32).
The family, though not rich, was able to provide all the necessary books, schooling and music lessons their children required. Meitner always regretted that she did not play the piano as well as some members of her family, but music remained one of her greatest interests throughout her life. In this cultured atmosphere the family also provided the grounding that would, incredibly for those times, lead to all five daughters and three sons to pursue higher education of some kind. But when Lise Meitner was nearly 14 she had gone as far as it was possible for Austrian girls to go in school. The universities began to accept a few women at the end of the century, but since girls could not attend high schools (more like a combination of high school and college education) they had to study privately to pass the Matura, an examination certifying their preparedness for the university. First Gisela Meitner passed the exam, and entered medical school in 1900, and then Lise, who had already completed a teacher training course, began, in 1899, to "compress eight missing school years into two: Greek and Latin, mathematics and physics, botany, zoology, mineralogy, psychology, logic, religion, German literature, history" (Sime, Life 9). She entered the University of Vienna in 1901, originally planning to study mathematics. But, when she switched to physics, Meitner had the good fortune
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