3. Written permission from the professors or docents whose lectures the
applicant wishes to attend.
4. The permission from the rector must be obtained each semester, but
from the curator only when a new subject is chosen.
5. The same fee is demanded from women as from men, and women are
requested to always carry with them, in attending lectures, the written
permission from the rector.
At the public installation of Rector Waldeyer, in October, 1898,
both in his address and in that of the resigning rector, Geheimrath
Professor Schmoller, the subject of education of women received
attention.
Geheimrath Schmoller said that the first condition of further
concessions in the matter must be better preparation on the part of the
women, and when this deficiency should be provided for the faculty of
the university could make the conditions of their attending lectures
lighter, perhaps even the same as those for men. Geheimrath Waldeyer
made the subject one of three to which he gave equal space, and which
he said called for immediate attention in the educational affairs of
Germany. The other two subjects were the relation of technical schools
to the universities, and university extension. Geheimrath Waldeyer said
that he had formerly been opposed to the higher education of women,
but had been led to change his mind from seeing that the movement is
not an artificial one, but rather the natural result of the present
social condition of society, and on the simple ground of right should
be forwarded in a legitimate manner. He spoke strongly, however, in
favor of the establishment of separate universities for men and women,
on account of the natural differences in the working of their minds and
the necessity of adapting methods in both instances to their needs.
The number of women in the University of Berlin has increased very
rapidly, being in the autumn of 1896 thirty-nine, in the winter of the
same year ninety-five. The next year the largest number was nearly
two hundred, and in 1897-’98 three hundred and fifty-two were in all
inscribed. Nearly half of these were German women. Most of the women
in the University of Berlin are in the department of philosophy, but
several are pursuing courses in theology and law. These women are of
all ages. One from Charlottenburg was sixty-two years old, and, besides
this honored lady, there were five others whose white hair testified
to an age of from fifty to fifty-five, while the youngest of all was a
Bulgarian girl of seventeen.
The first woman to take her degree in the University of Berlin was
Dr. Else Neumann, in December, 1898, in physics and mathematics, who
succeeded, notwithstanding the difficulties to be contended with in the
absence of preparatory study and the necessity for private preparation.
It is not, however, only in Berlin that the desire for university
study has taken a strong hold on the German women, but it is shown
in other places, not simply by the fact that many of them attend the
universities of Switzerland, which are everywhere open to them, but by
their also obtaining the advantages in their own land which have so
long been denied them.
Heidelberg was the first university in Germany to grant the doctor
examination to women, and this was done several years before lectures
were open to them. The writer called upon Prof. Kuno Fischer one day
in the summer of 1890 to ask permission to attend a lecture which he
was to give that afternoon on Helmholtz. He said that he was very sorry
indeed, but he was obliged to refuse women the privilege of listening
to him, as they were not admitted to the university. I asked when
they would probably be admitted, and he replied, speaking in French,
“_Jamais, mademoiselle, jamais!_” Four years later, however, a friend
of mine took her degree there in the department of philosophy, thus
proving that the wisest of men sometimes make mistakes.
Women have for years studied as _Hospitants_ in the Universities of
Leipsic and Göttingen, but since November, 1897, the conditions of
their admission in Göttingen have been made more difficult.
In Kiel the professors who are not willing to allow women to attend
their lectures put a star opposite their names in the university
programme of the lecture courses, and this star is unfortunately seen
opposite the names of all the professors of theology and many of those
of medicine. Women began to attend the University of Tübingen in the
autumn of 1898, Dr. Maria Gräfin von Linden being the first, who was
soon followed by many others.
The degree of Doctor of Philosophy _honoris causa_ has been conferred
on two women by the University of Munich--in December, 1897, on the
Princess Theresa, and in October, 1898, on Lady Blennerhassett, an
author, for her researches in modern languages. The Dean of the
Philosophical Faculty, accompanied by three professors, visited her
in her home in Munich to communicate to her the honor which she had
received.
The University of Breslau offers better conditions to women than are
provided elsewhere, as might naturally be expected, especially in the
department of medicine.
Germany was represented in the International Council of Women, held in
London in June of this present year, by Frau Anna Simson, Frau Bieber
Boehm, and Fran Marie Stritt, of Dresden.
It was also decided at this congress that the next Quinquennial
International Council of Women should be held in Berlin, and it will
without doubt be an occasion that will mark an era in the history of
the progress of liberty for the women of Germany.