Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/449

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FEMALE SUFFRAGE.
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closing against herself the gate of domestic life. But the demand, as has been already said, is of yesterday, and probably in its serious form is as yet confined to the countries in which the special impediments to early marriages exist. In the United States it is not easy to distinguish the serious demand from a passion for emulating the male sex which has undoubtedly taken possession of some of the women there, as it took possession of women under the Roman Empire, who began to play the gladiator when other excitements were exhausted. With regard to the profession of law, indeed, so far as it is concerned with the administration of justice, there is, and, while human emotions retain their force, always will be, a reason, independent of the question of demand, for excluding women, at least for excluding one of the two sexes. The influence of a pretty advocate appealing to a jury, perhaps in behalf of a client of her own sex, would not have seemed to Mr. Mill at all dangerous to the integrity of public justice; but most people, and especially those who have seen any thing of sentimental causes in the United States, will probably be of a different opinion.

What has been said as to the professions is equally true of the universities, which, in fact, were schools of the professions. A few years ago, what English girl would have consented to leave her home and mingle with male students? What English girl would have thought it possible that she could go through the whole of the medical course with male companions of her studies? Even now, what is the amount of settled belief in the right, as it is termed, of "coeducation?" What would be said to a young man if he presented himself in the name of that right at the door of Vassar, or any female college? Without arraigning the past, those whose duty it is may consider, with the deliberation which they deserve, the two distinct questions, whether it is desirable that the education of both sexes shall be the same, and whether it is desirable that the young men and the young women of the wealthier classes shall be educated together in the same universities. Beneath the first probably lies the still deeper question whether it is good for humanity that woman, who has hitherto been the helpmate and the complement, should become, as the leaders in the woman's right movement in the United States evidently desire, the rival and competitor of man. Both she cannot be; and it is by no means clear that, in deciding which she shall be, the aspirations of the leaders of this movement coincide with the interests of the sex.[1]

If the education of women has hitherto been defective, so has that of men. We are now going to do our best to improve both. Surely no accomplishment in the acquisition of which woman has been condemned to spend her time could well be less useful than that of writ-

  1. The question of female education is not here discussed. But the arbiters of that question will do well to bear in mind that the happiness of most women materially depends on their having healthy children; and that children are not likely to be healthy if the brains of both parents are severely tasked.