WOMAN'S STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY IN GERMANY. 333 



women in the best manner, not to become rivals of men, but help- 

 meets and able housekeepers. 



The demand of the people of Breslau, Dr. Bosse said, was an 

 unnatural one, and his refusal was founded on the fear that such 

 a movement would increase and threaten the social foundations 

 of all Germany, as the idea that women can compete with men in 

 all careers is a false one. 



The petition of the magistrate of Breslau was supported in the 

 discussion by some of the national-liberal, free-conservative, and 

 Polish representatives. These took the broad ground that girls 

 have a right to equal education with boys, and that the educational 

 institutions of Germany which have so long stood at the head of 

 those of the world should not, in the matter of education of women, 

 leave the question to be decided according to the whims of private 

 individuals. 



Some of the arguments of those who spoke in favor of the 

 enterprise were amusing. One said that the girls of Germany 

 would be grateful if the Minister of Public Instruction would fur- 

 nish them with husbands, but, as there were not enough to go 

 around, the others should have some career provided for them. 

 Another, that about forty per cent of the girls of the higher classes 

 no longer marry, and they should not be allowed to suffer the con- 

 sequences of the fact that young men of the present day do not 

 care to marry, but they have a right that the way be shown them 

 to such careers as are suited to their feminine nature. 



An objector said that he could not understand how any man 

 of pedagogical culture could approve of a girls' gymnasium, for it 

 is evident that any such progress for women as that would imply 

 must be at the expense of the men, who would gaia less on account 

 of the increased number of candidates for work of all kinds and 

 would more seldom be able to offer the best of all existences to a 

 woman — that of wifehood. The city of Breslau was obliged, there- 

 fore, to give up the undertaking for the present, but the agitation 

 of the question has probably prepared the way for more extended 

 plans in the future in the same direction in Prussia. 



A similar undertaking in Carlsruhe, in Baden, has met with 

 better success, and resulted in the opening of the first official gym- 

 nasium for girls in Germany, in September, 1898. This gymna- 

 sium was planned about the same time as that of Breslau, and as 

 the pei-mission of the Minister of Public Instruction in Baden was 

 obtained without difficulty, the institution came into existence ac- 

 cording to the will of the people of Carlsruhe. Seventy-nine of 

 the members of the Biirgerauschuss voted in favor of the under- 

 taking in the meeting in which the final action was taken early 



