CYCLES OF FEMININE EDUCATION

AND INFLUENCE*

NOTHING is commoner than to suppose that what we are doing at the present day is an improvement over whatever they were doing at any time in the past in the same line. We were rather proud during the nineteenth century to talk of that century as the century of evolution. Evolutionary terms of all kinds found their way even into everyday speech and a very general impression was produced that we are in the midst of progress so rapid and unerring, that even from decade to decade it is possible to trace the wonderful advance that man is making. We look back on the early nineteenth century as quite hopelessly backward. They had no railroads, no street-car lines, no public street lighting, no modes of heating buildings that gave any comfort in the cold weather, no elevators, and when we compare our present comfortable condition with the discomforts of that not so distant period, we feel how much evolution has done for us, and inevitably

* The material for this was gathered for a lecture on the History of Education delivered for the Academy of the Sacred Heart, Kenwood, Albany, N. Y., and St. Joseph's College, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pa. Very nearly in its present form the address was delivered before the League for the Civic Education of Women, at the Colony Club, New York City, in the winter of 1910.

conclude that just as much progress as has been made in transportation and in comfort, has also been made in the things of the mind, and, above all, in education, so that, while the millennium is not yet here, it cannot surely be far off; and men are attaining at last, with giant strides, the great purpose that runs through the ages.

Probably in nothing is the assumption that we are doing something far beyond what was ever accomplished before, more emphatically expressed than in the ordinary opinions as to what is being done by and for women in our generation. We have come to think that at last in the course of evolution woman is beginning to come into something of her rights, she is at last getting her opportunity for the higher education and for professional education so far as she wants it, and as a consequence is securing that influence which, as the equal of man, she should have in the world. Now there is just one thing with regard to this very general impression which deserves to be called particularly to attention. This is not the first time in the world's history, nor the first by many times, that woman has had the opportunity for the higher education and has taken it very well. Neither is it the first time that she has insisted on having an influence in public affairs, but on the contrary, we can readily find a very curious series. of cycles of feminine education and of the exercise of public influence by women, with intervals of almost negative phases in these matters that

are rather difficult to explain. Let us before trying to understand what the feministic movement means in our own time and, above all, before trying to sum up its ultimate significance for the race, study some of the corresponding movements in former times.

The most interesting phase of the woman movement in history is that which occurred at the time of the Renaissance. Because it is typical of the phases of the feministic movement at all times, and then, too, because it is closer to us and the records of it are more complete, it will be extremely interesting to follow out some of the details of it. It may be necessary for that to make a little excursion into the history of the period. During the early fifteenth century the Turks were bothering Constantinople so much, that Greek scholars, rendered uncomfortable at home, began making their way over into Italy rather frequently, bringing with them precious manuscripts and remains of old Greek art. Besides commerce aroused by the Crusades was making the intercourse between East and West much more intimate than it had been and, as a result, a taste for Greek letters and art was beginning to be felt in certain portions of Italy. When Constantinople fell, about the middle of the fifteenth century, the prestige of the old capital of the Greek empire was lost, and scholars abandoned it for Italy in large numbers. This is the time of the Renaissance. The rebirth that the word

signifies, is not a rebirth of art and architecture and literature into the modern world, as if there had been nothing before, for Gothic art and architecture and literature is quite as wonderful, if not more so, than anything that came after, and there are good authorities who insist that the Renaissance hurt, rather than helped, Europe. The Renaissance was a rebirth of Greek ideas and ideals in æsthetics into the European world, and while we may not agree with Sir Henry Maine that whatever lives and moves in the intellectual world is Greek in origin, there is no doubt that Greek can be the source of most wonderful incentive and such it proved to be during the fifteenth century.

Men and women began to study Greek and they paid much more attention as a consequence to the Latin classics modelled on the Greek, and so the New Learning, the so-called humanities, became the centre of intellectual interest. They were studied first in private schools, but before long a place for these new studies was demanded in the curriculum of the universities. The universities, however, were occupied with the socalled seven liberal arts, which were really scientific studies. There was geometry, astronomy, music, grammar, rhetoric, logic and metaphysics, with considerable ethics and political science, so that they resembled in many ways our modern universities as they have been transformed since the re-introduction of scientific studies into them.

The university faculties were content and conservative after the fashion of universities ever, and they quite naturally refused to entertain the notion of such a radical change as the introduction of classical studies into the curriculum. This is just exactly what the classical universities of the early nineteenth century did when they were asked by scientific enthusiasts to re-introduce scientific studies into the curriculum, which in the course of 300 years had come to be made up almost exclusively of classical studies. In this curious way does history repeat itself.

Unable to obtain a place for the studies in humanism in the universities, ruling princes and wealthy members of the nobility proceeded to found special schools for these subjects. In these schools without the traditions of the past, the women asked and obtained the privilege of studying. There had come a noteworthy change in intellectual interest, a novelty was introduced into education. Whenever that happens woman always asks and always obtains the privilege of the higher education. During the Renaissance period she proceeded to show her intellectual power. Many of the women of the Renaissance became distinguished for scholarship. Perhaps one thing should be noted with regard to that. Their reputation for scholarship was largely confined to their younger years. They were more precocious, or applied themselves better to their studies, and accordingly knew more of the classics