THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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some trades. There are only two physicians, and these studied in Zurich, and are not allowed to practice in Bohemia, although the government has acknowledged their ability by appointing them to be regular staff physicians in Bohemia among the Mohammedan women.
These openings for self-support to young women have been made by the organization of “The Bohemian Women Commercial and Industrial Society,” organized by our great novelist, Mme. Karolina Svetla, in 1870. This organization has a school in Prague, where the girls are taught, in addition to various branches of higher studies, all kinds of handiwork, mainly dressmaking, millinery, bookkeeping, type-writing, cutting and various fancy works. The school can only accommodate about five hundred students, and hundreds of promising girls must be turned away because the society has not funds enough to enlarge its school. A similar school is also sustained at Brünn by the women of Moravia. The school is something like Drexel Institute in Philadelphia. This society has also founded the first and best Bohemian “ Woman’s Journal,” whose editor is the famous poetess, Eliska Krasnohorska, the founder of “ Minerva,” a society composed of the best men and women in Bohemia, under whose auspices a Gymnasium for girls was established in 1890. The Gymnasium is the first school of its kind in Eastern Europe, and has now been copied by the German and Austrian women. The students are to be prepared for admission to the University. The funds for supporting the school are raised by Madame Krasnohorska, the indefatigable author and worker in the cause of women. The school now numbers more than eighty students. It is a task of great importance and very difficult, since, with the exception of the University of Zurich, no university in Northern Europe opens its doors to women. There are not less than one hundred and eighty societies of women in Bohemia, and yet out of all there is none that we might call a “ suffrage club,” although the Society of Bohemian Teachers in Prague has given considerable attention to this subject, having arranged for lectures, and many of its members write articles upon the theme. Bohemia, like all of Austria, has not universal suffrage, and only those who have property can vote. In many towns and cities the women vote also; in others they are represented indirectly. In some towns they may even vote for the delegates to the state Diet; but not for those of the Reichsrath. Although in some cases they may vote, they themselves are ineligible to office. Some towns have a committee of women appointed to oversee the work in the primary and industrial schools for girls.
As I have said before, since the “Mediaeval Era” of the Bohemian literature, women appear in the ranks of authors, and today some of the most popular authors of drama, poetry and novels are women. The Bohemian women exhibited and donated to the Woman’s Building three hundred and twenty books, all original, not one translated, written exclusively by women. This is a good showing, when we remember that the nation is continually in a fierce struggle for self-preservation; that until recently no avenues of higher education were opened to women, and that the nation is comparatively small, of only five million inhabitants. The German women had only five hundred copies, and the French women only seven hundred. But not only do the Bohemian women write poetry, novels and drama; they have made some very successful attempts in scientific and educational literature, some having written well in history, hygiene, physiology, geology, travels, and as art critics. There is one remarkable fact which I wish to note in closing, and that is that all the students of the University of Prague are very friendly to the attempts made by women pleading for admission. The women of Bohemia have done this work quietly; they are pressing toward the same mark to which the women of the whole civilized world are directing their desires and ambitions; but whatever they do, for whatever they may long, they never forget their obligation to the nation, and are first patriots and then women. They stand in the ranks of soldiers, fighting for the sacred right of Bohemia, bearing the heat and smoke of the battle, ministering to the wounded, and yet performing their duties as wives, mothers and sisters. They cannot point to glorious buildings, clubs and enterprises, for every penny is needed by the country, and no one can under- ( 9 )