Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-08-29
RUMANIAN WOMAN EDUCATORS
HERE REPRESENT MODERN ERA
Feminism Has Big Influence
in Own Country Despite
Withheld Ballot.
Visitors Here to Study U. S.
Schools Represent Highest
Learning and Talent.

Rumanian women may not yet vote.
nor be elected to public offices, but
they are fully awake to their social
responsibilities, and are exercising
considerable influence in the course
of the nations progress.
The question Of suffrage has been
agitated since before the war; now an
amendment to the constitution has
been promulgated. and Is only waiting
the popular vote to become law.
Women may speak for measures at
legislative committee hearings; they
may sit as members Of town councils.
by appointment. and they are admit
ted to the various schools and uni
versities on a basis Of equality with
men. Most hopeful of all is the fact
that many men of prestige are now
attending the suffrage meetings and
lending their voices to the argument
of the women's cause.
Such is the statement of the 10
women who are in the United States
as a part of the group of educators
investigating American educational
methods. 1t Is an interesting little
group, not only because 1t Is COM
posed of individually distinguished
persons, but because of it's composite
spirit. The present visit Is a very
brief one. the result of an invitation
extended by Georgetown University.
These women have not come for help
on their feminist problems, but with
the desire to aid in solving their
country's vital problem, a desire that
Is back Of the finest sort Of women's
work everywhere.
The history OF this miniature
Odyssey began during DR.. William S.
~ liz - 1~k ID
mania. He was a professor at the
Georgetown School of Foreign Serv-
ice and, being still "A member of the
executive faculty and after George
town students had gone on a tour of
European universities last year, he
conceived the idea of the leading edu-
Gators of Rumania visiting the United
States. But, like nearly all the ma
tions of postwar Europe, Rumania Is
struggling with a depleted treasury
and a currency below par. It would
have been an embarrassment to the
government to refuse officially t.
finance such a trip and an equal EN-
barTassment to the educators not to
accept the opportunity offered. So,
despite the very real sacrifice, one
by one the professors volunteered to
pay their own expenses from their
own sorely tried pockets.
One Speaks English.
One of the best known women of
the party, one who has a peculiarly
close affiliation with US here, is Nine.
Severa Sihleanu. She speaks perfect
English and is member of the
American Red Cross. Her public
service goes back to 1906, when she
founded and gave to her government
a mountain school on her own estate
that could accommodate 500 children.
For this she received King Carols
medal. That school had been her chief
delight, but when the war came she
offered her services with the rest of
the nation, turned her home into a
sanitariunl. where the American Red
Cross nurses and doctors went for
their rest periods, and herself became
a liaison officer through whom they
might work. She was their chief in.
te1preter for two and a half years.
She discovered one especially wretch
ed district and brought 1t to their at
tention for assistance. and when kheir
task was done she received from them
a decoration for her unflagging eff
forts and her invaluable knowledge
and support. She also received Queen
Malfe's war cross. and is a close
friend of both the picturesque royal
ladies. Marie and Carmen Sylvia"
She was the first Rumanian woman
to be appointed to the town council
and thus the first to hold such a
public office.
AS a representative Of the increas-
ing number of women entering the
medical professionalism some 80 per
cent of Rumanian medical students
now are girls-is DIR. Lucie Jean