The son of one of the first female Medical Doctors in Italy speaks about his courageous mother, Maria Montessori*
"You can imagine the time, 1890, and the place, Italy, and the fact that there were no women doctors of that time. Not only were there no women doctors, it was impossible to conceive of such a thing. Everybody was against it. Including her own family. For instance, her father didn’t talk to her for years while she was studying. …
"Imagine, that was the difficulty of the situation. And despite that, when the examinations came, and the prizes were allotted, she had the first prize, she had graduated with the fullest honors, above all the males who had taken Medicine."
-Mario Montessori (from a filmed interview)
*Maria Montessori earned her Doctorate of Medicine in 1896. She would later become a world-renowned educator, developing a revolutionary approach to early education called the Montessori Method. In 1952, at the age of 81, Dr. Montessori passed away.