Woman Triumphant: The story of her struggles for freedom, education and political rights. / Dedicated to all noble-minded women by an appreciative member of the other sex.

Perhaps in no other field of human activity has the disinclination of Christian men to make any concessions to women been so strong as in all matters regarding the church. While women were permitted to sit on thrones and rule vast empires, theological prejudice would not allow them to officiate at the altar or to occupy the pulpit. This vehement opposition was due to mediæval traditions and customs. The saying of the Apostle Paul: “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence,” had been an inviolable law to all Catholic and Protestant dignitaries of the church. And so during the whole Middle Ages the idea was prevalent that a masculine priesthood alone was acceptable to God.

The first attempt to overthrow these views was made in 1634 by Anne Hutchinson, who came from Lincolnshire to Boston. Joining a church there she found that the male members used to meet every week to discuss the sermon they had heard the preceding Sunday. Believing that the power of the Holy Ghost dwells in every believer, and that the inward revelations of the spirit, the conscious judgment of the mind, are a paramount authority. Mrs. Hutchinson established similar meetings for the women. Soon she had large audiences, in which she set forth sentiments of her own. But disputes arose among her followers and their opponents, which grew so hot, that the continued existence of the two opposing parties was considered inconsistent with public peace. A convention of ministers, the first synod in America, was called in 1637, which condemned the opinions of Mrs. Hutchinson, and caused her to be summoned before the General Court. After a trial of two days, she was convicted of censuring the ministers and advancing errors, and sentenced to banishment from Massachusetts. She found refuge in Rhode Island, but moved later on to the Dutch settlements, where she as well as her children were killed by Indians.

In 1774 another English woman, Anne Lee, immigrated to New York. Professing to have received a special persuasion, she organized at Watervliet, N. Y., the first community of Shakers, to which she promulgated a doctrine of celibacy. Their previous training had led members of this sect to expect that the second coming of Christ would be in the form of a woman; as Eve was the mother of all living, so in their new leader the Shakers recognized “the first mother or spiritual parent in the line of the female.” These Shakers gave their women an equal share with men in the service and government of their society.

With the history of the “Salvation Army” likewise the names of several women are closely connected. This religious body was organized in 1865 on military lines by Rev. William Booth. In his revival and mission work among the lower classes of England he found in his wife Catherine a perfect helpmate. Together they conquered with their revivals first London, then the province, then the United Kingdom, and afterwards country after country in every part of the world.

In England Mrs. Booth was the first woman preacher, and if she had done nothing else but vindicate the right of woman to speak in public and preach the Gospel, she would have done great work. But she did far more than this. By making her whole life, and every thought and action subservient to the cause of the Salvation Army, she brought comfort and happiness to many thousands of poor souls.

The work of this “Mother of the Army” was continued by her daughter, Evangeline Booth, known in the history of the organization as “The Commander”; by Emma Booth-Tucker, known as “The Consul”; by Mrs. W. Branwell Booth, “The General,” and by Elizabeth Swift Brengle, known as “The Colonel.”

The first woman in the Christian world to be ecclesiastically ordained was Antoinette Brown Blackwell, an American woman who had graduated from Oberlin, Ohio. She was ordained in 1852 in South Butler, N. Y., by a council called by the First Congregational Church. Rev. Olympia Brown was the next woman ordained ten years later. In December, 1863, the Rev. Augusta J. Chapin was the first woman to receive the title of Doctor of Divinity.

Since the ordination of these women the number of female “clergymen” in the various denominations has increased rapidly. According to the Census of 1910 their number within the United States was 7395 in that year. The success of woman in the pulpit is no longer a question but an affirmation. This is what Rev. Phebe A. Hanford said on the subject:

“Other things being equal, why may not a woman preach and pray and perform pastoral duty as well as a man? Why should she not preside at the Lord’s table, consecrate in baptism the child whose parents would dedicate their choicest possessions to God, or the adult who would thus express his faith in Christ and his determination that “whatever others may do he will serve the Lord”? When two loving hearts desire to join hands and walk the earthly pathway side by side, why should not a woman minister pronounce the sacred formula and convey the sanction of the Law and the Gospel to their matrimonial purpose? And when the voice of consolation is sorely needed, and the solemn words are to be spoken which consign the silent dust to its last resting-place, why should not a womanly woman officiate as well as any tender-hearted and eloquent man? Surely woman is proverbially compassionate; and that she is often eloquent with voice and pen, and with poetic expression and the fervor of truth which can reach the heart, who can deny?”

It is hard to realize in these days of professional equality between the sexes that only half a century ago a woman who desired to study medicine was considered such a phenomenon that her morality and the purity of her motives were questioned. And yet this desire is only natural, as the life of every woman has moments when she has to call for medical help. There are especially the transition to womanhood, all the experiences of motherhood, and the many ailments peculiar to women. To be compelled to consult in these cases a male physician, is for many bashful girls and women such a repellant thought, that they quite often postpone it from week to week, until too late.

No doubt such were the reasons and experiences which caused Agnodice, an Athenian girl, born about 300 B. C., to disguise her sex in order that she might study medicine. Like Dr. Mary Walker in the 19th Century, she donned male attire and became a disciple of Herophilus, an eminent physician and anatomist of the Alexandrian School. Her specialty was midwifery and women’s diseases, and when she started to practice herself, she met with such great success that her male colleagues became jealous and tried to prevent her from practicing by accusing her of corruption before the Areopagus. But the result of the proceedings was quite contrary to their expectations, as a law was immediately passed allowing all freeborn women to learn midwifery.

Since then female physicians practiced in Hellas as well as in Alexandria and in Rome. And when in the 9th Century after Christ the famous Schola Salernitana was established at Salerno, a department for women’s diseases was included, with a number of female professors as teachers. The names of several of these professors are still known; the most noted was the celebrated Tortula, who lived in the 11th Century. Abella, Constanza, Calendas, and Hildegarde too have been praised for their great ability.

This eminent position held by women in the medical profession declined slowly after the 12th Century, and practically disappeared after the 16th Century. The cause for this relapse was undoubtedly the increasing hostility of the Christian Church toward any occupation of women with sciences. This prejudice remained alive up to modern times. It was dominant in 1845 when a young American woman, Elizabeth Blackwell, decided to study medicine. The same motives as had moved the Athenian Agnodice and the loss of a dear woman friend caused the young American to write to various physicians asking as to the wisdom and possibility of a woman becoming a doctor. The answers she received were unanimously to the effect that while the idea was a valuable one it was impossible of accomplishment for many reasons. This verdict only served to intensify her determination to accomplish her purpose. After two years of private study she went to Philadelphia, which in those days, 1847, was considered the seat of medical learning in this country, and made application to the four medical colleges for admission as a regular student. But such a revolutionary idea was not to be entertained, and all the doors remained closed to her. One kindly Quaker adviser said to her: “Elizabeth, it is of no use trying. Thee cannot gain admission to these schools. Thee must go to Paris and don masculine attire to gain the necessary knowledge.”

It had now become a moral crusade with Miss Blackwell, and the justice and common sense of her undertaking seemed so supreme that she determined to push the warfare to the farthest limit. After similarly unsuccessful attempts in New York, she obtained a complete list of all the smaller institutions of the Northern States, examined their prospectuses, and sent applications for admission to twelve of the most promising. After long delay an answer came from the medical department of the small university at Geneva, in the western part of New York State. It seems that the faculty had submitted Miss Blackwell’s letter to the medical class, who adopted the following resolutions:

“Resolved—That one of the radical principles of a republican government is the universal education of both sexes; that to every branch of scientific education the door should be open equally to all; that the application of Elizabeth Blackwell to become a member of our class meets our entire approbation; and in extending our unanimous invitation we pledge ourselves that no conduct of ours shall cause her to regret her attendance at this institution.”

Their gallantry won the day, the faculty cordially opened the doors of the institution, and she began her studies there at once.

Being the first female student in the small place her appearance of course gave rise to many comments. Many people looked at this new woman in wonder; some even inclined to regard her as a lunatic, or a disorderly person. But her behavior and seriousness compelled respect, and when in 1849 she received her degree, the public press very generally commented upon the event in favorable terms and even in Europe some notice of it was taken. She found fewer obstacles in her path in her studies abroad, especially in Paris. After her return to America she began practice in New York City, and here again she had to do pioneer work. The medical fraternity stood aloof, refusing to consult with her, and society in general somewhat distrusted the innovation. But in time her work received just recognition and the status of women in the profession became fully established. In 1868 Dr. Blackwell founded the “Woman’s Medical College of New York.” The later years of her life were spent in England, where she also did much in moulding public opinion along the lines of philanthropy, especially in opening hospitals and dispensaries for women and children.

A few years after Miss Blackwell had received her diploma, another remarkable woman, Florence Nightingale, aroused world-wide admiration by her noble service during the Crimean war of 1853–56. Intensely devoted to the alleviation of suffering, she had since 1849 paid great attention to the sanitary conditions of civilian as well as military hospitals, which in many cases she found rather poor. In 1851 she went into training as a nurse, and when in 1853 war was declared with Russia, and the hospitals on the Bosphorus were soon crowded with the sick and wounded, she offered the English Government to go out and organize a nursing department at Scutari. Starting with a unit of thirty-seven nurses, she arrived at Constantinople when the mortality in the hospitals had become appalling. Seeing clearly the cause for this frightful state in the bad sanitary arrangements of the hospitals, Miss Nightingale devoted incessant labor to the removal of these causes, as well as to the mitigation of their effects, with such success, that in the English army the death-rate fell from 22¼% to only 2¼%.

After her return to England, in 1856, the Government as well as Queen Victoria and the public were not slow to acknowledge her splendid services. While the Queen presented her with a cross set with diamonds, the people subscribed a fund of several hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of enabling her to found an institution for the training of a superior order of nurses in connection with the St. Thomas’s and King’s College Hospitals. Miss Nightingale also enriched the medical literature by two valuable books, “Notes on Nursing” and “Notes on Hospitals,” in which she gave the results of her lifelong observations.

The example of Miss Nightingale had much to do with calling forth the exertions of American women during the Civil War. As soon as there were wounded soldiers to heal, and military hospitals to serve, the patriotic and benevolent women of America remembered the great work of Florence Nightingale, and hastened to the front. As A. W. Calhoun states in his “Social History of the American Family,” by 1864 there were busy in the North 250 women physicians. Women planned and organized also the “U. S. Sanitary Commission,” for the alleviation of the sufferings of the battlefield. Its pre-eminent utility was universally recognized. It caused likewise several great charity fairs, the last two of which were held in New York and Philadelphia and yielded $1,000,000 and $1,200,000 respectively.

Among the female physicians, who did service during the Civil War, the most noteworthy was Dr. Mary E. Walker. Having studied medicine at the Medical College in Syracuse, N. Y., she was the first woman commissioned to serve on the surgical staff of any army in time of war. On assuming her duties as surgeon in the war, she found hospital efficiency and hoopskirts incompatible; so she sacrificed the skirt and donned a man’s coat and trousers. In recognition of her able services Congress not only awarded her a Medal of Honor, but also allowed her—the only instance in history—by a special act to continue to wear male attire. Dr. Walker declared many times that her sole reason for advocating dress reform for women were hygienic ones. A real pioneer in her profession, she also maintained for many years a farm for sufferers from tuberculosis and carried on a school for prevention of that disease modelled after a plan of her own.

Among the women, whose names appear in the history of the Civil War, one of the most brilliant was Miss Clara Barton. Devoting herself to the care of the wounded soldiers, she won for herself as superintendent of the hospitals in the army of the James the surname “the Florence Nightingale of America.” During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 she joined the German branch of the Red Cross Society, that noble institution, which in 1859 had been founded by Henry Durant, a citizen of Geneva, Switzerland.

Inspired by the example of Miss Nightingale, and horrified by the ghastly scenes of the Italian battlefields, he resolved to work for the proper treatment and nursing of wounded soldiers, while still on the ground. At his strong appeal the Swiss Federal Council invited all European nations to a convention in order to discuss proper steps to be taken in this direction. Attended by delegates from Baden, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Prussia, Switzerland and Wurtemberg, the convention met on August 22, 1864, in Geneva, and decided, that henceforth not only all places where wounded soldiers are treated, but also all persons, engaged in this samaritan service, should be regarded as neutrals and distinguished by white flags or white bands showing a red cross. Such places must not be attacked, but protected by the soldiers of all combating armies.

In the further history and evolution of this international Society of the Red Cross women have played a most prominent part. Miss Barton established during the Franco-Prussian War several military hospitals and, by conducting them, distinguished herself so that she was decorated with the Iron Cross. After her return to the United States she organized in 1882 the “American Red Cross Society,” of which she became the first president. The work of Miss Barton and the Red Cross in the Spanish-American War and the great help given to the sufferers after the great tidal wave in Galveston, Texas, caused the United States Senate and the Texas Legislature to adopt resolutions of thanks.

All these great efforts of women could not fail to create a most favorable impression toward woman’s activity in medicine. In England an act of 1868 for the first time opened the study of pharmacy to women; and after a long struggle they obtained their footing as physicians. In 1874 a special medical school was opened for women in London. In 1876 an act authorized every recognized medical body to open its doors to women. In 1878 a supplemental charter enabled the University of London to grant degrees to women in all its faculties, including medicine. As a result up to the close of 1895 264 women had been placed on the British register as duly qualified medical practitioners.

In the United States similar progress was made.

According to the census of 1910, there were 7399 women physicians and surgeons in the United States.

Whereas fifty years ago there was great objection to admitting women to the medical societies, now the men of the profession welcome women physicians to the societies and to their discussions, and are more than willing to consult with them. The advantage of employing women physicians has been recognized likewise by many hospitals, sanitariums and insane asylums; the courts too recognize the justice of women’s preferring women in the physical examination required by law. There can be no doubt, that the 20th Century opens to women physicians undreamed-of possibilities in science and in the art of healing.

When in the year of our Lord 1869 American papers reported that in Iowa a woman had been admitted to the bar, most readers were inclined to regard this “bit of news” as one of the many jokes, sprung occasionally upon credulous people in order to warn them what the “new woman” might be able to do. But in this case the “joke” turned out to be a fact. And if people had been somewhat better acquainted with their Bibles, they would have known that the woman lawyer of Iowa was only another confirmation of Rabbi Ben Akiba’s famous saying: “There is nothing new under the sun!”

Open your Bible and read in Chapter 4 of the Judges IV about Deborah, the Joan of Arc of the Hebrews. Of this most extraordinary woman recorded in Jewish history it is stated that she was a prophetess as well as a judge, “to whom the children of Israel came for judgment.”

The Greeks and Romans too had female lawyers. From writers of the classic past we know that Aspasia pleaded causes in the Athenian forum, and Amenia Sentia and Hortensia in the Roman forum. And Valerius Maximus (Hist. lib. VIII, Chapter 3) states that the right of Roman women to follow the profession of advocate was taken away in consequence of the obnoxious conduct of Caliphurnia, who, from “excess of boldness” and “by reason of making the tribunals resound with howlings uncommon in the forum,” was forbidden to plead. The law, made to meet the especial case of Caliphurnia, ultimately “under the influence of the anti-feministic tendencies” of the period, was converted into a general one. In its wording the law sets forth that the original reason for woman’s exclusion “rested solely on the doings of said person.”

The “howlings of Caliphurnia” furnished the legislators of all later periods with a welcome pretext to exclude women from practice of the law, and it was not till 1869 that a woman again obtained admission to the bar. This pioneer was Miss Arabella A. Mansfield of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, who was admitted to the Iowa bar in 1869, under the statute providing only for admission of “white male citizens.”

The next female lawyer was Mrs. Belva Ann Lockwood, a graduate of the Law School of the National University at Washington, D. C. Having been admitted in 1873 to practice before the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, she applied in October, 1876, for admission as practitioner of the Supreme Court of the United States, but was rejected under the following decision: “By the uniform practice of the Court from its organization to the present time, and by the fair construction of its rules, none but men are admitted to practice before it as attorneys and counselors. This is in accordance with immemorial usage in England, and the law and practice in all the States, until within a recent period; and the Court does not feel called upon to make a change until such a change is required by statute or a more extended practice in the highest courts of the States.”

But if the members of the Supreme Court had entertained the hope of scaring away women once and for all, they soon enough found that they were mistaken. Mrs. Lockwood drafted a bill and secured its passage in Congress, providing “that any woman who shall have been a member of the bar of the highest court of any State or Territory, or of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, for the space of three years, and shall have maintained a good standing before such court, and who shall be a person of good moral character, shall, on motion, and the production of such record, be admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States.” This bill was approved on February 15th, 1879. Since then Mrs. Lockwood as well as a number of other female lawyers have been admitted under this law to practice before the highest court of the United States.

A “Woman’s International Bar Association” was organized in 1888, for the purpose of establishing law schools for women and of promoting the interests of female lawyers as well as of securing better legal conditions for women.

According to the Census of 1910 there were 1010 woman lawyers in the United States.

“Having taken up the law,” so said Miss Edith J. Griswold, herself a counsellor-at-law, “woman will not rest until she stands on a level with man, and the end of the Twentieth Century will probably find an equilibrium in the United States Government that can only be obtained (as in the home government) by the equal balancing of the different propensities of male and female mind in the making and enforcing of laws. The prophecy that the time is coming when woman will govern seems ludicrous, and yet it is no more ludicrous than the present lopsided arrangement whereby man has the exclusive power of government. With the rapid advance of woman conditions are being manifested that require woman’s judgment, and to obtain true justice in matters relating to both sexes an equal number of men and women should compose both the court and the jury. By the end of the Twentieth Century, I believe, a woman’s judgment will carry as much weight as a man’s, and the opinions handed down from our higher courts will have to be concurred in by an equal number of male and female judges.”

Sometimes, when the merits of the woman movement were discussed, its opponents made it their trump that the female sex is without any inventive spirit and that this want should be regarded as a convincing evidence for the inferiority of woman s mind. That this assertion was never true at all, but made in absolute ignorance of the real facts, becomes evident, when we recall, that primeval and aboriginal women have been the inventors of our most important industries, of agriculture, weaving, basketry, pottery, tannery, brewing, and many other peaceful arts. And there is not the slightest doubt, that during the times of Antiquity and the Middle Ages women have been the greatest factor in the evolution of these industries, in which they remained constantly busy.

Among the few instances of which records have been preserved, is that of Barbara Uttmann, a German woman of Annaberg, Saxony, who in 1561 invented the Cluny-lace. Herewith she opened, for the extremely poor people of the Erzgebirge, at the most critical time, a new and well paying industry, in which in 1800 about 35,000 girls and women were busy.

Another important invention was made in 1792 in America by the widow of General Nathaniel Green. It was the so-called cotton gin by which the difficult work to separate the seed from the lint was greatly simplified. To pick the seed from one pound of cotton had been formerly considered a good day’s work. With the aid of the cotton gin, which consists of a series of saws revolving between the interstices of an iron bed upon which the cotton is placed so as to be drawn through whilst the seeds are left behind, several hundred pounds of cotton can be cleaned in the same time. This invention stimulated enormously the cultivation of cotton and the manufacture of cotton goods in America. In the South, where so far cotton had been produced only in small quantities, it now became the main product. While in 1792 the quantity exported from the United States was 138,324 pounds, it increased by the year 1800 to nearly 18,000,000 pounds. In the North it led to the establishment of cotton mills and factories on a large scale.

As only few countries have taken the trouble to prepare statistics about inventions made by women it is impossible to give reliable facts about what women have contributed to human culture in this line.

Their most intensive activity has been observed in the United States, especially since with the founding of woman’s colleges and the opening of the universities, the education of the female sex became a more careful and broader one.

The U. S. Patent Office at Washington, D. C., has published “Lists of Women Inventors,” in three volumes, covering the period from 1790 to March 1, 1895. From these lists it appears that till 1849 only 32 inventions by women have been registered at the Patent Office. This number increased to 290 during the period from 1850 to 1870; during 1870–1890 to 2568, and up to 1910 to 7942. These numbers prove that with the increase of woman’s knowledge and with the closer contact with modern industrial life her inventive spirit has likewise developed. Also the inventions became more manifold. While prior to 1850 they were almost exclusively confined to dress and household, they now cover all fields of human activity.

This fact became most evident during the terrible years of the World War. Some time ago the “Women Lawyer Journal” reported that of all the many inventions registered since 1914, fifty per cent. have been entered by women. Among these inventions have been such for the better protection of soldiers and aeronauts as well as for the greater comfort of the wounded and crippled. Other inventions meant improvement in wireless telegraphy, gas masks, submarine boats and hundreds of other objects.

Just as hostile as had been the clergy to the admission of women to ecclesiastical office, so unwilling were many prejudiced scholars to admit women into the sacred realms of science. By hundreds of arguments they tried to prove the inability of women to do any deeply scientific work. They explained that the hard study would impair their health, their chances of marriage, and their true destination as mothers. Higher education would make women unfit for domestic life, and, besides, they would hardly produce anything of real scientific value.

If these learned gentlemen would have taken the trouble to make themselves somewhat more acquainted with the history of science they would have found the names of numerous women on record, who, at their time, were among the leaders in the most abstruse sciences. Several centuries before Christ Hellas as well as Rome had a number of brilliant female philosophers, among them Damo, the daughter of Pythagoras, who lived about 580–500 B. C. She was one of his favorite disciples, and to her the great savant entrusted all his writings, enjoining her not to make public all the secrets of his philosophy. This command she strictly obeyed, though tempted by large offers while she was struggling with poverty.

Socrates, the great philosopher, declares that he learned of a woman, Diotima, the “divine philosophy,” how to find from corporeal beauty the beauty of the soul, the angelical mind. Diotima lived in Greece, about 468 B. C.

Arete is known as the daughter of Aristippus of Cyrene, the founder of the Cyrenaic system of philosophy, who flourished about 380 B. C. She was carefully instructed by her father, and after his death taught his system with great success. Leontium, living about 350 B. C., was a disciple of Epicure, and wrote in defense of his philosophy. Tymicha, a Lacedaemonian, was the most celebrated female philosopher of the Pythagorean school. When she, in 330 B. C., was brought before Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, as a prisoner, he made her very advantageous offers, if she would reveal the mysteries of Pythagorean science; but she rejected them all with scorn and contempt. And when he threatened her with torture, she instantly bit off her tongue, and spat it in the tyrant’s face, to show him that no pain could make her violate the pledge of secrecy.

Of Hipparchia, a lady of Thrace, who lived about 328 B. C., it is known that her attachment to learning was so great, that having attended several lectures of Crates, the cynic, she resolved to marry him though he was old, ugly, and deformed. She accompanied him everywhere to public entertainments and other places, which was not customary with Greecian women. She also wrote several philosophical theses, and reasonings and questions proposed to Theodorus, the atheist; but none of her writings are extant.

Ancient Rome too had a number of female philosophers, among them Cornelia, “the mother of the Gracchi.” She frequently gave public lectures and was more fortunate with her disciples than with her sons. It was Cicero, who said of her that, had she not been a woman, she would have deserved the first place among philosophers. In what esteem she was held is shown by the fact that a statue was erected to her with the inscription, “Cornelia, Mater Gracchorum.” She died about 230 B. C.

The most renowned female philosopher of the classic times was Hypatia, the lovely daughter of Theon, the head of the famous Alexandrian School in Alexandria, Egypt. Born in 370 A. D., Hypatia was taught by her father and acquired such extensive knowledge and learning, that the Bycantine Church historian Socrates, as well as Nicephorus placed her far above all the philosophers of her time. Several other learned contemporaries praise her in similar terms. Sinesius, bishop of Ptolemais, never mentions her without the profoundest respect, and in terms of affection little short of adoration. In a letter to his brother Euoptius he writes: “Salute the most honored and the most beloved of God, the Philosopher Hypatia, and that happy society, which enjoys the blessing of her divine voice.” And in a long epistle he sends her with the manuscript of a book, he asks her opinion and states his resolution not to publish the book without her approbation.

Hypatia succeeded her father in the government of the Alexandrian School, teaching from the chair where Ammonius, Hieracles, and other celebrated philosophers had taught; and this at a time, when men of immense learning abounded in Alexandria and in other parts of the Roman empire. In fact her renown was so universally acknowledged, that she had always a crowded auditorium. What a subject for an able artist, to present this beautiful woman in her chair, with the flower of all the youth of Africa, Asia and Europe sitting at her feet, eagerly imbibing knowledge from this oracle of wisdom.

Socrates states that she was consulted by the magistrates of Alexandria in all important cases. This frequently brought her among the greatest assemblages of men without causing the least censure of her manners. “Considering the confidence and authority which she had acquired by her learning,” says Socrates, “she sometimes came to the judges with singular modesty. Nor was she anything abashed to appear thus among a crowd of men; for all persons, by reason of her extraordinary discretion, did at the same time both reverence and admire her.”

Unfortunately this wonderful woman was to become a martyr of science. The population of Alexandria was split into three hostile groups—the Pagans, the Jews, and the Christians. The latter, under the leadership of the patriarch Cyril, assailed in violent zeal Jews as well as pagans, and heretics or supposed heretics alike, driving them by thousands from the city, destroying their synagogues and temples, and pillaging their houses. It was during one of these riots, that the illustrious Hypatia was attacked by a mob of vicious monks, torn from her carriage, dragged into a church, stripped naked and clubbed to death. Then the murderers in fanatic frenzy tore the body to pieces, carried the limbs to a public square and burnt them to ashes. This happened in Lent 415.

All the writings of Hypatia, among them her treatise “On the Astronomical Canon of Diophantus” and another “On the Conics of Apollonius” are lost. Most probably they too were destroyed by the fanatic Christian mobs, who, after the murder of Hypatia, extinguished the Greek School of philosophers and scientists at Alexandria.—

Astronomy, probably the most ancient of the sciences, has since early days exerted a singular attraction on women.

Herman Davis, in his essay “Women Astronomers,” published in the reports of Columbia University, New York, gives the names of a large number of women astronomers, beginning with several of classic times. Of the Egyptians he mentions Aganice, Athyrta, Berenice, Hipparchia and Occelo, who were connected with the Alexandrian School. Of the Greeks he names Aristocle and Athenais, and of Thessaly Aglaonice. But nothing definite is known about their achievement.

Davis likewise gives an account of Hildegarde, abbess of the monastery on Mount St. Rupert near Bingen on the Rhine. This learned woman, who lived from 1099 to 1180, wrote a book in Latin, in which some marvelous statements are claimed to have been made: 1. that the Sun is in the midst of the firmament retaining by its force the stars which move around it; 2. that when it is cold in the Northern hemisphere it is warm in the Southern, that the celestial temperature may thus be in equilibrium; 3. that the stars not only shine with unequal brilliancy but are themselves really unequal in magnitude; 4. that as blood moves in the veins and makes them pulsate, so do the stars move and send forth pulsations of light. “If even one-half of these marvelous statements are found in Hildegarde’s writings as early as the 12th Century,” says Davis, “then this woman may well be classed with the great forerunners of modern astronomy, with Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, for she was three centuries earlier than the first of them.”

The first female astronomer of whom we have more intimate information, was Marie Cunitz, born in 1610 as the eldest daughter of a physician in Silesia. Commanding an extraordinary general culture, her principal study was mathematics and astronomy. Her tables, published under the title “Urania Propitia, sive Tabulæ Astronomicæ,” gained for her a great reputation, and the by-name “the Silesian Pallas.” Dedicated to the Emperor Ferdinand III. the book was published in Latin and in German in 1650 and 1651.

Another noted astronomer was Caroline Lucretia Herschel, born in 1750 at Hanover, Germany. In 1772 she accompanied her brother William to England, and when he accepted the office of astronomer-royal, she became his constant assistant in his observations. In this capacity she succeeded in discovering independently eight comets, five of which had not been observed before. Also she discovered many of the small stellar nebulæ which were included in her brother’s catalogue. For her many contributions to astronomy in 1835 she was presented by the Astronomical Society with their gold medal, and was also elected an honorary member.

When the memoirs of Miss Herschel were published, the editor, in describing her character, said: “Great men and great causes have always some helper of whom the outside world knows but little. These helpers and sustainers have the same quality in common—absolute devotion and unwavering faith in the individual or the cause. Seeking nothing for themselves, thinking nothing of themselves, they have all the intense power of sympathy, a noble love of giving themselves for the service of others. Of this noble company of unknown helpers Caroline Herschel was one.”—

This capacity of self-denial distinguished likewise a number of other women, whose names are known in the history of astronomy, as for instance Theresa and Madeline Manfredi, the daughters of Eustachio Manfredi, from 1674 to 1739 director of the observatory of Bologna. Further, Marie Margarethe Kirch, who assisted her husband, the astronomer Kirch, in the upper Lausatia; Madame Lepante, the wife of the famous clock-maker Jean Andre Lepante; and nearer our own time, there is Maria Mitchell, born 1818 at Nantucket, Mass., who at an early age became the assistant of her father. Carrying on a series of independent observations, she was in 1865 appointed professor of astronomy in Vassar College.

Emilie de Bréteuil, Antonie C. Asher, Elizabeth von Matt, Wilhelmine Witte and Agnes Mary Clerke likewise distinguished themselves in astronomy. The last named lady published in 1885 a “History of Astronomy” and in 1890 “The System of the Stars.” These writings, conspicuous for a careful sifting and due assimilation of facts, with a happy diction that is at the same time both popular and scientific, place the author in the foremost rank of writers on astronomy.—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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