MEN AS WELL AS WOMEN ARE CURIOUS 



71 



the heat and drought of summer. 

 When it was found, the vine was appar- 

 ently dead and lying flat on the ground ; 

 the leaves had dried up and dropped ofif ; 

 but more than 300 fruits, all plump and 

 firm, were clinging to the vine. The 

 fruits are so very acid that they can be 

 used for little else besides soups, and the 

 natives do not use them a great deal for 

 even that. Their keeping quality, how- 

 ever, might prove a desirable character- 

 istic in crossing with some of the highly 

 developed varieties with the object of ob- 

 taining a good shipping tomato of pleas- 

 ing flavor. Photograph, actual size." 



The illustration and permission to pub- 

 lish this article were obtained through 

 the courtesy of "The Journal of Here- 

 dity" of the American Genetic Associa- 

 tion, Washington, D. C. 



Men as Well as Women are Curious. 



Dorothy Dix, the w^ell-known writer 

 for "The New York Journal," says 

 that the old-time statement that 

 women have more curiosity than men 

 is without foundation. \Ve are in- 

 clined to agree with her. 



"Ever since that apple incident in 

 the Garden of Eden," says Miss Dix, 

 "the feminine sex has been called the 

 curious sex, and men have derided and 

 guyed us for peeking and prying into 

 other people's affairs, and nosing 

 around into things that were none of 

 our business. 



"And we've accepted it all as gospel 

 truth, and let men convince us that we 

 had more curiosity than they had, 

 whereas the truth is that women have 

 no curiosity at all compared to men. 



"Take, for example, such a common, 

 everyday occurrence as the hoisting of 

 a safe by means of pulleys and ropes 

 up to a third or fourth story window. 

 ,In every city in the world that's done 

 every day. There's nothing new or 

 startling about it. Probably there isn't 

 a city man living who hasn't seen it 

 done dozens of times, yet every time 

 the act is performed such a big crowd 

 will gather around it that it will stop 

 traffic in the street." 



Miss Dix also cites the familiar op- 

 eration by which a man puts a new 

 tube into an automobile tire. That al- 

 ways draws a crowd. Look also at 

 the hundreds of men crowding before 

 bulletin boards. Women can restrain 

 their curiosity and wait to read about 



the game in the newspapers. Miss Dix 

 also asserts that the husband is more 

 desirous than the wife to learn what 

 has happened duYing his absence, not 

 because he is jealous or suspicious or 

 begrudging of the money that the fam- 

 ily has spent, but because it is "his in- 

 ordinate curiosity that clamors to be 

 gratified." 



Then Miss Dix tells us that men 

 have always been the world's great dis- 

 coverers, and that woman has no more 

 curiosity to see what is at the North 

 Pole than she has to see what is in 

 the back yard. Nor does she care 

 what is in the heart of darkest Africa. 

 Most women have so little curiosity 

 that they never strive to extend nor to 

 go outside of their own little circle 

 of interests and acquaintances. Then 

 she sums it all up. 



"It's man's curiosity that has made 

 him dejve into things and wrest her 

 secrets from nature. Man calls it orig- 

 inal research, but it is only curiosity." 



She admires this quality and calls it 

 a sign of intelligence. 



/\ny one who has had much experi- 

 ence in teaching nature study will bear 

 witness that Miss Dix is absolutely 

 correct. The writer has had many 

 years of e^vperience with all kinds of 

 audiences and in schools of various 

 grades. Invariably he has found that, 

 when talking to girls, nature must be 

 portrayed as beautiful, sentimental, 

 whereas with boys one must go di- 

 rectly to the subject in hand and show 

 what is in it, how it is formed, how 

 the thing is done, what is on the in- 

 side of it- The boy wants to know. 

 The girls cares but little for detailed 

 structure of plants or animals. It is 

 noticeable in the laboratory that in 

 explaining, the machinery of organisms 

 to women they exclaim over the beauty 

 and care' exemplified, and little heed 

 the mechanics or the structural details. 

 On the other hand the man says noth- 

 ing about 'beauty or sentiment, but 

 w^ants to know about the action. 

 "What is it doing and how is it doing 

 it?" There are, as in other general 

 rules, remarkable exceptions. I once 

 knew a: lady, the daughter of John 

 Muir of California, who had turned her 

 bedroom ,into a machine shop, filled 

 with parts of locomotives. She is in- 

 tensely curious about all kinds of ma- 

 chinerv. I have known manv women 



