CHAPTER III 



WOMEN IN MATHEMATICS 



"All abstract speculations, all knowledge which is dry, 

 however useful it may be, must be abandoned to the labori- 

 ous and solid mind of man, . . . For this reason women 

 will never learn geometry. " 



In these words Immanuel Kant, more than a century 

 ago, gave expression to an opinion that had obtained since 

 the earliest times respecting the incapacity of the female 

 mind for abstract science, and notably for mathematics. 

 Women, it was averred, could readily assimilate what is 

 concrete, but, like children, they have a natural repug- 

 nance for everything which is abstract. They are compe- 

 tent to discuss details and to deal with particulars, but 

 become hopelessly lost when they attempt to generalize or 

 deal with universals. 



De Lamennais shares Kant 's opinion concerning woman 's 

 intellectual inferiority and does not hesitate to express 

 himself on the subject in the most unequivocal manner. 

 "I have never," he writes, "met a woman who was com- 

 petent to follow a course of reasoning the half of a quarter 

 of an hour un demi quart d'heure. She has qualities 

 which are wanting in us, qualities of a particular, inex- 

 pressible charm; but, in the matter of reason, logic, the 

 power to connect ideas, to enchain principles of knowledge 

 and perceive their relationships, woman, even the most 

 highly gifted, rarely attains to the height of a man of 

 mediocre capacity. " 



But it is not only in the past that such views found 

 acceptance. They prevail even to-day to almost the same 



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