Dr. Schmidt urges Marie’s appointment as Chief of the School, including the surrender to her of his own position as professor—Violent medical and diplomatic opposition, becoming a controversy over “Woman’s Rights”—Marie’s father refuses his consent and insists that she marry a man she has never even seen—Eventually, Dr. Schmidt wins and Marie receives her appointment—Triumph immediately turned to tragedy by sudden death of Dr. Schmidt on the same day. (Twenty-two years of age: 1851-1852.)
The acknowledgment that I was a very capable woman having been made by the medical men present at the examination, Dr. Schmidt thought it would be an easy matter to get me installed into the position for which I had proved myself capable. But such could not be the case in a government ruled by hypocrisy and intrigue. To acknowledge the capability of a woman did not by any means say that she was at liberty to hold a position in which she could exercise this capability.
German men are educated to be slaves to the government: positive freedom is comprehended only by a few. They generally struggle for a kind of negative freedom, namely, for themselves. For each man, however much he may be inclined to show his subserviency to those superior in rank, thinks himself the lord of creation and, of course, regards woman only as his appendage. How can this lord of creation, being a slave himself, look upon the free development and demand for recognition of his appendage otherwise than as a nonsense or a usurpation of his exclusive rights?
And among these lords of creation, I heartily dislike that class which not only yield to the influence brought to bear upon them by the government but who also possess an infinite amount of narrowness and vanity united to an infinite servility to money and position. There is not ink and paper enough in all the world to write down the contempt I feel for men in whose power it is to be free in thought and noble in action, and who yet act to the contrary to feed their ambition or their purses. I have learned, perhaps, too much of their spirit for my own good.
You can hardly believe what I experienced in respect to intrigue within the few months following my examination. All the members of the medical profession were unwilling that a woman should take her place on a level with them.
All the diplomatists became fearful that Dr. Schmidt intended to advocate the question of “Woman’s Rights”; one of them exclaiming one evening, in the heat of discussion, “For Heaven’s sake! the Berlin women are already wiser than all the men of Prussia: what will become of us if we allow them to manifest it?”
I was almost forgotten in the five months during which the question was debated: it became more than a matter of personal intrigue. The real question at stake was, “How shall women be educated, and what is their true sphere?” And this was discussed with more energy and spirit than ever has been done here in America.
Scores of letters were written by Dr. Schmidt to convince the government that a woman could really be competent to hold the position in question, and that I had been pronounced so by the whole faculty.
The next objection raised was that my father was known as holding revolutionary principles; and to conquer this cost a long discussion, with many interviews of the officials with my father and Dr. Schmidt.
The next thing urged was that I was much too young; that it would be necessary, in the course of my duties, to instruct the young men also, and that there was danger in our thus being thrown together. In fact, this reason, read to me by Dr. Schmidt from one of the letters written at this time (all of which are still carefully preserved), runs thus, “To give this position to Miss M. E. Zakrzewska is dangerous. She is a prepossessing young lady, and from coming in contact with so many gentlemen must necessarily fall in love with some one of them, and thus end her career.” To this, I have only to reply that I am sorry that I could not have found one among them that could have made me follow the suggestion.