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, 4 1/2 to 5 millions; woman, 4 to 4 1/2
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 quantitative
changes occasioned by the size of the skull promote the vigor of the
several sections of the brain is a matter that _cannot 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:
Average
Medulla Length in
Sex. Oblongata. Cerebellum. Pons. Centimeters.
Men 790 107.5 102 166.5
Women 787 110.0 103 156.0
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 the _dura mater_ and the _pons_ becomes
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:--
Negro 984 Slav 903
Australian 967 Gipsy 875
Hindoo 944 Chinese 870
Italian 921 German 838-897
Hollander 919 (Tiedemann) Englishman 860
Hollander 883 (Davis) Parisian 858
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, but
_more 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 Age
resulted, 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 that _the 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 1/4 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 the
European, 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:--
Brain 88.9
Skull 85.8
Lower jawbone 78.7
Thighbone 62.5
"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 women and 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 that _by 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 interests_ must be brought about; it must substitute the
existing _conflict of interests_ to 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 are
imminent, 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 below
Dubois-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 that govern 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 that _man 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 of _equal value_,--a
confirmation of the Kantian sentence that man and woman only together
constitute the human being. This notwithstanding, the work of Ferri
comes quite _apropos_.
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 that _since 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 an
obstacle, 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:--
Total Female
Year. Students. Students.
1887 2,229 167
1888 2,339 206
1889 2,412 196
1890 2,552 248
1891 2,889 297
1892 3,076 318
1893 3,307 451
1893-94 (Winter course) 3,609 599
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 Goettingen.
In Karlsruhe and Berlin, High Schools were established to prepare women
for the Universities; finally in the summer of 1894, the Prussian
Minister 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 Tuebingen 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 of Michigan
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, and _vice 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, the other 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 serious concern 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.
But "decorum" requires that the mediaeval trumpery and useless
curriculum be retained; and, seeing, moreover, that women, as a
consequence of their sex, are from the start excluded from the
preparatory schools, the circumstance furnishes a convenient pretext to
shut the doors of the University lecture rooms in their faces. In
Leipsic, during the seventies, one of the most celebrated professors of
medicine made the undisguised confession to a lady: _"The gymnasium
(college) training is not necessary to the understanding of medicine.
This is true. Nevertheless, it must be made a condition precedent for
admission, in order that the dignity of science may not suffer."_
Gradually is the opposition to the necessity of a "classical" education
for the study of medicine being felt in Germany also. The immense
progress made in the natural sciences, together with their importance to
life, require an early initiation. Collegiate education, with its
preference for the classic languages, Greek and Latin, looks upon the
natural sciences as subordinate and neglects them. Hence, the students
are frequently devoid of the necessary and preparatory knowledge in
natural science that are of decided importance in certain studies,
medicine, for instance. Against such a one-sided system of education
opposition begins to spring up even in the circles of teachers, as
proven by a declaration published in the autumn of 1894 by about 400
teachers of the German High Schools. Abroad, in Switzerland, for
instance, the leading place has long since been given to the studies in
natural science, and any one, even without a so-called classic
education, is admissible to the study of medicine, provided otherwise
sufficiently equipped in natural science and mathematics. Similarly in
Russia and the United States.
In one of his writings, the late Pro. Bischoff gave "_the rudeness of
the students_" as the reason why he did not recommend the study of
medicine to women. He certainly was a good judge of that. In another
place, and also quite characteristically, he says: "Why should not one
(as professor) now and then allow some interesting, intelligent and
handsome woman to attend a lecture upon some simple subject?"--an
opinion that v. Sybel evidently shares and even expresses: "Some men
there are who have rarely been able to refuse their assistance and help
to a female pupil, greedy of knowledge and not uncomely."
Pity the words spent in the refutal of such "reasons" and views! The
time will come, when people will trouble themselves about the rudeness
of the "cultured" as little as about the old fogyism and sensuous lusts
of the learned, but will do what common sense and justice bid.
In Russia, after much pressure, the Czar gave his consent in 1872 to the
establishment of a female faculty in medicine. The medical courses were
attended in the period of 1872-1882 by 959 female students. Up to 1882
there were 281 women who had filled the medical course; up to the
beginning of 1884, there were 350; about 100 came from St. Petersburg.
Of the female students who visited the faculty up to 1882, there were 71
(9.0 per cent.) married and 13 (1.6 per cent.) widows; of the rest, 116
(15.9 per cent.) married during their studies. Most of the female
students, 214, came from the ranks of the nobility and government
officials; 138 from the merchant and privileged bourgeois class; 107
from the military, 59 from the clergy, and 54 from the lower classes of
the population. Of the 281 female physicians, who, up to 1882, had
finished their studies, 62 were engaged by several Zemstvos; 54 found
occupation in clinics; 12 worked as assistants at medical courses; and
46 took up private practice. It is noteworthy that, of these female
students, more than 52 per cent. had learned neither Latin nor Greek,
and yet they did as good work as the men. This notwithstanding, female
study was far from being a favorite among the Russian Government
circles, until the great services rendered by the female physicians on
the theater of war in Turkey during the Russo-Turkish campaign of
1877-1878, broke the ice. At the beginning of the eighties, female
studies took great increment in Russia: thousands of female pupils
devoted themselves to several branches. Due thereto, and due especially
to the fact that thereby free ideas were breaking through, threatening
to endanger despotism, the female courses were suppressed by an imperial
ukase of May 1, 1885, after the lives of the female students had for
some time been made as hard as possible.[149] Since then, resolutions
have been adopted at several Russian conventions of physicians to
petition for the re-opening of the medical courses for women,--more than
a German convention of physicians would do. As yet the attempt in Russia
has remained unsuccessful.
In Finland, a country that, although belonging to Russia, occupies an
exceptionally privileged position in the Russian system, 105 female
students were at the University of Helsingfors during the winter course
of 1894-1895, as against 73 in the summer course of 1894. Of these 105
female students, 47 were entered in the faculty of philosophy of history
and 45 in that of mathematics; 5 studied medicine, a strikingly small
figure compared with elsewhere; 7 law; and 1 theology.
Among the women who distinguished themselves in their studies, belong
the late Mrs. v. Kowalewska, who received in 1887 from the Academy of
Sciences in Paris the first prize for the solution of a mathematical
problem, and since 1884 occupied a professorship of mathematics at the
University of Stockholm. In Pisa, Italy, a lady occupies a professorship
in pathology. Female physicians are found active in Algiers, Persia and
India. In the United States there are about 100 female professors, and
more than 70 who are superintendents of female hospitals. In Germany
also the ice has been broken to the extent that in several
cities--Berlin, Dresden, Leipsic, Frankfurt-on-the-Main, etc.,--female
physicians, especially dentists, are in successful practice.
With regard to energy and capacity in the scientific studies, England,
in particular, can cite a series of handsome results. At the
examinations in 1893, six women and six men held the highest marks. The
examinations on art and on the theory and history of pedagogy were
passed by nine women and not one man. At Cambridge, ten women sustained
the severest test in mathematics. According to the sixteenth report of
examinations of female students in Oxford, it appears that 62 women
sustained the test of the first class, and 82 that of the second class;
moreover the honorary examinations were sustained by more than one-half
of the female candidates. Surely extraordinarily favorable results.
Hostility to competition with women is particularly pronounced in
Germany, because here the military turns out every year such a large
number of mustered-out officers and under-officers as aspirants for the
Civil Service, where there is little room for applicants from other
sources. If, however, women are employed, and then at lower salaries,
they appear to the already jealous men in a light that is doubly
bad,--first, as cheap labor; then as lowerers of wages. An extensive
field of activity have women gained as teachers, a field for which, on
the whole, they are well fitted. This is particularly the case in the
United States, where, in 1890, of 363,000 teachers, 238,000 were
female.[150] In Berlin there were on January 1, 1892, along with 194
Rectors and 2,022 teachers, 1,024 pedagogically educated and 642
technical female teachers, inclusive of their helpers. In England,
France and the United States there are, furthermore, since several
years, women successfully engaged in the important service of Factory
Inspectors, a move that, in view of the enormous proportions that female
labor is assuming ever more in the trades and industries, is well
justified and becomes everywhere a necessity.
At the Chicago Exposition of 1893 women, furthermore, distinguished
themselves in that, not only did female architects draw the plan and
superintend the execution of the magnificent building for the exhibition
of female products, but that women also appeared as independent
operators in a number of products of art, which provoked general
applause, and even astonishment. Also on the field of invention have
women distinguished themselves, a subject on which, as early as 1884, a
publication in the United States imparted information to the world by
producing a list of female inventors. According to the list, the
following inventions were made or improved by women: an improved
spinning machine; a rotary loom, that produces three times as much as
the ordinary loom; a chain elevator; a winch for screw steamers; a
fire-escape; an apparatus for weighing wool, one of the most sensitive
machines ever invented and of priceless value in the woolen industry; a
portable water-reservoir to extinguish fires; a device for the
application of petroleum in lieu of wood and coal as fuel on steamers;
an improved catcher of sparks and cinders on locomotives; a signal for
railroad crossings; a system for heating cars without fire; a
lubricating felt to reduce friction on railroad cars; a writing machine;
a signal rocket for the navy; a deep-sea telescope; a system for
deadening noise on railroads; a smoke-consumer; a machine to fold paper
bags, etc. Many improvements in the sewing machines are due to women, as
for instance: an aid for the stretching of sails and heavy stuffs; an
apparatus to wind up the thread while the machine is in motion; an
improvement for the sewing of leather, etc. The last of these inventions
was made by a woman who for years kept a saddle and harness shop in New
York. The deep-sea telescope, invented by Mrs. Mather, and improved by
her daughter, is an innovation of great importance: it makes possible
the inspection of the keel of the largest ship, without bringing the
same on the dry-dock. With the aid of this glass, sunken wrecks can be
inspected from the deck of a ship, and search can be made for
obstructions to navigation, torpedoes, etc. Along with these practical
advantages, its application in science is full of promise.
Among the machines, the extraordinary complexity and ingenuity of whose
construction excited great admiration in America and Europe, is one for
making paper bags. Many men, leading mechanics among them, had until
then vainly sought to construct such a machine. A woman, Miss Maggie
Knight, invented it. Since then, the lady invented also a machine to
fold paper bags, that does the work of 30 persons. She herself
superintends the construction of the machine in Amherst, Mass. That
German women have made similar inventions is not yet known.
The movement among women has spread even to Japan. In the autumn of
1892, the Japanese Parliament decided that it was forbidden to women to
figure as publishers or editors of newspapers, also of such papers as
are devoted to fashions, cooking, education of children, etc. In Japan,
even the unheard-of sight has been seen of a woman becoming the
publisher of a Socialist paper. That was a little too much for the
Japanese legislators, and they issued the above stated decree. It is,
however, not forbidden to women to act as reporters for newspapers. The
Japanese Government will succeed as little in denying their rights to
women as its European rivals of equal mental make-up.
FOOTNOTES:
[124] On this subject, the law for protection of working-women, adopted
by the people of the canton of Zurich in August, 1894, with 49,909 votes
against 12,531, contains an excellent provision. The law makes it a
penal offence for working-women to take from the shop, where they are
employed during the day, work to be done at home. This law goes further
than any other known to us for the protection of working-women. It also
prescribes an extra pay of 25 per cent. for the extra hours fixed by
law: the most effective means to check the evil of overwork.
[125] The census of 1890 gives 3,914,571 women of at least 10 years of
age engaged in gainful occupations in the United States; that is 17.6
per cent. of the total population engaged in gainful occupations, and
12.7 per cent. of the total female population of the country.
According to the census of 1900 there were 5,319,912 women of at least
10 years of age engaged in gainful occupations in the United States;
that is 18.2 per cent. of the total population engaged in gainful
occupations, and 14.3 per cent. of the total female population of the
country.
Classified by kinds of occupation, the census of 1900 shows: 977,336
women engaged in agricultural pursuits; 430,576 in professional service;
2,095,449 in domestic and personal service; 503,347 in trade and
transportation; 1,313,204 in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits.--THE
TRANSLATOR.
[126] For the sake of verification, and especially with the view of
avoiding any serious discrepancy that might arise from a translation
back into English from a German translation of the original English, an
attempt was made to secure a transcript of the original of the above
interesting article. A serious difficulty was encountered. Besides the
indefinite date, the abbreviated form, in which the German text gives
the name of the Maine paper quoted from--"Levest. Journ."--and as
reproduced in this translation, forced a recourse to guess work. The
nearest that any Maine paper, given in the American Newspaper Directory,
came to the abbreviation was the "Lewiston Evening Journal." The below
correspondence tells its tale:
"Daily People, 2, 4 and 6 New Reade street,
"New York, May 18th, 1903.
"Editor 'Lewiston Evening Journal,' Lewiston, Me.:
"Dear Sir--The within is a translation from the German of what purports
to be a German translation of an article, or part of an article, that
appeared in the 'Journal.' The only date given is 1893.
"I shall esteem it a favor if you will let me have an accurate
transcript of the passage in the original. If the 'Journal' had such an
article, the enclosed re-translation back into English may help to
identify the article. Thanking you in advance,
Yours truly, "D. DeLeon,
"Ed. 'The People.'"
"D. DeLeon, Esq., New York City:
"My Dear Sir--I regret that I can not find the article of which the
enclosed is a transcript.
"I have no doubt of its correctness, for such is frequently the case in
cities like these, where the woman is the six-loom weaver, and by her
deftness is the better wage-earner.
"Very truly yours,
"Arthur G. Staples,
"Managing Ed. 'Lewiston Journal.'"
Though success was not complete, the letter of the managing editor of
the "Lewiston Journal" is a corroboration of the substance of the
passage quoted.--THE TRANSLATOR.
[127] "Die gewerbliche Thaetigkeit der Frauen."
[128] Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer das Koenigreich Sachsen auf das Jahr,
1894.
[129] Factory Inspector A. Redgrave delivered in the end of December,
1871 an address in Bradford, in the course of which he said: "I have
been struck for some time past by the altered appearance of the wool
factories. Formerly they were filled with women and children, now
machinery seems to be doing all the work. On Inquiry a manufacturer gave
me the following information; 'Under the old system I employed 63
persons; after the introduction of improved machinery I reduced my hands
to 33, and, later, in consequence of new and extensive alterations, I
was able to reduce them from 33 to 13.' Thus, within a few years, a
reduction of labor, amounting to almost 80 per cent. took place, with an
output at least as large as before." Many interesting items of
information on this subject are found in Marx's "Capital."
[130] "Original Property," chap. 20.
[131] "Bau und Leben des sozialen Koerpers," Tuebingen, 1878.
[132] "Husband and Wife," Dr. Havelock Ellis.
[133] Possibly the opposite is the case. We repeat what we explained
above more extensively, that it is a widely diffused fact that women and
girls nourish themselves worse and are worse nourished than men and
boys. There was a time when the fashion prevailed for woman to eat as
little as possible; she was to have as "etherial" an appearance as
possible; the conception of beauty in our upper class, even to-day, is
to the effect that it is "vulgar" if a young girl or young woman have a
blooming complexion, red cheeks and a vigorous frame. It is also known,
that with numberless women, under otherwise equal social conditions with
men, the food is greatly inferior. Out of ignorance and acquired
prejudices, women expect incredible things of themselves, and the men
encourage them therein. Such neglect and maltreatment of physical
nutrition must have the very worst consequences, if carried on through
many generations by the very sex that, by reason of the heavy monthly
losses of blood and of the expenditure of energies, required by
pregnancy, child-birth and nursing, has its physique heavily taxed.
[134] "Men of genius are, as a rule, of inferior size and massive brain.
These are also the leading features of the child, and the general facial
expression as well as the temperament of such men recall the
child."--Dr. Havelock Ellis, "Husband and Wife."
[135] The corporal weights are taken from Taupinard's "Anthropologie."
[136] If, with the authority quoted by Delaunay, we assume 11 kilograms
as the difference in weight between men and women, we would have found
35 to 70 grams.
[137] L. Manouvrier, "Revue Scientifique," No. 23, June 3, 1882.
[138] Quatrefages found the proportion to be slightly larger with woman
than with men. Thurman found the reverse, just as L. Manouvrier.
[139] "Die neuere Schoepfungsgeschichte."
[140] Dr. Havelock Ellis furnishes a number of proofs of this fact in
his frequently quoted book. According thereto, woman, among wild and
half-wild people, is not only equal to man in physical strength and size
of body, but she is partly superior. On the other side, Ellis agrees
with others that, in consequence of our progress in civilization, the
difference in the capacity of the skull of the two sexes has steadily
become more marked.
[141] This is a discovery, first made by Karl Marx, and classically
demonstrated by him in his works, especially in "Capital." The
Communistic Manifesto, that appeared in 1848, and was composed by K.
Marx and Frederick Engels, is grounded upon this fundamental principle,
and must be considered, to this day, as the norm for all agitational
work, and the most excellent of all.
[142] "The Hall of science is the Temple of democracy," Buckle, "History
of Civilization in England."
[143] Ziegler, quoted above, denies that such is the meaning of
Virchow's argument. His own quotation of Virchow's argument, however,
confirms the interpretation. Virchow said: "Now, only picture to
yourselves _how the theory of the descent of man presents itself in the
head of a Socialist_! (Laughter.) Yes, gentlemen, that may seem funny to
some; it is, however, a serious matter, and I hope that the theory of
the descent of man _may not bring upon us all the horrors that similar
theories have actually brought upon our neighboring country. At any
rate, this theory, if consistently carried out, has a side of
extraordinary gravity; and that Socialism has shown its sympathy
therewith, will, it is to be hoped, not have escaped you. We must be
perfectly clear upon that._" Now, then, we have simply done what Virchow
feared: we have drawn the conclusions from the Darwinian theories,
conclusions that Darwin himself and a large portion of his followers
either did not draw at all, or drew falsely. And Virchow warned against
the gravity of these theories, just because he foresaw that Socialism
would _and was bound to draw the conclusions that are involved in them_.
[144] Dubois-Reymond repeated this sentence in February, 1883, to the
attacks directed upon him, on the occasion of the anniversary
celebration of Frederick the Great.
[145] "Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin-Spencer-Marx)."
[146] According to the census of 1900, the figures for these respective
occupations were: 7,387 female physicians and surgeons, 1,041 female
architects, designers and draftsmen, 2,193 female journalists, 5,984
female literary and scientific persons, 3,373 female ministers, 2,193
female lawyers.--THE TRANSLATOR.
[147] "Aerztinnen fuer Frauenkrankheiten, eine ethische und sanitaere
Nothwendigkeit," Berlin, 1893.
[148] "An Address upon the Co-education of the Sexes."
[149] Neue Zelt, 1884, "Das Frauenstudium In Russland."
[150] The census of 1900 gives 327,614 female teachers and professors in
colleges, out of a total force of 446,133, leaving, accordingly, only
118,519 men on this field.--THE TRANSLATOR.