Question:

Who was this well-known person?

She was born in Florence, Italy May 12, 1820 of English parents who were on a two-year extended European homeymoon. She died in London August 13, 1910

Florence's father, William Nightingale, believed women, especially his children, should get an education. So his two daughters learned Italian, Latin, Greek, history, and mathematics. Florence in particular received excellent early preparation in mathematics from her father and her aunt, and was also tutored in mathematics by James Sylvester who was a prominent mathematician of the time.

Before her involvement with nursing, Nightingale tutored children in mathematics. In the British Museum there are lesson plans in her handwriting for teaching arithmetic and geometry.

Nightingale wrote that "Girls' arithmetic has been neglected" and "their geography should be made arithmetical".

She made notes to ask her pupils such questions as:

"How high is the reindeer? Are you as high? How high are you? 3 feet--how much is that? a yard-- are you a quadruped? How far is the topmost point of Europe from the Equator? How far do you come to school? Two miles-- now, if you were to walk two geographical miles a day, how long should you be walking to the equator?"

Quoted from "Mathematical Education in the Life of Florence Nightingale" By Sally Lipsey from the Newsletter of the Association for Women in Mathematics, Vol. 23, No.4 (July/August 1993), 11-12:

Florence Nightingale was a feminist. She fought for the privilege of studying math, for the right to be a nurse, and for every woman's right "to bring the best that she has, whatever that is, to the work of God's world... to do the thing that is good, whether it is 'suitable for a woman' or not."   She cautioned against extremism, "which urges women to do all that men do...merely because men do it, and without regard to whether this is the best that women can do."   She was a true mathematician in her love for reasoning, always questioning assumptions and taking great care in the process of reaching conclusions.