346 Mary Somerville. 



the Academy of Sciences in Paris, has more re- 

 cently received the diploma of Licentiate in Mathe- 

 matical Sciences from the same illustrious Society, 

 after a successful examination in algebra, trigo- 

 nometry, analytical geometry, the differential and 

 integral calculi, and astronomy. A Eussian lady 

 has also taken a degree; and a lady of my ac- 

 quaintance has received a gold medal from the same 

 Institution. 



I joined in a petition to the Senate of London 

 University, praying that degrees might be granted 

 to women ; but it was rejected. I have also fre- 

 quently signed petitions to Parliament for the 

 Female Suffrage, and have the honour now to be a 

 member of the General Committee for Woman 

 Suffrage in London. 



[My mother, in alluding to the great changes in public 

 opinion which she had lived to see, used to remark that 

 a commonly well-informed woman of the present day 

 would have been looked upon as a prodigy of learning in 

 her youth, and that even till quite lately many considered 

 that if women were to receive the solid education men 

 enjoy, they would forfeit much of their feminine grace 

 and become unfit to perform their domestic duties. My 

 mother herself was one of the brightest examples of the 

 fallacy of this old-world theory, for no one was more 

 thoroughly and gracefully feminine than she was, both in 



