In the universities a few distinguished professors of military age have been permitted to retain their chairs, but a considerable number have gone to the front. Naturally the number of students has been greatly reduced.
Photograph by E. M. Newman
THE SMALL CANALS OF VENICE WERE ALMOST DESERTED
Special dispensations have been made for the schools of medicine, so that the services of the more advanced students may be utilized while at the same time they are enabled to continue their studies. This has been made possible by the establishment of the so-called "Universita Castrense," or Camp University, situated in the war zone, where distinguished physicians who are also university professors teach the young students, while teachers and pupils alternate the hours of class with those of service in the camp hospitals. The change caused by the war in the condition of women has probably been more profound and more keenly felt in Italy than in other countries, such as England and France, where women have for many years been engaged in various useful pursuits. In Italy the women of the middle class, with rare exceptions, remained at home. Those of the lower class, when they worked at all, generally chose some occupation such as teaching. Most women had no economic independence. Unmarried girls usually lived with their parents or some married brother or sister.
Photograph by E. M. Newman
ST. MARK'S PLACE, VENICE
Though the beautiful buildings were protected, crowds gathered daily and regular occupations were pursued
An ardent group of Italian women prepared the ground and labored for years to convince their sisters that they were wrong in the belief that under all conditions "a woman's place is in her home." This belief was almost a religion in the southern provinces of Italy; the prejudice there was so strong that it required the utmost courage of the women to combat it. Intelligent, progressive and cultured Italian girls are now to be found in almost every occupation in which their English, French and American sisters are engaged. This revolution in the attitude of Italian women is accepted, not as a temporary war necessity, but as a permanent change that cannot fail to have a deep and, on the whole, beneficent effect upon social conditions in Italy.