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    334 A LEABNED LADY.

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    At A Recent Meeting Of The Academig Des ...

    tlie aid of this sole guide and teacher , gave herself up to the investigation of mathematical questions with an ardor that no difficulties

    could check , devoting to the pursuit of her favorite study , every moment that she could withdraw from the oversight of her parents .

    The persistence with which she continued to follow up what she so strongly felt to "be her vocation at length vanquished the opposition

    of her family ; and the quiet student , released from the constraint that had so signally failed of its object , was allowed to devote

    herself in her own way , and unmolested , to the arduous occupation she had chosen .

    Shortly after the foundation of the Polytechnic School , one of the truest glories of the reign of the First Napoleon , Sophie

    Germain , under the assumed character and signature of a pupil of that admirable institution , entered into a correspondence with the

    illustrious Lagrange . The philosopher was not long in discovering the real character of his youthful correspondent ; and being

    much astonished at the fact of such evident aptitude for mathematical science being manifested by a woman , he called upon her ,

    and warmly encouraged her to persevere in the path she had marked out for herself .

    The arrival in Paris of the physicist Chladin , who visited that capital in order to repeat before the savans of the day his

    experiments relative to the vibration of elastic blades , afforded the occasion for Sophie Germain of a brilliant , triumphthe result of

    , remarkable perseverance on her part . The experiments of the learned German had caused mueh

    sensation among the learned . The emperor had been greatly interested by them , and , regretting that they had not been

    sub-• mitted to the ordeal of a rigorous scientific calculation , caused a special prize to be offered hy the French Institute for the best

    treatise on the subject . Sophie Germain obtained this prize in 1815 , after two unsuccess- _,

    fill attempts in 1811 and 1813 ; the memoirs previously submitted by her not having appeared satisfactory to the judges .

    The works published by her at subsequent periods are much esteemed in France . Legendre , in his " Theorie des Nombres" has

    inserted several of Sophie Germain ' s theorems . Her last work , entitled " Considerations on the State of Science and Literature at

    the Different Epochs of their Cultivation , " published in 1833 , was written in the midst of the excruciating sufferings caused hy the

    malady which terminated her days . This ladyequally remarkable for talent and perseverancetliougli

    , , especially devoted to mathematical science , whose highest analytical _questions she has treated with the greatest success , had made herself

    mistress , unaided , of the La fcin tonguej with a view to the _Tbetter understanding of the ancient writers and of the works of foreigners

    of modern days , and was thoroughly versed in history , geography , metaphysics , and natural history .

    A . B . Paris .

    334 A Leabned Lady.

    334 A LEABNED LADY .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1860, page 334, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011860/page/46/