A LEARNED YOUNG LADY.
Fraulein Dorothea Schlozer, a Hanoverian lady, was thought worthy of the highest academical honours of Göttingen University, and, at the jubilee of 1787, she had the degree of Doctor of Philosophy conferred upon her, when only seventeen years of age. The daughter of the Professor of Philosophy in that University, she from her earliest years discovered an uncommon genius for learning. Before she was three years of age, she was taught Low German, a language almost foreign to her own. Before she was six, she had learned French and German, and then she began geometry; and after receiving ten lessons, she was able to answer very difficult questions. The English, Italian, Swedish, and Dutch languages were next acquired, with singular rapidity; and before she was fourteen, she knew Latin and Greek, and had become a good classical scholar. Besides her knowledge of languages, she made herself acquainted with almost every branch of polite literature, as well as many of the sciences, particularly mathematics. She also attained great proficiency in mineralogy; and, during a sojourn of six weeks in the Hartz Forest, she visited the deepest mines, in the common habit of a labourer, and examined the whole process of the work. Her surprising talents becoming the general topic of conversation, she was proposed, by the great Orientalist Michaelis, as a proper subject for academical honours. The Philosophical Faculty, of which the Professor was Dean, was deemed the fittest; and a day was fixed for her examination, in presence of all the Professors. She was introduced by Michaelis himself, and distinguished, as a lady, with the highest seat. Several questions were first proposed to her in mathematics; all of which she answered to satisfaction. After this, she gave a free translation of the thirty-seventh Ode of the first Book of Horace, and explained it. She was then examined in various branches of art and science, when she displayed a thorough knowledge of the subjects. The examination lasted two hours and a half; and at the end, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy was unanimously conferred upon her, and she was crowned with a wreath of laurel by Fraulein Michaelis, at the request of the Professors.