Woman in Science / With an Introductory Chapter on Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind

by J. A. Zahm

Substantially the same views are held by Mrs. Henry Fawcett and Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, whose rare experience and knowledge give their opinions on the subject under consideration special weight and value.

After men of science had tried the various theories above enumerated and found them wanting, they finally bethought themselves of investigating the relative intellectual standing of male and female students in coeducational institutions, and inquiring into their comparative capacity for different branches of knowledge, as made known by their professors and by the results of oral and written examinations. Considering the simplicity of this method and the fact that it is the more rational way to reach reliable conclusions, the wonder is that it was not thought of sooner. It excludes the bias of prepossessions and preconceived theories and lends itself to the discussion of results based on incontestable facts.

The first coeducational institution in which the intellectual capacity of women, in competition with men, was fairly tested was, strange to say, in the Royal College of Science for Ireland. This was somewhat more than half a century ago. When the time of examinations came, both the men and women students were handed the same examination papers. At the public distribution of prizes, at the close of the session, "the ladies," in the words of a Dublin paper, "vindicated the genius of their sex by carrying off the highest prizes." In zoölogy, botany, physics, chemistry and mathematics they proved themselves the peers, and frequently the superiors, of their male competitors.

"The success of the female students disturbed, of course, very much the preconceived notions of some people, who had always taken for granted that the female intellect was inferior to the male; and, not being able to combat the stubborn facts that appeared from time to time in the newspapers, when the results of the examinations were published, they tried to account for them."[104]

These cavillers, however, soon discovered that there was no way of accounting for the disconcerting fact which confronted them, except by confessing that their theory regarding the mental inferiority of women was not substantiated by fact. This unexpected demand for the unconditional surrender of their long-cherished theory of male superiority was a crushing and humiliating blow to their pride of intellect, but there was no remedy for it, nor was it accompanied by any balm of consolation that they, at the time, felt disposed to regard as adequate compensation for their lost prestige—a prestige which their overweening sex had claimed from time immemorial.

Similar experiments under even more trying conditions were subsequently made in the United States and in other parts of the world, and everywhere with the same results. In the universities of Switzerland, France, England, Germany and Russia women, when given a fair opportunity, were able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of all unprejudiced judges that the long-vaunted superiority of the male intellect was a myth; that intelligence, like genius, has no sex.

One of the most interesting and comprehensive investigations ever undertaken regarding this long-debated question was made some years ago by Arthur Kirchhoff, an enterprising German journalist.[105] It consisted in collecting and collaborating the opinions of more than a hundred of the most distinguished professors of the Fatherland, besides the opinions of a number of eminent writers and teachers in girls' high schools. These constitute a volume of nearly four hundred pages, and embody the views on the capacity of woman for science of professors of theology, jurisprudence, anatomy, physiology, surgery, psychology, history, gynecology, psychiatry, philology, philosophy, art, mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, zoölogy, botany, geology, paleontology and technology. The investigation, indeed, covered every branch of knowledge and evoked the deliberate views of those who were looked upon as the leading representatives of German thought and culture.

This book possesses a special value from the fact that, of all peoples in Europe, the Germans have been the most refractory to the claims of women to be received at the universities on the same footing as men. The German professors, naturally, share the conservatism of their countrymen, and, like them, are wedded to routine when there is question of introducing innovations into their social, political or educational systems. One would anticipate, then, that, when called upon to give their honest opinions respecting the intellectual capacity of women, as compared with that of men, their answer would be decidedly in favor of the sterner sex. "For," they will ask, "have not all the achievements in science which have given the Fatherland such prestige in the eyes of the world been due entirely to men? Have the women of Germany ever undertaken the solution of any great scientific problem, or have they ever made any notable contribution to scientific advancement? They have not."

Yet, notwithstanding all these facts, notwithstanding all traditions and prejudices and social bias, the unexpected has happened, even in conservative, old-fashioned Germany. The German professor may be tenacious of preconceived views; he may be a stickler for ancient customs and usages; nevertheless, when he is called upon to give a question a categorical answer which can be arrived at by observation or experiment, he may generally, in spite of his likes or dislikes, be counted on to give a decision in accord with the principles of legitimate induction. He may have his prejudices—and who has not?—but, when one appeals to him in the name of science and justice, he will rarely be found wanting. Regardless of all personal consideration, he will feel that loyalty to science, of which he is the avowed devotee, requires him to consider a question proposed to him as he would a scientific problem—something to be decided solely by such evidence as may be available.

To the exceeding gratification of the believers in the intellectual equality of the sexes, this proved to be the case in Herr Kirchhoff's investigation. The answers of the German professors, contrary to what most people would have anticipated, were, by a surprising majority, in favor of women. But their answers were in keeping with the changed educational conditions in Germany, as well as in other parts of the civilized world. Had Herr Kirchhoff undertaken his investigation a few decades earlier, the result would undoubtedly have been different, for women were then excluded from the universities and the professors had not had an opportunity of accurately testing their intellectual capacities. But having, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, had them as students in their lecture halls and laboratories, where they were able to study their mental powers and determine the value of their work by strict scientific methods, they were in a better position to express an opinion on the question at issue than would, a few years previously, have been possible.