_Le donne son venute in excellenza Di ciascun'arte, ove hanno posta cura; E qualunque all'istorie abbia avvertenza, Ne sente ancor la fama non oscura._ _What art so deep, what science so high, But worthy women have thereto attained? Who list in stories old to look may try, And find my speech herein not false nor fain'd._ ARIOSTO, ORLANDO FURIOSO, CANTO XX, STROPHE 2. _Ad omnem igitur doctrinam ... muliebres animos natura comparavit._ MARIA GAETANA AGNESI. WOMAN IN SCIENCE CHAPTER I WOMAN'S LONG STRUGGLE FOR THINGS OF THE MIND WOMAN AND EDUCATION IN ANCIENT GREECE I purpose to review the progress and achievements of woman in science from her earliest efforts in ancient Greece down to the present time. I shall relate how, in every department of natural knowledge, when not inhibited by her environment, she has been the colleague and the emulatress, if not the peer, of the most illustrious men who have contributed to the increase and diffusion of human learning. But a proper understanding of this subject seems to require some preliminary survey of the many and diverse obstacles which, in every age of the world's history, have opposed woman's advancement in general knowledge. Without such preliminary survey it is impossible to realize the intensity of her age-long struggle for freedom and justice in things of the mind or fully to appreciate the comparative liberty and advantages she now enjoys in almost every department of intellectual activity. Neither could one understand why woman's achievements in science, compared with those of men, have been so few and of so small import, especially in times past, or why it is that, as a student of nature or as an investigator in the various realms of pure and applied science, we hear so little of her before the second half of the nineteenth century.