414 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



Schopenhauer to regard woman as an incurable Philistine, 

 and as a mere intermediary between a child and a man. 

 They have learned by sad experience that it is contrary 

 both to justice and public policy to impose artificial restric- 

 tions on the acquisition of knowledge by women, or to close 

 to the vigorous and capable representatives of their sex 

 careers which are open to the weakest and most incom- 

 petent men. History has taught them that the fall of 

 Greece and Rome was owing to the failure of these nations 

 to make due provision for the mental development of 

 women. 



And women know that it was because of the inability 

 of the wives of the Athenians to enter into the thoughts 

 of their highly educated husbands and to sympathize with 

 their aims and appreciate their achievements that caused 

 the men to leave them in their solitude and seek in the 

 companionship of the hetaerae the intellectual atmosphere 

 which was wanting in their own homes. They know, too, 

 that the lack of knowledge in the wife and the absence 

 of virtue in the hetaerae, which brought such disasters on 



receive. She has the same right as man to become all that she may 

 be, to know whatever may be known, to do whatever is fair and just 

 and good. In souls there is no sex. If we leave half the race in ig- 

 norance, how shall we hope to lift the other half into the light of 

 truth and love? Let woman's mental power increase, let her influ- 

 ence grow, and more and more she will stand by the side of man 

 as a helper in all his struggles to make the will of God prevail. From 

 the time the Virgin Mother held the Infant Saviour in her arms, to 

 this hour, woman has been the great lover of Christ and the un- 

 weary helper of His little ones; and the more we strengthen and 

 illumine her, the more we add to her sublime faith and devotion 

 the power of knowledge and culture, the more efficaciously shall she 

 work to purify life, to make justice, temperance, chastity, and love 

 prevail. She is more unselfish, more capable of enthusiasm for 

 spiritual ends, she has more sympathy with what is beautiful, noble, 

 and god-like than man; and the more her knowledge increases, the 

 more shall she become a heavenly force to help spread God's king- 

 dom on earth. " 



