572 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



(3) And, again, the historical commonplace has sometimes been 

 used by those who are women's best, if not always wisest, friends. 

 Some who have a hrm grip of the fact that women are wives and 

 mothers at heart, who are also influenced by the "technical educa- 

 tion" fallacy of our day, have advocated a more predominantly 

 domestic and maternal education for girls. But there are great 

 dangers in exaggerating what in moderation is sound enough. A 

 broadly educated, intellectually alert mother means much for the 

 mental atmosphere of the home, and that means much for the 

 children. And an over-emphasised domestic education is apt to force 

 a premature development of mental and perhaps bodily instincts 

 which, in many cases unfortunately, will find no realisation in life. 



Second Proposition. — Our second thesis, the converse of the 

 first, is that coercive differentiations inconsistent with the natural 

 sex distinction have often been attempted, with unfortunate results. 

 This mis-differentiation of women demands, like the harmonious 

 differentiation, a careful historical survey, but we cannot give more 

 than a few diagrammatic illustrations. Women have been used to 

 draw the plough and to work in the mine; in some countries they 

 are still employed as coal-heavers. Painfully often one still sees 

 women bent and worn by physical tasks far too severe for them. 

 Most of this is passing, but it is still necessary to say that the 

 use of woman for functions which should be discharged by a beast 

 of burden illustrates mis-differentiation. It is destructive of the 

 individual; it is also prejudicial to the vigour of the race if it occur 

 during the years of child-bearing and child-rearing. 



A very different instance is that perversion of social sentiment 

 which led to taking the veil being regarded as the highest devotion 

 of a woman's life. Everyone recognises the beautiful significance 

 of the step in particular cases, and the social utility of those who 

 age after age have been truly the sisters of mercy ; but this does not 

 condone an ideal that renounced many of the most natural activities 

 of woman, and involved an indubitable loss to the quality of the 

 race by its segregation of many of its finest types. 



But we do not require to go beyond the present for illustrations. 

 Economic conditions are compelling women, in competition with 

 men, into occupations and situations which are too hard for them, 

 where the strain is too great, especially in adolescence, and where 

 regularity of attendance is often so stringently enforced that health 

 suffers. Where sex is ignored and where no allowance is made for 

 maternity there is bound to be mis-differentiation. Where mothers 

 are concerned it is certain that the wear and tear, the strain and 

 continuity of the modern competitive system, whether in pro- 

 fessional life or among hand-workers, must be prejudicial. As Karl 

 Pearson says, "The race must degenerate if greater and greater stress 

 be brought to force woman during years of child-bearing into active 



