Chapter I · (continued 2)

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:

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:

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

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:

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:

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: