HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 77 



1865. 



1865 affords one or two interesting glimpses of 

 Huxley's educational opinions, which were markedly in 

 advance of the time. An essay entitled " Emancipation 

 — Black and White " (Coll. Essays, iii, p. 66), after dis- 

 cussing the question of slavery, which the American 

 Civil War had made a burning one, deals with the 

 higher education of women and related matters. The 

 statement is unhesitatingly made that the average negro 

 is not the equal of the average white man, but that this 

 does not justify an infraction of the moral law, 



"... That no human being can arbitrarily dominate over 

 another without grievous damage to his own nature. . ." 



Emancipated negroes will be unable to attain the 

 highest places, but need not remain in the lowest : — 



" But whatever the position of stable equilibrium into which 

 the laws of social gravitation may bring the negro, all responsi- 

 bility for the result will henceforward lie between Nature and 

 him. The white man may wash his hands of it, and the 

 Caucasian conscience be void of reproach for evermore. And 

 this, if we look to the bottom of the matter, is the real justi- 

 fication for the abolition policy." 



The emancipation of girls as regards education is then 

 advocated, for, 



*' The mind of the average girl is less different from that of 

 the average boy, than the mind of one boy is from that of 

 another ; so that whatever argument justifies a given education 

 for all boys, justifies its application to girls as well. So far 

 from imposing artificial restrictions upon the acquirement of 

 knowledge by women, throw every facility in their way." 



The result to be anticipated is that, 



'* Women will find their place, and it will neither be that in 



