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 Vives, 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; Dona 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 Vives, 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

Angouleme, 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 Labe 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 elite--_ingenuae puellae_--that Erasmus

and Vives 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 Vives, 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 Vives, 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 coryphaeus 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 Renee of Ferrara and

Elizabetta Gonzaga of Urbino. We find, it is true, a goodly number of

women who won distinction as poets and artists; but it is rather those

who were devoted to more serious studies that arrest our

attention--women who attained eminence in physical and natural science,

in mathematics, in the classical and oriental languages, in philosophy,

law and theology. Space precludes the mention of more than a few of

these, but these few may be accepted as typical of many others almost

equally distinguished.

Chief among those of whom their countrymen are specially proud are

Rosanna Somaglia Landi, of Milan, linguist and translator of Anacreon;

Maria Selvaggia Borghini, of Pisa, translator of the works of

Tertullian; Eleonora Barbapiccola, of Salerno, who translated into

Italian the _Principa Philosophiae_ of Descartes; Maria Angela

Arginghelli, of Naples, who was famed for her profound knowledge of

physics and the higher mathematics and who gave an Italian version of

Stephen Hales' _Vegetable Statics_. Then there was Clelia Grillo

Borromeo, of Genoa, who was so distinguished in science, mathematics,

mechanics and languages that a medal was struck in her honor bearing the

inscription, _Gloria Genuensium_--glory of the Genoese; and the still

more famous Elena Cornaro Piscopia, of Venice, who was truly a prodigy

of learning as well as a paragon of virtue. In addition to a knowledge

of many modern, classical and oriental tongues, she exhibited remarkable

proficiency in astronomy, mathematics, music, philosophy and theology.

After a course of study in the University of Padua and after the usual

examination and discourse in classic Latin on some of the questions of

Aristotelian philosophy, she had the doctorate of philosophy conferred

on her in the cathedral of Padua, in the presence of thousands of

learned men and applauding students from all parts of Europe. But not

content with conferring on this extraordinary woman the ring, wreath of

laurel and the ermine mozetta--the usual insignia of the doctorate--the

University, as a special mark of distinction, had a medal coined in

honor of the illustrious graduate bearing her effigy, with the words, as

the decree of the University expressed it, _ad perpetuam rei memoriam_.

That there was nothing superficial about this young woman's knowledge of

languages, it suffices to state that she was able to speak Latin and

Greek as fluently as her own Italian, and that so profound was her

knowledge of divinity that there were many distinguished ecclesiastics

in both Italy and France who favored conferring on her the doctorate in

theology.

Among other young women who obtained the doctorate in various

universities were Maddalena Canedi-Noe and Maria Vittoria Dosi who,

after the usual course of study in the university of Bologna, obtained

the degree of doctor of civil law, and Maria Pellegrina Amoretti, who

received the degree of doctor in both canon and civil law in the

University of Pavia and with it the doctor's cap--_berreto dottorale_.

But more remarkable for learning than any of these university graduates

was Maria Gaetana Agnesi, one of the most extraordinary women scholars

of all time. On account of her wonderful knowledge of languages she was

called "The Oracle of Seven Tongues." This, however, is not her chief

title to fame. It is rather her marvelous achievements in the domain of

the higher mathematics. After the appearance of her most noted work,

_Instituzioni Analytiche_, she would at once have been elected a member

of the French Academy of Sciences had not the laws of this learned body

precluded the admission of women.[71] That great Maecenas of learning,

Benedict XIV, showed his appreciation of Maria Gaetana's exceptional

attainments by appointing her--_motu proprio_--to the chair of higher

mathematics in the University of Bologna. A similar honor had, in the

preceding century, been conferred on Marta Marchina, of Naples, when, on

account of her rare knowledge of letters, philosophy and theology, she

was offered a chair in the Sapienza, in Rome, an honor which her modesty

and love of retirement caused her to decline.

We have seen that women professors achieved distinction in the Italian

universities even as early as the closing centuries of the Middle Ages.

The same was true during the Renaissance, and it has been equally true

during the period that has elapsed since the cinquecento.

Among the most eminent of those who taught in the universities were

Laura Bassi, who had the chair of physics in the University of Bologna,

and Clotilde Tambroni, professor of the Greek language and literature in

the same institution of learning. So thorough was her knowledge of the

language of Plato that it was the opinion of her contemporaries that

there were then only three persons in Europe who equaled her in her

mastery of this classic tongue. It was this distinguished Hellenist who

graciously delivered the address when one of her countrywomen, Maria

dalle Donne, received her doctorate in medicine and surgery. After her

graduation Dr. dalle Donne was given charge of a school for midwives in

which she rendered the greatest service to her sex. Even the chair of

anatomy in the University of Bologna was held by a woman, Anna

Morandi-Menzolini, and her work was of the highest order. The same

position was held by another woman, Maria Petraccini-Terretti, in the

University of Ferrara.

What a contrast between the attitude of the universities of Italy and

those of other parts of the world toward women as students and

professors! For a thousand years the doors of the Italian universities

have been open to women, as well as to men; and for a thousand years

women, as well as men, have received their degrees from these noble and

liberal institutions, and occupied the most important positions in their

gift, and that, too, with the approval and encouragement of both

spiritual and temporal rulers. For these wise and broad-minded men did

not regard it unwomanly for Laura Bassi to teach physics, for Clotilde

Tambroni to teach Greek, for Dorotea Bucca to teach medicine, for Maria

Gaetana to teach differential and integral calculus, for Anna Morandi to

teach anatomy, for Novella d'Andrea to teach canon law, or even, if we

may believe Denifle, one of the best of authorities, for the daughters

of a Paris professor to teach theology.[72] Yes, what a contrast,

indeed, between the Universities of Bologna and Padua, with their long

and honored list of women graduates and professors, and the

Universities of Cambridge and Oxford from which women have always been

and are still excluded, both as students and professors.

Contrast, also, the honors shown to women as students and professors of

medicine in Salerno, in the thirteenth century, with the riots excited

among the chivalrous male students of the University of Edinburgh, when,

less than a half century ago, seven young women applied for the

privilege of attending the courses of lectures on medicine and surgery

in that institution. And contrast the sympathy and encouragement of

Italy with the almost brutal opposition which women in our own country

encountered when, but a few decades ago, they applied for admittance to

the medical schools of New York and Philadelphia. The difference between

the Italian and the Anglo-Saxon attitude toward women in the

all-important matters in question requires no comment.[73]

One reason for the great difference between the women of Italy and those

of other parts of Europe in the matter of higher education during the

period we have been considering was the old Roman spirit of independence

of the former and their always insisting on what they regarded as their

natural and indefeasible rights. Following the example of the matrons of

ancient Rome, they insisted on being treated as the equals of men, and,

as a consequence, they demanded in the intellectual order all the

advantages that were accorded to men. They would never admit their

mental inferiority to man, and woe betide the luckless wight who even

insinuated such inferiority. The shafts of satire and ridicule were at

once directed against him by a score of women who were able to use the

pen as well as, if not better than, himself. Sometimes, however, such an

one was taken seriously, and then the result was a book by some clever

woman to prove that there was no difference in the intellectual power of

the two sexes--that, if there was a difference, it was in favor of the

gentler sex. There is quite a large number of such works in Italian; and

it must be said that the women always met the arguments of their

adversaries in a manner that does them the greatest credit.

It was probably because of their insistence on the equality of the

sexes, as well as because of their achievements in every department of

mental activity, that the educated women of Italy enjoyed so many

privileges denied their sisters in other parts of Europe. Thus, in

addition to being treated as the equals of men in the universities, they

met them on an equal footing in the art, literary and scientific

societies and academies, in the proceedings of which they always

exhibited an active and enthusiastic interest. In these reunions the

women gained strength of mind and independence of character from the

men, while the men imbibed refinement and gentleness from the women.

Compare this condition with the systematic exclusion of women from

similar societies in other countries--even in this twentieth century of

ours--and one of the not least potent reasons for the intellectual

supremacy of the women of Italy will be apparent.

Next after Italy, France was the country in which, during the

post-Renaissance period, women enjoyed the greatest advantages of mental

development. But we look in vain, even during the age of Louis XIV, for

that flowering of the female intellect that, at the same period,

rendered the daughters of Italy so famous. It is true that there was a

certain number of learned women in France during the seventeenth

century, and notably during the golden age of Louis XIV, for during this

period the traditions of the Renaissance were perpetuated and there was

still a lingering love of letters, at least among certain classes of the

aristocracy.

Prominent among those who attracted attention for their learning were

Gilberte and Jaqueline Pascal, of the celebrated convent of Port Royal;

Marie-Eleanore de Rohan and Gabrielle de Rochechouart, both, like the

Pascal sisters, inmates of the cloister; Marie Cramoisy, wife of the

first director of the royal printing office, and Mlle. de Luynes, a

friend of Pascal. All these counted among their attainments a writing

knowledge of Latin, but were far from being able, like the Italian women

above mentioned, to speak it with the same fluency as they did their

mother tongue.

In addition to the learned French women just named, there was Elisabeth

de Rochechouart, a niece of Mme. de Montespan, who was able to read

Plato in Greek, and Anne de Rohan, Princess of Guemene, who surprised

her countrymen by studying Hebrew. Then there were Mme. de Grignan,

Marie Dupre, Louise Serment, Anne de La Vigne, who, like the Princess

Palatine, Elisabeth, and Christine of Sweden, were ardent disciples of

Descartes, and took the lead among the _femmes philosophes_ of their

time.

But for profound and varied scholarship Mme. Dacier, the daughter of the

erudite Tanquil Le Fevre, was the most famous of all the women of her

time in France. Possessed of rare power of eloquence and beauty of

style, together with an extraordinary capacity for criticism, there was

not a man in Europe who did not respect her judgment in matters of

literature and culture. But that for which she was specially celebrated

was her exceptional knowledge of Latin and Greek. She not only

translated the Iliad and the Odyssey but also several other of the

ancient classics. None of her contemporaries had a more thorough mastery

of the tongues of Homer and Virgil, nor did any of her countrymen

contribute more than she toward the advancement of the knowledge of the

literature of ancient Greece and Rome. So highly prized was her version

of the Iliad that it was translated by Ozell into English. Her version

of Plato's Phaedo was also translated into English and published by a

New York bookseller more than a century after her death. The scholarly

Menagius, in his _Historia Mulierum Philosopharum_, did not hesitate to

pronounce her the most learned woman of all time--_Feminarum quot sunt,

quot fuere doctissima_.[74]

To Mme. de Maintenon, the morganatic wife of the Great Monarch, is due

the Institut de Saint-Cyr, the first state school for girls founded in

France. It was, however, solely for the daughters of the nobility. And,

although it was from the first under the direction of the foundress, a

woman who was before all else a teacher as well as one of the most

enlightened women of the most literary and philosophic age France ever

knew--the age when the French language was perfected, the age of the

Academy, of Boileau, Moliere, Racine, Bossuet, Descartes--the studies

prescribed in this institution, which was under the special patronage of

the king, were of the most elementary character. They comprised reading,

writing, arithmetic, grammar, music, drawing, dancing, and the elements

of history, mythology and geography. As to history, Mme. de Maintenon

was satisfied if the pupils of Saint-Cyr knew enough not to confound the

kings of France with those of other nations, and were able to avoid

mistaking a Roman emperor for the Emperor of China or Japan; or the King

of Spain or England for the King of Persia or Siam. And yet, restricted

as it was, her programme of studies was more complete than that of any

other girls' school in the kingdom. One of her reasons for not insisting

on a more thorough course was that "women never know but by halves, and

the little that they do know usually makes them proud, haughty and

talkative and disgusted with solid things."[75]

In Saint-Cyr, the best girls' school in the kingdom, there was not a

word about the first principles of philosophy, nor about the physical

and natural sciences recommended by Fenelon. The elements just referred

to, combined with a goodly amount of esprit--_bien de l'esprit_--were

considered quite sufficient to prepare the future wives of the nobility

for all the duties they would be called upon to perform.

Mme. de Maintenon had probably been unconsciously influenced by what she

had seen at the court of her liege lord, where the greater part of the

women were extremely ignorant. Even Mme. de Montespan, the king's

favorite, and for years the leading figure at the court, was no

exception. So ignorant was she that she was not even able to spell the

simplest and most common words.[76]

And so it was with the most illustrious ladies of France. Many of them

were so devoid of instruction that they were unable either to read or to

write. Even the teachers in Saint-Cyr were so deficient in the simplest

rudiments of an education that Mme. de Maintenon found it necessary to

correct their letters, in order to teach them the most essential rules

of epistolary correspondence. In reality, the women of the age of Louis

XIV did not trouble themselves about an education as we understand it.

Endowed with esprit, with a natural and acquired taste for things

intellectual, they were satisfied with such knowledge as they could

glean from reading or conversation, and with comparatively few

exceptions, showed no disposition to devote long years to study in

school, much less in a university, as did their sisters to the south of

the Alps.

The foundress of Saint-Cyr had likewise been influenced by her

environment as well as by the court--an environment which was becoming

daily more and more unfavorable to the education, especially anything

approaching the higher education, of women. A young woman's education

was considered complete when she was able to read, write, dance and play

some musical instrument. Anything more was deemed superfluous and

deserving of censure and ridicule rather than praise.

It was at this time that Moliere's two celebrated plays, _Les Femmes

Savantes_ and _Les Precieuses Ridicules_, were given to the world. These

well-known productions, replete with the author's brightest flashes of

wit, and abounding in his most effective shafts of satire, produced at

once an immense sensation. As soon as published, they were in the hands

of everybody. Those who were opposed to the education of women--and the

number was daily increasing--had recourse to them as to arsenals which

supplied them with just the arms they had so long needed to decide in

their favor the long warfare which they had been conducting against the

gentler sex. The views of the bourgeois Chrysale as expressed to his

sister, Belise, were so in harmony with their own that they loved on

every occasion to repeat with him:

"No,

It isn't decent, and for many reasons,

That womankind should study and know too much.

To teach her children what is right and wrong,

Manage her household, oversee her servants,

And keep expenses within bounds, should be

Her only study and philosophy.

Our fathers, on this point, showed great good sense;

They said a woman always knows enough

If but her understanding reaches

To telling, one from t'other, coat and breeches.

Their wives, who couldn't read, led honest lives,

Their households were their only learned theme,

And all their books were thimble, thread and needles.

With which they made their daughters' wedding outfits.

But now our women scorn to live like that;

They want to write and all be authoresses.

They think no knowledge is too deep for them."[77]

Moliere's intention in writing these justly famous comedies was not, as

is so often asserted, to ridicule women of learning, but only those

superficial pedants who affected knowledge or loved to make a display of

the little knowledge they happened to possess. The result, however, was

quite different from what had been intended, for the poet's pleasantries

were taken so seriously, that even women of real learning, in order to

avoid ridicule, were condemned to absolute silence. The comic dramatist,

Destouches, expressed the prevailing opinion when he wrote:

"Une femme savante

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

Few French women thereafter had the courage to defend their sex, as did

their sisters in Italy, and the result was that, with a few exceptions,

like Mme. du Chatelet, Sophie Germain, and Mme. Lepaute, there were no

more learned women in France for fully two centuries.

Never did satire and ridicule accomplish more, except probably in the

case of _Don Quixote_--that masterly creation of Cervantes which dealt

the death-blow to knight-errantry--than did _Les Femmes Savantes_ and

_Les Precieuses Ridicules_. The learned woman became as much an object

of derision in France as was the knight-errant in Spain.

It was not, however, in the nature of the French woman, with all her

vivacity and energy, to be suppressed entirely or to be relegated for

long to the background in things of the mind. But, not then daring to

face the ridicule which was inevitable, if she devoted herself to

science or philosophy, she sought a substitute for her intellectual

activity in the salon.

The first salon was established by an Italian woman, the Marquise de

Rambouillet, in 1617, and was modeled after the famous reunions held at

the court of Urbino under Elizabetta Gonzaga, a century before. Although

it never exhibited the splendor of its Italian prototype, the Hotel de

Rambouillet was for more than fifty years the most important literary

center of the kind in France. Here, owing to the tact, esprit, and

magnetic personality of Mme. de Rambouillet, were gathered the most

distinguished men and women of the time. Among them were poets,

philosophers, statesmen, ecclesiastics and ladies of rank, whose names

still dazzle us by their brilliancy. Bossuet, Moliere, La Fontaine,

Corneille and the great Conde were there; so were Flechier, Balzac,

Voiture, Saint-Evremont, Descartes and La Rochefoucauld; and so, too,

were Mme. de Sevigne, the Duchess of Montpensier, Madeleine de Scudery,

La Comtesse de La Fayette, Charlotte de Montmorency, and Cardinal

Richelieu who got from this noted salon the idea which led to his

greatest foundation--the French Academy.

It was Mme. de Rambouillet who, through her reunions in her exquisite

_Chambre Bleue_, for the first time brought together elements that were

previously considered as belonging to different castes. It was she,

also, who created modern society with its purely intellectual hierarchy,

by having the representatives of the nobility meet men of science and

letters on an equal footing. It seems to us now the most natural thing

in the world for a great savant, a great poet, or a great philosopher,

to be received in the same salon with the Duchess of Montpensier--_La

Grande Mademoiselle_--but it was far from being so when the brilliant

young Italian matron--for she was a daughter of the noble Roman family

of the Savelli--began her epoch-making work in the Hotel de Rambouillet,

where, after overcoming countless difficulties and prejudices, she

eventually succeeded in bringing together, and in enlisting in a common

cause, the nobility of birth and the nobility of intellect, and

introducing into the exclusive set of Paris the same kind of social

coteries that had so long been popular in Urbino and Ferrara.

The Hotel de Rambouillet was the exemplar of that long series of salons

which, for two centuries, were the favorite trysting-places of the

talent, the wit, the beauty of Europe, and which exerted such a potent

influence on society and on the progress of science and literature. The

mistress of the salon was supreme, and she maintained her supremacy by

her tact, sympathy, intelligence and mental alertness, rather than by

learning and superior mental power.

Indeed, it is a singular fact that very few of the _salonieres_ were

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

Lespinasse, Mme. de Stael, and Mme. Swetchine. Mme. Geoffrin, who was of

bourgeois origin, was so devoid of education that Voltaire said she was

unable to write two lines correctly. And yet, despite her educational

limitations, she became, by her own unaided efforts, the queen of

intellectual Europe.

And, if we may judge by their portraits, most of the great leaders of

salons were homely, if not positively ugly, and many of them were

advanced in years. Thus, Mme. du Deffand--the female Voltaire--was

sixty-eight years old and blind when her friendship with Horace Walpole,

one of the wittiest Englishmen who ever lived, began--a friendship that

endured until her death at the age of eighty-three. The face of Mlle. de

Lespinasse was disfigured by small-pox and her eyesight was impaired;

and yet, without rank, wealth or beauty, she was the pivot around which

circled the talent and fashion of Paris, and whose personal magnetism

was so great that the state, the church, the court, as well as foreign

countries, had their most distinguished representatives in her salon.

Here she received and entertained her friends every evening from five

until nine o'clock. "It was," writes La Harpe, "almost a title to

consideration to be received into this society." So great was the

influence exerted by Mlle. de Lespinasse that she bent savants to her

will by the sheer force of genius. Her salon became known as "the

ante-chamber of the French Academy"; for it was asserted that half the

academicians of her time owed their fauteuils to her active canvass in

their behalf. And so successful was she in opening the lips and minds of

her habitues, whether an historian like Hume, a philosopher like

Condillac, a statesman like Turgot, a mathematician like d'Alembert, a

litterateur like Marmontel or an encyclopedist like Condorcet, that it

was said of her that she made "marble feel and matter think."

She was a veritable enchantress of the great and the learned of her

time. She did not, however, wield her magic wand through her learning,

or the accident of birth, or the physical attractions of person, but

solely by reason of her wonderful vivacity, charm of mind, and exquisite

tact, which consisted, as those who knew her well tell us, "in the art

of saying to each that which suits him," and in "making the best of the

minds of others, of interesting them, and of bringing them into play

without any appearance of constraint or effort." This rare faculty it

was which secured for her a supremacy in the world of thought and action

that has been accorded to but few women in the world's history. Vibrant

with emotion and passion, she reminds one of the gifted but hapless

Heloise. Marmontel, who had such a high opinion of her judgment that he

submitted his works for her criticism, as Moliere had submitted his to

Ninon de Lenclos, describes her as "the keenest intelligence, the most

ardent soul, the most inflammable imagination that has existed since

Sappho."

But aside from what she achieved indirectly through the habitues of her

salon, what has this supremely clever woman left to the world? Only a

few love letters to a heartless coxcomb.

And what have the other noted salonieres from the time of the Marquise

de Rambouillet to that of Mme. Swetchine--full two centuries--bequeathed

to us that is worth preserving? With the exception of the works of Mme.

de Stael, whom Lord Jeffrey declared to be "the greatest female writer

in any age or country," we have little more than certain _Memoires_ and

_Correspondances_ whose chief claims to fame rest on the vivid pictures

which they present of the manners and customs of the time and of the

celebrities who were regarded as the chief ornaments of the salons which

they severally frequented. Most of these works were posthumous; for few

women, after Moliere's merciless scoring of learned women, had the

courage to appear in print. Even Mme. de Scudery, one of the most gifted

and prolific writers of the period, gave her first novel to the world

under her brother's name. And so tabooed was female authorship that Mme.

de La Fayette, one of the most brilliant of the _precieuses_, disclaimed

all knowledge of her _Princesse de Cleves_, while her masterpiece,

_Histoire d'Henriette d'Angleterre_, was not published until after her

death.

The truth is that the period of the salon was for the most part a period

of contrasts and contradictions. At first the better educated

_salonieres_ were chiefly interested in belles-lettres. Then they

devoted themselves more to science and philosophy, and finally, during

the years immediately preceding the Revolution, they found their

greatest pleasure in politics. As for the men, while professing to adore

women, they had little esteem for them, and still less respect. Often,

it is true, the women who frequented the salons were deserving neither

of respect nor of esteem.

Sydney Smith spoke of those under the old regime as "women of brilliant

talents who violated all the common duties of life and gave very

pleasant little suppers." It was certainly true of many of them--even of

some of the most distinguished--such, for instance, as Mme. d'Epinay,

Mme. du Deffand, Ninon de Lenclos and Mme. Tencin, the mother of

D'Alembert. There was little in their manner of life to distinguish them

from the _hetaerae_ of ancient Athens, and it was probably owing to this

fact, as well as their wit and brilliancy, that many of them attained

such preeminence as social leaders. The statesmen, philosophers, men of

science and letters of France, like those of Greece more than two

thousand years before, wanted distraction and amusement. That the

mistresses of the salons should be women of learning was of little

moment. The all important thing for their habitues was that they should

be good entertainers--that they should be witty, tactful and

sympathetic--and, if ignorant, that they should be brilliantly ignorant,

and, at the same time, enchantingly frank and naive.

Strange as it may appear there was as much hostility to learned women at

the close of the eighteenth century as there was in the time of Louis

XIV. And the remarkable fact is that the strongest opponents of women's

education were found among the most prominent writers and scholars of

the day--men who, like their predecessors of old, based their opposition

on the assumed mental inferiority of woman. Thus, to Rousseau, woman was

at best but "an imperfect man," and, in many respects, little more than

"a grown-up child." Search after abstract and speculative truths,

principles and axioms in science, "everything that tends to generalize

ideas is outside of her competence." That means that women are to be

excluded from the study of mathematics and the physical sciences,

because they are incapable of generalization, abstraction, and the

mental concentration that these subjects demand. Even the masterpieces

of literature, according to him, are beyond their comprehension. In a

word, feminine studies, Rousseau will have it, should relate exclusively

to practical and domestic matters and he endorses the words of Moliere

that

"It is not seemly, and for many reasons,

That a woman should study and know so many things."

Diderot, Montesquieu, Voltaire and the Encyclopedists share the views of

Rousseau. Diderot declares that serious studies do not comport with

woman's sex, while Montesquieu would limit female education to mere

accomplishments.

But this is not all. Antagonistic as these men were to the education of

the daughters of the nobility and the well-to-do, they were entirely

opposed to the education of the children of the poor. "The good of

society," it was averred, "demands that the instruction of the people

extend not beyond their occupations." "The poor," declares Rousseau,

"have no need of instruction," and Voltaire and the Encyclopedists say,

"Amen."[79]

Very little need be said about the education of women in Germany during

the period we have been considering. When there was any at all, it was

of the most rudimentary character, while as to books, they were limited

to the kind recommended by Byron for the women of modern Greece--"books

of piety and cookery." The attitude of the Germans generally toward

female education, for centuries past, was clearly defined by the Kaiser

Wilhelm II, when, a few years ago, he publicly stated: "I agree with my

wife. She says women have no business to interfere with anything

outside of the four K's, that is, _Kinder_, _Kirche_, _Kueche_,

_Kleider_--children, church, kitchen, clothes."

There was, however, during the period we are now considering, one

remarkable example of a learned woman of Teutonic origin. This was the

famous Anna Maria van Schurman, who was one of the most gifted women

that ever lived. She was, probably, as near to being a universal genius

as any one of her sex of whom we have knowledge. Artist, musician, poet,

philosopher, theologian, linguist, she was the admiration of the

scholars of the world and the pride of the Low Countries--the land of

her birth. She lived when Holland was in the van of human progress and

amidst of the splendors of the Dutch Renaissance. She was the friend and

correspondent of the most distinguished scholars and most noted

celebrities of her time. Among these were Voet, Spanheim, Descartes,

Gassendi, Constantine Huyghens, Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, Queen

Christina of Sweden, and Cardinal Richelieu. To go to the Netherlands,

it was then said, without seeing Anna van Schurman, was like going to

Paris without seeing the king. She was hailed as "The Tenth Muse," "The

Sappho of Holland," "The Oracle of Art," "The Star of Utrecht."

That, however, which gave the greatest renown to the "Learned Maid," as

Anna was called, was her extraordinary knowledge of languages. For,

besides being proficient in the chief modern tongues of Europe, she was

well acquainted with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syro-Chaldaic and Ethiopic.

The oriental languages she studied as an aid to the better understanding

of Holy Scripture.

She was the author of several works, among which was an Ethiopic grammar

which was acclaimed by the professors of the Dutch universities as a

marvelous achievement. Her best known volume is designated _Opuscula_.

It was brought out by the Elzevirs in Leyden and went through several

editions. It is composed of letters and short treatises in French,

Latin, Greek and Hebrew--in verse as well as prose.

Of more value, if less striking, than the productions named were the

"Learned Maid's" writings in favor of the intellectual enfranchisement

of her own sex. In a letter to Dr. Rivet, Professor of Theology in

Leyden, she declares:

"My deep regard for learning, my conviction that equal justice is the

right of all, impel me to protest against the theory which would allow

only a minority of my sex to attain to what is in the opinion of all men

most worth having. For, since wisdom is admitted to be the crown of

human achievement, and is within every man's right to aim at in

proportion to his opportunities, I cannot see why a young girl, in whom

we admit a desire of self-improvement, should not be encouraged to

acquire the best that life affords."

To those who objected that the distaff and the needle were sufficient to

occupy women's minds, Anna Maria made answer that the words of

Plutarch--"It becomes a perfect man to know what is to be known and to

do what is to be done"--applied with equal truth to a perfect woman.[80]

In England, until the latter part of the nineteenth century, the

educational status of women was but little better than in Germany.

During the Stuart period schools for girls were so scarce that most of

those who received any education at all obtained it at home under

private tutors. Even then it rarely embraced more than reading, writing,

needlework, singing, dancing and playing on the lute or virginal.[81]

As to the higher studies for women, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writes as

follows: "My sex is usually forbid studies of this nature and folly

reckoned so much our proper sphere that we are sooner pardoned any

excesses of that than the least pretensions to reading or good sense. We

are permitted no books but such as tend to the weakening or effeminating

of the mind. Our natural defects are in every way indulged, and it is

looked upon as in a degree criminal to improve our reason or fancy we

have any.... There is hardly a creature in the world more despicable or

more liable to universal ridicule than that of a learned woman: these

words imply, according to the received sense, a tattling, impertinent,

vain and conceited creature."[82]

Higher studies for their daughters were regarded by the generality of

men, the same writer tells us, "as great a profanation as the clergy

would do if the laity would presume to exercise the functions of the

priesthood."

Referring to the handicaps suffered by the women of England in the

pursuit of knowledge, the same writer declares: "We are educated in the

grossest ignorance, and no art is omitted to stifle our natural reason;

if some few get above their nurses' instructions, our knowledge must be

concealed and be as useless to the world as gold in the mine."

Lord Chesterfield, in _His Letters to His Son_, expresses the opinion of

his contemporaries when he writes on the same subject as follows: "Women

are only children of a larger growth; they have an entertaining tattle,

sometimes wit; but, for solid reasoning, good sense, I never in my life

knew one who had it, or who reasoned or acted consequentially for

twenty-four hours together.... A man of sense only trifles with them,

plays with them, humors and flatters them as he does a sprightly forward

child; but he neither consults them about nor trusts them with serious

matters, though he often makes them believe he does both, which is the

thing in the world which they are proud of; for they love mightily to be

dabbling in business, which, by the way, they always spoil, and, being

distrustful that men in general look upon them in a trifling light, they

almost adore that man who talks to them seriously and seems to consult

and trust them."[83]

And this was written by that "mirror of politeness and chivalry" whose

name has for two centuries been synonymous with that of a perfect

gentleman! And Lady Montagu was compelled to pen her caustic and

pathetic plaints during the age of Pope, Steele, Addison, Swift,[84]

Johnson, Dryden and Goldsmith--the most brilliant pleiad of literary men

that England had known since the days of Shakespeare.

So unnatural for women were literary and scientific pursuits regarded by

all classes that the few who attained any eminence in them were classed

as abnormal creatures who deserved no more consideration than did the

_Precieuses_ across the Channel. And so great was the power of public

sentiment against women writers that Fanny Burney was afraid to

acknowledge the authorship of _Evelina_. Even in Jane Austen's days, the

feeling that a woman, in writing a book, was overstepping the

limitations of her sex was so pronounced that she never actually avowed

the authorship of those charming works which have been the delight of

three generations of readers. It was this same sentiment that caused the

Bronte sisters and George Eliot, as well as many other notable women, to

write under pseudonyms. They feared to disclose their sex lest their

works, if known as the productions of women, should be _ipso facto_

branded as of inferior merit.

During the period in question women fared no better in the United States

than in England. They were subject to the same educational debarment and

were the victims of the same snobbery and intolerance. The Pilgrim

Fathers and their descendants for many generations made no secret of

their belief in the mental inferiority of woman, and applied to her the

gospel of liberty contained in the following words of Eve to Adam as

given in _Paradise Lost_:

"My author and dispenser, what thou bidst

Unargued I obey; so God ordains;

God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more

Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise."

To the Puritan of New England, as to the Puritan Milton, the relative

attainments of woman and man were tersely expressed in Tennyson's

couplet:

"She knows but matters of the house,

And he, he knows a thousand things."

To us one of the most astounding facts in the educational history of New

England is the long time during which girls were without free school

opportunities. Thus, although schools had been established within twenty

years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, it was not until a

century and a half later that their doors were opened to girls. The

public schools of Boston were established in 1642, but were not opened

for girls until 1789; and then only for instruction in spelling, reading

and composition, and that but one half of the year. There was no high

school in Boston, the vaunted Athens of America, until 1852.

Harvard College was founded in 1636 for the education of "ye English and

Indian youth of this country in knowledge and godlyness," but in this

institution no provision was made for women and its doors are still

closed to them.

"The prevailing notion of the purpose of education," declares Charles

Francis Adams, in speaking of Harvard College, "was attended with one

remarkable consequence--the cultivation of the female mind was regarded

with utter indifference; as Mrs. Abigail Adams says in one of her

letters, 'it was fashionable to ridicule learning.'"[85]

It was not until 1865 that Matthew Vassar, "recognizing in women the

same intellectual constitution as in man," founded the first woman's

college in the United States. This was soon followed by similar

institutions in various parts of this country and Europe. In less than

ten years thereafter Girton and Newnham colleges were founded at

Cambridge, England, in order that women might be enabled to enter upon a

regular university career.

In all the universities of England, Scotland and Ireland, except Oxford,

Cambridge[86] and Trinity College, Dublin, women are now admitted to

all departments, pass the same examinations as the men and receive the

same academic degrees. Germany, whose institutions for the higher

education of men have so long been justly famous, was exceedingly slow

to open its universities to women, and then only after the most stubborn

opposition of those who still maintained that the studies of women

should be limited to the three R's and their occupations confined to the

four K's. But even in this conservative country the cause of woman has

at length triumphed, and she now enjoys educational advantages that a

few decades ago were deemed forever impossible.

And so it is in every civilized country. Woman's long struggle for

complete intellectual freedom is almost ended, and certain victory is

already in sight. In spite of the sarcasm and ridicule of satirists and

comic poets, in spite of the antipathy of philosophers and the

antagonism of legislators who persisted in treating women as inferior

beings, they are finally in view of the goal toward which they have

through so many long ages been bending their best efforts. Moreover, so

effective and so concentrated has been their work during recent years

that they have accomplished more toward securing complete intellectual

enfranchisement than during the previous thirty centuries.

From the former home of the Vikings to the romantic land of the Cid,

from the capital of Holy Russia to the fair metropolis of the Golden

Gate, women are now welcomed to the very institutions from which but a

few years ago they were so systematically excluded. They attend the same

courses as men, pass the same examinations and receive the same degrees

and honors. Their sex is no longer a bar to positions and employment

that only a generation ago were considered proper only for the proud

and imperious male. They have proved beyond cavil that genius knows not

sex, and that, given a fair opportunity, they are competent to achieve

success in every department of human effort.

Thus, to speak only of Europe, there are to-day women professors in the

universities of Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Greece and Russia,

as there have been in Italy since the closing years of the Dark Ages.

They lecture on science, literature, law and medicine, and in a manner

to extort the admiration of their erstwhile antagonists. In Germany and

Hungary there are women chemists and architects, while it is a matter of

record that the best construction work done on the trans-Siberian

railroad was that in charge of a woman engineer.

As an illustration of the marvelous change which has been brought about

during the last three-quarters of a century in the educational status of

woman, I can do no better than transcribe a few passages from a work by

Sir Walter Besant describing the transformation of woman during the

reign of Queen Victoria; for it applies to all civilized countries as

well as to England.

"The young lady of 1837 has been to a fashionable school; she has

learned accomplishments, deportment and dress. She is full of sentiment;

there was an amazing amount of sentiment in the air about that time; she

loves to talk and read about gallant knights, crusaders and troubadors;

she gently touches the guitar; her sentiment, or her little affectation,

has touched her with a graceful melancholy, a becoming stoop, a sweet

pensiveness. She loves the aristocracy, even although her home is in

that part of London called Bloomsbury, whither the belted earl cometh

not, even though her papa goes into the City; she reads a deal of

poetry, especially those poems which deal with the affections, of which

there are many at this time. On Sunday she goes to church religiously

and pensively, followed by a footman carrying her prayerbook and a long

stick; she can play on the guitar and the piano a few easy pieces which

she has learned. She knows a few words of French, which she produces at

frequent intervals; as to history, geography, science, the condition of

the people, her mind is an entire blank; she knows nothing of these

things. Her conversation is commonplace, as her ideas are limited; she

can not reason on any subject whatever because of her ignorance; or, as

she herself would say, because she is a woman. In her presence, and

indeed in the presence of ladies generally, men talk trivialities. There

was indeed a general belief that women were creatures incapable of

argument, or of reason, or of connected thought. It was no use arguing

about the matter. The Lord had made them so. Women, said the

philosophers, can not understand logic; they see things, if they do see

them at all, by instinctive perception. This theory accounted for

everything, for those cases when women undoubtedly did 'see things.'

Also it fully justified people in withholding from women any kind of

education worthy the name. A quite needless expense, you understand."

Her amusements, we are told, were "those of an amateur--a few pieces on

the guitar and the piano and some slight power of sketching or flower

painting in water-colors." The literature she read "endeavored to mold

woman on the theory of recognized intellectual inferiority to man. She

was considered beneath him in intellect as in physical strength; she was

exhorted to defer to man; to acknowledge his superiority; not to show

herself anxious to combat his opinions....

"This system of artificial restraints certainly produced faithful wives,

gentle mothers, loving sisters, able housewives. God forbid that we

should say otherwise, but it is certain that the intellectual

attainments of women were then what we should call contemptible, and the

range of subjects of which they knew nothing was absurdly narrow and

limited. I detect the woman of 1840 in the character of Mrs. Clive

Newcome, and, indeed, in Mrs. George Osborne, and in other familiar

characters of Thackeray."

Then Sir Walter, turning to the young Englishwoman of 1897, thus

describes her:

"She is educated. Whatsoever things are taught to the young man are

taught to the young woman; the keys of knowledge are given to her; she

gathers of the famous tree; if she wants to explore the wickedness of

the world she can do so, for it is all in the books. The secrets of

nature are not closed to her; she can learn the structure of the body if

she wishes. The secrets of science are all open to her if she cares to

study them.

"At school, at college, she studies just as the young man studies, but

harder and with greater concentration. She has proved her ability in the

Honors Tripos of every branch; she has beaten the senior wrangler in

mathematics; she has taken a 'first-class' in classics, in history, in

science, in languages. She has proved, not that she is a man's equal in

intellect, though she claims so much, because she has not yet advanced

any branch of learning, of science, one single step, but she has proved

her capacity to take her place beside the young men who are the flower

of their generation--the young men who stand in the first class of

honors when they take their degree....

"Personal independence--that is the keynote of the situation. Mothers no

longer attempt the old control over their daughters; they would find it

impossible. The girls go off by themselves on their bicycles; they go

about as they please; they neither compromise themselves nor get talked

about; for the first time in man's history it is regarded as a right and

proper thing to trust a girl as a boy insists upon being trusted. Out of

this personal freedom will come, I dare say, a change in the old

feelings of young man to maiden. He will not see in her a frail, tender

plant which must be protected from cold winds; she can protect herself

perfectly well. He will not see in her any longer a creature of sweet

emotions and pure aspirations, coupled with a complete ignorance of the

world, because she already knows all that she wants to know....

"Perhaps the greatest change is that woman now does thoroughly what

before she only did as an amateur."[87]

Yes, the world is beginning at last to realize the truth of the

proposition which the learned Maria Gaetana Agnesi so eloquently

defended nearly two centuries ago--to wit, that nature has endowed the

female mind with a capacity for all knowledge, and that, in depriving

women of an opportunity of acquiring knowledge, men work against the

best interests of the public weal.[88]

We are at the long last near that millennium which Emerson had in mind

when, in 1822, he predicted "a time when higher institutions for the

education of young women would be as needful as colleges for young

men"--that millennium for which women have hoped and striven ever since

Sappho sang and Aspasia inspired the brightest, the noblest minds of

Greece.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Demosthenes _In Neaeram_, 122. [Greek: Tas men gar hetairas hedones

henek' echomen, tas de pallakas tes kath' hemeran therapeias tou

somatos, tas de gynaikas tou paidopoieisthai gnesios kai ton endon

zylaka pisten echein].

As indicative of the comparative value of men and women, as members of

society, in the estimation of the Greeks, Euripides makes Iphigenia give

utterance to the following sentiment:

"More than a thousand women is one man

Worthy to see the light of life."

[2] [Greek: Tes te gar, hyparchouses zuseos me cheirosi genesthai hymin

megale e doxa' kai hes an ep' elachiston aretes peri e psogou en arsesi

kleos e.] Thucidides, _History of the Peloponnesian War, II_, 45.

"Phidias," Plutarch tells us in his _Conjugal Precepts_, "made the

statue of Venus at Elis with one foot on the shell of a tortoise, to

signify two great duties of a virtuous woman, which are to keep at home

and be silent. For she is only to speak to her husband or by her

husband."

[3] Ariosto, referring to the undying fame of Sappho and Corinna,

expresses himself in words as beautiful as they are true, as witness the

following couplet:

Saffo e Corinna, perche furon dotte,

Splendono illustri, e mai non veggon notte.

--ORLANDO FURIOSO, Canto XX, strophe I.

[4] The nine "Terrestrial Muses" were Sappho, Erinna, Myrus, Myrtis,

Corinna, Telesilla, Praxilla, Nossis and Anyta.

The Greek poet Antipater embodies the names of the "Terrestrial Nine" in

an epigram which is well rendered in the appended Latin translation:

Has divinis linguis Helicon nutrivit mulieres

Hymnis, et Macedon Pierias scopulus,

Prexillam, Myro, Anytae os, foeminam Homerum,

Lesbidum Sappho ornamentum capillatarum.

Erinnam, Telesillam nobilem, teque Corinna,

Strenuum Palladis scutum quae cecinit.

Nossidem muliebri lingua, et dulsisonam Myrtin,

Omnes immortalium operatrices librorum.

Novem quidem Musas magnum coelum, novem vero illas

Terra genuit hominibus, immortalem laetitiam.

[5] Cf. _Poetriarum octo, Erinnae, Myrus, Mytidis, Corinnae, Telesillae,

Praxillae, Nossidis, Anytae fragmenta et elogia_, by J. C. Wolf Hamburg,

1734. See also the charming memoir "Sappho" by H. T. Wharton, London,

1898, and _Griechische Dicterinnen_, by J. C. Poestion, Vienna, 1876.

[6] See _Mulierum Graecarum quae oratione prosa usae sunt fragmenta et

elogia Graece et Latine_, by J. C. Wolf, London, 1739, _Historia Mulierum

Philosopharum_, scriptore Aegidio Menagio, Lugduni, 1690, _Griechische

Philosophinnen_, by J. C. Poestion, Norden, 1885, and _Le Donne alle

Scuole dei Filosofi Greci_ in _Saggi e Note Critiche_, by A. Chiappelli,

Bologna, 1895.

[7] _Woman: Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome and

Among the Early Christians_, pp. 58 and 59, by James Donaldson, London,

1907.

[8] There were several hetaerae named Lais. One of them, apparently a

native of Corinth, was celebrated throughout Greece as the most

beautiful woman of her age.

[9] For information respecting the hetaerae the reader is referred to the

_Letters_ of Alciphron, to Lucian's _Dialogues_ on courtesans, and more

particularly to the _Deipnosophists_ of Athenaeus, Chap. XIII. See also

_The Lives and Opinions of the Ancient Philosophers_, by Diogenes

Laertius, Bohn Edition, London.

[10] Donaldson, op. cit., pp. 61 and 62.

Adolph Schmidt, one of the late biographers of Aspasia, accepts these

statements as true and credits to Aspasia the making of both Pericles

and Socrates. His views are also shared by other modern writers who have

made a special study of the subject.

According to some writers an indirect allusion to Aspasia's intellectual

superiority is found in the _Medea_ of Euripedes in the following verses

of the women's chorus:

"In subtle questions I full many a time

Have heretofore engaged, and this great point

Debated, whether woman should extend

Her search into abstruse and hidden truths.

But we too have a Muse, who with our sex

Associates to expound the mystic lore

Of wisdom, though she dwell not with us all."

[11] It is proper to add that certain modern writers will not admit that

Aspasia was ever an hetaera in the sense of being a courtesan. After

Pericles had divorced his first wife, he lived with Aspasia as his

second wife, to whom he was devoted and faithful until death. According

to Greek law, which forbade Athenian citizens to marry foreign women, he

could not be her legal husband; but, there can be no doubt that he

always treated her with all the respect and affection due to a wife. His

dying words: "Athens entrusted her greatness and Aspasia her happiness

to me," clearly evince her nobility of character and the place she must

ever have occupied in the great statesman's heart.

The most important notices in ancient writings, respecting Aspasia, are

found in Plutarch's _Pericles_, Xenophon's _Memorabilia_ of Socrates and

Plato's _Menexenus_. Among the most valuable of modern works on the same

subject is _Aspasie de Milet_, by L. Becq de Fouquieres, Paris, 1872.

Cf. also _Aspasie et le Siecle de Pericles_, Paris, 1862; _Histoire des

Deux Aspasies_, by Le Comte de Bievre, Paris, 1736, and A. Schmidt's

_Sur l'Age de Pericles_, 1877-79.

[12] Under the term music, Plato, like his contemporaries, included

reading, writing, literature, mathematics, astronomy and harmony. It was

opposed to gymnastic as mental to bodily training. Both music and

gymnastic, however, were intended for the benefit of the soul.

[13] _The Dialogues of Plato, Laws_, VII, 805, Jowett's translation, New

York, 1892.

[14] Op. cit., _The Republic_, V, 451 et seq. and 466.

[15] It was the boast of the Emperor Augustus that all his clothes were

woven by his wife, sister or daughter. Suetonius, in his _Lives of the

Twelve Caesars_, informs us that this great master of the world _filiam

et neptes ita instituit ut etiam lanificio assuefaceret_.

[16] This type of the old Roman schoolmaster is alluded to in the

following well known verses of Martial:

"Quid tibi nobiscum est, ludi scelerate magister,

Invisum pueris virginibusque caput?

Nondum cristati rupere silentia Galli

Murmure jam saevo verberibusque tonas."

--Lib. IX, 79.

which have been rendered as follows:

Despiteful pedant, why dost me pursue,

Thou head detested by the younger crew?

Before the cock proclaims the day is near

Thy direful threats and lashes stun my ear.

Martial elsewhere refers to "Ferulaeque tristes, sceptra

pedagogorum"--melancholy rods, sceptres of pedagogues--and it appears

from one of Juvenal's satires that "to withdraw the hand from the rod"

was a phrase meaning "to leave school."

[17] _Woman Through the Ages_, Vol. I, pp. 110, 111, by Emil Reich,

London, 1908.

Schoolhouses among the Romans, as well as among the Greeks, were quite

different from our modern, well-equipped buildings. Usually, at least,

in earlier times, instruction was given in the open air, in some quiet

street corner or in _tabernae_--sheds or lean-tos--as in certain

Mohametan countries to-day. Horace refers to this in _Epistola_ XX, Lib.

I, when he writes:

"Ut pueros elementa docentem

Occupet extremis in vicis balba senectus."

In such schools the pupils sat on the floor or the bare ground, or, if

the lessons were given on the street, they sat on the stones. There were

no desks, or, if there were any benches, they had no backs. The pupils

were, therefore, perforce obliged to write on their knees.

Cf. _Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education_, pp. 278 and 346, by

S. S. Laurie, London, 1900.

[18] Cf. his _Tiberius Gracchus_. Cicero says of them, "Non tam in

gremio educatos quam sermone matris."

[19] Ibidem, _Life of Pompey_.

[20] _De Oratore_, Lib. III, Cap. XII.

[21] "Potiorem iam apud exercitus Agrippinam quam legatos, quam duces;

compressam a muliere seditionem, cui nomen principis obsistere non

quiverit." _Annales_, Lib. I, Cap. 69.

[22] _Oeconomicus_, VII, 5, 6.

[23] _Epistolae_, Lib. I, 16.

[24] Sit mihi verna satur, sit non doctissima conjux. _Epigrammata_,

Lib. II, 90.

Martial's taste in this respect was the same as that of Heine, who said

of the woman he loved: "She has never read a line of my writings and

does not even know what a poet is," and the same as that of Rousseau,

who declared that his last flame, Therese Lavasseur, could not tell the

time of day.

[25] Satire VI, 434-440.

[26] _Joannis Stobaei Florilegium_, Vol. IV, p. 212, Teubner's edition,

1857.

[27] The following is the epitaph as written by St. Jerome, "the

Christian Cicero":

Scipio quam genuit, Pauli fudere parentes,

Gracchorum soboles, Agamemnonis inclyta proles,

Hoc jacet in tumulo, Paulam dixere priores,

Euxtochii genetrix, Romani prima senatus,

Pauperiem Christi et Bethlehemitica rura secuta est.

[28] In his preface to the _Commentary on Sophonius_.

[29] For an exhaustive account of the lives and achievements of St.

Jerome and his noble friends, Paula and Eustochium, the reader is

referred to _L'Histoire de Sainte Paule_, by F. Lagrange, Paris, 1870,

and _Saint Jerome, La Societe Chretienne a Rome et l'Emigration Romaine

en Terre Sainte_, by A. Thierry, Paris, 1867. Cf. also _Woman's Work in

Bible Study and Translation_, by A. H. Johns in _The Catholic World_,

New York, June, 1912.

[30] See _Histoire de Sainte Radegonde, Reine de France_, in Chap. XX,

par Em. Briand, Paris, 1897.

[31] _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_, Lib. IV, Cap. 23.

[32] _The Monks of the West_, Book XI, Chap. II.

[33] Vol. I, pp. 46 and 49, New York, 1871.

[34] Op. cit., Book XI, Chap. II.

It will interest the reader to know that Caedmon has a place among the

saints in the _Acta Sanctorum_ of the Bollandists. See the special

article on him in Vol. II, p. 552, under the caption of "_De S. Cedmono,

cantore theodidacto_."

[35] _Woman Under Monasticism._ Chapter IV, Sec. 2, by Lina Eckenstein,

Cambridge, 1896. In this chapter is an interesting account of the

Anglo-Saxon nuns who were among the correspondents of Boniface.

[36] The reader will recall Chaucer's account in the _Canterbury Tales_

of the wife of the well-to-do miller of Trumpyngton:

"A wyf he hadde y-comen of noble kyn;

She was y-fostred in a nonnerye.

There dorste no wight clepen hir but 'Dame;'

What for hire kynnrede and hir nortelrie,

That she had lerned in the nonnerie."

--_Reeve's Tale._

[37] Pp. 78, 79, London, 1897.

[38] _History of European Morals_, Vol. II, p. 369, New York, 1905.

[39] _Henry VIII and the English Monasteries_, London, 1895.

[40] _The English Historical Review_, July, 1888.

Another recent writer affirms without hesitation that "Hroswitha has

earned a place apart in the Pantheon of women poets and writers. She

alone in those troublous times of the tenth century recalls to our minds

the existence of dramatic art; her name, indeed, deserves to be rescued

from oblivion and to become a household word." _Fortnightly Review_, p.

450, March, 1896.

[41] _Histoire de l'Education de Femmes en France_, Tom. I, p. 72 et

seq. par Paul Rousselot, Paris, 1883.

A certain jurisconsult of the thirteenth century, one Pierre de Navarre,

expressed the sentiment of many of his contemporaries when he wrote the

following paragraph:

"Toutes fames doivent savoir filer et coudre; car la pauvre en aura

mestier et la riche conoistra mieux l'oeuvre des autres. A fame ne

doit-on apprendre lettre ni escrire, si ce n'est especiaument pour estre

nonain, car par lire et escrire, de fame sont maint mal avenu."

[42] _Opera Omnia S. Hildegardis_, Tom. 197, Col. 48 of Migne's

_Patrologiae Cursus Completus_. Cf. also _Nova S. Hildegardis Opera_,

edidit Cardinalis Pitra, Paris, 1882, and _Das Leben und Wirken der

Heiligen Hildegardis_, von J. P. Schmelzeis, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1878.

[43] It was Peter Lombard, whose _Sentences_ "became the very canon of

orthodoxy for all succeeding ages," who, in marked contrast with those

of ancient and modern times that regarded woman as the inferior or slave

of man, asserted her equality with him in a sentence that should be

written in letters of gold. "Woman," he declares, _Sententiarum_, Lib.

II, Disp. 18, "was not taken from the head of man, for she was not

intended to be his ruler, nor from his foot, for she was not intended to

be his slave, but from his side, for she was intended to be his

companion and comfort."

In this view the great Schoolman but follows the teachings of St.

Augustine. For in his commentary, _De Genesi ad Litteram_, Lib. 9, Cap.

13, the learned bishop of Hippo writes: "Quia igitur viro nec domina nec

ancilla parabatur, sed socia, nec de capite, nec de pedibus, sed de

latere fuerat producenda, ut juxta se producendam cognosceret, quam de

suo latere sumptam didecisset." Again the same illustrious doctor

declares that woman was formed from man's side in order that it might be

manifest that she was created to be united with him in love--in

consortium creabatur dilectionis.

[44] Cf. _Hortus Deliciarum_, by Herrad de Lansberg, folio with one

hundred and ten plates, Strasburg, 1901, and _Herrade de Landsberg_, by

Charles Schmidt, Strasburg.

The erudite academician, Charles Jourdain, says of Herrad's great work

"L'encyclopedie qu'on lui doit, _l'Hortus Deliciarum_, embrasse toutes

les parties des connaissances humaines, depuis la science divine jusqu'a

l'agriculture et la metrologie, et on s'etonne a bon droit qu'un tel

ouvrage, qui supposait une erudition si variee et si methodique, soit

sorti d'une plume feminine. Quelle impression produirait aujourd'hui

l'annonce d'une encyclopedie qui aurait pour auteur une simple,

religieuse? Parlerons-nous des femmes du monde? Il n'existe d'elles, au

XXe siecle, non plus que dans les siecles precedents aucun ouvrage

comparable a _l'Hortus Deliciarum_." _Excursions Historiques et

Philosophiques_, p. 480, Paris, 1888.

[45] See _Revelationes Mechtildianae ac Gertrudianae_, edit, Oudin, for

the Benedictines at Solesmes, 1875.

[46] In her scholarly work on _Woman Under Monasticism_, p. 479, Lina

Eckenstein writes as follows regarding the studies pursued in the

convents of the Middle Ages:

"The contributions of nuns to literature, as well as incidental remarks,

show that the curriculum of study in the nunnery was as liberal as that

accepted by the monks, and embraced all available writing whether by

Christian or profane authors. While Scripture and the writing of the

Fathers of the Church at all times formed the groundwork of monastic

studies, Cicero at this period was read by the side of Boethus, Virgil

by the side of Martianus Capella, Terence by the side of Isidore of

Seville. From remarks made by Hroswitha we see that the coarseness of

the Latin dramatists made no reason for their being forbidden to nuns,

though she would have seen it otherwise; and, Herrad was so far

impressed by the wisdom of the heathen philosophers of antiquity that

she pronounced this wisdom to be the 'product of the Holy Spirit also.'

Throughout the literary world, as represented by convents, the use of

Latin was general, and made possible the even spread of culture in

districts that were widely remote from each other and practically

without intercourse."

[47] _The Lady_, p. 71, by Emily James Putnam, New York, 1910.

[48] Eckenstein, op. cit., p. 478.

[49] Ut. Sup., 479-480.

[50] See _Womankind in Western Europe_, p. 288 et seq., by Thomas

Wright, London, 1869.

[51] "Pertinere videtur ad haec tempora Betisia Gozzadini non minus

generis claritate quam eloquentia ac legum professione illustris....

Betisiam Ghirardaccius et nostri ab eo deinceps scriptores eximiis

laudibus certatim extulerunt." _De Claris Archigymnasii Bononiensis

Professoribus a Saeculo XI usque ad Saeculum XIV_, Tom. I, p. 171,

Bologna, 1888-1896.

[52] L'Ecole de Salerne, p. 18, par C. Meaux, Paris, 1880. Among the

most noted of these women was Trotula, who, about the middle of the

eleventh century, wrote on the diseases of women as well as on other

medical subjects. Compare the attitude of the school of Salerno towards

women with that of the University of London, eight hundred years later.

When, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, women applied to

this university for degrees in medicine, they were informed, as H.

Rashdall writes in _The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages_, Vol.

II, Part II, p. 712, Oxford, 1895, that "the University of London,

although it had been empowered by Royal Charter to do all things that

could be done by any University, was legally advised that it could not

grant degrees to women without a fresh Charter, because no University

had ever granted such degrees." Cf. also Haeser's _Lehrbuch der

Geschichte der Medicin_, Band I, p. 645, et seq., Jena, 1875. Verily,

the so-called dark ages have risen up to condemn our vaunted age of

enlightenment!

[53] _Die Entstehung der Universitaeten des Mittelalters bis 1400_, Band

I, p. 233, Berlin, 1885, von P. Heinrick Denifle, assistant archivist of

the Vatican Library, and _Histoire Literaire de la France, Commence par

des Religieux Benedictins de S. Maur et Continue par des Membres de

l'Institut_, Tom. IX, 281, Paris, 1733-1906.

[54] "Une de ces nuits lumineuses ou les dernieres clartes du soir se

prolongent jusqu'aux premieres blancheurs du matin." _Documents

Inedits_, p. 78, Paris, 1850.

[55] _The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages_, Vol. I, p. 31,

Oxford, 1895.

[56] _A Short History of the Renaissance in Italy_, p. 277, London,

1893.

[57] Cecelia Gonzaga, a pupil of the celebrated humanist, Vittorino da

Feltre, read the Gospels in Greek when she was only seven years old.

Isotta and Ginevra Nogorola, pupils of the humanist, Guarino Verronese,

likewise distinguished themselves at an early age by their rare

knowledge of Latin and Greek. In later years all three enjoyed great

celebrity for their learning, and were, like Battista di Montefeltro,

women of genuine humanist sympathies. Cecelia Gonzaga's scholarship was

in no wise inferior to that of her learned brothers, who were among the

most noted students of the famous Casa Zoyosa in Mantua, where Vittorino

da Feltre achieved such distinction as an educator in the early part of

the Italian Renaissance. The learned Italian writer, Sabbadini,

beautifully expressed the relation of women to Humanism, when he

declares, in his _Vida di Guarino, "L'Humanismo si sposa alla gentilezza

feminile_,"--humanism weds feminine gentility.

[58] Among them are the pictures of Caterina Vigri, which are preserved

in the Pinacoteca of Bologna and in the Academia of Venice.

[59] No less an authority than the illustrious sculptor, Canova,

declared that her early death was one of the greatest losses ever

suffered by Italian art.

[60] It was also said of the Venetian artist, Irene di Spilimbergo, that

her pictures were of such excellence that they were frequently mistaken

for those of her illustrious master, Titian.

[61] Among these works may be mentioned _Il Merito delle Donne_, by

Modesta Pozzo di Zorgi, Venice, 1600; _La Nobilita e l'Excellenza delle

Donne_, by Lucrezia Marinelli, Venice, 1601; _De Ingenii Muliebris ad

Doctrinam et Meliores Litteras Aptitudine_, by Anna van Schurman,

Leyden, 1641; _Les Dames Illustres_, by Jaquette Guillame, Paris, 1665,

and _L'Egalite des Hommes et des Femmes_, by Marie le Jars de Gournay,

Paris, 1622. The last named work was by the celebrated _fille

d'alliance_--adopted daughter--of Montaigne. It is to her that we owe

the _textus receptus_ of the _Essais_ of the illustrious litterateur.

[62] _The Women of the Renaissance_, p. 290, by R. de Maulde la

Claviere, New York, 1901.

[63] Called _La Latina_, because of her thorough knowledge of the Latin

language.

[64] The famous Hellenist, Roger Ascham, tells of his astonishment on

finding Lady Jane Grey, when she was only fourteen years of age, reading

Plato's Phaedo in Greek, when all the other members of the family were

amusing themselves in the park. On his inquiry why she did not join the

others in their pastime, she smilingly replied: "I wit all their sport

in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure I find in Plato. Alas, good

folk, they never knew what true pleasure meant."

[65] To the poet Ronsard, she was a woman beyond compare, as is evinced

by the following lines of a pastoral ode addressed to her:

"La Royne Marguerite,

La plus belle fleur d'elite

Qu'onques la terre enfanta."

[66] Cf. Oeuvres de Lovize Labe, nouvelle edition emprimee en caracteres

dits de civilite, Paris, 1871.

[67] The French poet, Jean Dorat, who was then professor of Latin in the

College de France, expresses this fact in the following strophe:

"Nempe uxor, ancillae, clientes, liberi,

Non segnis examen domus,

Quo Plautus ore, quo Terentius, solent

Quotidiane loqui."

[68] A prominent writer of the time, Jean Bouchet, expressed the

prevailing opinion regarding the education of the women of the masses in

the following quaint sentence: "Je suis bien d'opinion que les femmes de

bas estat, et qui sont contrainctes vaquer aux choses familieres et

domestiques, ne doivent vaquer aux lettres, parce que c'est chose

repugnante a rusticite; mais, les roynes, princesses et aultres dames

qui ne se doib vent pour reverence de leur estat, appliquer a mesnage."

Cf. Rousellot's _Histoire de l'Education des Femmes en France_, Tom. I,

p. 109, Paris, 1883.

His ideal of a woman of the peasant type was apparently Joan of Arc,

who, according to her own declaration, did not know a from b--"_elle

declarait ne savoir ni a ni b_."

[69] Claviere, op. cit., p. 415.

[70] The noted English divine, Thomas Fuller, chaplain to Charles II,

recognized the irreparable loss to women occasioned by the destruction

of the nunneries by the Reformers. "There were," he tells us in his

quaint language, "good she schools wherein the girls and maids of the

neyghborhood were taught to read and work.... Yea, give me leave to say,

if such feminine foundations had still continued, ... haply the weaker

sex, besides the avoiding modern inconveniences, might be heyghtened to

a higher perfection than hitherto hath been attained." _Church History_,

Vol. III, p. 336, 1845.

[71] M. Thureau Dangin, the perpetual secretary of the French Academy,

wrote, "La tradition ne veut pas d'academiciennes."

[72] Carlyle, in a lecture on Dante, and the _Divina Commedia_, declares

that "Italy has produced a greater number of great men than any other

nation, men distinguished in art, thinking, conduct, and everywhere in

the departments of intellect." He could with equal truth have said that

Italy has produced more great women than any other nation.

[73] _Medical Women_, p. 63, et seq., by Sophia Jex-Blake, Edinburgh,

1886, and _Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women_,

Chap. III, by Elizabeth Blackwell, London, 1895.

[74] Mme. Dacier was a remarkable exception chiefly because she was the

daughter and pupil of one Hellenist before becoming the wife of another.

[75] _Lettres et Entretiens sur l'Education de Filles_, Tom. I, pp.

225-231.

Compare this superficial course of study at Saint-Cyr with the elaborate

course mapped out by Lionardo d'Arezzo in a letter addressed to the

illustrious lady, Baptista Malatesta. In the broad programme of

education for women recommended by this eminent man of letters, "poet,

orator, historian, and the rest, all must be studied, each must

contribute a share. Our learning thus becomes full, ready, varied,

elegant, available for action or for discourse on all subjects."

Lionardo's curriculum of studies for women was quite as comprehensive as

that required for men, "with perhaps a little less stress upon rhetoric

and more upon religion. There was no assumption that a lower standard of

attainment is inevitably a consequence of smaller capacity."

Nor was this thorough study of letters by the women of Italy

"unfavorably regarded by social opinion"; neither did it introduce "a

new standard of womanly activity. Women, indeed, at this epoch, seem to

have preserved their moral and intellectual balance under the stress of

the new enthusiasm better than men. The learned ladies were, in actual

life, good wives and mothers, domestic and virtuous women of strong

judgment and not seldom of marked capacity in affairs." Cf. _Vittorino

da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators_, pp. 122, 132, 197, by W. H.

Woodward, Cambridge, 1905.

[76] Thus, in a letter of hers to Mme. de Lauzun occurs a sentence like

the following: "Il lia sy lontant que je n'ay antandu parler de vous."

The duchess of Monpensier, daughter of Gaston d'Orleans, in a letter to

her father exhibits a similar ignorance of her own language, when she

writes: "J'ai cru que Votre Altesse seret bien ese de savoir sete

istoire." Quoted by Rousselot in his _Histoire de l'Education des Femmes

en France_, Tom. I, p. 287.

[77] _Les Femmes Savantes_, Act II, Scene 7.

[78] Destouches, in his _L'Homme singulier_, makes one of his female

characters, who loves study, speak in the following pathetic fashion:

"A learned woman ought--so I surmise--

Conceal her knowledge, or she'll be unwise.

If pedantry a mental blemish be

At all times outlawed by society,

If 'gainst a pedant all the world inveighs,

Shall pass unchecked in woman pedant's ways?

I hold it sure, condemned my sex is quite

To trifling nothings as its sole birthright;

Ridiculous 'tis thought outside its 'sphere';

The learned woman dare not such appear;

Nay, she must even cloak her brilliancy

So envy leave in peace stupidity;

Must keep the level of the common kind,

To subjects commonplace devote her mind,

And treating these she must be like the rest.

Lo, in such garb refinement must be dressed:

That knowledge shall not make her seem unwise,

She must herself in foolishness disguise."

--Act III, Scene 7.

[79] No one, however, went so far in his opposition to the education of

women as the notorious Silvain _Marechal_, the author of _Projet d'une

Loi portant Defense d'Apprendre a Lire aux Femmes_, who would have a law

passed forbidding women to learn to read. He maintained that a knowledge

of science and letters interfered with their being good housekeepers.

"Reason," he avers, "does not approve of women studying chemistry. Women

who are unable to read make the best soup. I would rather," he declares

in the words of Balzac, "have a wife with a beard than a wife who is

educated." See pp. 40, 50 and 51, of the edition of this strange work,

published at Brussels, 1847.

[80] In her _Problema Practicum_, addressed to Dr. Rivet, Anna van

Schurman states and develops in true syllogistic form a series of

propositions in defense of her thesis in favor of the higher education

of women. Two of these propositions are here given as illustrative of

her points of view:

I. Cui natura inest scientiarum artiumque desiderium, ei conveniunt

scientiae et artes. Atque feminae natura inest scientiarum artiumque

desiderium. Ergo.

II Quidquid intellectum hominis perficit et exornat, id femmae Christianae

convenit. Atqui scientiae et artes intellectum hominis perficiunt et

exornant. Ergo. See _Nobiliss. Virginis Annae Schurman Opuscula_, pp. 35

and 41, Leyden, 1656, and her _De Ingenii Muliebris ad Doctrinam et

Meliores Literas Aptitudine_, Leyden, 1641. Cf. also _Anna van

Schurman_, Chap. IV, by Una Birch, London, 1909.

[81] A writer of the seventeenth century gives the following as the

popular programme of female study: "To learn alle pointes of good

housewifery, spinning of linen, the ordering of dairies, to see to the

salting of meate, brewing, bakery, and to understand the common prices

of all houshold provisions. To keepe account of all things, to know the

condition of the poultry--for it misbecomes no woman to be a hen-wife.

To know how to order your clothes and with frugality to mend them and to

buy but what is necessary with ready money. To love to keep at home."

How like the German four K's and the words on the sarcophagus of a Roman

matron--_lanifica_, _frugi_, _domiseda_--a diligent plyer of the

distaff, thrifty and a stay-at-home.

[82] _The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu_, Vol. II, p.

5, Bohn Edition, 1887.

[83] Letter XLIX, London, Sept. 5, O. S., 1748.

Walpole, writing in 1773, makes the following curious declaration: "I

made a discovery--Lady Nuneham is a poetess, and writes with great ease

and sense some poetry, but is as afraid of the character, as if it was a

sin to make verses." And Lord Granville tells us of an eminent statesman

and man of letters who, in the early part of the last century, was so

troubled on discovering in his daughter a talent for poetry that he

"appealed to her affection for him, and made a request to her never to

write verses again. He was not afraid of her becoming a good poetess,

but he was afraid of the disadvantages which were likely to be suffered

by her, if she were supposed to be a lady of literary attainments."

[84] It was Swift who had such a low opinion of woman's intellect that

in writing to one of his fair correspondents he told her that she could

"never arrive in point of learning to the perfection of a schoolboy."

Lady Pennington, strange to say, seems to have shared his views, for in

a manual of advice to young ladies, she declares: "A sensible woman will

soon be convinced that all the learning the utmost application can make

her master of will be in many points inferior to that of the schoolboy."

"At the time the Tatler first appeared in the female world any

acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured," and it

was then considered "more important for a woman to dance a minuet well

than to know a foreign language."

[85] The wife of President John Adams, descended from the most

illustrious colonial families, writing in 1817, regarding the

educational opportunities of the girls of her time and rank, expressed

herself as follows:

"Female education in the best families went no farther than writing and

arithmetic, and, in some few and rare instances, music and dancing."

According to her grandson, Charles Francis Adams, "The only chance for

much intellectual improvement in the female sex was to be found in the

families of the educated class, and in occasional intercourse with the

learned of the day. Whatever of useful instruction was secured in the

practical conduct of life came from maternal lips; and, what of farther

mental development depended more upon the eagerness with which the

casual teachings of daily conversation were treasured up than upon any

labor expended purposely to promote it." _Familiar Letters of John Adams

and His Wife, Abigail Adams, During the Revolution, With a Memoir of

Mrs. Adams_, by Charles Francis Adams, pp. X and XI, New York, 1876.

[86] When the students of Girton and Newnham in 1897, after passing the

Cambridge examinations--many of them with the highest honors--applied

for degrees, "the undergraduate world was stirred to a fine frenzy of

wrath against all womankind," and an astonished world saw re-enacted

scenes scarcely less disgraceful than those which characterized the

riotous demonstrations which, seventeen years before, had greeted seven

young women at the portals of the University of Edinburgh.

[87] _The Queen's Reign_, Chap. V, London, 1897.

[88] Proposition third, of her _Propositiones Philosophicae_, Milan,

1738, reads as follows:

"Optime etiam de universa Philosophia infirmiorem sexum meruisse nullus

infirmabitur; nam praeter septuaginta fere eruditissimas, Mulieres, quas

recenset Menagius, complures alias quovis tempore floruisse novimus, quae

in philosophicis disciplinis maximam ingenii laudem sunt assecutae. Ad

omnem igitur doctrinam, eruditionemque etiam muliebres animos Natura

comparavit: quare paulo injuriosius cum feminis agunt qui eis bonarum

artium cultu omnino interdicunt, eo vel maxime, quod haec illarum studia

privatis, publicisque rebus non modo haud noxia futura sint verum etiam

perutilia."

This admirable work, with its one hundred and ninety-one propositions,

is commended to those who may have any doubt regarding the learning or

capacity of the Italian women who have been referred to in the preceding

pages.