Petersburg. And then Madame
Struve joined in the conversation, and told me how much the subject of
woman's education still held her interest.
"St. Petersburg is about the size of Philadelphia. Struve said, 'There
are thousands of women studying science in St. Petersburg.' How many
thousand women do you suppose are studying science in the whole State of
New York? I doubt if there are five hundred.
"Then again, as to language. It is rare, even among the common people,
to meet one who speaks one language only. If you can speak no Russian,
try your poor French, your poor German, or your good English. You may be
sure that the shopkeeper will answer in one or another, and even the
drosky-driver picks up a little of some one of them.
"Of late, the Russian government has founded a medical school for women,
giving them advantages which are given to men, and the same rank when
they graduate; the czar himself contributed largely to the fund.
"One wonders, in a country so rich as ours, that so few men and women
gratify their tastes by founding scholarships and aids for the tuition
of girls--it must be such a pleasant way of spending money.
"Then as regards religion. I am never in a country where the Catholic or
Greek church is dominant, but I see with admiration the zeal of its
followers. I may pity their delusions, but I must admire their devotion.
If you look around in one of our churches upon the congregation,
five-sixths are women, and in some towns nineteen-twentieths; and if you
form a judgment from that fact, you would suppose that religion was
entirely a 'woman's right.
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