Woman in Science — Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind, Part 6

But aside from what she achieved indirectly through the habitues 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 salonieres 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 Stael, whom Lord Jeffrey declared to be "the greatest female writer in any age or country," we have little more than certain _Memoires_ 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 Moliere's merciless scoring of learned women, had the courage to appear in print.

Even Mme.

de Scudery, 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 _precieuses_, disclaimed all knowledge of her _Princesse de Cleves_, 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 _salonieres_ 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 regime 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 _hetaerae_ of ancient Athens, and it was probably owing to this fact, as well as their wit and brilliancy, that many of them attained such preeminence 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 habitues 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 naive.

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 Moliere 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_, _Kueche_, _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 _Precieuses_ 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 Bronte 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 Neaeram_, 122. [Greek: Tas men gar hetairas hedones henek' echomen, tas de pallakas tes kath' hemeran therapeias tou somatos, tas de gynaikas tou paidopoieisthai gnesios kai ton endon zylaka pisten echein].

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] [Greek: Tes te gar, hyparchouses zuseos me cheirosi genesthai hymin megale e doxa' kai hes an ep' elachiston aretes peri e psogou en arsesi kleos e. ] 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, Anytae os, foeminam Homerum, Lesbidum Sappho ornamentum capillatarum.

Erinnam, Telesillam nobilem, teque Corinna, Strenuum Palladis scutum quae cecinit.

Nossidem muliebri lingua, et dulsisonam Myrtin, Omnes immortalium operatrices librorum.

Novem quidem Musas magnum coelum, novem vero illas Terra genuit hominibus, immortalem laetitiam.

[5] Cf.

_Poetriarum octo, Erinnae, Myrus, Mytidis, Corinnae, Telesillae, Praxillae, Nossidis, Anytae 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 Graecarum quae oratione prosa usae sunt fragmenta et elogia Graece et Latine_, by J. C.

Wolf, London, 1739, _Historia Mulierum Philosopharum_, scriptore Aegidio 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 hetaerae 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 hetaerae the reader is referred to the _Letters_ of Alciphron, to Lucian's _Dialogues_ on courtesans, and more particularly to the _Deipnosophists_ of Athenaeus, 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 hetaera 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 Fouquieres, Paris, 1872. Cf.

also _Aspasie et le Siecle de Pericles_, Paris, 1862; _Histoire des Deux Aspasies_, by Le Comte de Bievre, 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 Caesars_, 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 _tabernae_--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] _Oeconomicus_, VII, 5, 6. [23] _Epistolae_, 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, Therese Lavasseur, could not tell the time of day.

[25] Satire VI, 434-440. [26] _Joannis Stobaei 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 Societe Chretienne a Rome et l'Emigration 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 Caedmon 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, Sec.

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'Education 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'oeuvre 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 _Patrologiae 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'encyclopedie qu'on lui doit, _l'Hortus Deliciarum_, embrasse toutes les parties des connaissances humaines, depuis la science divine jusqu'a l'agriculture et la metrologie, et on s'etonne a bon droit qu'un tel ouvrage, qui supposait une erudition si variee et si methodique, soit sorti d'une plume feminine.

Quelle impression produirait aujourd'hui l'annonce d'une encyclopedie qui aurait pour auteur une simple, religieuse?

Parlerons-nous des femmes du monde?

Il n'existe d'elles, au XXe siecle, non plus que dans les siecles precedents aucun ouvrage comparable a _l'Hortus Deliciarum_."

_Excursions Historiques et Philosophiques_, p. 480, Paris, 1888. [45] See _Revelationes Mechtildianae ac Gertrudianae_, 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 haec 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 Saeculo XI usque ad Saeculum XIV_, Tom.

I, p. 171, Bologna, 1888-1896. [52] L'Ecole 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 Haeser'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 Universitaeten des Mittelalters bis 1400_, Band I, p. 233, Berlin, 1885, von P. Heinrick Denifle, assistant archivist of the Vatican Library, and _Histoire Literaire de la France, Commence par des Religieux Benedictins de S. Maur et Continue par des Membres de l'Institut_, Tom.

IX, 281, Paris, 1733-1906. [54] "Une de ces nuits lumineuses ou les dernieres clartes du soir se prolongent jusqu'aux premieres blancheurs du matin."

_Documents Inedits_, 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 Nobilita 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'Egalite 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.