The present Doodle celebrates the 184th birthday celebration of Belgian teacher Isabelle Gatti de Gamond. She is broadly viewed one of the first feminists in Belgium, and founded the country’s first secondary school for women.
Gatti de Gamond was born in Paris on this day in 1839. Her family moved to Brussels when she was five years of age. After her mom died in 1854, de Gamond looked for something important to help provide her family. She filled in as a private tutor for a Clean respectable family, which inspired her to learn Old Greek, Latin, and philosophy.
After getting back to Brussels, Gatti de Gamond proceeded with her education through government-funded courses and pondered how she could assist more ladies with going to school. She founded the journal L’Education de la Femme (Ladies’ Schooling) to share her thoughts with the public.
In 1864, Gatti de Gamond partnered with the city committee to send off Cours d’éducation pour jeunes filles — the first systematic courses for secondary female education. The initiative’s independence from the Roman Catholic Church was particularly groundbreaking, making it Belgium’s first secular secondary education for girls. Albeit the press scrutinized her efforts, Gatti de Gamond’s school was a gigantic achievement and added advanced and pre-university sections in 1891. As a demonstration of how effective the school was, a portion of the students became the first women in Belgium to go to a university, work in parliament, and become a lawyer.
Gatti de Gamond founded numerous different schools before she resigned from her job as a teacher in 1899. Bearing in mind the end goal of acquiring general grown-up testimonial, she worked as a dissident for the Belgian Work Party — however in the long run left politics when the Work Party decided to just support men’s right to vote.
Gatti de Gamond’s school was renamed the Isabelle Gatti de Gamond Imperial Atheneum and is as yet open today. She composed the book on Belgium’s female education system, and on account of her efforts, women have and will keep on adding pages to her legacy.
Happy birthday, Isabelle Gatti de Gamond!