, Lipsiæ, 1903.
[136] Commentaire de Theon d'Alexandrie, p. X, translated by the Abbé Halma,
Paris, 1882.
[137] "Enfin de leur faire connoistre qu'elles ne sont pas incapable de l'estude, si
elles s'en vouloient donner la peine puisqu'entre le cerveau d'une femme et celui
d'un homme il n'y a aucune difference." Cf. Journal de Savans, Tom. III, p. 304,
à Amsterdam, 1687.

[138]

D'ou vient qu'elle a l'œil troublé et le teint si terni?
C'est que sur le calcul, dit-on, de Cassini,
Un astrolabe à la main, elle a, dans la gouttière,
A suivre Jupiter passé la nuit entière.

[139] "Celebre inter observatores hujus ævi nomen adeptus est Godfredus
Kirchius, astronomus nuper regius in Societate Scienciarum Berlinensi; mense
Julio A, 1710 mortuus. Ejus vidua, Maria Magdalena Winckelmannia, non
minore in observando et calculo astronomico dexteritate pollet, ac in utroque
labore maritum, cum viveret, fideliter juvit ... quod laudi ducitur fœminæ ea
animo comprehendisse, quæ sine ingenii vi studiique assiduitate non
comprehenduntur," Acta Eruditorum, pp. 78, 79, Lipsiæ, 1712.
[140] Préface Historique to Principes Mathématiques de la Philosophie
Naturelle par feue Madame la Marquise du Chastellet, Tom. I, p. V, Paris, 1759.
[141] The Unpublished Correspondence of Madame du Deffand, Vol. I, pp. 202-
203, London, 1810.
[142] Mme. du Deffand's venomous letter, somewhat abridged, reads as follows:
"Imagine a tall, hard and withered woman, narrow-chested, with large limbs,
enormous feet, a very small head, a thin face, a pointed nose, two small sea-
green eyes, her color dark, her complexion florid, her mouth flat, her teeth set far
apart and very much decayed; there is the figure of the beautiful Émilie, a figure
with which she is so well pleased that she spares nothing for the sake of setting it
off. Her manner of dressing her hair, her adornments, her top-knots, her jewelry,
all are in profusion; but, as she wishes to be lovely in spite of nature, and as she
wishes to appear magnificent in spite of fortune, she is obliged, in order to
obtain superfluities, to go without necessaries such as under-garments and other
trifles.
"She was born with sufficient intellect, and the desire to appear as though she
had a great deal made her prefer to study the most abstract sciences rather than
more general and pleasant branches of knowledge. She thought she would gain a
greater reputation by this peculiarity and a more decided superiority over other
women.
"She did not limit herself to this ambition. She wished to be a princess as well,
and she became so, not by the grace of God nor by that of the King, but by her
own act. This absurdity went on like the others. One became accustomed to
regard her as a princess of the theatre, and one almost forgot that she was a
woman of rank.
"Madame worked so hard to appear what she was not that no one knew what she
really was. Even her faults were perhaps not natural. They may have had
something to do with her pretensions, her want of respect with regard to the state
of princess, her dullness in that of savante, and her stupidity in that of a jolie
femme.
"However much of a celebrity Mme. du Châtelet may be, she would not be
satisfied if she were not celebrated, and that is what she desired in becoming the

friend of M. de Voltaire. To him she owes the éclat of her life, and it is to him
that she will owe immortality." See Lettres de la Marquise du Deffand à Horace
Walpole, Tom. I, pp. 200-201, Paris, 1824.
As a contrast to this atrocious caricature, it is but due to the memory of Mme. du
Châtelet to give her portrait by Voltaire, to whom she was ever the beautiful, the
charming Urania, the

"Vaste et puissante génie,
Minerve de la France, immortelle Émilie."

It is contained in the following verses:

"L'esprit sublime et la delicatesse,
L'oubli charmante de sa propre beauté
L'amitié tendre et l'amour emporté
Sont les attraits de ma belle maîtresse."

If the whole truth were known, it would, doubtless, be found somewhere
between the above extreme and contradictory views, and the cause of the caustic
statements of Mesdames de Staël and du Deffand would probably be found to be
quite accurately expressed in the first part of Voltaire's Epistle on Calumny,
which was written about the beginning of his particular relationship with "the
divine Émilie." The first lines of this epistle, as translated by Smollett, are:

"Since beautiful, 'twill be your fate,
Emelia, to incur much hate;
Almost one-half of human race
Will even curse you to your face;
Possesst of genius, noblest fire,
With fear you will each breast inspire;
As you too easily confide,
You'll often be betrayed, belied;
You ne'er of virtue made parade,
To hypocrites no court you've paid,
Therefore, of Calumny beware,
Foe to the virtuous and the fair."
[143] In his work on Comets, Clairaut at first gave Mme. Lepaute full credit for
her work which had been of such inestimable service to himself; but, in order to
gratify a woman who, having pretensions without knowledge, was very jealous
of the superior attainments of Mme. Lepaute, he had the weakness subsequently
to suppress his generous tribute to merit. Commenting on this strange conduct of
his assistant, Lalande expresses himself as follows: "We know that it is not rare
to see ordinary women depreciate those who have knowledge, tax them with
pedantry and contest their merit in order to avenge themselves upon them for
their superiority. The latter are so few in number that the others have almost
succeeded in making them conceal their acquirements."
[144] Bibliographie Astronomique, pp. 676-687, par Jérôme de la Lande, Paris,
1803.

[145] Memoirs and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel, p. 144, by Mrs. John
Herschel, London, 1879.
[146] So sensitive was Miss Herschel in her old age regarding the reputation of
her brother, William, who had always been her idol and the one in whom she had
concentrated all her affection, that she came to look askance at every person and
thing that seemed calculated to dull the glory of his achievements. Thus her
niece, in writing to Sir John Herschel, after her death, declares: "She looked
upon progress in science as so much detraction from her brother's fame; and,
even your investigations would have become a source of estrangement had she
been with you." In a letter to Sir John Herschel, written four years before her
death, she exhibits, in an amusing fashion, her jealous spirit anent the great
telescope of Lord Rosse. "They talk of nothing here at the clubs," she writes,
"but of the great mirror and the great man who made it. I have but one answer
for all—Der Kerl ist ein Narr—the fellow is a fool."
Even "Every word said in her own praise seemed to be so much taken away
from the honour due to her brother. She had lived so many years in
companionship with a truly great man, and in the presence of the unfathomable
depths of the starry heavens, that praise of herself seemed childish
exaggeration." And notwithstanding the honor and recognition which she
received from learned men and learned societies for her truly remarkable
astronomical labors, her dominant idea was always the same—"I am nothing. I
have done nothing. All I am, all I know, I owe to my brother. I am only a tool
which he shaped to his use—a well-trained puppy-dog would have done as
much." Op. cit., pp. IX, 335 and 346.
[147] Op. cit., p. 224.
[148] Memoirs and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel, ut. sup., pp. 226-227.
[149] Maria Mitchell, Life, Letters and Journals, compiled by Phebe Mitchell
Kendall, p. 267 et seq., Boston, 1896.
[150] Miss Klumpke, the reader may be interested in knowing, belongs to a
singularly gifted family. Her sister, Augusta, is a distinguished physician and an
authority on nervous diseases. Hers is the glory to be the first woman permitted,
after an exceptionally severe examination, to serve as interne in the Paris
hospitals. Julia, her youngest sister, who achieved distinction as a violinist with
Ysaye, was one of the first to pass the examination required of women entering
the Paris Lycées, while Anna, the eldest, has won fame as an artist, and as the
friend, heiress and executrix of France's famous daughter, Rosa Bonheur.

CHAPTER V
WOMEN IN PHYSICS

Physics, being one of the inductive sciences, received little attention until
modern times. True, the Greeks were familiar with some of the fundamental
facts of the mechanics of solids and fluids, and had some notions respecting
the various physical forces; but their knowledge of what until recently was
known as natural philosophy was extremely limited. Aristotle, Pythagoras
and Archimedes were among the most successful investigators of their time
respecting the laws and properties of matter, and contributed materially to
the advancement of knowledge regarding the phenomena of the material
universe; but the sum total of their information of what we now know as
physics could be embodied in a few pages.
In view of the foregoing facts, we should not expect to find women engaged
in the study, much less in the teaching, of physical science during ancient
times. And yet, if we are to credit Boccaccio, who bases his statements on
those of early Greek writers, there was at least one woman that won
distinction by her knowledge of natural philosophy as early as the days of
Socrates. In his work, De Laudibus Mulierum, which treats of the
achievements of some of the illustrious representatives of the gentler sex,
the genial author of the Decameron gives special praise to one Arete of
Cyrene for the breadth and variety of her attainments. She was the daughter
of Aristippus, the founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, and is
represented as being a veritable prodigy of learning. For among her many
claims to distinction she is said to have publicly taught natural and moral
philosophy in the schools and academies of Attica for thirty-five years, to
have written forty books, and to have counted among her pupils one
hundred and ten philosophers. She was so highly esteemed by her
countrymen that they inscribed on her tomb an epitaph which declared that
she was the splendor of Greece and possessed the beauty of Helen, the
virtue of Thirma, the pen of Aristippus, the soul of Socrates, and the tongue
of Homer.[151]

This is high praise, indeed, but, when we recollect that Arete lived during
the golden age of Greek learning and culture, that she had exceptional
opportunities of acquiring knowledge in every department of intellectual
effort; when we recall the large number of women who, in their time,
distinguished themselves by their learning and accomplishment, and reflect
on the advantages they enjoyed as pupils of the ablest teachers of the
Lyceum, the Portico, and the Academy; when we remember further that
they lived in an atmosphere of intelligence such as has since been unknown;
when we call to mind the signal success that rewarded the pursuit of
knowledge by the scores of women mentioned by Athenæus and other
Greek writers; when we peruse the fragmentary notices of their
achievements as recorded in the pages of more recent investigators
regarding the educational facilities of a certain class of women living in
Athens and the eminence which they attained in science, philosophy and
literature, we can realize that the character and amount of Arete's work as
an author and as a teacher have not been overestimated.
Living in an age of prodigious mental activity, when women, as well as
men, were actuated by an abiding love of knowledge for its own sake, there
is nothing surprising in finding a woman like Arete commanding the
admiration of her countrymen by her learning and eloquence. For was not
the learned and eloquent Aspasia her contemporary? And did not Theano,
the wife of Pythagoras, take charge of her husband's school after his death;
and does not antiquity credit her with being not only a successful teacher of
philosophy, but also a writer of books of recognized value? Such being the
case, what is there incredible in the statements made by ancient writers
regarding the literary activity of Arete, and about her eminence as a teacher
of science and philosophy? She was but one of many of the Greek women
of her age that won renown by their gifts of intellect and by their
contributions to the educational work of their time and country.
Better known than Arete, but probably not superior to her as a teacher or
writer, was the illustrious Hypatia of Alexandria. She, too, like her
distinguished predecessor in Athens, was an instructor in natural
philosophy, as well as other branches of science. Of her we know more than
we do of the daughter of Aristippus, but even our knowledge of the
acquisitions and achievements of Hypatia is, unfortunately, extremely
meager. We do, however, know from the historian, Socrates, and from

Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, who was her pupil, that she was one of the
most richly dowered women of all time. Born and educated in Alexandria
when its schools and scholars were the most celebrated in the world, she
was even at an early age regarded as a marvel of learning. For, not satisfied
with excelling her father, Theon, in mathematics, of which he was a
distinguished professor, she, as Suidas informs us, devoted herself to the
study of philosophy with such success that she was soon regarded as the
ablest living exponent of the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. "Her
knowledge," writes the historian, Socrates, "was so great that she far
surpassed all the philosophers of her time. And succeeding Plotinus, in the
Platonic school which he had founded in the city of Alexandria, she taught
all the branches of philosophy with such signal success that students
flocked to her in crowds from all parts."[152] Her home, as well as her
lecture room, was the resort of the most noted scholars of the day, and was,
with the exception of the Library and the Museum, the most frequented
intellectual center of the great city of learning and culture. Small wonder,
then, that her contemporaries lauded her as an oracle and as the most
brilliant luminary in Alexandria's splendid galaxy of thinkers and scholars
—sapientis artis sidus integerrimum.
Among the many inventions attributed to Hypatia, besides the planisphere
and astrolabe which she designed for the use of astronomers, are several
employed in the study of natural philosophy. Probably the most useful of
these is an areometer mentioned by her pupil Synesius. He calls it a
hydroscope and describes it as having the form and size of a flute, and
graduated in such wise that it can be used for determining the density of
liquids. That Hypatia was thoroughly familiar with the science of natural
philosophy, as then known, there can be no doubt. That she also contributed
materially to its advancement, as well as to that of astronomy, in which she
always exhibited a special interest, there is every reason to believe.[153]
After the death of Hypatia, the study of natural philosophy was almost
entirely neglected for more than a thousand years. The first woman in
modern times to attract attention by her discussion of physical problems
was the famous Marquise du Châtelet, although she was better known as a
mathematician and as the translator into the French of Newton's Principia.
In her château at Cirey she had a well-equipped physical cabinet in which
she took special delight. But in her time, as in that of Hypatia, natural

philosophy was far from being the broad experimental science which it has
become through the marvelous discoveries made in heat, light, electricity
and magnetism during the last hundred years, as well as through those
countless brilliant investigations which have led up to our present doctrine
of the correlation and conservation of the various physical forces. There
was then no occasion for those delicate instruments of precision which are
now found in every physical laboratory by means of which the man of
science is able to investigate phenomena and determine laws that were quite
unknown until a few years ago.
In the time of Mme. du Châtelet, as during the century following, natural
philosophy consisted rather in the mechanical and mathematical than in the
physical study of nature. This is illustrated by the title of the great work on
the translation of which she spent the best years of her life—Newton's
immortal Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
The Marquise's first scientific work was an investigation regarding the
nature of fire. The French Academy of Sciences had offered a prize for the
best memoir on the subject. Among the contestants for the coveted honor
were the chatelaine of Cirey and the celebrated Swiss mathematician,
Leonard Euler. The Marquise was unsuccessful in the contest, but her paper
was of such value that the eminent physicist and astronomer, Arago, was
able to characterize it as an "elegant piece of work, embracing all the facts
relating to the subject then known to science and containing among the
experiments suggested one which proved so fecund in the hands of
Herschel." In this remarkable Mémoire sur le Feu, which is printed in the
Collections of the Academy, the Marquise anticipates the results of
subsequent researches of others by maintaining that both heat and light have
the same cause, or, as we should now say, are both modes of motion.
The second book written by this remarkable woman is entitled Institutions
de Physique, and was dedicated to her son, for whose benefit it was
primarily written. It deals specially with the philosophy of Leibnitz and
discusses such questions as force, time and space. Her views respecting the
nature of the force called vis viva, which was much discussed in her time,
are of particular interest, as they are not only opposed to those which were
held by Descartes and Newton, but also because they are in essential accord
with those now accepted in the world of science.

All things considered, the Marquise du Châtelet deservedly takes high rank
in the history of mathematical physics. In this department of science she has
had few, if any, superiors among her own sex. And, when we recollect that
she labored while the foundations of dynamics were still being laid, we
shall more readily appreciate the difficulties she had to contend with and the
distinct service which her researches and writings rendered to the cause of
natural philosophy among her contemporaries.
The first woman to occupy a chair of physics in a university was the famous
daughter of Italy, Laura Maria Catarina Bassi. She was born in Bologna in
1711—but five years after the birth of Madame du Châtelet—and from her
most tender years she exhibited an exceptional facility for the acquisition of
knowledge.
After she had, through the assistance of excellent masters, become
proficient in French and Latin, she took up the study of logic, metaphysics
and natural philosophy. In all these branches of learning her progress was so
rapid that it far exceeded the fondest expectations of her parents and
teachers. Thanks to a wonderful memory and a highly developed reasoning
faculty, she was able, while still a young maiden, to prove herself the
possessor of knowledge that is ordinarily obtained only in the maturity of
age and after long years of systematic study.
When she had attained the twenty-first year of her age she was induced by
her family and friends—much against her own inclination, however—to
take part in a public disputation on philosophy. Her entering the lists against
some of the most distinguished scholars of the time was made the occasion
for an unusual demonstration in her honor. The hall of the university in
which such intellectual jousts were generally held was too small for the
multitude that was eager to witness the young girl's formal appearance
among the scholars and the notables of the old university city. It was,
accordingly, arranged that the disputation should be held in the great hall of
the public Palace of the Senators.
Among the vast assemblage present at the disputation were Cardinal
Grimaldi, the papal legate; Cardinal Archbishop Lambertini, afterwards
Pope Benedict XIV; the gonfalonier, senators, literati from far and near,

leading members of the nobility and representatives of all the religious
orders.
When the argumentation began the young girl found herself pitted against
five of the most distinguished scholars of Bologna. But she was fully equal
to the occasion and passed the ordeal to which she was subjected in a
manner that excited the admiration and won the plaudits of all present.
Cardinal Lambertini was so impressed with the brilliant defence which she
had made against the five trained dialecticians and the evidence she gave of
varied and profound learning that he paid her a special visit the next day in
her own home to renew his congratulations on her signal triumph and to
encourage her to continue the prosecution of her studies.
In less than a month after this interesting event Laura Bassi, in response to
the expressed desire of the whole of Bologna, presented herself as a
candidate for the doctorate in philosophy. This was the occasion for a still
more brilliant and imposing ceremony. It was held in the spacious Hall of
Hercules in the Communal Palace, which was magnificently decorated for
the splendid function. In addition to the distinguished personages who had
been spectators of the fair student's triumph a few weeks before, there was
present in the vast audience the noted French ecclesiastic, Cardinal
Polignac, who was on his way from Rome to France.
The heroine of the hour, dressed in a black gown, was ushered into the great
hall, preceded by two college beadles and accompanied by two of the most
prominent ladies of the Bolognese nobility. She was given a seat between
the chancellor and the prior of the university, who, in turn, were flanked by
the professors and officials of the institution.
After the usual preliminaries of the function were over the prior of the
university, Doctor Bazzani, rose and pronounced an eloquent discourse in
Latin to which Laura made a suitable response in the same language. She
was then crowned with a laurel wreath exquisitely wrought in silver, and
had thrown round her the vajo, or university gown, both symbols of the
doctorate. After this the young doctor proceeded to where the three
cardinals were seated, and in delicately chosen words, also in Latin,
expressed to them her thanks for the honor of their presence. All then
withdrew to the apartments of the gonfalonier, where refreshments were

served in sumptuous style, after which the young Laureata, accompanied by
a numerous cortege and applauded by the entire city, was escorted to her
home.
So profound was the impression made on the university senate by the deep
erudition of Laura Bassi that it was eager to secure her services in its
teaching body. But, before she could be offered a chair in the institution,
long-established custom required that she should pass a public examination
on the subject matter which she was to teach. Five examiners were chosen
by lot, and all of them proved to be men whose names, says Fantuzzi, "will
always be held by our university in glorious remembrance." They had all to
promise under oath that the candidate for the chair should have no
knowledge before the examination of the questions which were to be asked,
and that the test of the aspirant's qualifications to fill the position sought
should be absolutely free from any suspicion of favoritism or partiality.
Notwithstanding the difficulties she had to confront, Laura acquitted herself
with even greater credit than on former occasions of a similar character.
There was no question in the mind of any one present at the examination of
the candidate's ability to fill the chair of physics, and it was, accordingly,
offered to her by acclamation.
The first public lecture of the gifted young dottoressa was made the
occasion of a demonstration such as the old walls of the university had
rarely witnessed. Her lecture room was thronged by the élite of the city, as
well as by a large class of enthusiastic students. All were charmed by her
eloquence and amazed at the complete mastery she evinced of the subject
she had selected for discussion. From that day forth her reputation as a
scholar and a teacher was established, and her lectures were attended by
appreciative students from all parts of Europe. She was especially popular
with the students from Greece, Germany and Poland, and her popularity, far
from waning, waxed greater with the passing years.
At the time of Laura's entering upon her professional career the senate of
Bologna had a medal coined in her honor, on the obverse of which was her
name and effigy, while on the reverse there was an image of Minerva, with
the inscription, Soli cui fas vidisse Minervam.

Far from interrupting her studies, which had hitherto been the joy of her
life, Laura's university work gave new zest to the literary and scientific
pursuits which had always such a fascination for her. Among the subjects
that specially engaged her attention were studies so diverse as Greek and
the higher mathematics. She was particularly interested in the great
physico-mathematical work of Newton, and did not rest until she had
thoroughly mastered the contents of his epoch-making Principia.
A few years after she had become a member of the university faculty Laura
was a European celebrity, and no one eminent by learning or birth passed
through Bologna without availing himself of the opportunity of making the
acquaintance of so extraordinary a woman. Men of science and letters vied
with princes and emperors in doing honor to one who was looked upon by
many as being, like Arete of old, endowed with a soul and a genius far
above that of ordinary mortals, and as being the possessor of a talent that
indicated something superhuman.
Laura Bassi was in constant correspondence with the most celebrated
scholars of Europe, and more especially with those who had attained
eminence in her special line of work. Among the letters received from her
illustrious correspondents were two from Voltaire. They were written
shortly after the author had been refused admittance into the French
academy. He then bethought himself of securing membership in the
Academy of Sciences of Bologna. This, he reasoned, would be a splendid
tribute to the versatility of his genius and would, at the same time, be a
biting satire on the demigods of French literature who had dared to exclude
him from their society.
That he might not meet the same refusal on the part of the Academy of
Bologna as he had experienced in Paris, Voltaire determined not to rely
entirely on the good will of the male members of the Bolognese academy.
He accordingly resolved to enlist the services of Laura Bassi, who was one
of the leading members of this distinguished body, and trust to her influence
in his behalf on the hearts of her colleagues.
The first letter, written in Italian, is so characteristic of the writer that it will
bear reproduction.

"Most Illustrious Lady," he writes from Paris, the 23d of November, 1744,
"I have been wishing to journey to Bologna in order to be able one day to
tell my countrymen I have seen Signora Bassi; but, being deprived of this
honor, let it at least be permitted me to place at your feet this philosophic
homage and to salute the honor of her age and of women. There is not a
Bassi in London, and I should be more happy to be a member of the
Academy of Bologna than of that of the English, although it has produced a
Newton. If your protection should obtain for me this title, of which I am so
ambitious, the gratitude of my heart will be equal to my admiration for
yourself. I beg you to excuse the style of a foreigner who presumes to write
you in Italian, but who is as great an admirer of yours as if he were born in
Bologna."
The second letter of Voltaire is in response to one received from Laura
Bassi announcing that he had been elected to membership in the Bologna
Academy. The first sentence of it suffices to indicate its tenor. "Nothing," he
writes, "was ever more grateful to me than to receive from your hand the
first advice that I had the honor, by means of your favor, of being united by
this new link to one who had already bound me to her car by all the chains
of esteem and admiration."[154]
Like so many of her gifted sisters of sunny Italy, Laura was in every way "a
perfect woman nobly planned." Of a deeply religious nature, she was as
pious as she was intelligent, and was throughout her life the devoted friend
of the poor and the afflicted. The mother of twelve children, she never
permitted her scientific and literary work to conflict with her domestic
duties or to detract in the least from the singular affection which so closely
united her to her husband and children. She was as much at home with the
needle and the spindle as she was with her books and the apparatus of her
laboratory. And she was equally admirable whether superintending her
household, looking after her children, entertaining the great and the learned
of the world, or in holding the rapt attention of her students in the lecture
room. She was, indeed, a living proof that higher education is not
incompatible with woman's natural avocations; and that cerebral
development does not lead to race suicide and all the other dire results
attributed to it by a certain class of our modern sociologists and anti-
feminists.

Considering her manifold duties as a professor in the university and the
mother of a large family, it was scarcely to be expected that Laura Bassi
would have much time for writing for the press. She was, however, able to
devote some of her leisure moments to the cultivation of the Muses, of
whom, Fantuzzi informs us, she was a favorite. Her verses, as well as her
contributions to the science of physics, are scattered through various
publications, but they suffice to show that the accounts of her transmitted to
us by her contemporaries were not exaggerated.[155]
A learned French traveler who visited Laura in Bologna describes her as
having a face that was sweet, serious and modest. Her eyes were dark and
sparkling, and she was blessed with a powerful memory, a solid judgment,
and a ready imagination. "She conversed fluently with me in Latin for an
hour with grace and precision. She is very proficient in metaphysics; but
she prefers modern physics, particularly that of Newton."
How many of our college women of to-day could readily carry on a
conversation in Latin, if this were the sole medium of communication, or
discuss the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle in the tongue of Cicero, or
give public lectures on the physico-mathematical discoveries of Descartes
and Newton in what was the universal language of the learned world, even
less than a century ago?
It must not, however, be inferred from the foregoing statements regarding
the great intellectual capacity of Laura Bassi or the enthusiastic
demonstrations that were so frequently made in her honor that she was
unique in this respect among her countrywomen. Special attention has been
called to her as a type of the large number of her sex who, by their learning
and culture, graced the courts and honored the universities of her country
for full ten centuries. Scarcely had death removed Laura Bassi from a career
in which for twenty-eight years she had won the plaudits of the whole of
Europe, when the University of Bologna welcomed to its learned halls two
other women who, in their respective lines of research, were fully as
eminent as their departed countrywoman. These were Maria dalle Donne,
for whom Napoleon established a chair of obstetrics, and Clotilda
Tambroni, the famous professor of Greek, of whom a noted Hellenist
declared, "Only three persons in Europe are able to write Greek as well as
she does, and not more than fifteen are able to understand her."

Burckhardt, in his thoughtful work on the culture of the Italian Renaissance,
has a paragraph which expresses, in a few words, what was always the
attitude of the Italian father toward the education of his daughter.
"The education of the woman of the upper class was absolutely the same as
that of the man. The Italian of the Renaissance did not for a moment
hesitate to give his son and daughter the same literary and philosophical
training. He considered the knowledge of the works of antiquity life's
greatest good, and he could not, therefore, deny to woman participation in
such knowledge. Hence the perfection attained by the daughters of noble
families in writing and speaking Latin."[156]
This attitude of the members of the nobility toward the education of their
daughters was essentially the same as that of the universities of Italy toward
women who had a thirst for knowledge. For from the dawn of learning in
Salerno to the present there never was a time when women were not as
cordially welcomed to the universities as students and professors as were
the men; and never a time when the merit of intellectual work was not
determined without regard to sex.
In Bologna, where were passed the sixty-seven years of her mortal life, the
name of Laura Bassi, like that of her illustrious colleague, Luigi Galvani, is
one to conjure with, and a name that is still pronounced with respect and
reverence. Her last resting place is in the Church of Corpus Domini, the
same sacred shrine in which were deposited all that was mortal of the
renowned discoverer of galvanic electricity.[157]
Two years after Signora Bassi was gathered to her fathers there was born
near Edinburgh to a Scotch admiral, Sir William George Fairfax, an infant
daughter who was destined to shed as much luster on her sex in the British
Isles as the incomparable Laura Bassi had diffused on womankind in Italy
during her brilliant career in "Bologna, the learned." She is known in the
annals of science as Mary Somerville, and was in every way a worthy
successor of her famous sister in Italy, both as a woman and as a votary of
science.
Although her chief title to fame is her notable work in mathematical
astronomy, especially her translation of Laplace's Méchanique Céleste, she
is likewise to be accorded a prominent place among scientific investigators

for her contributions to physics and cognate branches of knowledge. Chief
among these are her works on the Connection of the Physical Sciences and
Physical Geography. As to the last production, no less an authority than
Alexander von Humboldt pronounced it an exact and admirable treatise,
and wrote of it as "that excellent work which has charmed and instructed
me since its first appearance."
In a letter from the illustrious German savant to the gifted authoress of the
two last-named volumes occurs the following paragraph: "To the great
superiority you possess and which has so nobly illustrated your name on the
high regions of mathematical analysis, you add, Madam, a variety of
information in all parts of physics and descriptive natural history. After the
Mechanism of the Heavens, the philosophical Connection of the Physical
Sciences has been the object of my profound admiration.... The author of
the vast Cosmos should more than any one else salute the Physical
Geography of Mary Somerville.... I know of no work on physical
geography in any language that can compare with yours."
Among the other works by Mrs. Somerville, treating of physical subjects or
of subjects intimately related to physics are The Form and Rotation of the
Earth, The Tides of the Ocean and Atmosphere, and an abstruse
investigation On Molecular and Microscopic Science. The last volume was
published in 1869, when its author was near her ninetieth year, and bore as
its motto St. Augustine's sublime words: Deus magnus in magnis, maximus
in minimis—God is great in great things, greatest in the least.
After Mrs. Somerville's death, in 1872, at the advanced age of ninety-two,
the number of women who devoted themselves to the study and teaching of
physics was greatly augmented. The brilliant success of Laura Bassi and
Mary Somerville had not been without results, and their notable
achievements as authors and teachers had the effect of stimulating women
everywhere to emulate their example, and encouraging them to devote more
attention to a branch of science which, until then, had been regarded by the
general public as beyond the sphere and capacity of what was assumed to
be the intellectually weaker sex.
One of the most eminent scientific women of the present day in England is
Mrs. Ayrton, the wife of the late Professor W. E. Ayrton, the well-known

electrician. Her chosen field of research, like that of her husband, has been
electricity, in which she has achieved marked distinction. Her investigations
on the electric arc and on the sand ripples of the seashore won for her the
first medal ever awarded to a woman by the Royal Society. When, however,
in 1902, she was formally nominated for fellowship in this same society,
she failed of election because the council of the society discovered that "it
had no legal power to elect a married woman to this distinction."
How different it was in the case of Laura Bassi, who was an active member
of all the leading scientific and literary societies of Italy, where from time
immemorial women have been as cordially welcomed to membership in its
learned societies as to the chairs of its great universities.
The list of the women who in Europe and America are now engaged in
physical research and in teaching physics in schools and colleges is a long
one, and the work accomplished by them is, in many cases, of a high order
of merit. It is only, indeed, during the present generation that such work has
been made generally accessible to them; and, considering the success which
has already attended their efforts in this branch of science, we have every
reason to believe that the future will bring forth many others of their sex
who will take rank with such intellectual luminaries as Hypatia, Mme. du
Châtelet, Laura Bassi and Mary Somerville.

FOOTNOTES:
[151] "Publice philosophiam naturalem et moralem in scholis Academiisque
Atticis docuit hæc fœmina annis XXXV, libros composuit XL, discipulos habuit
philosophos CX, obiit anno ætatis LXXVII, cui tale Athenienses statuere
epitaphium:

Nobilis hic Arete dormit, lux Helladis, ore
Tyndaris at tibi par, Icarioti, fide.
Patris Aristippi calamumque animamque dederunt,
Socratis huic linguam Mæonidaeque Dii."
—Boccaccio, De Laudibus Mulierum, Lib. II.

Cf. Wolf's Mulierum Græcarum quæ Oratione Prosa Usæ Sunt Fragmenta et
Elogia, pp. 283 et seq., London, 1739.
[152] "Mulier quædam fuit Alexandriæ, nomine Hypatia, Theonis filia. Hæc ad
tantam eruditionem pervenerat ut omnes sui temporis philosophos longo
intervallo superaret, et in Platonicam scholam a Plotino deductam succederet,
cunctasque philosophiæ disciplinas auditoribus exponeret. Quocirca omnes
philosophiæ studiosi ad illam undique confluebant." Socrates, Historiæ
Ecclesiasticæ, Lib. VII, Cap. 15.
[153] For extracts from the ancient authors regarding Hypatia, as well as for the
extant letters to her from her friend and pupil, Synesius, the reader is referred to
Wolf's erudite Mulierum Græcarum quæ Oratione Prosa Usæ sunt Fragmenta et
Elogia, pp. 72-91, ut sup.
[154] Ernesto Masi, Studi e Ritratti, p. 166 et seq., Bologna, 1881.
[155] Two of her Latin dissertations on certain physical problems were
published in the Commentaries of the Bologna Institute. One of them is entitled
De Problemate quodam Mechanico; the other De Problemate quodam
Hydrometrico. Many of her lectures on physics still exist in manuscript, and it is
to be hoped that at least the titles of them may be given in a biography of the
learned author which has been long desired and long promised.
[156] Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien, Vol. I, p. 363, 1869.
[157] As no satisfactory biography of Laura Bassi has yet been written, most of
our knowledge respecting her is limited to that found in Fantuzzi's Notizie degli
Scrittori Bolognesi, Tom. I, pp. 384-391, and Mazzuchelli's Gli Scrittori d'Italia,
Vol. II, Part I, pp. 527-529, Brescia, 1758.

CHAPTER VI
WOMEN IN CHEMISTRY

The first woman deserving special mention in the history of chemistry is the
wife of the immortal Lavoisier, the most famous of the founders of modern
chemical science. While yet in her teens, this remarkable woman gave
evidence of exceptional intelligence and will power. She was thoroughly
devoted to her husband, and had the greatest admiration for his genius. Her
highest ambition was to prove herself worthy of him and to render herself
competent to assist him in those investigations that have given him such
imperishable renown. With this end in view, she learned Latin and English,
and she thus became an accomplished translator from these languages of
any chemical works which might aid her spouse in his epoch-making
researches. It was she who translated for him the chemical memoirs of
Cavendish, Henry, Kirwan, Priestly and other noted English scientific
investigators.
Arthur Young, well known in his day as a traveler and author, who in 1787
made the acquaintance of Madame Lavoisier, describes her as a woman full
of animation, good sense and knowledge. In referring to a breakfast she had
given him, he declares that "unquestionably the best part of the repast was
her conversation on Kirwan's Essay on Phlogiston, which she was then
translating, and on other subjects which a woman of sense, working in the
laboratory of her husband, knows so well how to make interesting."
She was an ardent co-worker with her husband in his laboratory and
materially aided him in his labors. Under his direction she wrote the results
of the experiments that were made, as is evidenced by the records of his
work. As a pupil of the illustrious painter, David, she was naturally skillful
in drawing. Besides this, she was a good engraver, and it is to her that are
due the illustrations in Lavoisier's great Traité de Chimie, which contributed
so much toward revolutionizing the science of chemistry. It was, indeed, the
first work that deserved to be regarded as a textbook of modern chemistry.
Among her drawings are two of special interest. They represent her as

seated at a table in the laboratory, taking notes, while her husband and his
assistant, Seguin, are making an experiment on the phenomena of
respiration.[158]
All Mme. Lavoisier's writings testify to her great admiration of the genius
of her husband. Intimately associated with him in his work, she combatted
for the triumph of his ideas and sought to make converts to them. One of
her most notable converts was the Swiss chemist, de Saussure. "You have,
Madame," he writes her, "triumphed over my doubts, at least in the matter
of phlogiston, which is the principal object of the interesting work of which
you have done me the honor of sending me a copy."
After Lavoisier's tragic death on the guillotine, it was his devoted wife who
edited his Memoirs on Chemistry, of which Lavoisier had himself projected
the publication. The two volumes constituting this work were not for sale,
but were gratuitously distributed by the bereaved widow among the most
eminent scientific men of the epoch. Cuvier, in acknowledging the receipt
of these precious memoirs, declares: "All the friends of science are under
obligations to you for your sorrowful determination to publish this
collection of papers and to publish them as they were written—a
melancholy monument of your loss and theirs—a loss which humanity will
feel for centuries."
To realize the importance of the work in which Mme. Lavoisier
participated, it suffices to recall the fact that her husband, as one of the
creators of modern chemistry, was the first to demonstrate the existence of
the law of the conservation of matter, which declares that in all chemical
changes nothing is lost and nothing is created. The co-discoverer with
Scheele and Priestly of oxygen, he was the first one to exhibit the rôle of
this important element in the phenomena of combustion and respiration and
the first, also, to lay the foundations of a chemical nomenclature. We are
not, then, surprised to learn that Mme. Lavoisier's salon, even long after her
lamented husband's death, was frequented by the most eminent savants of
the time. For here were gathered such scientific luminaries as Cuvier,
Laplace, Arago, Lagrange, Prony, Berthollet, Delambre, Biot, Humboldt,
and others scarcely less brilliant.

After the conclusion of Mme. Lavoisier's work in the laboratory of her
husband, little was accomplished by women in chemistry for more than half
a century. The reason was simple. Chemistry was not a part of the
curriculum of studies for girls either in Europe or America. Even "during
the sixties," writes a teacher of one of the prominent female seminaries of
the United States, "the study of chemistry was mostly confined to the
textbook, supplemented once a year by a course of lectures from an
itinerant expert, who with his tanks of various gases produced highly
spectacular effects."
When one recollects that the first institution in America—Vassar—for the
higher education of women was not opened until 1865, one will understand
that there were previously to this date few opportunities for women to study
either chemistry or any of the other sciences.
The first scientific institution to open its doors to women was the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This was on May 11, 1876, when the
governing board of the institute decided that "hereafter special students in
chemistry shall be admitted without regard to sex." In less than a year after
this event every department of this institution was open to women, and any
one who could pass the requisite examination was admitted as a student.
Five years, however, before women were formally admitted to the courses
of chemistry an energetic young graduate from Vassar, eager to devote her
life to the pursuit of science, had, as an exceptional favor, been allowed to
enter the Institute as a special student in chemistry. As she was the first
woman in the United States to enter a strictly professional scientific school,
her entrance marks the beginning of a new epoch in the history of female
education. The name of this ardent votary of science was Miss Ellen
Swallow, better known to the world as Mrs. Ellen H. Richards.
Mrs. Richards had not devoted herself long to the study of her favorite
science before she resolved to apply the knowledge thus gained to the
problems of daily life. She saw, among other things, the necessity of a
complete reform in domestic economy, and resolutely set to work to have
her views adopted and put in practice. She was, in consequence, one of the
first leaders of the crusade in behalf of pure food, and her lectures and

books on this all-important subject contributed greatly toward the diffusion
of exact knowledge respecting the dangers lurking in unwholesome food.
She was likewise one of the first to apply the science of chemistry to an
exhaustive study of the science of nutrition—to the study of food and the
proper preparation of food materials. In this she was eminently successful,
and was able to achieve for home economics what the illustrious Liebig had
many years before accomplished for agricultural chemistry—put it on a
firm and lasting basis. To her the kitchen was the center and source of
political economy.
The facts of science, indeed, were to Mrs. Richards more than mere
uncorrelated facts. They are potential agencies of service, and their chief
value consists in their enabling us to control our environment in such wise
as to secure the maximum of physical well being. Hence her constant
insistence on personal cleanliness, on the cleanliness of food, of the house
we live in, and, above all, of the kitchen. Hence, also, her preaching, in
season and out of season, on the necessity of pure air, pure water and
abundance of vitalizing sunshine.
We cannot, then, wonder that sanitary chemistry eventually became the life
work of Mrs. Richards, and that, when the course of sanitary engineering
was inaugurated in the Institute of Technology—the first course of its kind
in the world—she became an important agent in its development and
contributed immensely to its popularity and prestige.
She held the position of instructor of sanitary chemistry in the institute for
twenty-seven years. During this time she trained a large number of young
men in her chosen specialty, and these, after graduating, engaged in similar
work in various parts of the New and the Old World.
The branch of sanitary chemistry to which Mrs. Richards devoted most
attention was air, water and sewage analysis. In this she was a recognized
expert, and her advice and services were sought in all parts of the country.
During the last three years of her life she acted, according to her own
testimony, as general sanitary adviser to no fewer than two score
corporations and schools. In addition to this she was also during this brief
period consulted on the subject of foods by nearly two hundred educational
and other institutions.

What, however, constituted the greatest contribution of Mrs. Richards to the
public health was the part she took in the great sanitary survey of the waters
of the State of Massachusetts. During this long and laborious investigation
she analyzed more than forty thousand samples of water. These analyses
exhibited the condition of the water from all parts of the state during all
seasons of the year and were of the greatest value in solving a number of
important problems in state sanitation.
But notwithstanding the drafts made on her time and energy by her
classwork in the laboratory and her occupation as sanitary engineer for
scores of public and private institutions, she still found leisure to engage in
many important movements which had in view the public health and the
betterment of sanitary conditions in city and country. It is safe to say that no
one ever put her knowledge of chemical science to more practical use or
made it more perfectly subserve the public weal than did Mrs. Richards. To
spread among the masses a knowledge of the principles of sanitation, to
make them realize how indispensable to health are pure food, pure water,
pure air and life-giving sunshine was her great mission in life, and in this
she displayed an energy and a tireless zeal which were an inspiration to all
with whom she came into contact.
This indefatigable woman, it is proper to record here, might have
distinguished herself as a discoverer in chemical science had she elected to
devote her life to original research rather than to utilizing the knowledge
already available for the welfare of her fellows. Thus, after a careful
analysis of the rare mineral samarskite, she found an insoluble residue
which led her to believe might contain unknown elements. This view she
repeatedly expressed to her co-workers in the laboratory. But she was
unwilling to take from what she regarded more important work the time
necessary for making investigations which might have given her undying
fame as a discoverer. For not long afterward this insoluble residue, in the
hands of two French chemists, yielded the exceedingly rare elements,
samarium and gadolinium.
Another chemist of a less altruistic nature than Mrs. Richards would not
have resisted the temptation to achieve distinction in the domain of original
research. But where there was so much suffering to be relieved and so much
ignorance to be removed regarding the most fundamental principles of

sanitation, this philanthropic woman preferred to put to practical use what
she called "the considerable body of useful knowledge now lying on our
shelves."
Her duty, as she conceived it, is well indicated in the following paragraph,
taken from a thoughtful discussion by her of the subject of home economics
a short time before her death in 1911. "The sanitary research worker in
laboratory and field," she declares, "has gone nearly to the limit of his
value. He will soon be smothered in his own work, if no one takes it.
Meanwhile children die by the thousands; contagious diseases take toll of
hundreds; back alleys remain foul and the streets are unswept; school-
houses are unwashed and danger lurks in the drinking cups and about the
towels. Dust is stirred up each morning with the feather duster to greet the
warm, moist noses and throats of the children. To the watchful expert it
seems like the old cities dancing and making merry on the eve of a volcanic
outbreak."[159]
From the day in 1873 when Mrs. Richards received from the Institute of
Technology the degree of Bachelor of Science—a degree which made her
not only the first woman graduate of this institution, but also the first
graduate in the United States of a strictly scientific seat of learning—the
number of women who have devoted themselves to chemical pursuits is
legion. They are now found in every civilized country in both hemispheres
and their number is daily increasing. They are everywhere doing excellent
work as teachers in classrooms and laboratories and holding their own with
men as chemical experts in manufacturing establishments and government
institutions. Many of them have done original work of a high order, and
distinguished themselves by their valuable contributions to contemporary
chemical literature. Space, however, precludes more than a general
reference to their achievements, for the names only of those who have done
meritorious work in chemistry would make a very long list.
Passing over, then, all the lesser feminine lights in chemistry who, in
various fields of activity, have rendered such distinct service during the past
generation, we come to one who for nearly two decades has stood in the
forefront of the great chemists of the world. This is that renowned daughter
of Poland, Mme. Marie Klodowska Curie, whose name will always be

identified with some of the most remarkable discoveries which have ever
been made in the long-continued study of the material universe.
Marie Klodowska was born in Warsaw, in 1868. Her father was a professor
of chemistry in the university of the former Polish capital; and it is
undoubtedly from him that his brilliantly dowered daughter has inherited
her love of chemistry and her extraordinary genius for scientific research.
Owing to the paltry salary he received, Professor Klodowska was obliged to
make little Marie his laboratory assistant while she was quite a young girl.
Instead, then, of playing with tops and dolls, her time was occupied in
cleaning evaporating dishes and test tubes and in assisting her father to
prepare for his lectures and experiments. And it was thus that, at an early
age, she acquired a taste for that science in which she was subsequently to
achieve such world-wide fame.
While still a young woman, her love of science drew her to Paris, where she
arrived with only fifty francs in her purse. But, possessed of dauntless
courage and unfaltering perseverance, she was prepared to make any
sacrifice in the pursuit of knowledge.
Her first home in the gay French metropolis was a poorly furnished garret
in an obscure part of the city, and her diet was for so long a time restricted
to black bread and skimmed milk that she afterward avowed that she had to
cultivate a taste for wine and meat. And so intensely cold was her cheerless
room in winter that the little bottle of milk which was daily left at her door
was speedily congealed. At this time the poor girl was living on less than
ten cents a day, but still cherishing all the while the fond hope that she
might eventually secure a position as a student assistant in some good
chemical laboratory.
After a long struggle with poverty and after countless disappointments in
quest of a position where she could gratify her ambition as a student of
chemistry, she finally found occupation as a poorly paid assistant in the
laboratory conducted by Professor Lipmann. She was not, however, at work
a week before this distinguished investigator recognized in the young
woman one whose knowledge of chemistry and faculty for original research
were far above the average. She was accordingly transferred without delay

from the menial employment in which she had been engaged and given
every possible facility for prosecuting work as an original investigator.
It was shortly after this event that Marie Klodowska met the noted savant,
Pierre Curie. He was not long in discovering in her a kindred spirit—one
who, besides having exceptional talent in experimental chemistry, was
actuated by an ardent love of science. It was then that he determined to
make her his wife. A single sentence in a letter he wrote at this time to the
object of his admiration and affection reveals, better than anything else, the
devotion of this matchless pair in the cause of science. "What a great thing
it would be," he exclaims, "to unite our lives and work together for the sake
of science and humanity." These simple words were the keynote to the ideal
life led by this incomparable couple during the eleven years they worked
together in perfect unity of thought and aspiration before the sudden and
premature extinction of the husband's life gave such a shock to the entire
scientific world.
After her marriage the gifted young Polish woman had reached the goal of
her ambition. She was able to devote herself exclusively to what was
henceforth to constitute her life work in one of the best laboratories of
Paris, that of the École de Physique et de Chimie, and that, too, in
collaboration with her husband, from whom she was never separated during
the entire period of their married life for even a single day.
It was about this time that Mme. Curie had her interest aroused by the
brilliant discoveries of Röntgen and Becquerel regarding radiant matter.
After a long series of carefully conducted experiments on the compounds of
uranium and thorium, she, with the intuition of genius, opened up to the
world of science an entirely new field of research. But she soon realized
that the labor involved in the investigations which she had planned was
entirely beyond the capacity of any one person. It was then that she
succeeded in enlisting her husband's interest in the undertaking which was
to lead to such marvelous results.
Confining their work to a careful analytical study of the residue of the
famous Bohemian pitchblend—an extremely complex mineral, largely
composed of oxide of uranium—they soon found themselves confronted by
most extraordinary radio-active phenomena. Continuing their researches,

their labor was rewarded by the discovery of a new element which Mme.
Curie, in her enthusiasm, named in honor of the land of her birth, polonium.
As their investigations progressed, they became correspondingly difficult.
They were dealing with substances which exist in pitchblend residue only in
infinitesimal quantities—not more than three troy grams to the ton. The
difficulties they had to contend with were enough to discourage the stoutest
heart. Few believed in their theories, while the majority of those who had
some intimation of the character of their work were persuaded that they
were pursuing a phantom. But the indefatigable pair toiled on day and night
and continued their experiments through long years of poverty and deferred
hopes.
Considering the herculean task in which they were engaged for so many
years, we scarcely know which to admire most, their clearness of vision,
which made them divine success; their profound knowledge, which guided
them in the choice of reagents; or the indomitable perseverance which
characterized them in their laborious task and in the countless sacrifices
which they were obliged to make before their efforts were crowned with
success.
During this long search into the inner heart of nature, Pierre Curie was often
so discouraged and depressed that, had he not been sustained by his more
sanguine wife, he would time and again have given up his investigations in
despair. But Marie Curie never faltered. She never lost faith in their theories
or confidence in the outcome of their great undertaking. Before her deft
hands and fertile brain difficulties vanished as if under the magic wand of
Prospero.
At length, after countless experiments of the most delicate character, after
bringing to bear on the solution of the problem before them the most refined
methods of chemical analysis, they were rewarded by one of the most
extraordinary discoveries recorded in the annals of science. With the
announcement of the discovery of radium, the Curies sprang into world-
wide fame, and the name of the wonderful woman who had been the prime
mover in the supreme achievement was on every lip. Pierre Curie himself
declared that more than half of the epochal discovery belonged to his wife.
It was she who began the work. It was she who, after her marriage, enlisted

in it the coöperation of her husband. It was she whose invincible patience
and persistence—typical of the noblest representatives of her race—
supported him during periods of doubt and despondency and fanned his
flagging spirits to new endeavor. It can indeed be truthfully asserted that
had it not been for her penetrating intelligence, her tenacity of purpose and
her keenness of vision, which were never at fault, the great victory which
crowned their efforts would never have been achieved.[160]
Compare their work with that which was accomplished by their illustrious
predecessors, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, and his wife, a century earlier. The
latter, by their discovery of and experiments with oxygen, were able to
explain the until then mysterious phenomena of combustion and respiration
and to coördinate numberless facts which had before stood isolated and
enigmatic. But the reverse was the case in the discovery of that
extraordinary and uncanny element, radium. It completely subverted many
long-established theories and necessitated an entirely new view of the
nature of energy and of the constitution of matter. A substance that seemed
capable of emitting light and heat indefinitely, with little or no appreciable
change or transformation, appeared to sap the very foundations of the
fundamental principle of the conservation of energy.
Subsequent investigations seemed only to render "confusion worse
confounded." They appeared to justify the dreams of the alchemists of old,
not only regarding the transmutation of metals but also respecting the elixir
of life. For was not this apparently absurd idea vindicated by the observed
curative properties—bordering almost on the miraculous—this marvelous
element was reputed to possess! Its virtues, it was averred, transcended the
fabled properties of the famous red tincture and the philosopher's stone
combined, and many were prepared to find in it a panacea for the most
distressing of human ailments, from lupus and rodent ulcer to cancer and
other frightful forms of morbid degeneration.[161]
And the end is not yet. Continued investigations, made in all parts of the
world since the discovery of radium by the Curies, have but emphasized its
mysterious properties, and compelled a revision of many of our most
cherished theories in chemistry, physics and astronomy. No one single
discovery, not even Pasteur's far-reaching discovery of microbic life, it may
safely be asserted, has ever been more subversive of long-accepted views in

certain domains of science, or given rise to more perplexing problems
regarding matters which were previously thought to be thoroughly
understood.
Never in the entire history of science have the results of a woman's
scientific researches been so stupendous or so revolutionary. And never has
any one achievement in science reflected more glory on womankind than
that which is so largely due to the genius and the perseverance of Mme.
Curie.
After their startling discovery, honors and tributes to their genius came in
rapid succession to the gifted couple. On the recommendation of the
venerable British savant, Lord Kelvin, they were awarded the Davy gold
medal by the Royal Society. Shortly after this they shared with M. H.
Becquerel in the Nobel prize for physics bestowed on them by Sweden.
Then came laggard France with its decoration of the Legion of Honor. But
it was offered only to the man. There was nothing for the woman. Pierre
Curie showed his spirit and chivalry by declining to accept the proffered
honor unless his wife could share it with him. His answer was simple, but
its meaning could not be mistaken. "This decoration," he said, "has no
bearing on my work."[162]
Shortly after her husband's death Mme. Curie was appointed as his
successor as special lecturer in the Sorbonne. This was the first time that
this conservative old university ever invited a woman to a full
professorship. But she soon showed that she was thoroughly competent to
fill the position with honor and éclat. She has the élite of society and the
world's most noted men of science among her auditors. The crowned heads
of the Old World eagerly seek an opportunity to witness her experiments
and hear her discourse on what is by all odds the most marvelous element in
nature.
Mme. Curie has not allowed her lectures in the Sorbonne to interfere with
the continuation of the researches which have won for her such world-wide
renown. Since the sudden taking off of her husband by a passing truck on a
Paris bridge, she has succeeded in isolating both radium and polonium—
only the chlorides and bromides of these elements were previously known
—besides doing other work scarcely less remarkable. And besides all this,

she has also found time to write a connected account of her investigations
under the title of Traité de Radio-Activité—a work that reflects as much
honor on her sex as did Le Instituzioni Analitiche of Maria Gaetana Agnesi,
which won for her, through that celebrated patron of learning, Benedict
XIV, the chair of higher mathematics in the University of Bologna.
The list of learned societies to which Mme. Curie belongs is an extended
one. To mention only a few, she is an honorary or foreign member of the
London Chemical Society, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the Royal
Swedish Academy, the American Chemical Society, the American
Philosophical Society, and the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St.
Petersburg. From the universities of Geneva and Edinburgh she has
received the honorary degree of doctor.
In 1898 she received the Gegner prize from the French Academy of
Sciences for her elaborate researches on the magnetic properties of iron and
steel, as also for her investigations relating to radio-activity. The same prize
was again awarded to her in 1900, and still again in 1903. With her husband
she received in 1901 the La Caze prize of ten thousand francs; and in 1903
she received a part of the Osiris prize of sixty thousand francs. Since her
husband's death in 1906 Mme. Curie has been awarded the coveted Nobel
prize in chemistry, which was placed in her hand by the King of Sweden on
December 11, 1911—a prize which increased the exchequer of the fair
recipient by nearly two hundred thousand francs. Having before been the
beneficiary of the Nobel prize for physics, in conjunction with her husband
and M. H. Becquerel, Mme. Curie is thus the first person to be twice
singled out for the world 's highest financial recognition of scientific
research.
It would take too long to enumerate all the medals and prizes and honors
which have come to this remarkable woman from foreign countries. But she
has doubtless been the recipient of more trophies of undying fame during
the last decade and a half than any other one person during the same brief
period of intellectual activity. And all these tokens of recognition of genius
were showered upon her not because she was a woman, but in spite of this
fact. Had she been a man, she would have been honored with the other
distinctions which tradition and prejudice still persist in denying to one of

the proscribed sex, no matter how great her merit or how signal her
achievements.
At a recent scientific congress, held in Brussels, it was decided to prepare a
standard of measurement of radium emanations. It was the unanimous
opinion of the congress that Mme. Curie was better equipped than any other
person for establishing such a standard; and she was accordingly requested
to undertake the delicate and difficult task—a commission which she
executed to the satisfaction of all concerned.
This unit of measurement, it is gratifying to learn, will be known as the
curie—a word which will enter the same category as the volt, the ohm, the
ampère, the farad, and a few others which will perpetuate the names of the
world's greatest geniuses in the domain of experimental science.
When, not long since, there was a vacancy among the immortals of the
French Academy, there was a generally expressed desire that it should be
filled by one who was universally recognized as among the foremost of
living scientists. The name of Mme. Curie trembled on every lip; and the
hope was entertained that the Academy would honor itself by admitting the
world-famed savante among its members. Considering her achievements,
she had no competitor, and was, in the estimation of all outside of the
Academy, the one person in France who was most deserving of the coveted
honor.
But no. She was a woman; and for that reason alone she was excluded from
an institution the sole object of whose establishment was the reward of
merit and the advancement of learning. The age-old prejudice against
women who devote themselves to the study of science, or who contribute to
the progress of knowledge, was still as dominant as it was in the days of
Maria Gaetana Agnesi, a century and a half before. Mme. Curie, like her
famous sister in Italy, might win the plaudits of the world for her
achievements; but she could have no recognition from the one institution,
above all others, that was specially founded to foster the development of
science and literature, and to crown the efforts of those who had proven
themselves worthy of the Academy's highest honor. The attitude of the
French institution toward Mme. Curie was exactly like that of the Royal
Society of Great Britain when Mrs. Ayrton's name was up for membership.

The answer to both applicants was in effect, if not in words, "No woman
need apply."
When one reads of the sad experiences of Mme. Curie and Mrs. Ayrton with
the learned societies of Paris and London, one instinctively asks, "When
will the day come when women, in every part of the civilized world, shall
enjoy all the rights and privileges in every field of intellectual effort which
have so long been theirs in the favored land of Dante and Beatrice—the
motherland of learned societies and universities?" For not until the advent
of the day when such exclusive organizations as the Royal Society and the
French Academy of Sciences, such ultra-conservative universities as Oxford
and Cambridge shall admit women on the same footing as men, will these
institutions be more than half serving the best interests of humanity.[163]
Women, it is true, are now eligible to many literary and scientific
associations from which they were formerly debarred, and are, in most
countries, admitted to colleges and universities whose portals were closed
to them until only a few years ago; but until they shall be welcomed to all
universities and all societies whose objects are the advancement of
knowledge, until they shall participate in the advantages and prestige
accruing from connection with these organizations, they will have reason to
feel that they are not yet in the full possession of the intellectual advantages
for which they have so long yearned—that they have been but partially
liberated from that educational disqualification in which they have been
held during so many long centuries of deferred hopes and fruitless
struggles.

FOOTNOTES:
[158] Lavoisier 1743-1794, d'après sa Correspondence, Ses Manuscrits, Ses
Papiers de Famille et d'Autres Documents Inédits, p. 42 et seq., par E. Grimaux,
Paris, 1896.
[159] The Life of Ellen H. Richards, p. 273 et seq., by Caroline L. Hunt, Boston,
1912.
[160] Mme. Curie, in an article which she wrote shortly after her discovery of
radium, shows that she possesses a genius for inductive science of the highest
type. "It was at the close of the year 1897," she writes, "that I began to study the
compounds of uranium, the properties of which had greatly attracted my interest.

Here was a substance emitting spontaneously and continually radiations similar
to Röntgen rays, whereas ordinarily, Röntgen rays can be produced only in a
vacuum tube with the expenditure of electrical energy. By what process can
uranium furnish the same rays without expenditure of energy and without
undergoing apparent modification? Is uranium the only body whose compounds
emit similar rays? Such were the questions I asked myself; and it was while
seeking to answer them that I entered into the researches which have led to the
discovery of radium." Radium and Radio-Activity in The Century Magazine, for
January, 1904.
[161] Notice sur Pierre Curie, p. 20 et seq., by M. D. Gernez, Paris, 1907, and
Le Radium, Son Origine et ses Transformations, by M. L. Houllerigue, in La
Revue de Paris, May 1, 1911.
[162] The day following Pierre Curie's refusal of the decoration offered by the
Government, the elder of his two daughters, little Irene, climbed upon her
father's knee and put a red geranium in the lapel of his coat. "Now, papa," she
gravely remarked, "you are decorated with the Legion of Honor." "In this case,"
the fond father replied, "I make no objection."
[163] A few days before Mme. Curie's name was to come before the Academy of
Sciences as a candidate for membership, the French Institute in its quarterly
plenary meeting of the five academies, of which the Institute is composed,
decided by a vote of ninety to fifty-two against the eligibility of women to
membership, and put itself on record in favor of the "immutable tradition against
the election of women, which it seemed eminently wise to respect."
Commenting on this decision of The Immortals, a writer in the well-known
English magazine, Nature, under date of January 12, 1911, penned the following
pertinent paragraph:
"It remains to be seen what the Academy of Sciences will do in the face of such
an expression of opinion. Mme. Curie is deservedly popular in French scientific
circles. It is everywhere recognized that her work is of transcendent merit, and
that it has contributed enormously to the prestige of France as a home of
experimental inquiry. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the discovery and
isolation of the radio-active elements are among the most striking and fruitful
results of a field of investigation preëminently French. If any prophet is to have
honour in his own country—even if the country be only the land of his adoption
—surely, that honour ought to belong to Mme. Curie. At this moment, Mme.
Curie is without doubt, in the eyes of the world, the dominant figure in French
chemistry. There is no question that any man who had contributed to the sum of
human knowledge what she has made known, would years ago have gained that
recognition at the hands of his colleagues, which Mme. Curie's friends are now
desirous of securing for her. It is incomprehensible, therefore, on any ethical
principles of right and justice that, because she happens to be a woman, she
should be denied the laurels which her preëminent scientific achievement has
earned for her."
Compare this frank and honest statement with that of a contributor, about the
same date, to La Revue du Monde, of Paris. Guided by his myopic vision and
diseased imagination, this writer discerns in the admittance of women into the

grand old institution of Richelieu and Napoleon the imminent triumph of what
Prudhon called pornocracy and the eventual opening of the portals of the Palais
Mazarin to representatives of the type of Lais and Phryne, on the Hellenic
pretext that "Beauty is the supreme merit."
It is gratifying, however, to the friends of woman's cause to learn that Mme.
Curie's candidacy was defeated by only two votes. Her competitor, M. Branly,
received thirty votes against the Polish woman's twenty-eight. She thus fared far
better than did Mme. Pauline Savari, who aspired to the fauteuil made vacant by
the death of Renan, regarding whose candidature the Academy curtly declared,
"Considering that its traditions do not permit it to examine this question, the
Academy passes to the order of the day." Thus, it will be seen that, in spite of the
long-continued opposition to women members, the French Academy is more
than likely to offer its next vacant chair to the pride and glory of Poland,—the
immortal discoverer of radium and polonium.

CHAPTER VII
WOMEN IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES

It is reasonable to suppose that women, who are such lovers of nature, have
always had a greater or less interest in the natural sciences, especially in
botany and zoölogy; but the fact remains that the first one of their sex to
write at any length on the various kingdoms of nature was that
extraordinary nun of the Middle Ages, St. Hildegard, the learned abbess of
the Benedictine convent of St. Rupert, at Bingen on the Rhine. Of an
exceptionally versatile and inquiring mind, her range of study and
acquirement was truly encyclopædic. In this respect she was the worthy
forerunner of Albert the Great, the famous Doctor Universalis of
Scholasticism.
Although St. Hildegard has much to say about nature in several of her
works, the one of chiefest interest to us as an exposition of the natural
history of her time is her treatise entitled Liber Subtilitatum Diversarum
Naturarum Creaturarum. It is usually known by its more abbreviated name,
Physica, and, considering the circumstances under which it was written, is,
in many ways, a most remarkable production. It consists of nine books
treating of minerals, plants, fishes, birds, insects and quadrupeds. The book
on plants is composed of no fewer than two hundred and thirty chapters,
while that on birds contains seventy-two chapters.
In reading Hildegard's descriptions of animated nature we are often
reminded of Pliny's great work on natural history; but, so far as known,
there is no positive evidence that the learned religieuse had any
acquaintance whatever with the writings of the old Roman naturalist. Had
she had, the general tenor of her work would have been quite different from
what it actually is.
The mystery, then, is, what were the sources of Physica? Some have fancied
that Hildegard in preparing this made use of the writings not only of Pliny
and Virgil, but also of those of Macer, Constantinus Africanus, Walafrid

Strabo, Isodore of Seville, and other writers who were in great vogue during
the Middle Ages. The general consensus of opinion, however, of those who
have carefully studied this interesting problem is that the gentle nun was not
acquainted with any of the authors named, except, possibly, Isodore of
Seville, whose works were all held in high esteem, especially during the
period of Hildegard's greatest literary activity.
Hildegard's Physica has a special value for philologists, as well as for
students of natural history, for it contains the German names of plants still
used by the people of the Fatherland seven hundred years after they were
penned by the painstaking abbess of St. Rupert's.[164]
Referring to the Saint's work entitled De Natura Hominis, Elementorum,
Diversarumque Creaturarum—a treatise on the nature of man, the elements
and divers created things—no less an authority than Dr. Charles Daremberg
declares that it will always hold an important place in the history of medical
art and of inanimate and animate nature—insignis semper locus debetitur in
artis medicæ rerumque naturalium historia.[165]
He even goes further and affirms that Hildegard was familiar with
numerous facts of science regarding which other mediæval writers were
entirely ignorant. More than this. She was acquainted with many of nature's
secrets which were unknown to men of science until recent times, and
which, on being disclosed by modern researches, have been proclaimed to
the world as new discoveries.[166]
One reason why St. Hildegard's writings on botany, zoölogy and
mineralogy are not better known is that few students care to make the effort
to master her voluminous works. They require long and assiduous study and
a knowledge of her peculiarities of style and expression which is acquired
only after patient and persistent labor. But the labor is not in vain, as is
evidenced by the numerous monographs which have appeared in recent
years, especially in Germany, on the scientific works of this marvelous nun
of the twelfth century. All things considered, the Abbess of Bingen may be
said to hold the same position in the natural sciences of her time as was held
in the physical and mathematical sciences seven hundred years earlier by
the illustrious Hypatia of Alexandria.

After the death of St. Hildegard, full six centuries elapsed before any one of
her sex again achieved distinction in the domain of natural science. And
then, strange to relate, the first woman who won fame by her knowledge of
science and by her contributions to it, did so in the field where a woman
would, one would think, be least disposed to exercise her talent and least
likely to find congenial work. It was in the then comparatively new science
of human anatomy—a science which had been inaugurated in the famous
medical schools of Salerno and which was subsequently so highly
developed in the great University of Bologna.
The name of this remarkable woman was Anna Morandi Manzolini. She
was born in 1716 in Bologna, where, after a brilliant career in her favorite
branch of science, she died at the age of fifty-eight. She held the chair of
anatomy in the University of Bologna for many years, and is noted for a
number of important discoveries made as the result of her dissections of
cadavers.
But she won a still greater title to fame by the marvelous skill which she
exhibited in making anatomical models out of indurated wax. They were so
carefully fashioned that some of them could scarcely be distinguished from
the parts of the body from which they were modeled. As aids in the study of
anatomy they were most highly valued and eagerly sought for on all sides.
The collection which she made for her own use was, after her death,
acquired by the Medical Institute of Bologna and prized as one of its most
precious possessions.
Three years after her demise, Luigi Galvani, professor of anatomy in the
same university in which Anna had achieved such fame, made use of these
wax models for a course of lectures on the organs and structure of the
human body.
These famous models, first perfected by Anna Manzolini, were the
archetypes of the exquisite wax models of Vassourie as well as of the
unrivaled papier-mâché creations of Dr. Auzoux and of all similar
productions now so extensively used in our schools and colleges.
Even during the lifetime of the gifted modeler there were demands for
specimens of her work from all parts of Italy. From many cities in Europe,
even from London and St. Petersburg, she received the most flattering

offers for her services. So eager was Milan to have her accept a position
which had been offered her that the city authorities sent her a blank contract
and begged her to name her own conditions. But she could never be
induced to leave the home of her childhood and the city which had
witnessed and applauded her triumphs of maturer years.
Men of learning and eminence, on passing through Bologna, invariably
made it a point to call on the learned professora in order to make her
acquaintance and to see her wonderful anatomical collection, which was
celebrated throughout Europe as Supellex Manzoliniana. Among these
visitors was Joseph II of Austria. So greatly was His Majesty impressed by
Anna's rare intellectual attainments and by her marvelous skill in
reproducing the various parts of the "human form divine" that he could not
take leave of her without showing his appreciation of them by loading her
with gifts worthy of a sovereign.[167]
A contemporary of Anna Manzolini, who also distinguished herself in the
preparation of anatomical models, was the French woman, Mlle. Biheron.
Her facsimiles of parts of the human body were, according to Mme. de
Genlis, so true to nature that they could not be distinguished from the
originals. This led the facetious Chevalier Ringle, after examining a
specimen of her handiwork, to declare, "Verily, it is so perfect that it lacks
only the odor of the natural object."
While yet prince royal, Gustavus of Sweden visited the French Academy of
Sciences in Paris. Here he was entertained by a number of experiments in
anatomy. The demonstrator was Mlle. Biheron, who is said to have had a
veritable passion for both anatomy and surgery. So impressed was Gustavus
with the extraordinary skill and knowledge of this gifted daughter of France
that he offered her the position of demonstrator of anatomy in the royal
University of Sweden.
Other branches of science, apparently quite as alien as anatomy to women's
taste and talent, are mineralogy and metallurgy. Yet as early as the first half
of the seventeenth century, the Baroness de Beausoleil had achieved a great
reputation by her investigations into the mineral treasures of France.
Indeed, she may, strange as it may appear, be regarded as the first mining
engineer of her native land. She details the qualifications of a mining

engineer and tells us he must, among other things, be well versed in
chemistry, mineralogy, geometry, mechanics and hydraulics. As for herself,
she assures us that she devoted thirty years of unremitting study to these
divers branches.
To Mme. de Beausoleil is also attributed the glory of awakening her
countrymen's interest in the mineral resources of France, and of showing
them how their proper exploitation would inure not only to the credit of the
nation abroad but also to its prosperity at home.
She was the author of two works which prove that she was a woman of rare
attainments combined with exceptional breadth of view and political
acumen. She was deeply concerned in the development of the mineral
resources of her country and foresaw how greatly they could be made to
contribute to the augmentation of the nation's finances.
Her work entitled La Restitution de Pluton is a report on the mines and ore
deposits of France, and is a document as precious as it is curious. It was
addressed to Cardinal Richelieu, and shows how the French monarch could,
if the subterranean treasures of the country were properly developed,
become the greatest ruler in Christendom and his subjects the happiest of all
peoples.
Another report by this energetic and enthusiastic woman is in the same
strain. In it she proves how the King of France, by utilizing the underground
riches of his country, could make himself and his people independent of all
other nations.[168]
In these two productions Mme. de Beausoleil treats of the science of
mining, the different kinds of mines, the assaying of ores and the divers
methods of smelting them, as well as of the general principles of
metallurgy, as then understood. But, unlike the majority of her
contemporaries, this enlightened woman had no patience with those who
believed that the earth's hidden treasures could not be discovered without
recourse to magic or to the aid of demons. She was unsparing in her ridicule
of those who had faith in the existence of gnomes and kobolds, or thought
that ore deposits could be located only by divining-rods or similar foolish
contrivances which were relics of an ignorant and superstitious age.

The same century that witnessed the exploring activity of the Baroness de
Beausoleil saw the beginnings of the notable achievements of a daughter of
Germany, well known in the annals of science as Maria Sibylla Merian.
Born in Frankfort in 1647, she died in Amsterdam in 1717, after a
somewhat checkered career, most of which was devoted to the pursuit of
natural history. So fond was she of flowers and insects that it is said they
told her all their secrets.
After having familiarized herself with the fauna and flora of her native land,
she proceeded to investigate the collections of the principal European
cabinets of natural history. This only fired her ambition to see more of the
world and study Nature where she is seen in her greatest splendor and
luxuriance.
She accordingly resolved to undertake a journey to the equatorial regions of
South America. Such a voyage can now be made with comparative ease, but
in her days it was fraught with discomforts and dangers of all kinds, and
one that no woman thought to venture on unless obliged to do so by stern
necessity.
But she was set on investigating animals and plants in their own habitats in
the glorious and exuberant flora of the tropics and, accompanied by her two
daughters, Helena and Dorothea, she embarked for Surinam. Here, assisted
by her daughters, who, like their mother, were both skillful artists, the
intrepid naturalist spent two years in studying the wonders of plant and
animal life that everywhere greeted her delighted vision. All the time not
occupied in research work was devoted to sketching and painting those
superb insects that are so abundant in tropical fields and forests.[169]
Returning to Holland with her precious scientific treasures, she began the
preparation of a work that will long endure as a monument to her
knowledge and industry. It was a magnificent volume in folio on the insects
of Surinam. It appeared simultaneously in Dutch and Latin, and was
subsequently translated into French.
In illustrating this sumptuous work, Frau Merian was greatly assisted by her
younger daughter, Dorothea. The etchings and hand-colored reproductions
of the gorgeous butterflies and flowers of Surinam commanded universal
admiration, and marked a new epoch in book-making. Even to-day this

noble volume is eagerly sought by both book-lovers and men of science, for
it is not only a work of rare conception and beauty but also one of
exceptional accuracy in illustration and statement of fact.[170]
Besides etchings of multiform insects, lizards and batrachians indigenous to
Dutch Guiana, there were in this unique volume carefully executed
illustrations of plants and trees peculiar to tropical America, such as vanilla,
cacao, and the species of manihot which constitutes the staff of life of so
large a portion of the population in the basins of the Amazon and the
Orinoco.
A new and enlarged edition of this work was published after Frau Merian's
death by her daughter Dorothea. The same gifted daughter showed her
interest in her parent's work and her devotion to her memory by bringing
out a beautifully illustrated edition of her mother's earliest work which
treated of the wonderful life-history of silkworms.[171]
The century following that which had celebrated the scientific triumphs of
Maria Merian found in Josephine Kablick, born in 1787 in Hohenelbe,
Bohemia, a woman who was destined to prove a worthy successor, as a
nature-student, of the noted daughter of Frankfort-on-the-Main.
From her tenderest years she exhibited a passionate love for every form of
plant life. In addition to this, she had, while yet young, the good fortune of
studying under the best botanists of her time.
Soon she became an enthusiastic collector and was in a short time the happy
possessor of a herbarium which contained many new species of plants
which she had discovered during her frequent botanical excursions. From
making collections for her private herbarium, she was gradually led to make
collections for the schools and colleges of her native country, as well as for
the museums and learned societies of various parts of Europe. Many public
institutions owed to her cordial coöperation some of the choicest treasures
in their herbaria, and not a few botanical writers of her day found in her an
intelligent and sympathetic collaborator.
But Frau Kablick's interest in nature was not confined to plants. She was an
assiduous student of paleontology as well as of botany, and the many fossil

animals and plants named in her honor testify to her success in the pursuit
of her favorite branches of science.
There was nothing of the conventional blue-stocking about this ardent
votary of nature. Strong and healthy, neither wind nor rain interfered with
her fieldwork in botany or paleontology. It was her greatest pleasure to
roam through dark forests and scale high mountains in search of new
species of plants and fossils. And the success which rewarded her efforts
was such that the old and trained naturalists among her male friends had
reason to envy her good fortune as an explorer.
But Frau Kablick never permitted her frequent excursions, or her devotion
to science, to cause her to neglect the duties of her household. Fortunately,
her husband was also an ardent student of nature, and while his wife was
devoting her attention to botany and paleontology, he was making
investigations in zoölogy and mineralogy. They spent fifty happy years
together in the pursuit of science and their joint efforts contributed not a
little toward the advancement of the branches of science to which they had
devoted their lives with such well-directed effort and enthusiasm.
As the fruitful life of Josephine Kablick who had shed such luster on her
sex in Bohemia was drawing to a close, a young woman in Germany,
Amalie Dietrich by name, was preparing herself to fill the void which
would be occasioned by her predecessor's death. Her first love, as a young
girl, was plant life, and this was subsequently accentuated by her husband,
who was not only a botanist himself but also one who belonged to a
distinguished family of botanists.
A keen observer and an indefatigable collector, Frau Dietrich soon became
known throughout Europe as a botanist of marked ability and daring. She
was wont, unaccompanied, to climb the highest peaks of the Salzburg Alps,
and spend entire weeks there seeking new species of Alpine flora. During
the day she explored the deep ravines and clambered along the brambly
ledges of beetling precipices, and during the night she sought shelter and
repose in the humble hut of some hospitable herdsman.
Valuable, however, as was Amalie Dietrich's work in the Austrian Alps, it
was but a preparation for that which some years later she was to enter upon
in far-off Australia. Here she devoted twelve of the best years of her life to

the cultivation of botany in the virgin soil of Queensland. Here, too, she
surprised everyone by her venturesome spirit no less than by her
irrepressible zeal in making collections. Heedless of danger, she plunged
quite alone into the wilderness and spent days and weeks at a time with the
wild aborigines.
But she secured what she went in quest of,—a large and valuable collection
of plants, containing many new and interesting species. Besides these, she
was able to bring back with her to Europe a large mass of zoölogical
specimens as well as countless domestic utensils and implements of warfare
and husbandry employed by the savages among whom she so frequently
journeyed and with whose manners and customs she eventually became so
familiar.
Modest and trustworthy, Frau Dietrich had a host of friends in the scientific
world, and the number of plants which bear her name are not only a tribute
to her worth, but a striking evidence of the extent of her activity in the
pursuit of the science which became the absorbing passion of her life.[172]
Of Russian women who have become specially noted for their contributions
to natural science, a very prominent place must be assigned to Sophia
Pereyaslawzewa. After receiving the doctorate of science in the University
of Zurich, she became director of the biological station at Sebastopol, a
position she held with great éclat during twelve years. Here she made
numerous important researches on manifold forms of marine life and
prepared many works for the press in German and French, as well as in her
native Russian. Her Monographie de Turbellaries de la Mer Noire, a large
and beautifully illustrated volume published at Odessa in 1892, placed her
at once among biologists of the first rank. Indeed, so meritorious was this
production of the talented daughter of Holy Russia that the Congress of
Naturalists in 1893 did not hesitate to recognize its exceptional value by
conferring on the fair authoress a special prize.
This gifted biologist has since rendered distinct service in the cause of
science by her explorations of the Gulf of Naples and the coasts of France.
Her activity is prodigious, and the long list of books and monographs which
she has published on the lower forms of marine life in the Black and

Mediterranean seas shows that she has a capacity for work that is truly
extraordinary.
Here is, probably, the place to make mention of a woman of encyclopædic
mind, Clemence Augustine Royer, who was born in 1830 in Nantes, France.
She wrote on such a variety of subjects that it is difficult to classify her. She
was in no sense of the word a specialist, and she seems by temperament to
have been averse to confining herself to any one branch of knowledge.
Her first work to attract particular attention was one on a topic connected
with political economy. A prize had been offered for the discussion of this
subject, and the little French woman acquitted herself so well that she had
the honor of sharing the prize with the noted Proudhon. She has also written
many works on philosophy and physics. Among these are two which
attracted considerable notice at the time of their publication. In one of them
she attacks the positivism of Comte; in the other she assails Laplace's
hypothesis regarding the origin of the material universe.
But the work which made her famous, particularly in France, was her
translation into French in 1862 of Darwin's Origin of Species. It is safe to
say that this version created as much of a sensation in France as the original
had caused in Great Britain and America. Her preface to the work of the
English naturalist, in which she indicates the results which flow from an
acceptance of the transformist theory, created a veritable storm in both
religious and scientific circles.
So gratified was Madame Royer by the impression made by this preface
and so pleased was she with the controversy which she had started, that she
expanded her summary of the theory of evolution as therein given and
published it in 1870 under the title of Origine de l'Homme et de Sociétés.
This production was so revolutionary in character and so subversive of
teachings long held sacred that it provoked an indignant protest from all
quarters, and the author was at once ranked with such radical exponents of
the new science as Voght, Büchner and Hæckel.
After the appearance of this production, she wrote numerous other works,
several of them on subjects relating to natural science, especially in its
connection with anthropology and prehistoric archæology. And so great was
her breadth of view and so exceptional was her grasp of all subjects

discussed by her that Renan declared of her, Elle est presque un homme de
génie—She is almost a man of genius.
Mme. Royer was frequently spoken of as a candidate for the French
Institute, but she was so well aware of the prejudices against the admission
of women to membership in this learned body that she never allowed
herself to consider the proposal seriously. She was certainly a brainy
woman, and in her own department of intellectual effort she exhibited as
much talent as did George Sand and Mme. de Staël in literature and history.
An entirely different type of woman from the radical and disputatious Mme.
Royer was the charming and cultured lady, Miss Eleanor Ormerod, her
contemporary, who, in her chosen department of science, won both fame
and the lasting gratitude of her fellowmen.
Miss Ormerod, unlike Mme. Royer, was preëminently a specialist, and the
branch of science in which she achieved distinction was entomology, or
rather that branch of it known as economic entomology. From her
childhood she manifested an unusual interest in all forms of insects, but
particularly in those which are serviceable to mankind or are destructive to
farms and gardens, orchards and forests.
Fortunately for the gratification of her peculiar bent of mind, nearly half of
Miss Ormerod's life was spent in a locality which was specially favorable to
the study of insects which are obnoxious to the gardener, the farmer and the
forester. This was at the confluence of the Wye and the Severn, where her
father owned a large landed estate, part of which was under cultivation and
part wood and park land.
Here the young girl made her first collection of insects, and here she began
her studies on the cause and nature of the parasitic attacks upon crops. Here
she first realized the frightful ravages that were occasioned by the manifold
insect pests that infest not only trees, shrubs, cereals and vegetables, but
also flocks and herds as well. And here, too, she resolved to devote her life
to devising preventive and remedial treatment for the evils which were
robbing the husbandman of so great a part of the fruits of his toil.
After taking this generous resolution, the life of our young heroine was, like
that of Liebig and Pasteur, devoted to the welfare of her fellowmen. And

like these noble benefactors of their race, her thought was always how she
might prevent the losses and increase the products of the tillers of the soil.
Entomology with her was not mere nomenclature—a knowledge of strange
and fantastic names, which, with the ignorant, constitutes a distinction—but
one of the most practical and useful of the sciences.
Miss Ormerod might, had she so elected, have won fame as a systematic
entomologist and as a distinguished contributor to the already long list of
genera and species of insects. She might have devoted herself to theoretical
work, or bent her energies towards the general advancement of the science,
like Fabricius, Swammerdam, Westwood and Burnmeister; but she
preferred to forego all the glory that might accrue from pursuing such a
course, and to direct her efforts in such wise as to be of most service to
humanity.
Like the great Pasteur, after his long and laborious experimental researches
on silkworm diseases, Miss Ormerod could, at the end of her illustrious
career, declare with truth: "The results which I have obtained are, perhaps,
less brilliant than those which I might have anticipated from researches
pursued in the field of pure science, but I have the satisfaction of having
served my country in endeavoring, to the best of my ability, to discover the
remedy for great misery. It is to the honor of a scientific man that he values
discoveries which at their birth can only obtain the esteem of his equals, far
above those which at once conquer the favor of the crowd by the immediate
utility of their application; but, in the presence of misfortune, it is equally
an honor to sacrifice everything in the endeavor to relieve it."[173]
Miss Ormerod's labors were not, it is true, instrumental in rescuing from
destruction a nation's chief industries, as were Pasteur's in the case of his
famous researches on the phyloxera of the grape vine or the pebrine of the
silkworm. Nor had they to do with such frightful industrial disturbances as
have frequently been occasioned by rinderpest or by the potato blight in
Ireland in 1845.
This is true in so far as any one pest is concerned. But when one reflects on
the scope of Miss Ormerod's investigations and considers how far-reaching
were her researches and how many and diverse industries were embraced

by the remedial and prophylactic measures which she proposed, one cannot
but realize the immense importance of her life-work.
The fact that her activities were confined chiefly to old and well-known
pests—insects from which the farmer and the gardener and the forester had
suffered for centuries, and which they had come to regard as necessary and
inevitable evils—does not detract from the merit and the value of her
labors. That she should have taken up a work which affected so many
people and have been so successful in abating, or in entirely removing evils
which had so long afflicted agriculturists and stock-growers, shows that she
was a woman of rare courage and determination as well as one of invincible
persistence and of intellectual resources of a very high order.
During more than a quarter of a century Miss Ormerod devoted practically
the whole of her time to the study of economic entomology and to
spreading a knowledge of it among her countrymen. From 1877 to 1898 she
published annual reports on injurious insects and sent them broadcast
throughout Great Britain and her colonies. In addition to this she wrote a
number of manuals and textbooks on insects injurious to food crops, forest
trees, orchards and bush fruits.
Nor was this all. She also prepared for gratuitous distribution a large
number of four-page leaflets on the most common farm pests. Of the leaflet,
for instance, on the warble-fly, its life-history, methods of prevention and
remedy, no less than a hundred and seventy thousand copies were printed.
And so great was the demand for her leaflet on the gooseberry red spider
that a single mail brought her an order for three thousand copies.
Miss Ormerod, it is proper to state here, received no remuneration whatever
for her great services to the public. On the contrary, she gave not only all
her time gratuitously, but bore a great part of the expense of printing and
distributing her publications. The amount of good she thus did unaided and
alone cannot be estimated.
In her leaflet on the warble-fly, also known as bot-fly, she estimates the
annual damage to the stock-growers of the United Kingdom from this pest
at from £3,000,000 to £4,000,000. The losses due to fruit, grain and
vegetable insects of various kinds, before she began her insect crusade,

were much greater. In Great Britain and her colonies they amounted to very
many millions of pounds sterling every year.[174]
And most of these losses, as she demonstrated, were preventable by simple
precautions which she eventually succeeded in inducing the people to
adopt. How much she was instrumental in saving annually to the farmers
and gardeners of England by her writings and lectures can only be
imagined, but the sum must have been immense.
When we recollect that Miss Ormerod accomplished all her work before it
occurred to the English Board of Agriculture to appoint a government
entomologist, we shall realize what a pioneer she was in the career in which
she achieved such distinction and through which she conferred such
inestimable benefits upon her fellows.
Miss Ormerod's entomological publications, especially her annual reports,
brought her into relations with people of all classes throughout the whole
world. Her correspondence, in consequence, was enormous, and not
infrequently amounted to from fifty to a hundred letters a day. The great
entomologists of Europe and America held her in the highest esteem, and
had implicit faith in her judgment in all matters pertaining to her specialty.
One day she would receive a letter from an English gardener begging for a
remedy against the strawberry beetle. The next day she would have a
similar letter regarding mite-galls on black currants, or pea-weevil larvæ or
clover-eel worms. Again there would be a communication from Norway
requesting advice about the Hessian fly, or from Argentina asking
information concerning a certain kind of destructive grass beetle, or from
India appealing for help against a pernicious species of forest fly, or from
South Africa seeking a relief from the boot-beetle. And still again, she was
consulted by her foreign correspondents about termites, which were causing
havoc among the young cocoa trees of Ceylon, or about certain peculiar
species of Australian larvæ, or about the devastating action of the pine
beetle in the Scotch forests, or about the wheat midge and antler moth in
Finland.
One day she had a communication from the Austrian Embassy regarding a
beetle that was eating the oats about Constantinople, and not long
afterwards she received a letter from the Chinese Minister in London

begging for information as to how to prevent the ravages of certain noxious
bugs in the lee-chee orchards of China.
In view of all these facts it is not surprising that Miss Ormerod became an
active and valued colleague of some of England's most noted scientific
men. Professor Huxley said of her in connection with certain work
performed by her as a member of one of the committees to which he
belonged that "she knew more about the business" than all the rest put
together.
Miss Ormerod's services and attainments, it is gratifying to note, were not
without recognition in high quarters. Besides being in constant
correspondence with the most eminent entomologists of the world,
consulting entomologist to the Royal Agricultural Society of England and
examiner in agricultural entomology in the University of Edinburgh, she
was a member of many learned societies in both the Old and the New
World. She was also the recipient of many medals, two of which came from
Russia.
The honor, however, which gave her the most pleasure was the degree of
Doctor of Laws, which was conferred on her by the University of
Edinburgh. It was the first time this old and conservative institution thus
honored a woman, but in honoring Miss Ormerod it honored itself as well.
[175]

But when one considers the magnitude of Miss Ormerod's services to her
country and to the world, when one reflects on the tens of millions of
pounds sterling which she saved to the British Empire by her researches and
writings, these honors seem trivial and unworthy of the great nation which
she so signally benefited. If any of her countrymen had labored so long and
so successfully and made so many sacrifices for the welfare of the nation as
she had, he would have been knighted or ennobled. But age-long prejudices
and traditions will not yet permit England to bestow the same honors on
women as on men, no matter how brilliant their attainments or how
distinguished their services to the crown and to humanity. Recognition of
this kind may possibly come as one of the desirable innovations of the
twentieth century. No lover of fair play can deny "'tis a consummation
devoutly to be wished."[176]

The names of the women in the United States who have become prominent
by their researches and writings in the various branches of the natural
sciences would make a long list. And when one recalls the fact that it was
only in the latter part of the nineteenth century that American women were
afforded an opportunity to study science, it is a matter of surprise that the
list is so extended. For practically no provision was made for the serious
pursuit by them of the natural sciences until the opening of Vassar College
in 1865, and it was not until the closing years of the century that the portals
of many men's colleges were unlocked and thrown open to the hitherto
proscribed sex. Considering all the obstacles they had to overcome, the
ignorance, the prejudice, the opposition of all kinds they had to combat in
the United States, women have already accomplished wonders and bid fair
to achieve much more in the near future.
Now almost every educational institution in the land, private or state, has
one or more women professors or associate professors. They teach all the
branches of the natural sciences that are taught by their male colleagues,—
botany, geology, mineralogy, zoölogy, anatomy, bacteriology and all the
numerous subdivisions of these sciences,—and they teach them with
success and éclat.
They also occupy responsible scientific positions in various state and
federal institutions. Thus one woman has been the principal of the Denver
School of Mines, while another has been the state entomologist for
Missouri. Women are also found doing important work in the National
Museum, in the Smithsonian Institution, and in the Agricultural Department
in Washington, as well as in the various museums, botanical gardens and
public laboratories of the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Among those who have deserved well of science in the United States by
their investigations and writings are Olive Thorne Miller and Florence
Merriam in ornithology; Susanna Phelps Gage, Dr. Ida H. Hyde, Mary H.
Hinckley, Cornelia M. Clapp, Edith J. and Agnes M. Claypole in biology;
Rose S. Eigenman in icthyology; Edith M. Patch, Elizabeth W. Peckham,
Emily A. Smith, Cora H. Clarke, J. M. Arms Sheldon, Mary Treat, Mary E.
Murfeldt, Annie T. Slosson in entomology; Elizabeth G. Britton and Clara
E. Cummings in cryptogamic botany; Sarah A. Plummer Lemmon,
Katherine E. Golden, Alice Eastman and Almira Lincoln Phelps in general

botany; Ada D. Davidson, Ella F. Boyd and Florence Bascom in geology.
Besides these, special mention should also be made of Dr. Julia W. Snow
for her work on the microscopical forms of fresh-water algæ; Anna
Botsford Comstock for her contributions to our knowledge of microscopic
insects; Katherine J. Bush for her monographs on shallow and deep-water
molusca; Harriet Randolph and Fannie E. Langdon for their studies on
worms, and Katherine Foot for her papers on cellular morphology.
Particularly notable, too, is the work that has been done on marine
invertebrates by Mary J. Rathbun in the United States National Museum
and by Florence Wambaugh Patterson in vegetable physiology and
pathology in the Department of Agriculture in Washington.
But much as the women just named deserve recognition for their
achievements in the various branches of science to which they have
severally devoted themselves, the one who will always be specially
remembered, not only for her valuable contributions to divers branches of
natural science, but also for her labors in behalf of higher female education
—particularly as president of Radcliffe College—is Mrs. Elizabeth Cary
Agassiz, the wife of the celebrated Swiss-American naturalist, who gave
such an impetus to the study of natural science in the United States, and
whose influence on the general advancement of science in all its
departments has proved so enduring and so far-reaching. As an inspirer of
and collaborator with her gifted husband, Mrs. Agassiz deserves a large
page in the annals of science, while as an enthusiastic student of nature and
as one who communicated her enthusiasm to her students, and at the same
time held up before them the highest ideals of womanhood, she is sure of a
portion of that immortality which has been decreed to her illustrious life-
partner, Jean Louis Agassiz.
This chapter would not be complete without some reference to that large
class of women travelers who, directly or indirectly, have contributed so
much to the advancement of the natural sciences. The gifted Roumanian
writer and traveler, Princess Helena Kolzoff Massalsky,—better known
under her pseudonym, Doria d'Istria,—somewhere expresses the opinion
that a woman traveler admirably supplements the scientific work of the
male explorer by bringing to it aptitudes that the latter does not possess. For
she notes many things in nature, as well as in the national life and popular
customs of the countries which she traverses, which escape the more