It is but a step to set up, beside the central kitchen, also the central laundry and corresponding steaming arrangements for public use—as already established in all large cities by rich private persons or speculators, and found highly profitable. With the central kitchen may also be connected central heating, warm water along with cold water pipes, whereby a number of bothersome and time-consuming labors are done away with. Large hotels, many private houses, hospitals, schools, barracks, etc., have now these and many other such arrangements, such as electric light and baths. The only fault to find is that only public establishments and the well-to-do classes enjoy these advantages. Placed within the reach of all, an enormous amount of time, trouble, labor and material could be saved, and the standard of life and the well-being of all raised considerably. In the summer of 1890, the papers published a description of the progress made in the United States in the matter of centralized heating and ventilation. It was there stated:
"The recent attempts, made especially in North America, to effect the heating of whole blocks of houses or city wards from one place haveto record no slight success. From the constructive point of view, they have been carried out so carefully and effectively that, in view of the favorable results and the financial advantages which they offer, their further extension may be confidently expected. More recently the attempt is being made to furnish from central locations not heat alone, but also fresh air, either warm or cool, to certain extensive but not too wide areas of the city. These plans are found in execution in the so-called Timby System, which, according to the central organ of the Department of Buildings, gathered from a report of the technical attaché in Washington, Government Architect Petri, has recently been thoroughly explained in Washington by the 'National Heating and Ventilating Company.' The said company originally planned to supply 50,000 people from one place. The difficulties presented by the requisite speed of transit and the size of the pneumatic machines, have, however, caused a limitation to 0.8 kilometers, and in instances of specially closely built business quarters, the building of a special central power place."
What was then only projected, has since been in great part executed. Philistine narrowness in Germany lives to shrug its shoulders at these and such like schemes, although in Germany also we find ourselves just now in the midst of one of those technical revolutions, that render the private kitchen, together with a number of other occupations, hitherto appertaining to the household, as superfluous as handicraft has been rendered by machinery and modern technique. In the early days of the nineteenth century, Napoleon pronounced insane the idea of constructing a ship that could be set in motion by steam. The idea of building a railroad was declared silly by many folks who passed for sensible: nobody, it was argued, could remain alive on such a conveyance: the rapidity of motion would deprive the passengers of breath. Identical treatment is to-day accorded to a number of new ideas. He who sixty years ago would have made to our women the proposition of replacing the carrying of water with water-pipes, would have been exposed to the charge of trying to lead women and servants into idleness.
Nevertheless the great revolution in technique is in full march on all fields; nothing can any longer hold it back; and bourgeois society, having conjured the same into life, has the historic mission of also carrying the revolution to perfection, and to promote on all fields the budding of the germs for radical transformations,which a social order, built on new foundations, would only have to generalize on a large scale, and make common property.
The trend, accordingly, of our social life is not to banish woman back to the house and the hearth, as our "domestic life" fanatics prescribe, and after which they lust, like the Jews in the Desert after thefleshpots of Egypt.On the contrary, the whole trend of society is to lead woman out of the narrow sphere of strictly domestic life to a full participation in the public life of the people—a designation that will not then cover the male sex only—and in the task ofhuman civilization. Laveleye fully recognized this when he wrote:[130]"In the measure that what we are in the habit of designating as civilization advances, the sentiments of piety and the family bonds weaken, and they exercise a decreasing influence upon the actions of men. This fact is so general that a law of social development may be recognized therein." Not only has the position of woman changed, but also the relation of son and daughter to the family, who have gradually attained a degree of independence unknown in former days,—a fact noticeable especially in the United States, where the self-dependent and independent education of the individual is carried on much further than with us. The dark sides that to-day accompany also this form of development, are not necessarily connected with it; they lie in the social conditions of our times. Capitalist society evokes no beneficent phenomenon unaccompanied with a dark side: as Fourier long ago pointed out with great perspicacity, capitalist society is in all its progressive steps double-faced and ambiguous.
With Laveleye, Schaeffle also detects in the changed character of the family of our days the effect of social development. He says:[131]"It is true that the tendency described in Chapter II, to reduce and limit the family to its specific functions is traceable throughout history. The family relinquishes one provisional and temporary function after the other. In so far as it officiated only in a surrogate and gap-filling capacity it makes way to independent institutions for law, order, authority, divine service, education, technique, etc., as soon as these institutions take shape."
Women are pressing even further, though as yet only in a minority, and only a fraction of these with clear aims. They aspire to measure their power with men, not on the industrial field alone; they aspire not only after a freer and more independent position in the family; they also aspire at turning their mental faculties to the higher walks of life. The favorite objection raised against them is that they are not fit for such pursuits, not being intended therefor by Nature. The question of engaging in the higher professional occupations concerns at present only a small number of women in modern society; it is, however, important in point of principle. The large majority of men believe in all seriousness that, mentally as well, woman must ever remain subordinate to them, and, hence, has no right to equality. They are, accordingly, the most determined opponents of woman's aspirations.
The self-same men, who raise no objection whatever to the employment of woman in occupations, many of which are very exhausting, often dangerous, threaten the impairment of her feminine physique and violently compel her to sin against her duties as a mother,—these self-same men would exclude her from pursuits in which these obstacles and dangers are much slighter, and which are much better suited to her delicate frame.
Among the learned men, who in Germany want to hear nothing of the admission of women to the higher studies, or who will yield only a qualified assent, and express themselves publicly on the subject are Prof. L. Bischoff, Dr. Ludwig Hirt, Prof. H. Sybel, L. von Buerenbach, Dr. E. Reich, and many others. Notedly has the livelier agitation, recently set on foot, for the admission of women to the Universities, incited a strong opposition against the plan in Germany. The opposition is mainly directed against woman's qualifications for the study of medicine. Among the opponents are found Pochhammer, Fehling, S. Binder, Waldeyer, Hegar, etc. Von Buerenbach is of the opinion that both the admission to and the fitness of woman for science can be disposed of with the argument that, until now, no genius has arisen among woman, and hence woman is manifestly unfit for philosophic studies. It seems the world has had quite enough of its male philosophers: it can, without injury to itself, well afford to dispense with female. Neither does the objection that the female sex has never yet produced a genius seem to us either to hold water, or to have the weight of a demonstration. Geniuses do not drop down from the skies; they must have opportunity to form and mature. This opportunity woman has lacked until now, as amply shown by our short historic sketch. For thousands of years she has been oppressed, and she has been deprived or stunted in the opportunity and possibility to unfold her mental faculties. It is as false to reason that the female sex is bereft of genius, by denying all spark of genius to the tolerably large number of great women, as it would be to maintain that there were no geniuses among the male sex other than the few who are considered such. Every village schoolmaster knows what a mass of aptitudes among his pupils never reach full growth, because the possibilities for their development are absent. Aye, there is not one, who, in his walk through life, has not become acquainted, some with more, others with fewer persons of whom it had to be said that, had they been able to mature under more favorable circumstances, they would have been ornaments to society, and men of genius. Unquestionably the number of men of talent and of genius is by far larger among the male sex than those that, until now, have been able to reveal themselves: social conditions did not allow the others to develop. Precisely so with the faculties of the female sex, asex that for centuries has been held under, hampered and crippled, far worse than any other subject beings. We have absolutely no measure to-day by which to gauge the fullness of mental powers and faculties that will develop among men and women so soon as they shall be able to unfold amid natural conditions.
It is with mankind as in the vegetable kingdom. Millions of valuable seeds never reach development because the ground on which they fall is unfavorable, or is taken up by weeds that rob the young and better plant of air, light and nourishment. The same laws of Nature hold good in human life. If a gardener or planter sought to maintain with regard to a given plant that it could not grow, although he made no trial, perhaps even hindered its growth by wrong treatment, such a man would be pronounced a fool by all his intelligent neighbors. Nor would he fare any better if he declined to cross one of his female domestic animals with, a male of higher breed, to the end of producing a better animal.
There is no peasant in Germany to-day so ignorant as not to understand the advantage of such treatment of his trees or animals—provided always his means allow him to introduce the better method. Only with regard to human beings do even men of learning deny the force of that which with regard to all other matters, they consider an established law. And yet every one, even without being a naturalist, can make instructive observations in life. Whence comes it that the children of peasants differ from city children? It comes from the difference in their conditions of life and education.
The one-sidedness, inherent in the education for one calling, stamps man with a peculiar character. A clergyman or a schoolmaster is generally and easily recognized by his carriage and mien; likewise an officer, even when in civilian dress. A shoe maker is easily told from a tailor, a joiner from a locksmith. Twin brothers, who closely resembled each other in youth, show in later years marked differences if their occupations are different, if one had hard manual work, for instance, as a smith, the other the study of philosophy for his duty. Heredity, on one side, adaptation on the other, play in the development of man, as well as of animals, a decisiverole. Indeed, man is the most bending and pliable of all creatures. A few years of changed life and occupation often suffice to make quite a different being out of the same man. Nowhere does rapid external change show itself more strikingly than when a person is transferred from poor and reduced, to materially improved circumstances. It is in his mental make-up that such a person will be least able to deny his antecedents, but that is due to the circumstance that, with most of such people, after they have reached a certain age, the desire for intellectual improvement is rarely felt; neither do theyneed it. Such an upstart rarely suffers under this defect. In our days, that look to money and material means, people are far readier to bowbefore the man with a large purse, than before a man of knowledge and great intellectual gifts, especially if he has the misfortune of being poor and rankless. Instances of this sort are furnished every day. The worship of the golden calf stood in no age higher than in this,—whence it comes that we are living "in the best possible world."
The strongest evidence of the effect exercised upon man by radically different conditions of life is furnished in our several industrial centers. In these centers employer and employe present externally such a contrast as if they belonged to different races. Although accustomed to the contrast, it struck us almost with the shock of a surprise on the occasion of a campaign mass meeting, that we addressed in the winter of 1877 in an industrial town of the Erzgebirge region. The meeting, at which a debate was to be held between a liberal professor and ourselves, was so arranged that both sides were equally represented. The front part of the hall was taken by our opponents,—almost without exception, healthy, strong, often large figures; in the rear of the hall and in the galleries stood workingmen and small tradesmen, nine-tenths of the former weavers,—mostly short, thin, shallow-chested, pale-faced figures, with whom worry and want looked out at every pore. One set represented the full-stomached virtue and solvent morality of bourgeois society; the other set, the working bees and beasts of burden, on the product of whose labor the gentlemen made so fine an appearance.Let both be placed for one generation under equally favorable conditions, and the contrast will vanish with most; it certainly is blotted out in their descendants.
It is also evident that, in general, it is harder to determine the social standing of women than of men. Women adapt themselves more readily to new conditions; they acquire higher manners more quickly. Their power of accommodation is greater than that of more clumsy man.
What to a plant are good soil, light and air, are to man healthy social conditions, that allow him to unfold his powers. The well known saying: "Man is what he eats," expresses the same thought, although somewhat one-sidedly: The question is not merely what man eats; it embraces his whole social posture, the social atmosphere in which he moves, that promotes or stunts his physical and mental development, that affects, favorably or unfavorably, his sense of feeling, of thought, and of action. Every day we see people, situated in favorable material conditions, going physically and morally to wreck, simply because, beyond the narrower sphere of their own domestic or personal surroundings, unfavorable circumstances of a social nature operate upon them, and gain such overpowering ascendency that they switch them on wrongtracks. The general conditions under which a man lives are even of far greater importance than those of the home and the family. If the conditions for social development are equal to both sexes, if to neither there stand any obstacles in the way, and if the social state of society is a healthy one,then woman also will rise to a point of perfection in her being, such as we can have no full conception of, such conditions having hitherto been absent in the history of the development of the race. That which some women are in the meantime achieving, leaves no doubt upon this head: these rise as high above the mass of their own sex as the male geniuses do above the mass of theirs. Measured with the scale usually applied to Princes, women have, on an average, displayed greater talent than men in the ruling of States. As illustrations, let Isabella and Blanche of Castile be quoted; Elizabeth of Hungary; Catharine Sforza, the Duchess of Milan and Imola; Elizabeth of England; Catharine of Russia; Maria Theresa, etc. Resting upon the fact that, in all races and all parts of the world, women have ruled with marked ability, even over the wildest and most turbulent hordes, Burbach makes the statement that,in all probability, women are fitter for politics than men.[132]For the rest, many a great man in history would shrink considerably, were it only known What he owes to himself, and what to others. Count Mirabeau, for instance, is described by German historians, von Sybel among them, as one of the greatest lights of the French Revolution: and now research has revealed the fact that this light was indebted for the concept of almost all of his speeches to the ready help of certain scholars, who worked for him in secret, and whom he understood to utilize. On the other hand, apparitions like those of a Sappho, a Diotima of the days of Socrates, a Hypatia of Alexander, a Madame Roland, Madame de Stael, George Sand, etc., deserve the greatest respect, and eclipse many a male star. The effect of women as mothers of great men is also known. Woman has achieved all that was possible to her under the, to her, as a whole, most unfavorable circumstances; all of which justifies the best hopes for the future. As a matter of fact, only the second half of the nineteenth century began to smooth the way for the admission of women in large numbers to the race with men on various fields; and quite satisfactory are the results attained.
But suppose that, on an average, women are not as capable of higher development as men, that they cannot grow into geniuses and great philosophers, was this a criterion for men when, at least according to the letter of the law, they were placed on a footing of equality with "geniuses" and "philosophers?" The identical men of learning, who deny higher aptitudes to woman, are quite inclined to do the same to artisans and workingmen. When the nobility appeals to its "blue" blood and toits genealogical tree, these men of learning laugh in derision and shrug their shoulders; but as against the man of lower rank, they consider themselves an aristocracy, that owes what it is, not to more favorable conditions of life, but to its own talent alone. The same men who, on one field, are among the freest from prejudice, and who hold him lightly who does not think as liberally as themselves, are, on another field,—the moment the interests of their rank and class, or their vanity and self-esteem are concerned—found narrow to the point of stupidity, and hostile to the point of fanaticism. The men of the upper classes look down upon the lower; and so does almost the whole sex upon woman. The majority of men see in woman only an article of profit and pleasure; to acknowledge her an equal runs against the grain of their prejudices:—woman must be humble and modest; she must confine herself exclusively to the house and leave all else to the men, the "lords of creation," as their domain: woman must, to the utmost, bridle her own thoughts and inclinations, and quietly accept what her Providence on earth—father or husband—decrees. The nearer she approaches this standard, all the more is she praised as "sensible, modest and virtuous," even though, as the result of such constraint, she break down under the burden of physical and moral suffering. What absurdity is it not to speak of the "equality of all" and yet seek to keep one-half of the human race outside of the pale!
Woman has the same right as man to unfold her faculties and to the free exercise of the same: she is human as well as he: like him, she should be free to dispose of herself as her own master. The accident of being born a woman, makes no difference. To exclude woman from equality on the ground that she was born female and not male—an accident for which man is as little responsible as she—is as inequitable, as would be to make rights and privileges dependent upon the accident of religion or political bias; and as senseless as that two human beings must look upon each other as enemies on the ground that the accident of birth makes them of different stock and nationality. Such views are unworthy of a truly free being. The progress of humanity lies in removing everything that holds one being, one class, one sex, in dependence and in subjection to another.No inequality is justified other than that which Nature itself establishes in the differences between one individual and another, and for the fulfillment of the purpose of Nature. The natural boundaries no sex can overstep: it would thereby destroy its own natural purpose.
The adversaries of full equality for woman play as their trump card the claim that woman has a smaller brain than man, and that in other qualities, besides, she is behind man, hence her permanent inferiority (subordination) is demonstrated. It is certain that man and womanare beings of different sexes; that they are furnished with different organs, corresponding to the sex purpose of each; and that, owing to the functions that each sex must fill to accomplish the purpose of Nature, there are a series of other differences in their physiologic and psychic conditions. These are facts that none can deny and none will deny; nevertheless, they justify no distinction in the social and political rights of man and woman. The human race, society, consists of both sexes; both are indispensable to its existence and progress. Even the greatest male genius was born of a mother, to whom frequently he is indebted for the best part of himself. By what right can woman be refused equality with man?
Based upon information furnished us by a medical friend, we shall here sketch with a few strokes the essential differences, that, according to leading authorities, manifest themselves in the physical and mental qualities of man and woman. The bodily size of man and woman stands, on an average, in the relation of 100 to 93.2. The bones of woman are shorter and thinner, the chest smaller, wider, deeper and flatter. Other differences depend directly upon the sex purpose. The muscles of woman are not as massive. The weight of the heart is 310 grains in man, 255 in woman.
The composition of the blood in man and woman is as follows: Water, man, 77.19; woman, 79.11. Solid matter, man, 22.10; woman, 20.89. Blood corpuscles, man, 14.10; woman, 12.79. Number of blood corpuscles in a cubic millimeter of blood, man, 4½ to 5 millions; woman, 4 to 4½ millions. According to Meynert, the weight of the brain of man is from 1,018 to 1,925 grams; of woman, from 820 to 1,565; or in the relation of 100 to 90.93. LeBon and Bischoff agree that, while weight of brain corresponds with size of body, nevertheless short people have relatively larger brains. With woman, the smaller size of the heart, the narrower system of blood vessels and probably also the larger quantity of blood, has a lower degree of nourishment for its effect.[133]That, however, the larger skulls of larger persons, coupled with the quantitativechanges occasioned by the size of the skull promote the vigor of the several sections of the brain is a matter thatcannot be asserted.[134]
Of 107 mentally healthy men and 148 women of the ages of 20 to 59, the weight of the brain per thousand was:
The absolute and relative excess in the weight of the cerebellum of woman has an enormous significance. With animals that run immediately upon birth, the cerebellum is much more powerfully developed than with animals that are born blind, are helpless, and that learn to walk with difficulty. Accordingly, and in consequence of its connection with the cerebrum, subcortical center and the spinal cord, the cerebellum is a station of the muscular and of the chief nervous system, by means of both of which qualities we keep our equilibrium. The more massive cerebellum with woman, together with the comparative shortness and tenderness of her bones, explains her comparative quickness and easiness of motion, her quicker and higher co-ordination of the muscles for their functions, and her knack of quickly sizing up a situation, and finding her way in the midst of a confusion of associations. Woman is furthermore aided in the latter faculty through the greater excitability of her cerebral cortex. Meynert says:—
1. All structural anomalies associated with anaemia of the blood—including also a small heart and narrow arteries—should be considered as subject structural defects. Upon this depends not only the ready exhaustibility of the cortex, but also the phenomena of irritability, named by Meynert, localized irritable weakness.
2. The branches of blood vessels, supplying the subcortical centers from the base, are short, thick, straight, palisade-like, while those on the surface of the brain, supplying the cortex, run in long tortuous lines. And it is because of that, since with the increased length of the blood vessels the resistance to the propulsive force of the heart is increased, that the subcortical centers, the moment fatigue supervenes, are better supplied with blood than the cortex, they are less readily fatigued than the more readily exhaustible cerebrum.
3. Because of this and because of the more watery character of woman's blood and great extent of subcortical centers in woman in comparison with cerebrum, the physical equilibrium of woman is more unstable than of man.
4. All nerves (except the optic and olfactory, which spread out directly in the cortex, save some of their filaments terminating in the subcortical centers) terminate in the subcortical center; the cortex of the cerebrum acts as a checking organ for the subcortical center; as the cerebral cortex in woman, as already stated, is at a disadvantage not only from the anatomical standpoint, but also in the quality of its blood supply, woman is not only more easily fatigued, but also more readily excitable (irritable, nervous).
These facts explain, on the one hand, what is called the superior endowment of woman, and, on the other, her inclination to sudden changes of opinion, as well as to hallucinations and illusions. This state of unstable equilibrium between thedura materand theponsbecomes particularly normal during menstruation, pregnancy, lying-in, and at her climacteric. As a result of her physical organization, woman is more inclined to melancholy than man, and likewise is the inclination to mental derangement stronger with her; on the other hand, the male sex excels her in the number of cases of megalomania.
Such, in substance, is the information furnished us by the authority whom we have been quoting.
As a matter of course, in so far as the cited differences depend upon the nature of the sex-distinctions, they can not be changed; in how far these differences in the make-up of the blood and the brain may be modified by a change of life (nourishment, mental and physical gymnastics, occupation, etc.) is a matter that, for the present, lies beyond all accurate calculation. But this seems certain:modern woman differs more markedly from man than primitive woman, or than the women of backward peoples, and the circumstance is easily explained by the social development that the last 1,000 or 1,500 years forced upon woman among the nations of civilization.
According to Lombroso and Ferrero, the mean capacity of the female skull, the male skull being assumed at 1,000, is as follows:—
The contradictory findings for Hollanders and Germans show that the measurements were made on very different quantitative and qualitative materials, and, consequently, are not absolutely reliable. One thing, however, is evident from the figures: Negro, Australian and Hindoo women have a considerably larger brain capacity than their German, English and Parisian sisters, and yet the latter are all more intelligent. The comparisons established in the weight of the brain of deceased men of note, reveal similar contradictions and peculiarities. According to Prof. Reclam, the brain of the naturalist Cuvier weighed 1,861 grams, of Byron 1,807, of the mathematician Dirichlet 1,520, of the celebrated mathematician Gauss 1,492, of the philologist Hermann 1,358, of the scientist Hausmann 1,226. The last of these had a brain below the average weight of that of women, which, according to Bischoff, weighs 1,250 grams. But a special irony of fate wills it that the brain of Prof. Bischoff himself, who died a few years ago in St. Petersburg, weighed only 1,245 grams, and Bischoff it was who most obstinately grounded his claim of woman's inferiority on the fact that woman, on the average, had 100 grams less brain than man. The brain of Gambetta also weighed considerably below the average female brain, it weighed only 1,180 grams, and Dante, too, is said to have had a brain below the average weight for men. Figures of the same sort are found in Dr. Havelock Ellis' work. According thereto, an every day person, whose brain Bischoff weighed, had 2,222 grams; the poet Turgeniew 2,012; while the third heaviest brain on the list belonged to an idiot of the duchy of Hants. The brain of a common workingman, also examined by Bischoff, weighed 1,925 grams. The heaviest woman's brains weighed 1,742 and 1,580 grams, two of which were of insane women.
The conclusion is, accordingly, justified that as little as size of body justifies inferences as to strength of body, so little does the weight of the brain-mass warrant inferences as to mental powers. There are very small animals (ants, bees) that, in point of intelligence, greatly excel much larger ones (sheep, cows), just as men of large body are often found far behind others of smaller or unimposing stature. Accordingly, the important factor is not merely the quantity of brain matter, butmore especially the brain organization, and, not least of all, the exercise and use of the brain power.
The brain, if it is to fully develop its powers, must be diligently exercised, the same as any other organ, and also correspondingly fed. Where this is not done, or where the training is turned into wrong channels, instead of the sections of the understanding being developed, those are developed in which imagination has its seat. In such cases,not only is the organ stunted, but even crippled. One section is developed at the expense of another.
No one, approximately familiar with the history of the development of woman, will deny that, for thousands of years, woman has been and continues to be sinned against in that direction. When Prof. Bischoff objects that woman could have trained her brain and intelligence as well as man did, he reveals unpardonable and unheard of ignorance on the subject. The sketch, drawn in this work, of the position of woman in the course of the progress of civilization, explains fully how the thousands of years of continued male supremacy over woman are mainly responsible for the great differences in the mental and physical development of the two sexes.
Our naturalists should recognize that the laws of their science are applicable to man also, and to his evolution. The laws of evolution, of heredity, of adaptation, hold good with human beings as with all other creatures of nature. Seeing that man is no exception in nature, the law of evolution must be applied to him also: forthwith light is shed upon what otherwise remains confused and dark, and, as such, becomes the fit subject for scientific mysticism, or mystic science.
The training of the brain took its course with the different sexes wholly in conformity with the difference in the education of the two—if such a term as "education" is at all allowable, with regard to woman in particular, during long stretches of the past, and the term "bringing up" is not the correcter. Physiologists are agreed that the organs of thought are located in the front part of the brain, and those especially of feeling and sentiment are to be looked for in the middle of the head. With man the front, with woman the middle of the head is more developed.The ideal of beauty, male and female, shaped itself accordingly.According to the Greek ideal, which is standard to this day,woman has a narrow, man a high and, particularly, broad forehead,—and this ideal an expression of their own degradation, is so stamped on their minds, that our women bewail a forehead that exceeds the average, as a deformity in their appearance, and seek to improve nature by art, drawing their hair over the sinning forehead, to make it look lower.
In a polemic in Nos. 39 and 40 of the "Sozialdemokrat" for 1890, which appeared in London, Sophie Nadejde had two articles in which she sought to refute the charges concerning the great inferiority of woman. She says therein that Broca, a well known Parisian physiologist, measured the cubic contents of 115 skulls from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and got an average of 1,426 cubic centimeters. The measurements of 125 skulls from the eighteenth century gave, however, an average of 1,462 cubic centimeters. According to this, the conclusion would be that, in the course of a few centuries, the brain had grown considerably. A measurement by Broca of skulls from the Stone Ageresulted, however, in an average of 1,606 cubic centimeters for the skulls of men, and 1,581 for the skulls of women,—accordingly, both considerably larger than those of the eleventh, twelfth and eighteenth centuries. Mrs. Nadejde concluded therefrom that Herbert Spencer was right when he claimed in his physiology that brain weight depended upon the amount of motion and the variety of motions.
The lady furthermore emphasized the point that it depends a deal less on the brain-mass than on the proportion in the two sexes of the brain-weight to the weight of the body. Proceeding from these premises, it appeared thatthe female brain was heavier than the male. The argument on this head, Mrs. Nadejde presents in these words:
"Let us compare the average weights of the bodies, and let us take, as the difference between man and woman only 8 kilograms, although many naturalists, among them Gay, whom Delaunay quotes, takes 11 kilograms. According to the average weights of 9,157 American soldiers: 64.4 kilograms (average weight of the male body): 56 kilograms (average weight of the female body) = 1,141 or 1.14, i. e., the average weight of woman being taken as 100, that of man is represented by 114. According to the average weights of 12,740 Bavarians: 65.5 kilograms (average for males): 57.5 (average for females) = 1,139 or 1.14 as above. Assuming the average weight of woman as 100, that of man is found to be 114. According to the average weights of 617 Englishmen, 68.8 (average for males): 60.8 (average for females) = 1,131, or 1.13; the average weight of woman being assumed as 100, that of man is found to be 113.[135]
"Accordingly, it appears that, under otherwise equal conditions, women have ¼ per cent. of brain-mass in excess of men. That is to say, for every 100 grams of female brain-mass, men should have 113 or 114 grams; in reality, however, they only have from 110 to 112 grams. The fact can be put still more plastically: According to this calculation,the male brain falls short 25 to 51 grams of brain-mass.[136]
"But L. Manouvrier proves more. He says:[137]'The influence of the weight of the body strikes the eye when we note the figures among the vertebrates. The influence is equally manifest with man, and it is a wonder how so many naturalists have not yet recognized this truth, even after it was illustrated and treated by others.
"'There are a number of facts that prove the influence of the size of the body upon the weight of the brain. The lower races and of high stature, not only have a larger average weight of brain than theEuropean, but also is the number of large brains greater with them. We must not imagine that the intelligence of a race is determined by the number of large brains: the Patagonians, Polynesians and Indians of North America (and according to the figures given above the people of the Stone Age may be added) greatly surpass us Parisians and all races of Europe, not only in the number of large brains, but also in the large average capacity of the skull.
"'The influence of the weight of the body upon the size of the brain is confirmed by the fact that the small skull capacities are found among races of slight stature, like the Bushmen, the Andamans, and the Hindoo pariahs.'
"All scientists who have treated the brain question in a really scientific manner, have expressed themselves with greatest caution on the difference shown by the two sexes. Other writers, on the contrary, especially during the last years, have treated the question with such levity, that it has been compromised in the public esteem. If there be any intellectual difference between man and woman, it must, at any rate, be very slight, a physiologist like Stuart Mill having declared that he failed to find the difference. Size of body, strength of muscle, mass—all of these present decided differences. Due to these differences woman has been termed the defective sex; and authors who were not able to understand these manifest differences, presumed to establish a physiologic difference; to solve a much more difficult and complex question, they raised their voices in praise of their own sex!
"It follows that the difference between the sexes in point of weight of brain and capacity of skull, considered scientifically, can not be scored to the disadvantage of woman. All the facts point to the conclusion that the difference depends upon the weight of the body. There is no anatomical reason to represent woman as a backward and, in point of intelligence, subordinate being, compared with man. I shall presently prove this.
"The proportion between the weight of the brain and the height of the body is smaller with the female than with the male sex.[138]But the fact is easily explained. The height of the body does not actually express the development, or, rather, the weight of the body.
"But when we compare the proportion of the brain-weights we find that women have more brain than men, in childhood as well as throughout life. The difference is not great, but it would be much more considerable, if we did not include in the weight of the body the fat, which is present in much larger quantity with women, and which, as an inert (inactive) mass, has no influence whatever upon the weight of the brain."
Later, in 1883, L. Manouvrier published in the seventh number of the "Revue Scientifique" the following results of his investigations:—
"If we designate with 100 each the weight of the brain, thighbone, skull, and lower jawbone, we find the following weights for woman:—
"It is, furthermore, an established fact that the weight of the skeleton (without skull) differs as with the thighbone. Hence we may compare the weight of the brain with that of the thighbone. It follows from the figures given above, that women have, relatively, 26.4 per cent. more brain-mass.
"Let us express the figures herein given somewhat more plastically.
"If a man has 100 grams of brain-mass, woman should have, instead of 100, only 62.5 grams; but she has 88.9 grams,—an excess of 26.4 grams. It follows that if we accept 1,410 grams (according to Wagner) as the average weight of the male brain, the female brain should weigh only 961.25 grams, instead of 1,262: woman, accordingly, has 301.75 grams more brain-mass than the proportion demands. If we take the figures of Huschel we find an excess of 372 grams; finally, the figures of Broca give us an excess of 383 grams.Under otherwise equal conditions woman has between 300 and 400 grams more brain-mass than man."
Although it is by no means proven that, by reason of their brain-mass, women are inferior to men, it is no cause for wonder that, women are mentally such as we know them to-day. Darwin is certainly right when he says that a list of the most distinguished men in poetry, painting, sculpture, music, science and philosophy side by side with a similar list of the most distinguished women on the same fields will not bear comparison with each other. But are we to wonder at that?Wonderful were it if it were otherwise.For that reason Dr. Dodel-Zurich[139]says with perfect right that matters would stand otherwise if through a number of generations women and men were educated equally, and trained in the exercise of those arts and of mental discipline. On an average, woman is also weaker than man, which is by no means the case with many wild peoples.[140]What exercise and training from early youth are able to change in this matter, we may see in the circus womenand female acrobats, who in courage, foolhardiness, dexterity and physical strength achieve marvelous feats.
Seeing that such a development is a matter of the conditions of life and education—or, to express it in the naked language of science, of "breeding"—it may be taken for certain that the application of these laws to the physical and mental life of man would lead to the most brilliant results,the moment man sets his hand to the work with full consciousness of his object and his aim.
As plants and animals depend upon the conditions for existence that they live under—promoted by favorable, checked by unfavorable ones—and as forcible conditions compel them to change their appearance and character, provided such conditions are not unfavorable enough to destroy them wholly, so it is with man. The manner in which a person makes his living influences not his external appearance only, it influences also his feelings, his thoughts and his actions.[141]If, accordingly, man's unfavorable conditions of life—defective social conditions—are the cause of defective individual development, it follows thatby changing his condition of life, man is himself changed. The question, therefore, is so to change the social conditions that every human being shall be afforded the possibility for the full and unhampered development of his being; that the laws of evolution and adaptation, designated after Darwin as "Darwinian," be consciously rendered effective to humanity. But this is possible only under Socialism.
As a thinking and intelligent being,man must constantly, and conscious of his purpose, change, improve and perfect his social conditions, together with all that thereby hangs; and he must so proceed in this that equally favorable opportunities be open to all. Every individual must be placed in a position to be able to develop his abilities and faculties to his own as well as to the advantage of the collectivity; but his may not be the power to injure either others or the collectivity. His own and the advantage of others must be mutual.Harmony of interestsmust be brought about; it must substitute the existingconflict of intereststo the end that not even the thought may be conceived of ruling and injuring others.
Darwinism, as all genuine science, is eminently democratic.[142]If any of its advocates holds a contrary view, he only proves himself unable to grasp its range. Its opponents, particularly the reverend clergy, who ever display a fine nose, the moment earthly benefits or injuries areimminent, have understood this well, and, consequently denounce Darwinism as Socialistic and Anarchistic. Also Prof. Virchow agrees with his sworn enemies in this. In 1877, at the convention of naturalists in Munich, he played the following trump declaration against Prof. Haeckel:[143]"The Darwinian theory leads to Socialism." Virchow sought to discredit Darwinism and to denounce it because Haeckel demanded the adoption of the theory of evolution in the schools. To teach natural science in our schools in the sense of Darwin and of recent investigations, that is an idea against which are up in arms all those who wish to cling to the present order of things. The revolutionary effect of these theories is known, hence the demand that they be taught only in the circles of the select. We, however, are of the opinion that if, as Virchow claims, the Darwinian theories lead to Socialism, the circumstance is not an argument against Darwin's theories, but in favor of Socialism. Never may a scientist inquire whether the conclusions from his science lead to this or that political system, to this or that social system, nor seek to justify the same. His is the duty to inquire whether the theory is right.If it is that, then it must be accepted along with all its consequences.He who acts otherwise, be it out of personal interest, be it out of a desire to curry favor from above, or be it out of class and party interests,is guilty of a contemptible act, and is no honor to science. Science as a guild so very much at home in our Universities, can only in rare instances lay claim to independence and character. The fear of losing their stipends, of forfeiting the favor of the ruler, of having to renounce titles, decorations and promotions cause most of the representatives of science to duck, to conceal their own convictions, or even to utter in public the reverse of what they believe and know. If, on the occasion of the festival of declaration of allegiance at the Berlin University, in 1870, a Dubois-Reymond exclaimed: "The Universities are the training places for the life-guards of the Hohenzollern," one may judge how the majority of the others, who stand both in knowledge and importance far belowDubois-Reymond,[144]think regarding the purpose of science. Science is degraded to a maid-servant of the ruling powers.
We can understand how Prof. Haeckel and his disciples, such as Prof. O. Schmidt, v. Hellwald and others, defend themselves energetically against the charge that Darwinism plays into the hands of Socialism; and that they, in turn, maintain the contrary to be true: that Darwinism is aristocratic in that it teaches that everywhere in Nature the more highly developed and stronger organism dominates the lower. Seeing that, according to these gentlemen, the property and cultured classes represent these more highly developed and stronger organisms in society, they look upon the domination of these as a matter of course, being justified by nature.
This wing among our Darwinians has not the faintest notion of the economic laws that sway capitalist society, whose blind will raises, without selecting either the best, or the ablest, or the most thorough, often the most scampish and corrupt; places him on top; and thus puts him in a position to make the conditions of life and development most favorable for his descendants, without these having as much as to turn their hands. Striking an average, under no economic system is the prospect poorer than under capitalism for individuals animated with good and noble qualities, to rise and remain above; and it may be added without exaggeration that the prospect grows darker in the measure that this economic system approaches its apogee. Recklessness and unscrupulousness in the choice and application of the means, are weapons infinitely more effective and promiseful of success than all human virtues put together. To consider a social system, built upon such a basis, a system of the "fittest and best" is a feat that only he can be capable of whose knowledge of the essence and nature of such a society equals zero; or who, swayed by dyed-in-the-wool bourgeois prejudices, has lost all power to think on the subject and to draw his conclusions. The struggle for existence is found with all organisms. Without a knowledge of the circumstances that force them thereto, the struggle is carried on unconsciously. Such a struggle for existence is found among men also, within all social systems in which the sense of solidarity has vanished, or has not yet come to the surface. This struggle changes according to the forms that the social relations of man to man assume in the course of social evolution. In the course of this evolution it takes on the form of a class struggle that is carried on upon an ever higher plane. But these struggles lead—and in this human beings differ from all other creatures—to an ever clearer understanding of the situation, and finally to the recognition of the laws thatgovern and control their evolution.Man has in the end but to apply this knowledge to his social and political development, and to adapt the latter accordingly.The difference between man and the brute is thatman may be called a thinking animal, the brute, however, is no thinking man. It is this that a large portion of our Darwinians can not, in their one-sidedness, understand. Hence the vicious circle in which they move.
A work from the pen of Prof. Enrico Ferri[145]proves, especially as against Haeckel, that Darwinism and Socialism are in perfect harmony, and that it is a fundamental error on the part of Haeckel to characterize, as he has done down to latest date, Darwinism as aristocratic. We are not at all points agreed with Ferri's work, and especially do we not share his views with regard to the qualities of woman, a matter in which he is substantially at one with Lombroso and Ferrero. Ellis has shown in his "Man and Woman" that while the qualities of man and woman are very different, still they are ofequal value,—a confirmation of the Kantian sentence that man and woman only together constitute the human being. This notwithstanding, the work of Ferri comes quiteapropos.
Professor Haeckel and his followers, of course, also combat the claim that Darwinism leads to atheism, and we find them, after themselves having removed the Creator by all their scientific arguments and proofs, making hysterical efforts to smuggle him in again by the back door. To this particular end, they construct their own style of "Religion," which is then called "higher morality," "moral principles," etc. In 1882, at the convention of naturalists at Eisenach, and in the presence of the family of the Grand Duke of Weimar, Prof. Haeckel made the attempt not only to "save religion," but also to represent his master Darwin as "religious." The effort suffered shipwreck, as all will admit who read the essay and the letter of Darwin therein quoted. Darwin's letter expressed the reverse of that which Prof. Haeckel sought to make out, although in cautious words. Darwin was constrained to consider the "religious sentiments" of his countrymen, the English, hence he never dared to express his opinion openly upon religion. Privately, however, he did so to Dr. L. Buechner, as became known shortly after the Weimar convention, whom he frankly informed thatsince his fortieth year—that is to say, since 1849—he believed nothing, not having been able to find any proof for his belief. During the last years of his life Darwin supported an atheist paper published in New York.
Woman is to take up the competitive struggle with man on the intellectual field also. She does not propose to wait till it please man to develop her brain functions and to clear the way for her. The movement is well under way. Already has woman brushed aside many anobstacle, and stepped upon the intellectual arena,—and quite successfully in more countries than one. The movement, ever more noticeable, among women for admission to the Universities and High Schools, as well as for admission to the functions that correspond to these studies, is, in the very nature of existing conditions, confined to the women of the bourgeois circles. The circles of the working-women are not directly interested therein: to them, these studies, together with the posts attainable through them, are shut off. Nevertheless, the movement and its success are of general interest, partly, because the matter concerns a question of principle, affecting the position in general of woman towards man, partly also because it will show what woman is capable of achieving, even now, under conditions highly unfavorable to her development. Finally, the female sex has a special interest herein, in cases of sickness, for instance, when they may confide their ailments more freely to a physician of their own than to one of the opposite sex. To a large number of women, female practitioners, are a positive benefit. The necessity of having to resort to male doctors in cases of illness, generally connected with physical disturbances that flow from their sex peculiarities, frequently deters women from seeking timely aid, or any aid at all. Hence arise a number of troubles, not infrequently serious ones, not to the wives alone, but to their husbands as well. There is hardly a physician who has no cause to complain of this frequently criminal diffidence on the part of women, and their objection to state their complaint freely. All this is easy to understand; irrational, however, is the posture of the men, and of several physicians among them, who will not admit the justice and necessity of the study of medicine, in particular, by women.
Female doctors are no new sight. Among most of the ancient peoples, the old Germans in particular, it was upon woman that the healing cares devolved. There were female physicians and operators of great repute during the ninth and tenth centuries in the Arabian Kingdom, particularly among the Arabians (Moors) in Spain, where they studied at the University of Cordova. The pursuit by women of scientific studies at several Italian Universities—Bologna and Palermo, for instance,—was likewise due to Moorish influence. Later, when the "heathen" influence vanished from Italy, the practice was forbidden. In 1377 the faculty of the University of Bologna decreed:
"And whereas woman is the fountain of sin, the weapon of the devil, the cause of man's banishment from Paradise and the ruin of the old laws; and whereas for these reasons all intercourse with her is to be diligently avoided; therefore do we interdict and expressly forbid that any one presume to introduce in the said college any woman whatsoever, however honorable she be. And if, this notwithstanding, any one should perpetrate such an act, he shall be severely punished by the Rector."
Indeed, down to this day, Christian clergymen, of both Protestant and Catholic confession, are among the most zealous enemies of the pursuit of scientific studies by woman. The fact was shown in the debates of the German Reichstag on the admission of women to the study of medicine; it is furthermore shown by the reports of the Evangelical convention, held in the spring of 1894 in Frankfurt-on-the-Main, where clerical mouth-pieces protested sharply against allowing women equal rights in the discussions of the convention.
The admission of women to the pursuit of University professions has, above all, the result of exercising a beneficent influence upon the industry of the male youth. As admitted from different quarters, the ambition of the male students leaves much to be wished for. That alone were a great gain. Their morals also would be greatly improved: the inclination to drunkenness and brawling, as well as habitual dissipations in taverns, so common among our students, would receive a severe blow: the institutions whence mainly proceed our political pilots, judges, district attorneys, higher police officers, clergymen and members of legislatures would acquire a tone better in keeping with the purpose for which these institutions are established and supported. According to the unanimous opinion of impartial people, qualified to judge, an improvement in this tone is a crying need of the hour.
The number of the countries that admit women to the Universities and High Schools has been greatly on the increase during the last twenty years; nor can any country, that lays claim to being a member of civilization, shut its ears in the long run to the demand. Ahead of all went the United States; Russia followed—two political systems that present in all respects the strongest contrasts; that notwithstanding, both were guided by the identical views with regard to the equal rights of woman. In the North American Union, women are to-day admitted in all the States to University studies,—in Utah since 1850, Iowa since 1860, Kansas since 1866, Wisconsin since 1868, Minnesota since 1869, California and Missouri since 1870, Ohio, Illinois and Nebraska since 1871; since then all the other States followed in rapid succession. In keeping with the extension of female studies, woman conquered her place in the United States. According to the census of 1890, there were in the country 2,348 female physicians and surgeons, 2,136 female architects, 580 female journalists, 300 female writers, 165 female ministers, 110 female lawyers.[146]
In Europe, Switzerland, principally, opened its Universities to women. There the number of female students grew, since 1887, as follows:—
Accordingly, the participation of women in University studies increased considerably in the interval between 1887-1894. In 1887 the number of female students was 7.5 per cent. of the total number of students; in 1893-1894, however, it had risen to 16.6 per cent. In 1887, there were, among 744 medical students, 79 women, or 10.6 per cent.; in the winter course of 1893-1894, there were, of 1,073 medical students, 210 women, or 19.6 per cent. In the department of philosophy, in 1887, there were, of 530 students, 41 women, or 7.8 per cent.; in 1893-1894, there were, of 1,640 students, 381 women, or 23.2 per cent. The large majority of the female students in Switzerland are foreigners, among them many Germans, whose number increases almost yearly. The example of Switzerland was followed in the early seventies by Sweden; in 1874 by England, in so far as medical colleges for women have been established. Nevertheless, it was not until 1881 that Oxford, and 1884 that Cambridge decided to admit female students. Italy followed in 1876, then Norway, Belgium, France and Austria. In Paris, during 1891, there were 232 female students, mostly of medicine. Of these female students, 103 were Russian, 18 French, 6 English, 3 Roumanian, 2 Turk, and 1 each from America, Greece and Servia. In the department of philosophy there were 82 French female students and 15 foreigners matriculated.
As it will have been noticed, even Turkey is represented among the female students. There, more than anywhere else, are female physicians needed, due to the position that custom and religion assign to woman as against man. The same reason caused Austria also to open Universities to female students, in order that the Mohammedan women of Bosnia and Herzegovina might enjoy medical attendance. Even Germany, whose "pig-tail" was thickest, i. e., where the disfavor towards admitting women to the Universities was most bitter, has been compelled to fall in line with progress. In the spring of 1894, the first female student passed her examination in Heidelberg for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and a second one in the fall of the same year in Göttingen. In Karlsruhe and Berlin, High Schools were established to prepare women for the Universities; finally in the summer of 1894, the PrussianMinister of Public Worship issued regulations for the remodelling of the higher instruction of girls, looking for their preparation for the study of medicine. Also India has furnished a small contingent of female students. Obviously, there is progress everywhere.
All medical authorities are agreed that women render the best service as nurses of the sick, aye, that they positively can not be got along without. In an address, delivered by Prof. Ziemssen a few years ago, he said:
"Above all, see to it, gentlemen, in your practice that you have thorough, well trained, kind-hearted, characterful female nurses. Without them, all your sacrifices of time and effort are idle."
In the September, 1892, issue of the "German Review", Prof. Virchow thus expressed himself in favor of female nurses:
"That the post of real responsibility at the sick-bed shall fall to woman is, in my opinion, a principle that should be enforced in all our hospitals. In the hands of a cultivated, womanly, trained person the care of even a sick man is safer than in those of a man."
If woman is fit for the extraordinarily difficult service of nurse, a service that places a heavy strain upon patience and self-sacrifice, why should she not be also fit for a physician?
Above all, the idea must be resisted that women shall be educated for physicians by separate courses of study, i. e., separated from the male students,—a plan that Frau Mathilde Weber of Tübingen has declared herself satisfied with.[147]If the purpose be to degrade the female physicians, from the start, to the level of physicians of second or third rank, and to lower them in the eyes of their male colleagues, then, indeed, that is the best method. If it is no violation of "ethics" and "morality" that female nurses assist in the presence of male physicians at the performance of all possible operations upon male and female subjects, and on such occasions render most useful service; if it is "ethically" and "morally" permissible that dozens of young men, as students and for the sake of their studies, stand as observers at the bed of a woman in travail, or assist at the performance of operations on female patients, then it is absurd and laughable to deny such rights to female students.
Such prudery in natural things is the rage, particularly in Germany, this big children's play-room. The English, discredited by reason of the same qualities, may, nevertheless, be our teachers in the treatment of natural things.
In this direction, it is the United States, in particular, that furnish the example most worthy of imitation. There, and to the utter horror of our learned and unlearned old fogies of both sexes, High Schools have existed for decades, at which both sexes are educated in common. Let us hear with what result. President White of the University ofMichigan declared as early as the middle of the seventies: "The best pupil in Greek, for several years, among 1,300 students, has been a young lady; the best pupil in mathematics in one of the strongest classes of our Institute is, likewise, a young lady; and several among the best pupils in natural science and the sciences in general are likewise young ladies." Dr. Fairchild, President of Oberlin College in Ohio, where over a thousand students of both sexes are instructed in common, said at about the same time: "During my incumbency of eight years as professor of ancient languages—Latin, Greek, and Hebrew—also in the ethical and philosophic studies, and during my incumbency of eleven years in abstract and applied mathematics, I have never noticed any difference in the two sexes except in the manner of reciting." Edward H. Machill, President of Swarthmore College in Delaware County, Pa., and author of a pamphlet,[148]from which these facts are taken, says that, after an experience of four years, he had arrived at the conclusion that, with an eye to both manners and morals, the education of the two sexes in common had given the best results. Many a pig-tail has yet to be cut off in Germany before common sense shall have broken its way through here.
More recently, lively controversies have arisen in the literature of almost all countries of civilization on the question whether woman could achieve intellectually as much as man. While some, by dint of great acumen and with the aid of facts supposed to be proofs, deny that such is possible, others maintain that, on many fields, it undoubtedly is the case. It is claimed that, generally speaking, woman is endowed with qualities that man is deficient in, andvice versa: the male method of reasoning is reflective and vigorous, woman's, on the contrary, distinguishes itself by swiftness of perception and quickness of execution. Certain it is that woman finds her way more quickly in complicated situations, and has more tact than man. Ellis, who gathered vast materials upon this question, turned to a series of persons, who had male and female students under their guidance for many years, and questioned them on their opinion and experience. McBendrick of Glasgow answered him: "After having taught female students for twenty years, I would sum up my observations with the statement that many women accomplish as much as men in general, and that many men do not accomplish as much as the female average." Other opinions in Ellis' book are less favorable, but none is unfavorable. According to the Yearbook of Berlin for 1870, pp. 69-77, investigation showed girls to be stronger in the sense of space, boys at figures; the girls excelled in the telling of stories, the boys in the explaining of religious principles. Whatever the way these questions may be turned and twisted, the fact appears that the two sexes supplement each other; the one is superior on one, theother on some other field, while on a number of others there is no difference in point of sex, but only in point of individual.
It follows, furthermore, that there is no reason for confining one sex to a certain field, and prescribing to it the course of development that it shall pursue, nor that, based on differences in natural bent, in advantages and in defects, which mutually equalize themselves, privileges may be deducted for one sex, hindrances for another. Consequently—equality for all, and a free field for each, with a full swing according to their capacity and ability.
Based upon the experience made during the last decades in the higher studies of woman, there is no longer any valid reason against the same. The teacher can do much, by the manner in which he teaches, to affect the attitude of his male and female pupils. Women, who devote themselves to a science, are often animated with an earnestness and will-power in which they excel most other students. The zeal of the female students is, on an average, greater than that of the male.
In reality, it is wholly different reasons that cause most professors of medicine, University teachers, in general, to take a hostile stand towards female students. They see in it a "degradation" of science, which might lose in the esteem of the narrow-minded masses, if the fact were to transpire that female brains also could grasp a science, which, until then, was confined to the select of the male sex only.
All claims to the contrary notwithstanding, our Universities, along with our whole system of education, are in poor plight. As, at the public school, the child is robbed of valuable time by filling his brain with matters that accord neither with common sense nor scientific experience; as a mass of ballast is there dumped into him that he can not utilize in life, that, rather, hampers him in his progress and development; so likewise is it done in our higher schools. In the preparatory schools for the Universities a mass of dry, useless matter is pounded into the pupils. These matters, that the pupils are made to memorize, take up most of their time and engage their most precious brain-power; whereupon, at the University, the identical process is carried on further. They are there taught a mass of antiquated, stale, superfluous lore, along with comparatively little that is valuable. The lectures, once written, are reeled off by most of the professors year after year, course after course, the interlarded witticisms included. The high ministry of education becomes with many, an ordinary trade; nor need the students be endowed with great sagacity to find this out. Furthermore, tradition regarding University life sees to it that the young folks do not take their years of study too seriously, and many a youth, who would take them seriously, is repelled by the pedantic and unenjoyable style of the professors. The decline in the zeal to learn and to study is a fact generally noticed at all our Universities and higher schools, and is even cause for seriousconcern with those in authority. Intimately connected therewith is the "grafting" tendency, which, in these days of ours, so poor in character, makes great progress and grows ever ranker in the higher schools. To have "safe views" takes the place of knowledge, and the poison spreads. To be a "patriot," that is to say, a person without a mind of his own, who carefully takes his cue from above, sees how the wind blows there, and trims his sails accordingly, bends and crawls,—such a person is more considered than one of character and knowledge. When the time for examination approaches, the "grafter" crams for a few months what seems most indispensible, in order to squeeze through. When, finally, examination has been happily passed and an office or professional post is secured, most of these "ex-students" work along in a merely mechanical and journeyman style, and are then highly offended if one, who was not a "student," fails to greet them with the greatest respect, and to treat them as specimens of some other and higher race. The majority of the members of our so-called higher professions—district attorneys, judges, doctors, professors, Government officials, artists, etc.,—are mere journeymen at their trades, who feel no need of further culture, but are happy to stand by the crib. Only the industrious man discovers later, but only then, how much trash he has learned, often was not taught the very thing that he needed most, and has to begin to learn in good earnest. During the best time of his life he has been pestered with useless or even harmful stuff. He needs a second part of his life to rub all this off, and to work himself up to the height of his age. Only then can he become a useful member of society. Many do not arrive beyond the first stage; others are stranded in the second; only a few have the energy to reach the third.