XLV.
2.—“... equal freedom, equal fate ...”
“As long as boys and girls run about in the dirt, and trundle hoops together, they are both precisely alike. If you catch up one half of these creatures and train them to a particular set of actions and opinions, and the other half to a perfectly opposite set, of course their understandings will differ, as one or the other sort of occupations has called this or that talent into action. There is surely no occasion to go into any deeper or more abstruse reasoning in order to explain so very simple a phenomenon.”—Sydney Smith (“Female Education”).
Id.... “Was it Mary Somerville who had to hide her books, and study her mathematics by stealth after all the family had gone to sleep, for fear of being scolded and worried because she allowed her intellect full scope? She has now a bust in the Royal Institution!... Whatever view of the case theoretical considerations may suggest, there is one fact beyond cavil, and it is this: that the female frontal lobes are not only capable of equalling in power the male lobes, but can surpass them when allowed free scope. This has been recently proved in one of the universities, where a woman surpassed the senior wrangler in mathematics—an essentially intellectual work.”—Dr. Emanuel Bonavia (“Woman’s Frontal Lobes”).
The “girl graduate” last referred to is Miss Philippa Fawcett at the University Examinations, Cambridge, in June, 1890.
3.—“Together reared ...”
“We find a good example in the United States, where, to the horror of learned and unlearned pedants of both sexes, numerous colleges exist in which large numbers of young men and women are educated together. And with what results? President White, of the University of Michigan, expresses himself thus: ‘For some years past a young woman has been the best scholar of the Greek language among 1,300 students; the best student in mathematics in one of the classes of our institution is a young woman, and many of the best scholars in natural and general science are also young women.’ Dr. Fairchild, President of Oberlin College in Ohio, in which over 1,000 students of both sexes study in mixed classes, says: ‘During an experience of eight years as Professor of the ancient languages, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and in the branches of ethics and philosophy, and during an experience of eleven years in theoretical and applied mathematics, the only difference which I have observed between the sexes was in the manner of their rhetoric.’ Edward H. Machill, President of Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania, tells us that an experience of four years has forced him to the conclusion that the education of both sexes in common leads to the best moral results. This may be mentioned in passing as a reply to those who imagine such an education must endanger morality.”—Bebel (“Women,” Walther’s Translation, p. 131). (See also Notes to line 7, forward.)
It is of good omen that the precedent thus set in America is finding a following in our own isle also. All honour to the University of St. Andrews, concerning which sundry newspapers of 15th March, 1892, relate that: “The Senatus Academicus of the University of St. Andrews has agreed to open its classes in arts, science, and theology to women, who will be taught along with men. The University will receive next year a sum of over £30,000 to be spent on bursaries, one half of the sum to be devoted to women exclusively. Steps are being taken to secure a hall of residence in which the women students may live while attending the University classes.”
Id.—“... in purity and truth,
Through plastic childhood and retentive youth.”
“Je voudrais que ce petit volume apportât au lecteur un peu de la jouissance que j’ai goûtée en le composant. Il complète mes Souvenirs, et mes souvenirs sont une partie essentielle de mon œuvre. Qu’ils augmentent ou qu’ils diminuent mon autorité philosophique, ils expliquent, ils montrent l’origine de mes jugements, vrais ou faux. Ma mère, avec laquelle j’ai été si pauvre, à côté de laquelle j’ai travaillé des heures, n’interrompant mon travail que pour lui dire: ‘Maman, êtes-vous contente de moi?’ mes petites amies d’enfance qui m’enchantaient par leur gentillesse discrète, ma sœur Henriette, si haute, si pure, qui, à vingt ans, m’entraîna dans la voie de la raison et me tendit la main pour franchir un passage difficile, ont embaumé le commencement de ma vie d’un arôme qui durera jusqu’à la mort.”—Ernest Renan (“Souvenirs d’Enfance.”).
5.—“Their mutual sports of sinew and of brain.”
“No boy nor girl should leave school without possessing a grasp of the general character of science, and without having been disciplined more or less in the methods of all sciences; so that when turned into the world to make their own way, they shall be prepared to face scientific problems, not by knowing at once the conditions of every problem, or by being able at once to solve it, but by being familiar with the general current of scientific thought, and by being able to apply the methods of science in the proper way, when they have acquainted themselves with the conditions of the special problem.”—T. H. Huxley (“Essay on Scientific Education”).
And the same learned professor tells us, on another occasion:—“A liberal education is an artificial education which has not only prepared a man to escape the great evils of disobedience to natural laws, but has trained him to appreciate and to seize upon the rewards which Nature scatters with as free a hand as her penalties. That man, I think,” (shall we not include “woman” also, on his own showing as above?) “has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold logic engine, with all its parts in equal strength and in smooth working order, ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to every kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature, and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself.
“Such an one, and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education, for he is as completely as a man can be in harmony with Nature. He will make the best of her, and she of him. They will get on together rarely; she as his ever beneficent mother, he as her mouthpiece, her conscious self, her minister, and interpreter.”—Id. (“Essay on a Liberal Education.”)
6.—“In strength alike the sturdy comrades train; ...”
How largely strength is simply a matter of training may be instanced by a case or two:—
“The results of practice and training from childhood on the bodily development can be seen in female acrobats and circus riders, who could compete with any man in courage, daring, dexterity, and strength, and whose performances are frequently astonishing.”—Bebel (“Woman,” p. 126).
“I am a medical man. I have spent several years in Africa, and have seen human nature among tribes whose habits are utterly unlike those of Europe. I had been accustomed to believe that the muscular system of women is necessarily feebler than that of men, and perhaps I might have dogmatised to that effect; but, to my astonishment, I found the African women to be as strong as our men.... Not only did I see the proof of it in their work and in the weights which they lifted, but on examining their arms I found them large and hard beyond all my previous experience. On the contrary, I saw the men of these tribes to be weak, their muscles small and flabby. Both facts are accounted for by the habits of the people. The men are lazy in the extreme; all the hard work is done by the women.”—(Westminster Review, Oct., 1865, p. 355.)
“Les femmes Sphakiotes ne le cèdent en rien aux hommes pour la vigueur et l’énergie. J’ai vu un jour une femme ayant un enfant dans les bras et un sac de farine sur la tête, gravir, malgré ce double fardeau, la pente escarpée qui conduit à Selia.”—Jules Ballot (“Histoire de l’Insurrection Crétoise,” Paris, 1868, p. 251).
Id.... In this context it is pleasant to find in the newspapers such a note as the following:—
“The frost continued throughout West Cheshire yesterday, and skating on rather rough ice was largely enjoyed. At Eaton, where the Duke of Westminster is entertaining a party, the guests had a hockey match on the frozen fish-pond in front of the hall. The players, who kept the game up with spirit for over an hour, included the Duchess of Westminster, the Marquis and Marchioness of Ormonde, Lady Beatrice and Lady Constance Buller, Lord Arthur Grosvenor, Lord Gerald Grosvenor, Lady Margaret and Lady Mary Grosvenor, Captain and Mrs. Cawley, Hon. Mrs. Norman Grosvenor, Hon. Mrs. Thomas Grosvenor, General Julian Hall, and party.”—(Manchester Courier, 12th Jan., 1892.)
Later on in the year we read in the journal Woman:—
“At the Marlow Regatta an extremely pretty girl in navy serge, built Eton fashion, was a Miss ——, who wore as an under-bodice a full vest of shaded yellow Indian silk. Her prowess with the oar is the cause of daily admiration to the Marlowites.”
Again, on August 15th, 1892, the Manchester Evening Mail has the following:—
“An ailing ‘navvy,’ who has been engaged in some works near Versailles, was a few days ago admitted to a hospital in that town. Before the sick person had long been in the institution it was discovered that the apparent ‘navvy’ was a woman. The superintendent of the hospital was not in the least surprised on hearing of the transformation scene, for it appears that he is accustomed to deal with many woman patients who enter the hospital in male attire. It is common in the district (says a Paris correspondent) for robust women to don men’s garb in order to obtain remunerative employment as navvies, porters, farm labourers, road menders, or assistants to bricklayers, masons, and builders. It has long been established that the average Frenchwoman of town or country has as great a capacity for work either in counting-houses, shops, fields, or farms as her lord and master has for laziness and lolling in the cafés, playing dominoes, and smoking cigarettes.”
On the preceding day, August 14th, 1892, the St. Petersburg journals reported that:—
“Ces jours-ci sera érigé à Sébastopol le monument élevé en l’honneur des Femmes de cette ville qui, en 1854, ont construit seules une batterie contre les troupes alliées. C’est une pyramide taillée en granit d’une hauteur de cinquante pieds. Sur un côté est écrit en lettres d’or: ‘C’est ici que se trouvait la batterie des Femmes’; sur l’autre face les mots suivants sont gravés: ‘A cet endroit, en 1854, les Femmes de Sébastopol ont construit une batterie.’ Le jour de l’inauguration de ce monument n’est pas encore fixé. L’impératrice se fera représenter à l’inauguration par un grand-duc.”
And, in October, 1892, the “sporting” newspapers recorded that:—
“Women are gradually coming to the fore as bicycle riders. Miss Dudley, a well-known rider, has just accomplished a feat which would have seemed wonderful for any rider not long ago. She has ridden from a spot near Hitchin to Lincoln, a distance of 100 miles, in little more than seven hours, or at the average speed of about fourteen miles an hour. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are well-known as tandem riders, and they have won many races together; but this is, perhaps, the first recorded instance of a woman cyclist holding her own so well, unaided, in a long road ride.”
See also “The Lancashire pit-brow women,” Note XVIII., 8.
7.—“Of differing sex no thought inept intrudes,”
“I have conversed, as man with man, with medical men on anatomical subjects, and compared the proportions of the human body with artists—yet such modesty did I meet with that I was never reminded by word or look of my sex, and the absurd rules which make modesty a pharisaical cloak of weakness.”—Mary Wollstonecraft (“The Rights of Woman,” p. 278).
“As a careful observer remarks, true modesty lies in the entire absence of thought upon the subject. Among medical students and artists the nude causes no extraordinary emotion; indeed, Flaxman asserted that the students in entering the Academy seemed to hang up their passions along with their hats.”—Westermarck (“History of Human Marriage,” p. 194).
Id.... “This is strikingly exemplified in the curious conversation recorded in Lylie’s ‘Euphues’ and his ‘England,’ edit. 1605, 4to, signature X—Z 2, where young unmarried people of both sexes meet together and discuss without reserve the ticklish metaphysics of love. But though treading on such slippery ground, it is remarkable that they never, even by allusion, fall into grossness. Their delicate propriety is not improbably the effect of their liberty.”—Buckle (“Common-place Book,” No. 856).
8.—“Their purpose calmly sure all errant aim excludes.”
“We point to a present remedy for undergraduate excesses, which, resting on the soundest theory, has also the demonstration of unquestioned fact. It is co-education. Cease to separate human beings because of sex. They are conjoined in the family, in the primary and grammar schools, in society, and, after the degree rewards four years of monastic student existence, in the whole career of life.
“Throw open the doors of Harvard to women on equal terms, absorb the annexe into the college proper, and as the night follows the day, scholarship will rise, and dissipation fall by the law of gravitation. The moral atmosphere will find immediate purification, and the daily association of brothers and sisters in intellectual pursuits impart a breadth of view which is an education in itself. The professors may then be left safely to their themes, John Harvard’s statue may cease to dread defilement, the regent will find his censorial duties fully as perfunctory as he seems to have made them in the past, and character will crowd out profligacy.”—William Lloyd Garrison (in Woman’s Journal, Boston, U.S., 6th February, 1892).
“Whatsoever is ultimately decided by the wisdom of ages to be the best possible form of culture for one human nature, must be so for another, for one common humanity lies deeper in all and is more essential in each than any difference.”—Sophia Jex-Blake, M.D.