After this demonstration can any one doubt that the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden has biologic foundation and, as the good old books say, “is in the nature of man.” But we can rejoice that this is a nature which man is steadily moving upward to modify and correct, hence the increasing number of men who are willing to do justice to women.
It remains to add that the trustees were said to have been almost unanimous in their opposition to the exclusion of women but to have been overborne by the financial control exerted by the three professors mentioned.
The indignation of a large portion of the lay community was aroused by the injustice thus done to women, and an appeal for advice was made to Dr. Zakrzewska, whose views on such a situation have already been stated. Fortunately, the Johns Hopkins Medical School is not far removed from Washington.
The era of the “emancipation” of woman as an all-inclusive phrase had not yet passed, though it was approaching its eclipse by more specific terms. Using it as an antithesis of “oppression,” Dr. Zakrzewska writes in The Open Court, June 21, 1894, on “The Emancipation of Woman: Will it be a Success?”
This article was in reply to one on “The Oppression of Woman,” evidently written by a man who voiced his protest against the subjection from which women have suffered for so many centuries, and who claimed for women freedom to develop along their own lines. His plea was apparently similar to Tennyson’s when the latter sings:
... “Leave her space to burgeon out of all Within her—let her make herself her own To give or keep, to live and learn and be All that not harms distinctive womanhood. For woman is not undevelopt man, But diverse.”
Perhaps, as is so often the case, an undercurrent of masculine patronage had crept into the plea of the advocate. Or perhaps Dr. Zakrzewska merely felt the weariness that comes to all normal grown-up women when their normality and growth are commented upon as phenomena, instead of being accepted as the thing to be expected. On a very hot day, the chirr of even a friendly katydid may seem too obvious, repeating (what should be) “an undisputed thing in such a solemn way.” At any rate, she responds:
I admit that the writer of this article is right, positively right, logically right, sentimentally right, to the end of these reasonings which are lucid and clearly stated.
Then I ask, What is the value of this new point, this proving that the evolution of woman’s activity cannot be otherwise than feminine? If twice two make four, no exertion of either man or woman can make it five. Let us leave it as a positive fact, and not worry when we see any individual trying to prove that twice two make five.
Why are all these mental somersaults and caprioles in men’s writings needed? Will their attempts at prophesying or illustrating the future effects arising from the activity of a yet unknown quantity alter or check the present phenomenal awakening of woman’s ambition?
Allow me to elucidate my meaning by a true story of what happened in my native city, Berlin, about fifty years ago.
In a courtyard lived a poor family. The father was a locksmith by trade. His eldest son, a boy of twelve, bright, industrious and smart, spent all his time either in the schoolroom or in his father’s shop. Not even on Sundays could this poor family enjoy rest but worked in the dreary shop. The boy was very fond of eating string beans which the mother could seldom afford to buy.
He therefore decided to raise them in a box before his window. He used some old pieces of boards for the construction of his window-garden, and all the inmates of the front as well as of the rear houses became interested in his experiment, everybody feeling it to be his or her duty to express opinions on the subject.
Thus it came to pass that the boy was told that the beans planted would rot because the boards were not porous enough to allow air to pass; that the soil in the box could not be regulated as regarded the daily moisture needed; that the rain could not be discharged after flooding the window garden; that the heat of the sun reflected from the window glass would burn the tender growths; that not more than two stalks of beans could be raised if the seed turned out to be dwarf beans, and if pole beans, he could not fasten them high enough; that no good growth could be expected if there were not a flow of air all around to favor the plant; that the already dark room (this being the only window) would be darkened too much by the growing plants and thus the three children who slept in it would not awaken in time for school, which commenced at seven o’clock; that the health of the children would be injured by the exhalation of the plants and the moisture of the earth in the box; that his mother should be warned not to allow such an experiment as it would be a moral injury to the boy when he found himself disappointed in the success of his plan, as the most valuable of emotions—hope—would thus be destroyed; that the father ought to realize that he would lose at least half an hour daily of the boy’s help in the shop; in fact, all the arguments and all the prophesying were that a complete failure would be the result and that the boy would be crushed under the weight of it.
However, the boy prepared his box, took note of the many suggestions and obviated some of them, as by perforating his box with small holes, by opening the windows when the sun shone from ten in the morning to three in the afternoon, etc.
The twelve beans which he had planted grew and proved to be pole beans, so he tied strings for them to climb up on as high as the tenant above his room allowed him to do. He watered and nursed his plantation with care and love, and lo and behold, the beans flourished and blossomed and bore fruit relatively plentifully.
During this time of growth, an old and wise tenant of the front house, also a professor, joined the group who for eight weeks had watched and discussed in the yard this willful boy’s experiment. This critic remarked that he observed a new phase of which nobody had thus far taken notice and which might have both good and bad effects, namely, that a hailstorm might yet come and destroy this garden, although there might also be a good result as the plants would protect the window panes if the storm should occur when the windows were closed.
All admitted that this was true, and all admired the wisdom of the Herr Professor, and went to their respective abodes a little mortified that they had not thought before of this neglected point of the subject.
The boy had the satisfaction of gathering a mess of well-grown beans, sufficient for a hearty meal for the whole family. But while eating his favorite dish, he said, “Well, mother, I did succeed; but to tell the truth, the beans don’t taste so good as those which grow in the fields. So next year, I will not try again but I shall sow nasturtium seeds for you to enjoy.”
He did so, and his window was a perfect delight and source of cheer to him, to his mother, and to the tenants of the little court. He continued to do this until he had to enter the army, at eighteen years of age. His younger brothers (he had no sisters) followed in his footsteps, and when I left Berlin my last look was at the nasturtium window.
Let me ask, did it matter much which the boy raised, beans or nasturtiums? What use was it to him, or to his family, or to the tenants when the latter all joined in the chorus, “I thought so” or “I told him he could not raise beans”? Let each one try nature’s forces and take his chance! And twice two will always remain four.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Dr. Zakrzewska’s own description of her attitude as a critic—Her judgments on various details of Hospital policy: Against the admission to the Hospital of women students of the Boston University Medical School (that being then a school of homeopathy); On the reciprocal relation of the medical staff and the board of directors of the Hospital; On a question of Hospital discipline; Letter to an ambitious colleague whose feelings have been hurt.