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A Pact between Sisters  ducation
drew Maria back to Warsaw
from her year of recuperation in the country. Women were not permitted to
study at the University of Warsaw. So Maria and her older sister Bronya
joined other students at a “floating university.” The classes
met at night, at changing locations to avoid detection by the czar’s
police.Maria and Bronya knew that to get a true professional education, they would have to go to a major university in Western Europe. The sisters made a pact. Maria would work as a governess to help pay for Bronya’s medical studies in Paris. As soon as Bronya was trained and began to earn money, she would help cover the costs of Maria’s university training. Read what Marie wrote here.    o
Maria spent three years in a village
150 kilometers from Warsaw. She was hired by the owner of a beet-sugar factory
to teach his children. He did not object when she used some of her spare
time to teach the children of the Polish peasant workers how to read, although
she risked punishment if the Russian authorities found out. Maria used her
free hours to read widely in many subjects. She found that she was best
at math, physics, and chemistry. The Russian authorities had forbidden Poles
to teach laboratory science, but a chemist in the beet-sugar factory gave
Maria some lessons.Read what Marie wrote here.  |
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