81a. Dorothea Schlözer to Caroline in Clausthal: Göttingen, autumn 1787 (after 17 September 1787) [*]
[ after 17 September 1787]
Your father laid the initial foundation for my own father’s scholarly renommée, [1] and it was similarly under the shelter of his wing that my Latin, mathematical, and mineralogical muses found the courage to answer boldly the gentle examination questions that were quite appropriate for a trembling candidate. Since you, my dear friend, currently reside at the very seat of mineralogy itself, where I acquired most of my own modest knowledge in this science, [2] and since you were one of the first who knew about this entire examination project and yet, because you have in the meantime moved away from us, are not familiar with the overall context, perhaps you will read the attached accounts and documents with some interest, which would, moreover, quite flatter me.
You, master of style that you are, will, I hope, be reasonably tolerant of my own style; it is a compendia style, a style to which one becomes habituated with all its good and ill points if one reads more compendia than poem and novels.
Notes
[*] Source: Leopold von Schlözer, Dorothea von Schlözer, der Philosophie Doctor. Ein deutsches Frauenleben um die Jahrhundertwende 1770–1825 (Berlin, Leipzig 1923), 121–22.
Dorothea Schlözer had just attained her doctorate on 17 September 1787, the first woman to do so after Dorothea Christiane Erxleben. Although her father had from the outset been determined that his daughter receive an excellent education, it was at the initiative of Caroline’s own father, Johann David Michaelis, that such culminated in the doctoral degree. She took her oral exams in a private session on 25 August 1787 at Caroline’s parental home in Göttingen and received her degree on 17 September (the golden jubilee of the Göttingen university), albeit again privately. Leopold Schlözer introduces this present letter as follows:
Dorothea composed an account of the course of this exam “not for the public, but rather solely for my relatives who live elsewhere,” as she put it. She sent a copy of this account to her friend Caroline Michaelis, at the time the wife of the town and mining physician Böhmer in Clausthal, accompanied by the following letter.
((Rudolf Koch and Fritz Kredel, Deutschland und angrenzende Gebiete [Leipzig 1937]):
Since Leopold Schlözer does not date the letter, one must make do with “autumn 1787” with the qualifier “after 17 September 1787.” Concerning her doctoral examination and elements of her visits to Clausthal (mentioned below), see Caroline’s undated letter to Lotte in 1787 (letter 78), note 6. Back.
[1] Fr., “reputation.” Back.
[2] Dorothea had made two trips to the Harz Mountains to study mineralogy and familiar herself with the associated mining industry: one at Easter 1786 with her father, and one during 14 July–21 August 1786 without her father, during which she stayed in Clausthal at the home of Georg Christoph Dahme. Back.
Translation © 2014 Doug Stott