Chapter 16

Zürich was among the first of the European universities opening their doors to women, and it is particularly interesting to see their first efforts in connection with the higher learning. Without a wide experience of life, and without practice in constructive thinking, they naturally fell back on the memory to retain a hold on results in a field with which they were not sufficiently trained to operate in it independently. It is frequently alleged, and is implied in Professor Vogt's report, that women are distinguished by good memories and poor powers of generalization. But this is to mistake the facts. A tenacious memory is characteristic of women and children, and of all persons unskilled in the manipulation of varied experiences in thought. But when the mind is able at any moment to construct a result from the raw materials of experience, the memory loses something of its tenacity and absoluteness. In this sense it may even be said that a good memory for details is a sign of an untrained or imitative mind. As the mind becomes more inventive, the memory is less concerned with the details of knowledge and more with the knowledge of places to find the details when they are needed in any special problem.

The awkwardness in manual manipulation shown by these girls was also surely due to lack of practice. The fastest typewriter in the world is today a woman; the record for roping steers (a feat depending on manual dexterity rather than physical force) is held by a woman; and anyone who will watch girls making change before the pneumatic tubes in the great department stores about Christmas time will experience the same wonder one feels on first seeing a professional gambler shuffling cards.

In short, Professor Vogt's report on women students is just what was to be expected in Germany forty years ago. The American woman, with the enjoyment of greater liberty, has made an approach toward the standards of professional scholarship, and some individuals stand at the very top in their university studies and examinations. The trouble with these cases is that they are either swept away and engulfed by the modern system of marriage, or find themselves excluded in some intangible way from association with men in the fullest sense, and no career open to their talents.

The personal liberty of women is, comparatively speaking, so great in America, suggestion and copies for imitation are spread broadcast so copiously in the schools, newspapers, books, and lectures, and occupations and interests are becoming so varied, that a number of women of natural ability and character are realizing some definite aim in a perfect way. But these are sporadic cases, representing usually some definite interest rather than a full intellectual life, and resembling also in their nature and rarity the elevation of a peasant to a position of eminence in Europe. Nowhere in the world do women as a class lead a perfectly free intellectual life in common with the men of the group, unless it be in restricted and artificial groups like the modern revolutionary party in Russia.

Even in America a number of the great schools are not coeducational, and in those which are so, many of the instructors claim that they do not find it possible to treat with the men and women on precisely the same basis, both because of their own mental attitude toward mixed classes and the inability of the women to receive such treatment. In the case of women also we can say what Mr. Smith says of the Chinese and their system of education, that it is impossible not to marvel at the results they accomplish in view of the system under which they work.

The mind and the personality are largely built up by suggestion from the outside, and if the suggestions are limited and particular, so will be the mind. The world of modern intellectual life is in reality a white man's world. Few women and perhaps no blacks have ever entered this world in the fullest sense. To enter it in the fullest sense would be to be in it at every moment from the time of birth to the time of death, and to absorb it unconsciously and consciously, as the child absorbs language. When something like this happens, we shall be in a position to judge of the mental efficiency of woman and the lower races. At present we seem justified in inferring that the differences in mental expression between the higher and lower races and between men and women are no greater than they should be in view of the existing differences in opportunity.

Indeed, when we take into consideration the superior cunning as well as the superior endurance of women, we may even raise the question whether their capacity for intellectual work is not under equal conditions greater than in men. Cunning is the analogue of constructive thought--an indirect, mediated, and intelligent approach to a problem--and characteristic of the female, in contrast with the more direct and open procedure of the male. Owing to the limited and personal nature of the activities of woman, this trait has expressed itself historically in womankind as intrigue rather than invention, but that it is very deeply based in the instincts is shown by the important rôle it plays in the life of the female in animal life. Endurance is also a factor of prime importance in intellectual performance, for here as in business life "it is doggedness as does it;" and if woman's endurance and natural ingenuity were combined in intellectual pursuits, it might prove that the gray mare is the better horse in this field as well as in peasant life. The most serious objection, also, to the view that woman is fitted to do continuous and hard work, arises from her relation to child-bearing; but this is at bottom trivial. The period of child-bearing is not only not continuous through life, but it is not serious from the standpoint of the time lost. No work is without interruption, and child-birth is an incident in the life of normal woman of no more significance, when viewed in the aggregate and from the standpoint of time, than the interruption of the work of men by their in-and out-of-door games. The important point in all work is not to be uninterrupted, but to begin again.

Whether the characteristic mental life of women and the lower races will prove to be identical with those of the white man or different in quality is a different question, and problematical. It is certain, at any rate, that our civilization is not of the highest type possible. In all our relations there is too much of primitive man's fighting instinct and technique; and it is not impossible that the participation of woman and the lower races will contribute new elements, change the stress of attention, disturb the equilibrium, and force a crisis which will result in the reconstruction of our habits on more sympathetic and equitable principles. Certain it is that no civilization can remain the highest if another civilization adds to the intelligence of its men the intelligence of its women.

[Footnote 1: Cf. Geddes and Thomson, _The Evolution of Sex_ _passim_.]

[Footnote 2: Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, has brought together a mass of very valuable material on the question of the somatic and psychic differences of man and woman, and H. Campbell, in a volume of much the same scope, _Differences in the Nervous Organization of Man and Woman_, has given a résumé of the theory of Geddes and Thomson, and suggested its extension to the human species.]

[Footnote 3: C. Düsing, (1) _Die Regulirung des Geschlechtsverhältnisses bei der Vermehrung der Menschen, Thiere und Pflanzen_. (2) _Das Geschlechtsverhältniss der Geburten in Preussen_.]

[Footnote 4: H. Ploss, "Ueber die das Geschlechtsverhältniss der Kinder bedingenden Ursachen," _Monatsschrift für Geburtskunde und Frauenkrankheiten_, Vol. XII, pp. 321-60.]

[Footnote 5: E. Westermarck, _The History of Human Marriage_, pp. 470-83.]

[Footnote 6: Düsing, _Das Geschlechtsverhältniss der Geburten in Preussen_, pp. 29-33.]

[Footnote 7: Düsing, _loc. cit._, pp. 14-19.]

[Footnote 8: H. Ploss, _Das Weib in der Natur- und Völkerkunde_, 3. Aufl., Vol. I, p. 419.]

[Footnote 9: Axel Key, "Die Pubertätsentwickelung und das Verhältniss derselben zu den Krankheitserscheinungen der Schuljugend," _Verhandlungen des X. Internationalen Medicinischen Congresses_, 1890, Vol. I, p. 91.]

[Footnote 10: Ibid., pp. 84-90.]

[Footnote 11: Geddes and Thompson, _loc. cit._, Book I, chap. 4.]

[Footnote 12: Rolph, quoted by Geddes and Thompson, _loc. cit._, Book I, chap. 4.]

[Footnote 13: Geddes and Thompson, _ibid._]

[Footnote 14: G. Klebs, _Ueber das Verhältniss des männlichen und weiblichen Geschlechts in der Natur_, p. 19.]

[Footnote 15: Food affords the basis for metabolic changes in the parent organism, but it is probable that food is less _directly_ related than heat and light to the determination of sex. Sachs, whose experiments must be given the greatest possible weight, has determined that the ultra-violet rays of light are necessary to the chemical changes essential to the formation of the reproductive organs. (J. Sachs, "Ueber die Wirkung der ultravioletten Strahlen auf die Blüthenbildung," _Gesammelte Abhandlungen über Pflanzen-Physiologie_, Vol. I, pp. 293ff.) More recently, Klebs has shown that by diminishing the intensity of light the development of female sex organs in ferns can be interrupted, so that, in spite of the presence of male organs, fertilization is impossible; at the same time, the prothallia are enabled in weak light to grow feebly and to put out small asexual processes, which in the presence of bright light become normal prothallia. Similarly, the development of sexual organs in algae is dependent on a certain intensity of light, and the plant remains sterile if the light is diminished below a certain point. (G. Klebs, _Ueber einige Probleme der Physiologie der Fortpflanzung_, pp. 13-16.)]

[Footnote 16: E. Maupas, "Théorie de la sexualité des Infusoires ciliés," _Comptes rendus_, Vol. CV, pp. 356ff.]

[Footnote 17: The extinction took place at about the 330th generation in _Onychodromus grandis_, at about the 320th generation in _Stylonichia mytilis_, at about the 330th generation in _Leucophrys patula_, and at about the 660th generation in _Oxytricha_ (indeterminate). (Maupas, _loc. cit._, p. 358.)]

[Footnote 18: Maupas, _loc. cit._, p. 358. Later investigations have tended to discredit Maupas' experiments as a whole by showing that the Infusorians with which he experimented can be kept alive indefinitely by a change of diet, without the aid of sexual conjugation. This merely confirms the view, however, that abundant nutrition and crossing are alike favorable to health: "We must admire the skill of the investigator who was able to keep his colonies alive for months and years under such artificial conditions, but we may venture to doubt whether the fate of extinction which did ultimately overtake them was really due to the absence of conjugation, and not to the unnaturalness of the conditions." A. Weismann, _The Evolution of Theory_, Vol. I, p. 329.

Since the above was written, Calkins has made a series of new experiments, the results of which differed in several respects from those yielded by Maupas' experiments. When his infusorian cultures began to grow weaker, as happened frequently and at irregular intervals, he was always able to restore them to more vigorous life by a change of diet, and especially by substituting grated meat, liver, and the like for infusions of hay. Certain salts too, had the same effect; the animals became perfectly vigorous again. Calkins believes that chemical agents, and especially salts, must be supplied to the protoplasm from time to time. He reared 620 generations of _Paramoecium_ without conjugation. But the 620th was weakly and without energy. The addition of an extract of sheep's brains made them perfectly fresh and vigorous again. Further experiments in this direction are to be desired, but, according to those of Calkins, it is probable that Infusorians can continue to live for an unlimited time even without conjugation. (Ibid., note.)]

[Footnote 19: Westermarck, _loc. cit._, pp. 476-83, following a suggestion of Düsing, has brought together much of the evidence on this point, but the application of the facts here made has not, I believe, been suggested.]

[Footnote 20: A. von Oettingen, _Die Moralstatistik_, 3. Aufl., p. 56.]

[Footnote 21: Düsing, _Die Regulirung des Geschlechtsverhältnisses_, p. 237.]

[Footnote 22: Westermarck, _loc. cit._, pp. 479 and 481 n.]

[Footnote 23: Cf. _ibid._, pp. 476-83.]

[Footnote 24: G. Delaunay, "De l'égalité et inégalité des deux sexes," _Revue scientifique_, September 3, 1881; C. Darwin, _Descent of Man_, chap. 10.]

[Footnote 25: A. Weismann, _Essays on Heredity_, Vol. I, "The Duration of Life," has shown that size and longevity are determined by natural selection.]

[Footnote 26: Darwin, _Descent of Man_, chap. 8.]

[Footnote 27: Ibid.]

[Footnote 28: A.R. Wallace, _Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection_, chap. 3.]

[Footnote 29: "If we take the highly decorated species--that is, animals marked by alternate dark or light bands or spots, such as the zebra, some deer, or the carnivora--we find, first, that the region of the spinal column is marked by a dark stripe; secondly, that the regions of the appendages, or limbs, are differently marked; thirdly, that the flanks are striped or spotted along or between the regions of the lines of the ribs; fourthly, that the shoulder and hip regions are marked by curved lines; fifthly, that the pattern changes, and the direction of the lines or spots, at the head, neck, and every joint of the limbs; and, lastly, that the tips of the ears, nose, tail, and the feet and the eye are emphasized in color. In spotted animals the greatest length of the spot is generally in the direction of the largest development of the skeleton."--A. Tylor, _Coloration in Animals and Plants_, p. 92.]

[Footnote 30: A.R. Wallace, _Darwinism_, chap. 10.]

[Footnote 31: Professor Carl Pearson, in a severe, not to say unmannerly, paper ("Variation in Man and Woman," _The Chances of Death_, Vol. I), has criticized some of the results of the physical anthropologists and attempted to show that the theory of the greater variability of man has no legs to stand on. His argument is mainly statistical, and affects, perhaps, some of the details of the theory, but not, I think, the theory as a whole.]

[Footnote 32: Darwin, _loc. cit._, chap. 19.]

[Footnote 33: P. Topinard, _Éléments d'anthropologie générale_, p. 253.]

[Footnote 34: Delaunay, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 35: Weisbach, "Der deutsche Weiberschadel," _Archiv für Anthropologie_, Vol. III, p. 66.]

[Footnote 36: Topinard, _loc. cit._, p. 375.]

[Footnote 37: Topinard, _loc. cit._, p. 1066.]

[Footnote 38: Topinard's figures (_loc. cit._, p. 1066) show, however, that the Eskimos and the Tasmanians have a shorter trunk than the Europeans.]

[Footnote 39: J. Ranke, "Beiträge zur physischen Anthropologie der Bayern," _Beiträge zur Anthropologie und Urgeschichte Bayerns_, Vol. VIII, p. 65.]

[Footnote 40: Morphological differences are less in low than in high races, and the less civilized the race, the less is the physical difference of the sexes. In the higher races the men are both more unlike one another than in the lower races, and at the same time more unlike the women of their own race. But, while some of these differences may probably be justly set down as congenital, as representing varieties of the species which have passed through different variational experiences, they are doubtless mainly due to the fact that the activities of men and women are more unlike in the higher than in the lower races.]

[Footnote 41: J.W. Seaver, _Anthropometric Table_, 1889.]

[Footnote 42: Delphine Hanna, _Anthropometric Table_ 1891.]

[Footnote 43: Where a large body of men are intensely interested in a competition, as over against a small body of women not seriously interested, any comparison of results is almost out of the question. But the superior physical strength of man is, I believe, disputed in no quarter. The Vassar records have been improved in succeeding years (the 100-yard dash was 13 seconds in 1904, the running high jump 4 feet 2½ inches in 1905, the running broad jump 14 feet 6½ inches in 1904), but Miss Harriet Isabel Ballantine, director of the Vassar College Gymnasium, writes me: "I do not believe women can ever, no matter what the training, approach man in their physical achievements; and I see no reason why they should."]

[Footnote 44: Helen B. Thompson, _The Mental Traits of Sex_, p. 178. "While it is improbable that _all_ the difference of the sexes with regard to physical strength can be attributed to persistent difference in training, it is certain that a large part of the difference is explicable on this ground. The great strength of savage women and the rapid increase in strength of civilized women wherever systematic physical training has been introduced both show the importance of this factor."--Ibid., p. 178.]

[Footnote 45: "Physical and Mental Deviations from the Normal among Children in Public Elementary and Other Schools," _Report of the Sixty-fourth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science_, 1894. pp. 434ff.]

[Footnote 46: A. Mitchell, "Some Statistics of Idiocy," _Edinburgh Medical Journal_, Vol. XI, p. 639.]

[Footnote 47: "Koch's Statistics of Insanity," _Journal of Mental Science_, Vol. XXVI, p. 435.]

[Footnote 48: Mayr, _Die Verbreitung der Blindheit, der Taubstummheit, des Blödsinns und des Irrsinns in Baiern_, p. 100.]

[Footnote 49: Cf. Campbell, _loc. cit._, pp. 146ff.]

[Footnote 50: Ibid., pp. 132-40.]

[Footnote 51: J.H. Manley, "Harelip," _International Medical Journal_, Vol. II, pp. 209ff.]

[Footnote 52: _Communications of the Massachusetts Medical Society_, Vol. II, No. 3, p. 9.]

[Footnote 53: Of the 3,956 individuals examined, 1,645 were males, and of these 47 (2.857 per cent.) presented supernumerary nipples. Of the 3,956 individuals 2,311 were females, and of these 14 (0.605 per cent.) presented supernumerary mammae or nipples. That is, this anomaly was found to occur more than four times as frequently in men as in women.--J. Mitchell Bruce, "On Supernumerary Nipples and Mammae," _Journal of Anatomy and Physiology_, Vol. XIII, p. 432.

Leichtenstern, however, whose investigations were of earlier date than those of Bruce, says that supernumerary mammae occur with about equal frequency in the two sexes.--Leichtenstern, "Ueber das Vorkommen und die Bedeutung supernumerärer Brüste und Brustwarzen," Virchow's _Archiv für pathologische Anatomie_, Vol. LXXIII, p. 238.]

[Footnote 54: Ellis, _loc. cit._ (4th ed.), pp. 413ff.]

[Footnote 55: Lombroso e Ferrero, _La donna delinquente_, chap. 12.]

[Footnote 56: Hyrtl, of Vienna, however, examined thirty subjects, and found the anomaly in question only three times, and exclusively in females. He attributed it to tight lacing. D.J. Cunningham, "The Occasional Eighth True Rib in Man," _Journal of Anatomy and Physiology_, Vol. XXIV, p. 127.]

[Footnote 57: H. Campbell, _loc. cit._, p. 133.]

[Footnote 58: Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, p. 14; Campbell, _loc. cit._, pp. 199-215; Ploss, _loc. cit._, Vol. I, p. 313.]

[Footnote 59: A. Hegar, _Der Geschlechtstrieb_, p. 7.]

[Footnote 60: H. Campbell, _loc. cit._, p. 115.]

[Footnote 61: J. Hayem, _Du sang et de ses alterations anatomiques_, pp. 184, 185.]

[Footnote 62: E. Lloyd Jones, "Further Observations on the Specific Gravity of the Blood in Health and Disease", _Journal of Physiology_, Vol. XII, pp. 299ff.]

[Footnote 63: O. Leichtenstern, _Untersuchungen über den Hæmoglobulingehalt des Blutes_, p. 38.]

[Footnote 64: _Loc. cit._, pp. 316ff.]

[Footnote 65: Ibid., pp. 316ff.]

[Footnote 66: E. Bourgoin, art. "Urines", _Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales_.]

[Footnote 67: Delaunay, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 68: Delaunay, _loc. cit._; Ploss, _Das Weib_, Vol. I, pp. 36, 37; Ellis, _loc. cit._, pp. 231ff.]

[Footnote 69: Ellis, _loc. cit._, p. 252.]

[Footnote 70: Campbell, _loc. cit._, pp. 117 and 119.]

[Footnote 71: Max Bartels, "Culturelle und Rassenunterschiede in Bezug auf die Wundkrankheiten". _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Vol. XX, p. 183.]

[Footnote 72: Legouest, art. "Amputations", _Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales_.]

[Footnote 73: Ellis, _loc. cit._, p. 132.]

[Footnote 74: A. von Oettingen, _loc. cit._, p. 780.]

[Footnote 75: Lombroso e Ferrero, _loc. cit._, chap. 16.]

[Footnote 76: Lombroso e Ferrero, _loc. cit._, chap. 16.]

[Footnote 77: P. xxi, Table F, quoted by Campbell, _loc. cit._, p. 124.]

[Footnote 78: B.A. Whitelegge, "Milroy Lectures on Changes of Type in Epidemic Diseases," _British Medical Journal_, March 18, 1893.]

[Footnote 79: A. Newsholme, _Vital Statistics_, 3d ed., p. 178.]

[Footnote 80: W. Farr, _Vital Statistics_, p. 385.]

[Footnote 81: Mortality from cancer is, however, much higher in women than in men. Newsholme, _loc. cit._, p. 208.]

[Footnote 82: Ploss, _Das Weib_, Vol. I, p. 26.]

[Footnote 83: Von Oettingen, _loc. cit._, p. 58.]

[Footnote 84: Ploss, _Das Weib_, Vol. I, p. 207.]

[Footnote 85: Ellis, _loc. cit._, p. 432.]

[Footnote 86: Ploss, _Das Weib_, Vol. I, p. 206.]

[Footnote 87: Depaul, art. "Nouveau-né," _Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales_.]

[Footnote 88: B. Ornstein, "Makrobiotisches aus Griechenland," _Archiv für Anthropologie_ Vol. XVII, pp. 193ff.]

[Footnote 89: G. Mayr, _Die Gesetzmässigkeit im Gesellschaftsleben_ (1877), p. 144.]

[Footnote 90: V. Turquan, "Statistique des centénaires," _Revue scientifique_ September 1, 1888.]

[Footnote 91: Lombroso e Ferrero, _loc. cit._, chap. 10.]

[Footnote 92: E. Lloyd Jones, "Further Observations on the Specific Gravity of the Blood in Health and Disease," _Journal of Physiology_, Vol. XII, p. 308.]

[Footnote 93: Cf. Topinard, _Loc. cit._, pp. 517-25, 557, 558.]

[Footnote 94: Ibid., p. 559.]

[Footnote 95: H. Ploss, _Das Weib in der Natur--und Völkerkunde_, 3. Aufl., Vol. II, p. 379.]

[Footnote 96: Endogamous tribes have survived, in the main, in isolated regions where competition was not sufficiently sharp to set a premium on exogamy. It may be assumed that the history of exogamous groups has been more cataclysmical.]

[Footnote 97: L.H. Morgan, _Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines_, p. 64.]

[Footnote 98: _Loc. cit._]

[Footnote 99: W.J. McGee, "The Beginning of Marriage," _American Anthropologist_, Vol. IX, p. 376.]

[Footnote 100: E.B. Tylor, "The Matriarchal Family System," _Nineteenth Century_, July, 1896, p. 89.]

[Footnote 101: Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 33ff.]

[Footnote 102: F. Ratzel, _History of Mankind_, Vol. I, p. 438.]

[Footnote 103: J. Lippert, _Kulturgeschichte_, Vol. II, p. 57.]

[Footnote 104: Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_, p. 151.]

[Footnote 105: Tylor, _loc. cit._, p. 87.]

[Footnote 106: W. Robertson Smith, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, p. 65.]

[Footnote 107: Ibid., p. 94.]

[Footnote 108: Ibid., p. 173.]

[Footnote 109: Gen. 24:5, 53.]

[Footnote 110: Gen. 31:43.]

[Footnote 111: Judg. 8:19.]

[Footnote 112: Judg. 15.]

[Footnote 113: Cf. Smith, _loc. cit._, 176.]

[Footnote 114: II Sam. 13:13.]

[Footnote 115: G.A. Wilken, _Das Matriarchat_, p. 41.]

[Footnote 116: Herodotus (Rawlinson), I, 173.]

[Footnote 117: Ibid., III, 119.]

[Footnote 118: Lines 905ff.]

[Footnote 119: E.J. Simcox, _Primitive Civilisations_, Vol. I, pp. 200-11, 233, _et passim_.]

[Footnote 120: Notably, Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, pp. 100ff.]

[Footnote 121: _Dissertation on Early Law and Custom_, p. 202.]