We find some old verses published in Leipsic, in a book of students’ songs, in 1736, recognizing the fact that women attended lectures in the university there, although the reference is rather sarcastic, speaking of “beauty coming to listen in the halls of learning.”
In 1754 the first woman received her degree of Doctor of Medicine in Halle--Dorothea Christine Erxleben, _née_ Leborin, a daughter of a physician, who attained to this result only after many years of painstaking effort. With her father’s help she studied the classics and medicine, and gradually, in spite of the objections of his brother physicians, began to practice as a doctor under her father’s protection. She is said to have cured her patients _cito tuto_, _jucunde_, and in 1742 she published a book on the right of women to study, the title of which, according to the custom of the day, included the full table of contents. This book passed through two editions, and enabled her to gain the attention of Frederick II, who was persuaded to order the University of Halle to grant her the privilege of taking her examination there. The day arrived, and the hall was crowded for the occasion; the candidate passed the ordeal in a brilliant manner, and took the oath for the doctor’s degree amid a storm of applause from the listeners present.
In the present century the germ of the movement for educational rights for women came into consciousness in Germany in the stormy year 1848, and first found expression and life through the work of two women--Louise Otto Peters and Auguste Schmidt. The former founded the Universal Association for Women in Germany, and through this society both these women worked for thirty years and did much toward preparing the way for the broader efforts of the present time.
It is a fact granted by all the educational world that scholarship attains a depth and thoroughness in Germany not found in other lands, and this very perfection has been in part the cause of the backwardness of the educational movement among the women, for a high degree of scholarship has often been acquired by the men at the expense of the devoted service of the women connected with them. Yet when the women of Germany demand their educational rights it will be to share also in the rich intellectual inheritance of their land.