Module 3

1
Module 3

• Science (1500-1700)
• and the participation of women

2
Science in the Middle Ages

• Those who studied nature in the Middle Ages were
  as preocccupied with the method used to acquire
  knowledge as with its application (a complex
  dialogue netween utility and practice).
• The Muslim thinkers were interested in practical
  sciences like medicine and astronomy.
• While the Latin thinkers were focussed on the
  utilisation of scientific knowledge as a road to
  their salvation. (Ede and Cormack, 2004, 76)

3
The universities

• Founded in the 12 th century, they created a
  space approved by the church while not being
  completely under the control of the church.
• They had little interest in science, except for a
  few like Cambridge (with Newton) and Bologna
  (with Laura Bassi).
• In Germany, 14 of astronomers were women in the
  17th century.

4
Scientific revolutionA controversy

• Dobbs challenges a traditional assumption about
  the heroes of the Scientific Revolution, namely,
  that their thought patterns were fundamentally
  just like ours. It is only because they make
  this assumption that historians have found it
  difficult to explain Keplers Pythagoreanism or
  Newtons devotion to alchemy. (Osler)

5
Scientific revolutionA controversy

• By making a different assumption, namely that
  people have not always viewed the world in the
  same way that we do, Dobbs is able to argue that
  we can make sense of their diverse interests and
  preoccupations.

6
Scientific revolutionA controversy

• This is the base of the disagreement between
  Westfall and Dobbs.
• He assumes that thinkers in the past (during the
  revolution) are similar to us and that what is
  important for the historian is that aspect of a
  thinkers work that has survived until the
  present or that has led to our present way of
  looking at things. (Osler, 2000, 5)

7
But

• Margaret Jacobs article argues that their Dodds
  and Westfall disagreement is badly posed since
  it rests on the assumption of who and what made
  the revolution.
• Margaret Jacob concludes that there was a
  scientific revolution, but not the one described
  by Dobbs and Westfall.
• She argues that this revolution actually occurred
  in the 18th c. when the natural philosophers
  took-up the physics and mathematics of Newton
  while ignoring his alchemical and theological
  views. (Osler, 2000, 5)

8
Examples of major transformations

• In the 16th and 17th in cosmology and astronomy,
  replacing the Aristotle-Ptolemy theory (that the
  earth is the centre of the universe) by the
  heliocentric theory of Copernicus
• The mathematical explanations by Kepler and Brahe
  on the movement of the planets.
• The development of experimental science with
  Galileo, Descartes, and Bacon, and the
  mathematical theory proposed by Descartes, and
  the physics of gravitation and movement by Newton.

9
More

• In medecine, similar developments by Andreas
  Vesalius (1514-1564), who, it is said, wrote the
  first complete text on human anatomy De Humanis
  Corporis Fabrica.
• William Harvey (1578-1657) develops a theory of
  the heart and of the circulation of the blood
  that he publishes in 1628 On the Motion of the
  Heart and Blood in Animals.
• Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) plays a major role in
  the development of experimental science.
  (Westfall, 1971, 45)

10
The invention of instruments

• Le telescope lead to many discoveries in
  astronomy.
• The microscope is utilised much in biology and in
  botany.
• The first precise clock allows to measure time
  with great precision.
• The thermometer and the barometer.

11
Exploration

• 15 th and 16th c. are periods of great
  explorations.
• For example The search for spices and other
  exotic foods.
• Developments in mines and metallurgy (and
  alchemy).
• Development of commerce and markets.
• Developments in astronomy, mathematics and
  navigational instruments.

12
Other inventions

• The printing press by Gutenberg (1436) in
  Flanders, provides access to books and reading
  to a large number of persons, and stimulates
  research on metallic alloys.
• During Reformation (17th), frequent wars between
  Catholics and Protestants in Europe ,encourages
  the development of military surgery and
  engineering.
• Development of tools and of knowledge to build
  fortifications, guns and canons.

13
More

• Robert Boyle (1627-1691), with the help of Robert
  Hooke, builds a pump that can make vacuum jar to
  study the nature of air.
• Boyles law mathematical formulas describing
  mechanical properties of fluids and the
  relationship between volume and pressure of
  gases.
• According to Westfall, there have not been so
  important contributions in former centuries.
  (1971, 113/114)

14
Mechanisation

• An important point In this period, the study of
  nature was mechanised and mathematised and there
  arose a discontinuity between the views of
  Aristotle and Newton.
• Experimentation becomes an important aspect to
  support theories and scientific laws.

15
Formalisation of science

• The Royal Society of London created in 1662
• LAcadémie royale des sciences de Paris in 1666
• The Societas Regia Scientiarum of Berlin en 1700.
  
• Towards the end of the 18th c., a network of
  academies reaches St-Petersburg, Stockholm,
  Palermo, Dublin, and many other cities in Europe.
• There are some 70 Academies built on the model of
  the Royal Society and lAcadémie de Paris, in
  Europe and America in the18th c.
• The concept of the scientific journal, where men
  in science publish their ideas and the results of
  their research begins with these Societies and
  Academies.

16
Women

• Completely excluded.

17
Education of women in 17th C. in England
18
What girls learn in the 17th c. in Europe

• Writing and reading, a little bit of arithmetics,
  sewing, cooking, medicine, run a household,
  accounting, agriculture (poorer classes)
• Reading the Bible and Conduct books.
• Develop chastety, piety, humility, obeying.
• NO public life.

19
What boys learn

• Greek and Latin, the classics
• Generally no science.

20
Thomas Spratt (1635-1713)

• One of the first person to want to include
  science in education programs in England
• The History of the Royal Society of London, for
  the Improving of Natural Knowledge (1667)
  scientific writings help to understand the
  natural world and to forge a new culture and
  literary tradition. (Phillips, 1990, 28)
• In the latter half of the 17th c. men in science
  wrote in English, in a simple language, instead
  of Latin.

21
Thomas Spratt (1635-1713)

• This insured a wider public for understanding
  scientific work.
• Sprat did not include women in his mission, but
  the new writings are more accessible for those
  who can read, since most women did not learn
  Latin.

22
Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670)

• Born Jan Amos Komensky, in Moravia, educated in
  Heidelberg, he becomes a teacher and
  ecclesiastic.
• He had a major influence on school reforms in the
  17 th c. in Europe and in England.
• A group of English men, Samuel Hartlib
  (1600?-1662), John Drury, and Robert Boyle
  (1627-1691) invite Comenius to England to help
  bring educational reforms.

23
Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670)

• Three volumes The Great Didactic, (1627 and
  1654).
• He is the first to conceive of a 'science of
  education.
• He believes in universal education and insists on
  a global equality of the two sexes, that we
  teach all to everyone.

24
Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670)

• Nor can any good reason be given why the weaker
  sex should be altogether excluded from the
  pursuit of knowledge (whether in Latin or in
  their mother-tongue)....They are endowed with
  equal sharpness of mind and capacity for
  knowledge (often with more than the opposite sex)
  and they are able to attain the highest
  positions, since they have often been called by
  God Himself to rule over nations ... to the study
  of medicine and of other things which benefit the
  human race.... Why, therefore, should we admit
  them to the alphabet, and afterwards drive them
  away from books? (Piaget, web site
  http//www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf
  /comeniuse.PDF, p. 9 from Comenius Chap. IX,
  219-220 last accessed May 2009)
•  

25
Anna Maria Van Shurmann (1607-1678)

• She knows many languages
• Mathematics, calculus, and astronomy.
• Poetry, rhetoric, dialectic and philosophy.
• In 1639, Dissertatio, de ingenii mulieribus ad
  doctrinam, et meliores litteras aptitudine, on
  the abilities of womens brain in science and
  literature. (Disse,2008)
• Van Schurmann firmly believed in equal
  opportunities in education.
• She listens to lectures at Utrecht University
  behind a curtain.

26
Anna Maria Van Shurmann (1607-1678)

• She is the best in Latin in her city
• She writes verses in 1636 for the inauguration of
  the new university.
• In 1659 she writes The Learned Maid or Whether a
  Maid may be a Scholar.
• She influences other women working for the
  education of girls (Marie de Gournay, Bathsua
  Makin).
• But she does NOT fight for a public role of
  women.

27
Bathsua (Reginald) Makin (London 1600?-1676?)

• An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of
  Gentlewomen
• In her school girls learn
• grammar, rhetoric, logic, herbs and medecine,
  languages (Greek and Hebrew), mathematics,
  geography, histoiry, music, peinting, poetry.

28
Makin

• She invents a radiograph system, stenography in
  many languages.
• She earns her living and supports her large
  family.
• She is said to be the most learned woman in
  England in the 17th c. , a title that de Gournay
  also deserved in France in the preceding century.

29
Bathsua

• Bathsua marries Richard Makin in 1620. She has at
  least 9 children in 20 years, 6 survive.
• She is responsible for all clothing, food,
  medicine, etc..
• She opens her own school after the death of her
  father in 1673.
• She spoke 6 languages at 10 years old.

30
The essay

• An Essay begins with an open letter to women
  saying that they need education as much as men.
• She suggests that many people will be opposed to
  this principle, but says that educated women will
  be better wives and will encourage their sons to
  work harder in their training.
• Makin says that women will be able to help their
  husband with advice but that the latter will
  retain all power of decision. (Makin, 1673, 1)

31
The essay

• A 2nd letter explains that the education of women
  will benefit men too. (Makin, 1673, 2)
• In a third letter, Makin pretends to be a man who
  is against the idea that women be learned and
  provides arguments for that case. (Makin, 1673,
  2)
• In her 4th letter, she refutes the arguments of
  the 3rd letter. (Makin, 1673, 3)

32
The essay

• She presents examples of brilliant women in arts,
  languages, orators, philosophers,poets, strong
  in logic and mathematics. (Makin, 1673, 3-15)
• This refutes prejudices on womens abilities.
• She concludes that education is good for all
  women (servants, spouses, widows, or single
  women).
• In the last part, she advertises her school for
  girls. (http//www.pinn.net/sunshine/book-sum/mak
  in1.html February 2007 Teague 1988)

33
Makin heritage

• Bathsua Makin valorises education so that "women
  earn their own living, manage their own affairs,
  and defend their own homes. (Teague, 1998, 88)
• Makin viewed an educated woman as one who could
  act for herself and be independent.
• This belief and the teaching of science and
  mathematics to girls was quite a revolutionary
  approach for the period. Makin's school for
  girls and some of the other girls schools
  followed this approach for almost two hundred
  years. This later became a model for boys'
  schools in the mid nineteenth Century.

34
Other champions

• Marie Le Jars de Gournay (1565-1645)
• 1622 Egalite des hommes et des femmes Grief
  des dames
• Mary Astell (1668-1731) UK

35
Astell

• In 1696, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for
  the Advancement of their True and Greatest
  Interest.
• She encourages women to develop their mind and
  teaches them how to think clearly and logically.
• But like Van Schurmann, Astell does not want
  women to get public roles or to usurp the
  authority of men, but to become better
  christians.

36
On marriage

• Astell condemns men who marry for money or
  beauty.
• She advises women not to marry for duty or to
  escape misery and to make their decisions with
  reason.
• Astell reminds women that when they marry, they
  become servants to their husband and that they
  must obey, so to choose well.
• She reminds them that they cannot ask, only
  refuse, and that marriage seems more advantagous
  for men, and that the world would be extinct
  without them. (Waters, 2000, 43)