XLI.
1.—“By her the progress of our future kind.”
“What may man be? Who can tell? But what may woman be
To have power over man from cradle to corruptible grave?”
—William Blake (“Jerusalem”).
Id.... “The application of the Pfeiffer bequest, ‘for charitable and educational purposes in favour of women,’ has been delayed by legal difficulties, but the Attorney General has now submitted to the Court of Chancery a first list of awards. Details given in the Journal of Education show that Girton and Newnham Colleges receive £5,000 each, whilst Bedford College, Somerville Hall, the New Hospital for Women, the Maria Grey Training College, and a number of other institutions benefit by slightly smaller sums. The bequests will doubtless be welcomed by the recipients, for all the institutions included so far are doing useful work with very inadequate means, and it is to be hoped that the generous example of the London merchant and his literary wife will be often followed in the future. Women’s education—and girls’, too, for that matter—in this country is almost unendowed, and is yet expected to produce results equal to those gained in the richly endowed foundations for boys and men. The interest of the Pfeiffer bequest, however, lies rather in the spirit that prompted it and in the views of progress held by the donors than in the generosity of the gift or the precise manner of its distribution. In a letter explaining his wishes, Mr. Pfeiffer remarks:—
“I have always had and am adhering to the idea of leaving the bulk of my property in England for charitable and educational purposes in favour of women. Theirs is, to my mind, the great influence of the future. Education and culture and responsibility in more than one direction, including that of politics, will gradually fit them for the exercise of every power that could possibly work towards the regeneration of mankind. It is women who have hitherto had the worst of life, but their interest, and with their interest that of humanity, is secured, and I therefore am determined to help them to the best of my ability and means.”—Manchester Guardian, June 7th, 1892.
“Men are what their mothers made them. You may as well ask a loom which weaves huckaback, why it does not make cashmere, as expect poetry from this engineer, or a chemical discovery from that jobber. Ask the digger in the ditch to explain Newton’s laws; the fine organs of his brain have been pinched by overwork and squalid poverty from father to son, for a hundred years. When each comes forth from his mother’s womb, the gate of gifts closes behind him. Let him value his hands and feet, he has but one pair. So he has but one future, and that is already predetermined in his lobes, and described in that little fatty face, pig-eye, and squat form.”—Emerson (Essay on Fate).
Id.... “The British race cannot afford to dispense with all the advantage that may be in embryo in the future female intellect, because men and some women are found who declare that women are intellectually inferior.... No amount of prayers and wishes and submitting to God’s will are of any avail. You must use the organs of the intellect in order, not only to increase their efficiency, but to prevent their going from bad to worse. It might here be noted, that because the British people might choose to be satisfied with atrophy of the intellect lobes in their mothers, it will not at all follow that other nations will do so also. If such things as nations exist, there will always be rivalry and competition, and depend upon it those will be first whose mothers generally possess the most efficient intellect lobes.... Fortunately we have learnt another great lesson, evolved by Charles Darwin’s frontal lobes, and that is, that there is no such thing as a fixed and unalterable tissue or organism anywhere. All organisms and parts of organisms are changeable. Everything—organ and organism—has changed in the past, is changing in the present, and will change in the future in accordance with the conditions that surround it. Women’s frontal lobes and grey matter will certainly be no exception to the rule. Emancipation, keeping her eyes open, and thinking for herself are the three main things she has to keep hammering at, until the lords of creation see that they are the right things to do, to save future generations from universal imbecility.”—E. Bonavia, M.D. (“Woman’s Frontal Lobes”).
2.—“Their stalwart body and their spacious mind;”
“If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men grow?”
—Tennyson (“The Princess,” Canto 7).