1.—“_By her the progress of our future kind_.”
“What may man be? Who can tell? But what may woman be
To have power over man from cradle to corruptible grave?”
—William Blake (“Jerusalem”).
_Id._... “The application of the Pfeiffer bequest, ‘for charitable and
educational purposes in favour of women,’ has been delayed by legal
difficulties, but the Attorney General has now submitted to the Court
of Chancery a first list of awards. Details given in the _Journal of
Education_ show that Girton and Newnham Colleges receive £5,000 each,
whilst Bedford College, Somerville Hall, the New Hospital for Women,
the Maria Grey Training College, and a number of other institutions
benefit by slightly smaller sums. The bequests will doubtless be
welcomed by the recipients, for all the institutions included so far
are doing useful work with very inadequate means, and it is to be
hoped that the generous example of the London merchant and his
literary wife will be often followed in the future. Women’s
education—and girls’, too, for that matter—in this country is almost
unendowed, and is yet expected to produce results equal to those
gained in the richly endowed foundations for boys and men. The
interest of the Pfeiffer bequest, however, lies rather in the spirit
that prompted it and in the views of progress held by the donors than
in the generosity of the gift or the precise manner of its
distribution. In a letter explaining his wishes, Mr. Pfeiffer
remarks:—
“I have always had and am adhering to the idea of leaving the bulk of my
property in England for charitable and educational purposes in favour of
women. Theirs is, to my mind, the great influence of the future.
Education and culture and responsibility in more than one direction,
including that of politics, will gradually fit them for the exercise of
every power that could possibly work towards the regeneration of
mankind. It is women who have hitherto had the worst of life, but their
interest, and with their interest that of humanity, is secured, and I
therefore am determined to help them to the best of my ability and
means.”—_Manchester Guardian_, June 7th, 1892.
“Men are what their mothers made them. You may as well ask a loom which
weaves huckaback, why it does not make cashmere, as expect poetry from
this engineer, or a chemical discovery from that jobber. Ask the digger
in the ditch to explain Newton’s laws; the fine organs of his brain have
been pinched by overwork and squalid poverty from father to son, for a
hundred years. When each comes forth from his mother’s womb, the gate of
gifts closes behind him. Let him value his hands and feet, he has but
one pair. So he has but one future, and that is already predetermined in
his lobes, and described in that little fatty face, pig-eye, and squat
form.”—Emerson (Essay on Fate).
_Id._... “The British _race_ cannot afford to dispense with _all_ the
advantage that may be in embryo in the future female intellect, because
men and some women are found who declare that women are intellectually
inferior.... No amount of prayers and wishes and submitting to God’s
will are of any avail. You must _use_ the organs of the intellect in
order, not only to increase their efficiency, but to prevent their going
from bad to worse. It might here be noted, that because the British
people might choose to be satisfied with atrophy of the intellect lobes
in their mothers, it will not at all follow that other nations will do
so _also_. If such things as nations exist, there will always be rivalry
and competition, and depend upon it those will be first whose mothers
generally possess the most efficient intellect lobes.... Fortunately we
have learnt another great lesson, evolved by Charles Darwin’s frontal
lobes, and that is, that there is no such thing as a _fixed_ and
_unalterable_ tissue or organism anywhere. All organisms and parts of
organisms are _changeable_. Everything—organ and organism—_has_ changed
in the past, _is_ changing in the present, and _will_ change in the
future in accordance with the conditions that surround it. Women’s
frontal lobes and grey matter will certainly be no exception to the
rule. Emancipation, keeping her eyes open, and thinking for herself are
the three main things she has to keep hammering at, until the lords of
creation _see_ that they are the right things to do, to save future
generations from universal imbecility.”—E. Bonavia, M.D. (“Woman’s
Frontal Lobes”).
2.—“_Their stalwart body and their spacious mind_;”
“If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men grow?”
—Tennyson (“The Princess,” Canto 7).