accessible not only to women, but to men not trained in the fundamental languages of a classical education, Latin and Greek. While her original intent was to educate women, she reached a broader audience in line with enlightenment ideals, and laid claim to the natural sciences as a public endeavour. When the Boston Girls' High and Normal School became the first school in America to teach science to women through laboratory experience, in 1865, Marcet's Conversations on Chemistry was the text chosen. Her works remained standard textbooks even When Henry James wrote The Turn of the Screw in 1898. The governess refers offhandedly to a text being "as impersonal as Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine." Intellectual legacy One of those who read Jane's work was Michael Faraday, born in 1791, who would become one of the world's greatest scientists, revolutionizing physics and chemistry. He was impressed by her work on chemistry, which helped him to find a new calling for science. He later claimed it had played a vital role in his own career as a chemist. Faraday remarked, "When I came to know Mrs. Marcet personally; how often I cast my thoughts backwards, delighting to connect the past and the present; how often, when sending a paper to her as a thank you offering, I thought of my first instructress." The book aimed to help others who were bewildered by chemistry by explaining better but remaining scientifically accurate. It was a user-friendly book. The subjects were divided into two parts, each of more than 300 pages. It is framed by conversations between an adult teacher and two children. Marcet also added her own figures to explain chemistry in an easy way. In England, 16 editions of Conversations on Chemistry were published up to the 1830s, with all-inclusive updates. She influenced many individuals all over the world. Girls and others who were not wealthy were pursuing the subject, and able to get along with it. Marcet's active support for teaching chemistry to beginners through an experimental laboratory was recognized by many. After the Civil War, laboratory instruction was becoming the norm in American schools. Despite competition from many other authors and books, Marcet's ruled in the female advancement of knowledge. Its popularity even in the early 1900s suggests increasing acceptance by American schools to including basic subjects of theoretical and experimental science in the education of females. This availability of education