THE RADCLIFFE TRADITION 359 



remember that we are also giving a pledge? Granted 

 that the whole field of literature and science shall be 

 opened to women educationally, as it is to men, and 

 that it shall form a part of their training for life, the 

 question then comes up. What added service shall 

 they bring in acknowledgment of this larger and 

 more complete outfit? If in receiving a man's educa- 

 tion we were simply expected to duplicate a man's 

 work, the problem might at least theoretically be 

 easier of solution. But taken in the larger sense, with 

 the greater variety and freedom of occupation now 

 opening to women, our first task (at least so it seems 

 to me) is to adapt the new means put into our hands 

 to the conditions and methods of a woman's life, 

 which must be in a great degree her own, and in 

 accordance with her natural endowments and limita- 

 tions. We have to show that the wider scope of 

 knowledge and the severer training of the intellect 

 may strengthen and enrich a woman's life, and help 

 her in her appointed or her chosen work, whatever 

 that may prove to be, as much as it helps a man in 

 his career. W^herever her future path may turn, 

 whether she be the head of a house or hold some 

 oflScial position in a school, a college, or a hospital (I 

 only name things with which she is so often associated) , 

 wherever, in short, she may rule or serve, her rule and 

 her service should be the wiser, the more steady, 

 gentle and healthful, because she has been trained 

 to clear and logical methods of thinking, because her 

 powers of concentration and observation have been 

 cultivated. . . . 



