oration, complimented the lady by saying that she had won the distinction of her class by attending faithfully to every duty required of candidates striving for the honor. Eighteen young gentlemen received the degree of M.D. at the same time.
After graduating with high honors in this country, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell went to France to secure still higher advantages of education than could be found here. What was thought of her there will be seen by the following letter of a Paris correspondent in the New York Journal of Commerce:
An American Doctress.—The medical community of Paris is all agog by the arrival of the celebrated American doctor, Miss Blackwell. She has quite bewildered the learned faculty by her diploma, all in due form, authorizing her to dose and bleed and amputate with the best of them. Some of them think Miss Blackwell must be a socialist of the most rabid class, and that her undertaking is the entering wedge to a systematic attack on society by the whole sex. Others, who have seen her, say that there is nothing very alarming in her manner; that, on the contrary, she is modest and unassuming, and talks reasonably on other subjects. The ladies attack her in turn. One said to me a few days since, "Oh, it is too horrid! I'm sure I never could touch her hand! Only to think that those long fingers of hers had been cutting up dead people." I have seen the doctor in question, and must say in fairness, that her appearance is quite prepossessing. She is young, and rather good-looking; her manner indicates great energy of character, and she seems to have entered on her singular career from motives of duty, and encouraged by respectable ladies of Cincinnati. After about ten days' hesitation, on the part of the directors of the Hospital of Maternity, she has at last received permission to enter the institution as a pupil.
ERNESTINE L. ROSE.
BY L. E. BARNARD.
Ernestine L. Rose—maiden name Siismund Potoski—was born January 13, 1810, at Pyeterkow, in Poland. Her father, a very pious and learned rabbi, was so conscientious that he would take no pay for discharging the functions of his office, saying he would not convert his duty into a means of gain. As a child she was of a reflective habit, and though very active and cheerful, she scarcely ever engaged with her young companions in their sports, but took great delight in the company of her father, for whom she entertained a remarkable affection.
At a very early age she commenced reading the Hebrew Scriptures, but soon became involved in serious difficulties respecting the formation of the world, the origin of evil, and other obscure points suggested by the sacred history and cosmogony of her people. The reproofs which met her at every step of her biblical investigations, and being constantly told that "little girls must not ask questions," made her at that early day an advocate of religious freedom and woman's rights; as she could not see, on the one hand, why subjects of vital interest should be held too sacred for investigation, nor, on the other, why a "little girl" should not have the same right to ask questions as a little boy. Despite her early investigation of the Bible, she was noted for her strict observance of all the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish faith, though some of them, on account of her tender age, were not demanded of her. She was, however, often painfully disturbed by her "carnal reason" questioning the utility of these multifarious observances. As an illustration, she one day asked her father, with much anxiety, why he fasted13 so much more than others, a habit which was seriously impairing his health and spirits; and being told that it was to please God, who required this sacrifice at his hands, she, in a serious and most emphatic tone, replied, "If God is pleased in making you sick and unhappy, I hate God." This idea of the cruelty of God toward her father had a remarkable influence upon her; and at the age of fourteen she renounced her belief in the Bible and the religion of her father, which brought down upon her great trouble and persecution alike from her own Jewish friends and from Christians.
At the age of sixteen she had the misfortune to lose her mother. A year afterward her father married again, and through misdirected kindness involved her in a lawsuit, in which she plead her own case and won it; but she left the property with her father, declaring that she cared nothing for it, but only for justice, and that her inheritance might not fall into mercenary hands. She subsequently traveled in Poland, Russia, the Germanic States, Holland, Belgium, France, and England; during which time she witnessed and took part in some interesting and important affairs. While in Berlin she had an interview with the King of Prussia concerning the right of Polish Jews to remain in that city. The Jews of Russian Poland were not permitted to continue in Prussia, unless they could bring forward as security Prussian citizens who were holders of real estate. But even then they could get a permit to tarry only on a visit, and not to transact any business for themselves. Mlle. Potoski, being from Poland and a Jewess, was subject to this disability. Though she could have obtained the requisite security by applying for it, she preferred to stand upon her natural rights as a human being. She remonstrated against the gross injustice of the law, and obtained the right to remain as long as she wished, and to do what she pleased.
In Hague, she became acquainted with a very distressing case of a poor sailor, the father of four children, whose wife had been imprisoned for an alleged crime of which he insisted she was innocent. Inquiring into the case, Mlle. Potoski drew up a petition which she personally presented to the King of Holland, and had the satisfaction of seeing the poor woman restored to her family. She was in Paris during the Revolution of July, 1830, and witnessed most of its exciting scenes. On seeing Louis Phillipe presented by Lafayette to the people of Paris from the balcony of the Tuilleries, she remarked to a friend, "That man, as well as Charles X., will one day have good reason to wish himself safely off the throne of France."
In England she became acquainted with Lord Grosvenor and family, with Frances Farrar, sister of Oliver Farrar, M.P., the Miss Leeds, and others of the nobility; also with many prominent members of the Society of Friends, among them Joseph Gurney and his sister Elizabeth Fry, the eminent philanthropist, in whose company she visited Newgate Prison. In 1832 she made the acquaintance of Robert Owen, and warmly espoused his principles. In 1834 she presided at the formation of a society called "The Association of all Classes of all Nations, without distinction of sect, sex, party condition, or color." While in England she married William E. Rose, and in the spring of 1836, came to the United States, and resided in the city of New York. Soon after her arrival she commenced lecturing on the evils of the existing social system, the formation of human character, slavery, the rights of woman, and other reform questions.
At a great public meeting in the Broadway Tabernacle to consider the necessity of an improved system of Free Schools, J. S. Buckingham, M.P., of England, and Rev. Robert Breckenridge, of Kentucky, were among the speakers. Mrs. Rose, sitting in the gallery, called the reverend gentleman to order for violating the sense of the audience, in entirely overlooking the important object which had called the people together, and indulging in a violent clerical harangue against a class whom he stigmatized as infidels. This bold innovation of a woman upon the hitherto unquestioned prerogatives of the clergy, at once caused a tremendous excitement. Loud cries of "Throw her down!" "Drag her out!" "She's an infidel!" resounded in all parts of the building. She, however, held her ground, calm and collected while the tumult lasted, and after quiet was restored, continued her remarks in a most dignified manner, making a deep impression upon all present. Certain religious papers declared it a forewarning of some terrible calamity, that a woman should call a minister to account, and that, too, in a church.
Mrs. Rose has lectured in not less than twenty-three different States of the Union. Some of them she has visited often, and on several occasions she has addressed legislative bodies with marked effect, advocating the necessity of legal redress for the wrongs and disabilities to which her sex are subject. As an advocate of woman's rights, anti-slavery and religious liberty, she has earned a world-wide celebrity. For fifty years a public speaker, during which period she has associated with the influential classes in Europe and America, and borne an active part in the great progressive movements which mark the present as the most glorious of historical epochs, Ernestine L. Rose has accomplished for the elevation of her sex and the amelioration of social conditions, a work which can be ascribed to
