Woman in Science / With an Introductory Chapter on Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind

by J. A. Zahm

It was particularly during his long and arduous researches on the disease of silkworms that Pasteur found his wife's aid of incalculable value. For Mme. Pasteur and her daughter then constituted themselves veritable silkworm rearers. They collected mulberry leaves, sorted larvæ, and were unremitting in their labors during the continuance of this memorable investigation. And not only in the silk-producing districts of Southern France were they thus occupied, but also in a special laboratory in École Normale, after their return to Paris.

And, when in the midst of these researches, on the successful outcome of which hinged one of the greatest sources of national wealth, the indefatigable savant was stricken with paralysis and his life was for a while despaired of, it was again his devoted helpmate that afforded him solace in suffering and exercised a supervision over those experiments which the great man was still conducting almost in the presence of death.

That Pasteur's life was prolonged for a quarter of a century after the terrible attack of hemiplegia in 1868, that he was able to unravel the deep mysteries of microbian life, that he was able to make discoveries whose economical value to France was, in the estimation of Professor Huxley, more than sufficient to liquidate the immense indemnity of five billion francs exacted from his country by Germany at the termination of the Franco-Prussian war, that he was able, especially during these fruitful twenty-five years, to render his "scientific life like a luminous trail in the great night of the infinitely little in those ultimate abysses of being where life is born," was, in great measure, due to the unceasing care, the untiring vigilance and the sympathetic collaboration of one of the most devoted of wives and most noble and whole-souled of women.

What has been said of the influence and helpfulness of Mme. Pasteur can be asserted with even greater truth of Elizabeth Agassiz and of Caroline Herschel. For these two women, apart from the assistance they gave to a loved husband and an idolized brother, in the labors that made them so famous, both achieved distinction for their contributions to the sciences which they individually cultivated with such splendid results. And had they elected to devote all their time to scientific research, instead of giving the greater part of it to those to whom they were so devotedly attached, who can tell how much more brilliant would have been their achievements and how much greater would have been the fame they would have won for themselves. Both of them were dowered in an eminent degree with taste and talent for science, and had they chosen to make it the sole object of their life work, there can be no doubt that their personal contributions to natural history and astronomy would have been far greater than they were. As it was, they were so overshadowed by those for whom they labored with such unselfishness and loyalty that the real value of their work is too often forgotten when there is question of the scientific triumphs of Louis Agassiz and Sir William Herschel.

But they willed it so. They gladly effaced themselves that those whom they loved with such a deep and abiding love might shine the more brightly in the firmament of science. They preferred to spend and be spent in strengthening the great workers and leaders with whose lives their own were so thoroughly identified—"Inspiring them with courage, keeping faith in their own ideas alive, in days of darkness

'When all the world seems adverse to desert.'"

Both of these noble women had the same quality in common—absolute devotion and unswerving faith in those to whose success and happiness they had dedicated their lives. They sought nothing for themselves, they thought nothing of themselves. They both had, to borrow the idea of another, an intense power of sympathy, a generous love of giving themselves to the service of others, which enabled them to transfuse the force of their own personality into the objects to which they dedicated their powers.

In the preface of the joint work of Mr. and Mrs. Agassiz entitled A Journey in Brazil, that delightful volume which throws such a flood of light on the fauna and flora of the Amazon valley, occur the following significant words regarding the share each had in producing the book: "Our separate contributions have become so closely interwoven that we should hardly know how to disconnect them." So was it with all their undertakings. There was the same common interest, the same unity of purpose, the same unselfish devotion to the cause of science during those long years of toil which were so prolific in results of supreme importance. Reading between the lines in A Journey in Brazil, and in Louis Agassiz, His Life and Correspondence, written by Mrs. Agassiz, we can easily fancy that the great naturalist owed as much, if not more, to his wife's never-failing sympathy and inspiration as to her active coöperation in his work, and we are ready to apply to her the words of Longfellow when he sings:

"And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song
Or tell a more wonderful tale."

As to Caroline Herschel as a helper and sustainer of her illustrious brother, too much cannot be said. "In the days when he gave up a lucrative career that he might devote himself to astronomy, it was owing to her thrift and care that he was not harassed by the rankling vexations of money matters. She had been his helper and assistant when he was a leading musician; she became his helper and assistant when he gave himself up to astronomy. By sheer force of will and devoted affection she learned enough of mathematics and of methods of calculation, which to those unlearned seem mysteries, to be able to commit to writing his researches. She became his assistant in the workshop; she helped him to grind and polish his mirrors; she stood beside his telescope in the nights of midwinter, to write down his observations when the very ink was frozen in the bottle. She kept him alive by her care; thinking nothing of herself, she lived for him. She loved him and believed in him, and helped him with all her heart and with all her strength. She might have become a distinguished woman on her own account, for with the seven-foot Newtonian sweeper given her by her brother she discovered eight comets first and last. But the pleasure of seeking and finding for herself was scarcely tested. She 'minded the heavens' for her brother; she worked for him, not for herself, and the unconscious self-denial with which she gave up 'her own pleasure in the use of her sweeper' is not the least beautiful picture in her life."[249]