118 
NATURE 
[Fune 16, 1870 
a portion of their labours are by no means sufficiently 
numerous. It is thus not women only, but men, the whole 
human race, that is stunted in its intellectual development 
at a time when its growth should be the most rapid, by 
the practical restriction to one half of the race only, of the 
means of acquiring the ability to help in this development. 
We must next touch upon a subject of great delicacy ; 
we refer to the instruction of women in medicine and sur- 
gery. There is an important distinction between this and 
all other departments of science. While itis competent to 
any one to teach chemistry, geology, or botany, and his 
success as a teacher will depend on his competency, the 
teachers and practisers of medicine and surgery forma 
guild, a professional trades’ union, protected and licensed 
by the Government. It is in the nature of guilds and 
monopolies to be exclusive; and when we find that the 
medical profession is united almost as one man (witha 
few honourable exceptions) to resist the admission of 
women into its ranks, it is only what might with confi- 
dence have been predicted. The instinct of self-defence 
is a strong one; and if any evidence is required of the 
extent to which self-interest has entered into the causes 
of the opposition by the profession to the medical training 
of women, we need only refer to the “seven reasons against 
the admission of ladies to the profession” given in the 
British Medical Fournal for May 7th. Into the abstract 
question of the utility of monopolies we need not 
enter ; those who are excluded from their benefits are 
perfectly justified in using every legitimate effort to over- 
throw them, and in claiming the assistance of those who 
believe in the universal adaptation of the principles of 
free trade. Seldom have greater persistence and self- 
denial been shown than by those few women who have 
laboured long and hard in this country, America, and 
France, in attempting to open to their sisters the doors 
of the medical profession. Careless of cruel misrepre- 
sentation, of public slander, of private persecution, they 
have held nobly on their course, and their services to 
mankind will one day be recognised. 
Few have yet realised the enormous gain that will 
accrue to society from the scientific education of our 
women. If, as we are constantly being told, the “ sphere 
of woman” is at home, what duty can be more clearly 
incumbent upon us than that of giving her the Opportunity 
of acquiring a knowledge of the laws which ought to guide 
her in the rule of her house? Every woman on whom 
the management of a household devolves may profit by 
such knowledge. If the laws of health were better known, 
how much illness and sorrow might be averted! What 
insight would a knowledge of chemistry afford into the 
wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of different articles of 
food! What added zest would be given to a country walk 
with the children, or a month by the seaside, if the mother 
were able to teach the little ones intelligently to observe 
and revere the laws of Nature! Above all, what untold 
sufferings, what wasted lives, are the penalty we have 
paid for the prudish ignorance of the physiology of their 
bodily frame in which we have kept our daughters! These 
considerations have had far too little place with us at 
present, 
We trust that a new era is dawning upon us ; may the 
higher education of women be pursued inthe admirable spirit 
of the last report of the Edinburgh Ladies’ Educational 
Association :—“ So far as we can see, cultivation does for 
women what it does for men—intensifies every moral 
attribute in proportion to the mental growth. Those who 
must go out into the world go out with a truer courage, 
founded upon a nobler estimate of work ; those whose 
duties lie within the circle of home find them invested 
with a new and vivid significance from the higher eleva- 
tion, and consequently larger views, of their own minds ; 
and, finally, as ‘woman is not undeveloped man,’ we 
believe that womanhood can only be made more truly 
womanly, as manhood is made more truly manly, by the 
utmost use of the possibilities of high cultivation.” 
NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS 
LLOW me to give in my adhesion to the “ plat- 
form” established by the signers of the Memorial 
concerning the Natural History Collections, reprinted in 
your last number, and at the same time to request you to 
reprint a second Memorial on the same subject, presented 
in 1866 to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. You 
will observe that this Memorial has likewise been signed 
by many distinguished men of science. 
P. L. SCLATER 
Copy of a Memorial presented to the Right Hon. the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer 
S1r,—It having been stated that the scientific men of 
the Metropolis are, as a body, entirely opposed to the 
removal of the Natural History Collections from their 
present situation in the British Museum, we, the under- 
signed Fellows of the Royal, Linnean, Geological, and 
Zoological Societies uf London, beg leave to offer to you 
the following expression of our opinion upon the subject. 
We are of opinion that it is of fundamental importance 
to the progress of the Natural Sciences in this country, that 
the administration of the National Natural His ry Col- 
lections should be separated from that of the Library and 
Art Collections, and placed under one officer, who sl.ould 
be immediately responsible to one of the Queen’s Ministers. 
We regard the exact locality of the National Museum of 
Natural History as a question of comparatively minor im- 
portance, provided that it be conveniently accessible and 
within the Metropolitan district. 
GEORGE BENTHAM, F.R.S., F.L.S., F.Z.S. 
Wo. B. CARPENTER, M.D., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S. 
LS 
W. S. DALLAS, F.L.S. 
CHARLES DARWIN, F.R.S., F.L.S., F.Z.S. 
F, DUCANE GopMaN, F.L.S., F.Z.S. 
J. H. GuRNEY, F.Z.S. 
EDWARD HAMILTON, M.D., F.L.S. 
JosepH D. Hooker, M.D., F.R. 
THos. H. HUXLEY, F.R.S., V. 
JOHN Kirk, F.L.S., C.M.ZS. 
ANDREW RAmsSAY, F.R. 
ARTHUR RUSSELL, M.P., F.R.G.S., F.Z.S. 
OSBERT SALVIN, M.A., F.L.S., 
P.. L.-SCEATER, P:R:Si, FS. 
G, SCLATER-BooTu, M.P., F. 
S. JAMES A. SALTER, M.B., F. 
W. H. Simpson, M.A., F.Z.S. 
J. EMERSON TENNENT, F.R.S., F.Z.S 
THOMAS THOMSON, M.D., F.R.S 
ALFRED R. WALLACE, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S, 
London, May 14, 1866 
