Miss Elsie Clews Parsons in New York has published valuable monographs about the folk-lore of the Pueblo Indians and the Negroes of the Bahama Islands. A. M. Czaplicka, Mary Kingsley, Barbara Freire-Marreco, Adele Breton, Mrs. Jochelson-Brodsky, and Maria Tubino are likewise most favorably known as writers on archæology and ethnology.
For a number of years Johanna Mestorf has held the position of director of the Museum of Antiquities of Schleswig-Holstein.
Cornelia Horsford, the learned daughter of the late Professor Eben Horsford of Cambridge, Mass., made great efforts to settle many questions in regard to the early voyages of discovery by the Norsemen to Greenland and Vinland. In the pursuit of these studies she sent several scientific expeditions to Iceland as well as to Greenland and published a number of valuable essays, among them “Graves of the Northmen”; “Dwellings of the Saga Time in Iceland, Greenland and Vinland”; “Vinland and its Ruins”; and “Ruins of the Saga-Times.”
Anne Pratt is known as an able botanist. And Eleanor Anne Ormerod has been hailed in England as “the Protector of Agriculture,” as she organized the valuable “Annual Series of Reports on Injurious Insects and Pests,” distributed by the Government.
Among the explorers of the Dark Continent a Dutch lady, Miss Alexandrine Tinné, created a sensation by her daring journeys in the upper Nile regions. During her first expedition, which lasted from 1861 to 1864, she penetrated great stretches of unknown territory, and was the first to enter the land of the Niam Niam. Several members of her expedition died from the terrible hardships that had to be overcome. After her return to Cairo Miss Tinné started in January, 1869, on a still more hazardous expedition, which was to proceed from Tripoli to Lake Tchad, and from there by way of Wadai, Darfur, and Kordofan to the Upper Nile. But while her caravan was on the route from Murzuk to Rhat, the daring explorer was murdered by her own escort.
An English lady, Florence Caroline Dixie, explored the wilderness of Central Patagonia. Isabelle Bishop became known for her extensive travels through Asia, and the masterful descriptions of those countries she had traversed. Her best work is “Korea and Her Neighbors.”
Therese, Princess of Bavaria, wrote several highly interesting works about her extensive travels in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and the tropical regions of Brazil. Cecilie Seler, the wife of the famous archæologist Eduard Seler, is the author of the valuable book “On Ancient Roads in Mexico and Guatemala.”
While these examples—which might be increased by many others—give ample proof of woman’s ability in regard to scientific work, it must be stated, that, up to the middle of the 19th Century, men did very little to encourage their struggling sisters in this line of activity. Indeed, there are not a few instances of strong disinclination on the part of statesmen as well as of scientists, to smooth woman’s road to higher education. Centuries passed before women succeeded in gaining the right to follow their studies in colleges and universities, a right they had enjoyed in Italy during the 10th and 11th Centuries as well as during the Renaissance.
The first institution of modern times, that admitted women on the same footing with men, was Oberlin College in Ohio, founded in 1833 and open to all irrespective of sex and color. The first woman who graduated here was Miss Zerniah Porter, who in 1838 received her diploma in the so-called literary course. The State universities of the West that were founded later on all followed the example set by Oberlin College and gradually the older ones adopted the same policy, so that all over the West and South, where the State university is a strong influence, these institutions are open to women. Throughout these regions women’s education is for this reason almost synonymous with co-education. In the Eastern part of the United States, however, the private college predominates, and there is a greater degree of separation. But even here the restrictions are gradually being removed, and most of the men’s colleges and universities admit women to some departments with some restrictions, or have an affiliated woman’s college.
America has also a number of independent colleges exclusively for women. The best known among them are Vassar College, at Poughkeepsie, New York, organized in 1861, with 1124 students and 144 teachers in 1918; Wellesley College in Massachusetts, organized in 1875, and with 1612 students and 138 teachers in 1918; Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania organized in 1880, and with 489 students and 63 teachers in 1918; Smith College at Northampton, Mass.