Part 17

As an eminent mathematician, linguist and philosopher =Maria Gaetana Agnesi= is known to every student of science. Born 1718 at Milan, she gave early indication of extraordinary ability and devoted herself to the abstract sciences. In mathematics she attained such consummate skill, that, when her father, professor of mathematics at Bologna, died, the Pope allowed her to succeed him. In this capacity she wrote her famous work: “Instituzions Analitiche ad Uso Gioventu Italiana,” which was published at Milan in 1748. Its first volume treats of the analysis of finite quantities, and the second of the analysis of infinitesimals. The able mathematician John Colson, professor at the University of Cambridge, considered this work so excellent, that he studied Italian in order to translate it into English. Under the title “Analytical Institutions” this translation was published in 1801, to do honor to Maria Agnesi, and also to prove that women have minds capable of comprehending the most abstruse studies.

Another female mathematician, =Sophie Germain=, born in 1776 in Paris, won the grand prize, offered by the Institute of France for the best memoir giving the mathematical theory of elastic surfaces and comparing it with experience. This question had come up in 1808. Great mathematicians were not wanting in Paris at that time—Lagrange, Laplace, Poisson, Fourier, and others, but none of them were inclined to tackle the question. Lagrange, in fact, had said that it could not be solved by any of the then known mathematical methods. The offer was twice renewed by the Institute, and in 1816 the prize was conferred upon Sophie Germain, who in 1808 as well as in 1810 had made two unsuccessful attempts to solve the difficult question. The same woman distinguished herself by a number of other valuable papers and philosophical writings.

In more recent years =Sonja Kowalewska=, a Russian, who had studied mathematics at the universities of Berlin and Goettingen, became famous as the winner of the Prix Bordin, offered by the Academy of Paris. Later on, as a professor of mathematics in Stockholm, she wrote a number of excellent professional works, but died there in her fortieth year.

Among the British scientific writers of the 19th Century the most famous was =Mary Somerville=, whom Laplace called the most learned woman of her age and the only woman who understood his works. In translating his brilliant work “Mécanique Celeste,” she greatly popularized its form. Its publication in 1831 under the title of “The Mechanism of the Heavens” at once made her famous. Her own works: “Connections of Physical Science,” “Physical Geography” and “Molecular and Microscopic Science” have been declared masterworks, distinguished by a clear and crisp style, and the underlying enthusiasm for the subject.

In the history of chemistry the name of =Marie Curie= will be forever connected with the wonderful discovery of Radium and Radio-activity. Born on November 7, 1867, at Warsaw as Marja Sklodowska she came to Paris in 1888 and studied at the Faculté des Sciences. In 1895 she married Professor Pierre Curie and joined him in his chemical investigations. It was in 1898 that she published a most valuable work on metals in solution. Her investigations in collaboration with her husband led to the discovery of two new bodies: Polonium and Radium, which are found in certain minerals, especially in pitch blende in a state of extreme solution; as a matter of fact, to the extent only of a few decigrammes to the ton of mineral for Radium, and much less in the case of Polonium. The separation of these elements presented extreme difficulties.

Further investigations led to the observation of most interesting phenomena in connection with these bodies—chemical effects, luminous effects, effects of heating, etc. New realms of science were disclosed—the science of Radio-active phenomena. In recognition of these discoveries in 1903 the Nobel Prize was awarded to Professor Curie and his wife. And when Mrs. Curie, after the tragic death of her husband, accomplished the “isolation” of Radium and also determined its atomic weight, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for a second time in 1911. At present Mrs. Curie is Director of the Physico-Chemical Department of the University of Paris.

For valuable research work in bacteriology =Dr. Rhoda Erdmann=, a former assistant of the famous professor Robert Koch in Berlin, became most favorably known. Having published several excellent treatises on the amoeba and protozoa, she followed in 1913 a call to the Sheffield-Institute of Yale University.

In the wide fields of archæology and ethnology likewise several women have achieved remarkable results. Among those scientists who devoted themselves to the study of archæology and the ancient history of America the name of =Zelia Nuttall= is well known. She is the author of many interesting essays on the relics left by the Aztecs, Toltecs, and Mayas. Science is also indebted to her for the so-called “Codex Nuttall,” now preserved in the Peabody-Museum at Cambridge, Mass.

Another noteworthy ethnologist was =Erminnie Adele Smith=, who, as compiler of the famous Iroquois-English Dictionary, was distinguished by being elected the first woman member of the New York Academy of Science.

=Alice Cunningham Fletcher= made most valuable investigations about the religious and social conditions of several Indian tribes of the Far West, especially of the Sioux, Omaha, and Pawnee Indians. Her very exhaustive studies have been published in the Annual Reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology.

The same reports contain highly interesting papers by =Matilda Cox Stevenson= and =Tilly E. Stevenson= about the mythology, esoteric societies and sociology of the Zuni Indians.

=Miss Elsie Clews Parsons= in New York has published valuable monographs about the folk-lore of the Pueblo Indians and the Negroes of the Bahama Islands. =A. M. Czaplicka=, =Mary Kingsley=, =Barbara Freire-Marreco=, =Adele Breton=, =Mrs. Jochelson-Brodsky=, and =Maria Tubino= are likewise most favorably known as writers on archæology and ethnology.

For a number of years =Johanna Mestorf= has held the position of director of the Museum of Antiquities of Schleswig-Holstein.

=Cornelia Horsford=, the learned daughter of the late Professor Eben Horsford of Cambridge, Mass., made great efforts to settle many questions in regard to the early voyages of discovery by the Norsemen to Greenland and Vinland. In the pursuit of these studies she sent several scientific expeditions to Iceland as well as to Greenland and published a number of valuable essays, among them “Graves of the Northmen”; “Dwellings of the Saga Time in Iceland, Greenland and Vinland”; “Vinland and its Ruins”; and “Ruins of the Saga-Times.”

=Anne Pratt= is known as an able botanist. And =Eleanor Anne Ormerod= has been hailed in England as “the Protector of Agriculture,” as she organized the valuable “Annual Series of Reports on Injurious Insects and Pests,” distributed by the Government.

Among the explorers of the Dark Continent a Dutch lady, =Miss Alexandrine Tinné=, created a sensation by her daring journeys in the upper Nile regions. During her first expedition, which lasted from 1861 to 1864, she penetrated great stretches of unknown territory, and was the first to enter the land of the Niam Niam. Several members of her expedition died from the terrible hardships that had to be overcome. After her return to Cairo Miss Tinné started in January, 1869, on a still more hazardous expedition, which was to proceed from Tripoli to Lake Tchad, and from there by way of Wadai, Darfur, and Kordofan to the Upper Nile. But while her caravan was on the route from Murzuk to Rhat, the daring explorer was murdered by her own escort.

An English lady, =Florence Caroline Dixie=, explored the wilderness of Central Patagonia. =Isabelle Bishop= became known for her extensive travels through Asia, and the masterful descriptions of those countries she had traversed. Her best work is “Korea and Her Neighbors.”

=Therese, Princess of Bavaria=, wrote several highly interesting works about her extensive travels in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and the tropical regions of Brazil. =Cecilie Seler=, the wife of the famous archæologist Eduard Seler, is the author of the valuable book “On Ancient Roads in Mexico and Guatemala.”

While these examples—which might be increased by many others—give ample proof of woman’s ability in regard to scientific work, it must be stated, that, up to the middle of the 19th Century, men did very little to encourage their struggling sisters in this line of activity. Indeed, there are not a few instances of strong disinclination on the part of statesmen as well as of scientists, to smooth woman’s road to higher education. Centuries passed before women succeeded in gaining the right to follow their studies in colleges and universities, a right they had enjoyed in Italy during the 10th and 11th Centuries as well as during the Renaissance.

The first institution of modern times, that admitted women on the same footing with men, was Oberlin College in Ohio, founded in 1833 and open to all irrespective of sex and color. The first woman who graduated here was Miss Zerniah Porter, who in 1838 received her diploma in the so-called literary course. The State universities of the West that were founded later on all followed the example set by Oberlin College and gradually the older ones adopted the same policy, so that all over the West and South, where the State university is a strong influence, these institutions are open to women. Throughout these regions women’s education is for this reason almost synonymous with co-education. In the Eastern part of the United States, however, the private college predominates, and there is a greater degree of separation. But even here the restrictions are gradually being removed, and most of the men’s colleges and universities admit women to some departments with some restrictions, or have an affiliated woman’s college.

America has also a number of independent colleges exclusively for women. The best known among them are Vassar College, at Poughkeepsie, New York, organized in 1861, with 1124 students and 144 teachers in 1918; Wellesley College in Massachusetts, organized in 1875, and with 1612 students and 138 teachers in 1918; Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania organized in 1880, and with 489 students and 63 teachers in 1918; Smith College at Northampton, Mass.

France began to open its universities to women in 1858; England followed in 1864; Switzerland in 1866; Sweden in 1870; Denmark, Holland, Finland and India in 1875; Italy and Belgium in 1876; Australia in 1878; Norway in 1884; Iceland in 1886; Hungary in 1895; Austria in 1897; Prussia in 1899, and Germany in 1900.

To-day no one clings any longer to the old prejudices against the abilities of women. College education among women has become so common as to attract little or no attention. It is regarded as the essential training for intellectual, professional and business life, and it is no longer an effort to secure it, but rather to make it of the greatest possible value to the students and to the community. As women do a large proportion of the teaching in public schools as well as in colleges for both sexes, the education of the citizens of the 20th Century depends largely upon the opportunities available to women in the past, present and future.—

As educators as well as founders of learned institutions large numbers of women became most favorably known. There was for instance =Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan=. When the tempests of the French Revolution began to rage, she held a position at the royal court as reader to the young princesses. Thrown on her own resources after the dethronement and execution of the King and the Queen she established a school at Saint-Germain. The institution prospered, and was patronized by Mme. Beauharnais, whose influence led to the appointment of Mme. Campan as superintendent of the Academy founded by Napoleon at Ecouen, for the education of the daughters and sisters of members of the Legion of Honor. While in this position Mme. Campan wrote a treatise “De l’Education des Femmes.”

=Emmy Hart Willard= in 1823 founded Troy Female Seminary at Troy, N. Y., over which she presided until 1838. =Mary Mason Lyon= established in 1836 Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, of which she was president until her death in 1849.

=Elizabeth Palmer Peabody= in Boston was largely instrumental in introducing Froebel’s kindergarten system in the United States. She likewise wrote a number of educational works. In England =Emily Anne Shireff= was active as President of the Froebel Society of England. =Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon=, who worked for the extension of university education to women, aided in 1868 in establishing Girton College, at Cambridge, England. =Anne Jemima Clough= founded in 1867 the North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women, and in 1875 the Newnham College for Women.

The name of =Sophie Smith= is remembered as the founder of Smith College at Northampton, Mass., the first woman’s college in New England; the name of =Annie N. Meyer= as the founder of Barnard College, the woman’s department of Columbia University in New York.

=Marie Montessori= was the inventor of a new system of teaching.

NOTEWORTHY WOMEN IN WORLD LITERATURE.

Reviewing the countless contributions women have made to literature is a task that can be mastered only by devoting to this subject several ponderous volumes. Whether such an attempt has even been made we are unable to say. But the theme is so attractive that I hope that some competent woman author may be inspired to undertake this task. What more beautiful mission could she have than to study and analyze all the scattered evidences of brilliant intellect, rich in imagination, deep emotion, power of expression, soaring enthusiasm, scintillating wit, and profound sorrow, to be found in many of the books written by women since the days of =Sappho= and =Erinna=.

Only fragments remain of the beautiful odes, hymns and love-songs produced by the poetesses of the classic past. But that they inspired all Hellas and Rome we know from the testimony of the foremost authors and critics of their time. When Meleager of Gadara, the famous sophist and poet, selected the choicest poems of his predecessors and wove them into that delicious “Garland,” to be hung outside the gate of the Gardens of the Hesperides, he did not forget Sappho, because “though her flowers were few, they were all roses.” And a critic, writing five hundred years after Erinna’s death, speaks of still hearing her swan-note clear above the jangling chatter of the jays, and of still thinking those three hundred hexameter verses sung by this girl of nineteen in “The Distaff” as lovely as the loveliest of Homer. There is also a report, that =Corinna=, a native of Tanagra, in Bœotia, won five times in poetical contests the prize in competition with Pindar, the greatest lyric poet of Greece.

With greater kindness fate treated the works of =Alphaizuli=, a Moorish poetess, who lived in Seville during the 8th Century A. D. Of her, who was called “the Arabian Sappho,” two volumes of excellent verses are preserved in the library of the Escurial. Likewise =Labana= and =Leela=, two Moorish poetesses, were famous throughout beautiful Andalusia during the 10th and the 13th Century. Of =Valada=, the daughter of the Moorish King Almostakeph, of Corduba, her contemporaries report that she several times contended with scholars noted for their eloquence and knowledge, and quite often bore away the palm.

That such contests were held in great favor by learned ladies, appears from the institution of those famous poetical festivals known as “Jeux Floraux” or Floral Games. They are said to have been established in the 11th or the 12th Century by a gay company of French minstrels, called “the seven troubadours.” But in time they had become forgotten. It is due to =Clemence Isaure=, a poetess born in 1464 at Toulouse, that these festivals were renewed. Fixing the first of May as the day of these Floral Games, she invited all poets and poetesses to participate in peaceful contest, assigning as prizes for the victors five different flowers, wrought in gold and silver. There was an amaranth of gold for the best ode; a silver violet for a poem of from sixty to one hundred Alexandrine lines; a silver eglantine for the best prose composition; a silver marigold for an elegy, and a silver lily for a hymn.

These contests have been held in Toulouse through all the centuries. They were recognized by the French Government in 1694, and confirmed by letters-patent from the king. Some twenty-five years ago they were likewise introduced into Germany, and held first in Cologne.

The brilliant age of the Renaissance produced several women writers and poets, whose works are still read. The literary annals of Italy shine with such illustrious names as =Cassandra Fidelis=, the Venetian; =Veronica Gambara=, of Brescia; =Lucia Bertana=, of Bologna; =Tarquenia Molza=, of Modena; =Gaspara Stampa=, of Padua; and the great =Vittoria Colonna=, of Marino, whose sonnets as well as her beauty and virtues were extolled by all contemporaries.

In Spain =Marianne de Carbajal= and =Maria de Zayas=, during the 17th Century, the classic period of Spanish literature, became the pride of their country.

In France =Marguerite d’Angouleme= wrote a delightful book, “the Heptameron,” similar in plan to the famous “Decamerone” by Boccaccio. In the middle of the 16th Century =Louise Labbé=, known in French literature as “La belle cordière,” produced her “Debat de Folie et d’Amour,” a work full of wit, originality and beauty. Erasmus and La Fontaine were both indebted to it; the former for the idea of “The Praise of Folly,” and the latter for “L’Amour et la Folie.” In truth, La Fontaine’s poem is only a versification of the prose story of Louise Labbé.

Of the illustrious French women, who during the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries made their “salons” the gathering-places for men and women of letters, several became widely known for their own poems and works of fiction. As for instance =Madeline de Scudéry=, =Anne de Seguier=, =Claudine de Tencin=, =Madame de la Sabliére=, =Madeline de Souvré=, and =Anne Dacier=, of whom Voltaire said, that no woman ever rendered greater services to literature.

In the literature of the 19th Century =Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baroness de Stael-Holstein=, held a singular position. Many of her contemporaries exalted her as “the founder of the romantic movement” who gave “ideas” to the world. To-day she is almost forgotten, and her novels and plays, among them “Corinne” and “Sophie and Jane Grey” lie undisturbed and dusty on the library shelves.

Perhaps her most remarkable contribution to literature was her book “L’Allemagne,” which was announced in 1810. It gave a most intelligent exposition of the science, literature, arts, philosophy, and other characteristics of the Germans, gathered from the author’s own observations. The work, written with a spirited independence, quite at variance with the deadening political influence of Napoleon, irritated the emperor to such a degree that he ordered the minister of police to seize and destroy the whole edition of 10,000 copies. Besides this he exiled the author from France. When, after the overthrow of Napoleon, she returned to Paris, she had her book printed again, and had the satisfaction of seeing it eagerly read by millions of Frenchmen.

Of all French authoresses of the 19th Century =Armantine Lucile Aurore Dudevant=, or “=George Sand=,” holds the supreme rank. In the long line of her thoughtful, concentrated and meditative novels “Valentine,” “Indiana,” “Lelia,” “Mauprat,” and “Le Meunier d’ Angibault” are real gems of fiction, whose influence can be traced in many later works by writers of France and other nations.

Of her contemporaries =Louise Révoil Colet=, =Eugenie de Guérin=, =Pauline de la Ferronay Craven=, and, above all, =Delphine de Girardin= must be mentioned, whose “Letters Parisiennes” as well as her poems, novels, dramas and comedies belong to the most excellent productions of the 19th Century. By her dramatic pieces “L’Ecole des Journalistes,” “Judith,” “Cleopatra,” “C’est la faute du mari,” “Lady Tartufe,” and others she reaped a wide popularity. In the literary society of her time she exercised no small personal influence. Balzac, Alfred de Musset, Gautier, and Victor Hugo were among the frequenters of her salon.

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Among the British woman writers of the latter part of the 18th Century =Jane Austen= was the most distinguished. Her novels “Sense and Sensibility,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion” have been likened to the carefully-executed paintings of the Dutch masters for their charming pictures of quiet, natural life.

=Ann Ward Radcliffe= wrote three novels unsurpassed of their kind in English literature: “The Romance of the Forest,” “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” and “The Italian.” They are distinguished for originality, ingenuity of plot, fertility of incident, and skill in devising apparently supernatural occurrences capable of explanation by human agency and natural coincidence.

=Mary Russell Mitford= edited several volumes of sketches of rural character and scenery, delightful and finished in style, and unrivalled in her manner of description. It is by these sketches of English life that she obtained the greatest share of her popularity. She wrote also an opera called “Sadak and Kalasrade,” and four tragedies, “Julian,” “Foscari,” “Rienzi,” and “Charles the First.” All were successful; “Rienzi,” in particular, long continued a favorite.

=Elizabeth Inchbald’s= two novels “The Simple Story” and “Nature and Art,” have long ranked among standard works. Besides novels she wrote a number of dramas, some of which were very successful.

=Maria Edgeworth= published a new work almost every year from the beginning of the 19th Century to 1825. The novels “Castle Rackrent,” “Belinda,” “Vivian.” “Harrington and Ormond,” and many others followed each other rapidly, and all were welcomed and approved by the public. Her best and last work of fiction, “Helen,” appeared in 1834.

=Mary Shelley=, the wife of the famous poet Percy Shelley, is renowned as the author of the romances “Frankenstein,” “Valperga, or the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca”; “Falkner”; “Lodore,” and “The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.” A most peculiar work is “The Last Men,” a fiction of the final agonies of human society owing to the universal spread of pestilence.

Among the dramatists of the 19th Century =Joanna Baillie= was the foremost. In her “Plays of Passion” she illustrates each of the deepest and strongest passions of the human mind, such as Hate, Love, Jealousy, Fear, by a tragedy and a comedy. Other dramas were “The Family Legend”; “Henriquez”; “The Separation,” and other plays, which show remarkable power of analysis, and observation. They are all written in vigorous style.

Of the numerous novelists of the 19th Century =Charlotte Bronté= was received with universal delight. Her novels “Jane Eyre,” “Shirley” and “Villette” have all the vigor and individuality of poetic genius. She was “a star-like soul, whose genius followed no tradition and left no successors.”

=Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell= will be remembered for her intensely interesting books “Mary Barton,” “North and South,” the exquisitely humorous “Cranford,” and “Cousin Phyllis,” which has been fitly called an idyll in prose.