But more remarkable than the mere discovery of so many invaluable manuscripts, which was, of course, an extraordinary achievement, is the fact that these manuscripts, whether in Syriac, Arabic or Hebrew, have been translated, annotated and edited by these same scholarly women. Already more than a score of volumes have come from their prolific pens, all evincing the keenest critical acumen and the highest order of Biblical and archæological scholarship. The reader who desires a popular account of their famous discoveries should by all means read Mrs. Gibson's entertaining volume, How the Codex Was Found, and Mrs. Lewis' charming little work entitled, In the Shadow of Sinai. As to those men—and the species is yet far from extinct—who still doubt the capacity of women for the higher kinds of intellectual effort, let them glance at the pages of the numerous volumes given to the press by these richly dowered women under the captions of Studia Sinaitica and Horæ Semiticæ; and, if they are able to comprehend the evidence before them, they will be forced to admit that the long-imagined difference between the intellectual powers of men and women is one of fancy and not one of reality.[225]
And yet, strange to relate, while Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson were electrifying the learned world by their achievements in the highest form of scholarship, the slow-moving University of Cambridge was gravely debating "whether it was a proper thing to confer degrees upon women," and preparing to answer the question in the negative. The fact that there were "representatives of the unenfranchised sex at their gates who had gathered more laurels in the field of scholarship than most of those who belong to the privileged sex" did not appeal to the university dons or prevent them from putting themselves on record as favoring a condition of things which, at this late age of the world, should be expected only among the women-enslaving followers of Mohammed.
The saying that "a prophet hath no honor in his own country" was fulfilled to the letter in the case of the two women who had shed such luster on the land of their birth. While foreign institutions were vying with one another in showering honors on the two brilliant Englishwomen, with whose praises the whole world was resounding, the University of Cambridge was silent. The University of St. Andrews conferred on them the degree of LL.D., while conservative old Heidelberg, casting aside its age-old traditions, made haste to honor them with the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In addition to this, Halle made Mrs. Lewis a Doctor of Philosophy. One would have thought that sheer shame, if not patriotic spirit, would have compelled the university in whose shadows the two women had their home, and in which Mrs. Lewis' husband had held for years an official appointment, to show itself equally appreciative of superlative merit and equally ready to reward rare scholarship, regardless of the sex of the beneficiaries. But no. The illustrious archæologists and Biblical scholars were women, and this fact alone was in the estimation of the Cambridge authorities enough to withhold from them that recognition which was so spontaneously accorded them by the great universities of the Continent.
Nor was this the only instance of the kind. While the celebrated twin sisters just referred to were so materially contributing to our knowledge of Biblical lore, another Englishwoman, Jane E. Harrison, who lived within hearing of the church bells of Cambridge, was lecturing to delighted audiences in Newnham College on the history, mythology and monuments of ancient Athens, and writing those learned works on the religion and antiquities of Greece which have given her so conspicuous a place among modern archæologists.[226] But, as in the case of her distinguished neighbors, the discoverers of the Codex Ludovicus, the degrees she was honored with came not from Cambridge, with which, through her fellowship in Newnham, she was so closely connected.
And while this gifted lady was deserving so well of science and literature, the undergraduate students of Cambridge, following the cue given by the twenty-four hundred graduates who had just rejected the proposal to give honorary degrees to women who could pass the required examinations, were giving an exhibition of rowdyism which far surpassed that which, a few years before, had so disgraced the University of Edinburgh, when the same question of degrees for women was under consideration.
According to the report of an eye witness of the turbulent scene at Cambridge, "The undergraduate students appeared to be, as a body, viciously opposed to the proposal to give degrees to women, and became fairly riotous. They hooted those who supported the reform and fired crackers even in the Senate House and made the night lurid with bonfires and powder. They put up insulting effigies of girl students, and such mottoes as 'Get you to Girton, Beatrice. Get you to Newnham. Here is no place for maids!'"
Verily, when such scenes are possible in one of the world's great intellectual centers—a place where, above all others, women should receive due recognition for their contributions toward the progress of knowledge—one is constrained to declare that what we call civilization is still far from the ideal. And, when one witnesses the total indifference of institutions like Cambridge and the French Academy to the splendid achievements of women like Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Gibson and Mme. Curie, one cannot but exclaim in words Apocalyptic: "How long, O Lord, holy and true," is this iniquitous discrimination against one-half of our race to endure? O Lord, how long?
FOOTNOTES:
[215] A. Michælis, A Century of Archæological Discoveries, p. 6, New York, 1908.
[216] The Most Illustrious Ladies of the Renaissance, p. 152, by Christopher Hare, London, 1904.