Woman in Science — Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind, Part 5

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 Renee 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 Philosophiae_ 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 Maecenas 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 Guemene, who surprised her countrymen by studying Hebrew.

Then there were Mme.

de Grignan, Marie Dupre, 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 Phaedo 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, Moliere, 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 Fenelon.

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 Moliere's two celebrated plays, _Les Femmes Savantes_ and _Les Precieuses 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] Moliere'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 Chatelet, 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 Precieuses 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 Hotel 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, Moliere, La Fontaine, Corneille and the great Conde were there; so were Flechier, Balzac, Voiture, Saint-Evremont, Descartes and La Rochefoucauld; and so, too, were Mme.

de Sevigne, the Duchess of Montpensier, Madeleine de Scudery, 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 Hotel 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 Hotel 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 _salonieres_ were learned women.

The most gifted and the most learned of them were Mlle.

Lespinasse, Mme.

de Stael, 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 habitues, 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 Moliere 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."