570 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



women. Can this have to do with more open-air life in the case of 

 the men? The women (Hstinguished colours better. But is this not 

 the result of training? 



Women showed, on the whole, a better memory; they learned by 

 heart more easily and retained as well. They required rather less 

 time for the association of ideas. The men showed a decided superi- 

 ority in quickness of perception, as far as comparison could be made. 

 In general mental content no differences could be established, not 

 unnaturally, since all the subjects of the experiment had attended 

 co-educational high schools in America. 



A few experiments are of more value than many platitudes, but 

 the basis is still too narrow for safe generalisation. 



As to the tedious question of cranial capacity, it is difficult to 

 believe much in the importance of slight quantitative differences — 

 and, secondly, it is difficult to eliminate nurtural influences. Growth 

 is inhibited or exaggerated according to the abundance of appro- 

 priate stimuli. 



The great majority of the comparisons between men and women 

 are vitiated by ignoring the familiar biological distinction between 

 nurtural modifications and inborn variations. Through ignorance of 

 the subject, or through inability to apprehend the biological point, 

 many inquirers, who would also be teachers, have given support to 

 anachronisms of opinion, which are nothing less than discreditable. 

 Woman is set up against man, or man against woman, to the dis- 

 advantage of one or the other, without any hamdicapping committee, 

 without the essential preliminary inquiry whether the opportunities 

 of development, i.e., expression of the inheritance, have been even 

 approximately equal. 



It is indubitable that inherited characters require a succession 

 of appropriate liberating stimuli if they are to develop. Supply these 

 stimuli to boy and youth ; deny them to girl and maiden ; and then 

 jeer because women make a formal muddle of a business meeting. 

 Even in this matter, we omit to record the number of male meetings 

 with formally lucid minutes, and the blackness of darkness in the 

 actual result. 



In comparing Man and Woman, it is necessary to try to discrimin- 

 ate between the innate qualities of maleness and femaleness, mascu- 

 linity and femininity, all requiring appropriate liberating stimuli, 

 and those which are individually acquired as the direct result of 

 peculiarities nf Nurture. Along with these must be included the 

 defects that are due to disuse, or to the absence of appropriate 

 stimuli. 



Take one illustration: Long ago, Karl Vogt pointed out that 

 women were awkward manipulators. Thomas answers well: "The 

 awkwardness in manual manipulation shown by these girls was 

 surely due to lack of practice. The fastest typewriter in the world 



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