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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1069 



enormously not only in quantity, but also 

 in quality : the human orchestra contains a 

 great variety of instruments differing in 

 tone and range, but nature, like man, 

 makes few instruments of superlative excel- 

 lence, a vast number of very poor quality 

 and only a moderate proportion of service- 

 able type. If science can tell us anything, 

 it is that the democratic and republican 

 ideal of equality is the veriest moonshine — 

 a thing that never has been and never will 

 be. And education can do very little to 

 alter the state of affairs : it can not change 

 the instrument, at most it can develop its 

 potentialities, and it may easily, by careless 

 handling, do damage to the working parts. 

 To take a special case, of interest at the 

 moment, no contention is less to be justified, 

 I believe, than that which has been put 

 forward frequently, of late years, on behalf 

 of women — ^that their disabilities are in no 

 small measure due to the fact that we have 

 neglected their education: give them time 

 to educate themselves and they will be as 

 men in all things. Years ago, at our Stock- 

 port meeting, I ventured to express the 

 difference by saying that woman is not 

 merely female man, but in many respects 

 a different animal : the two sexes have neces- 

 sarily been evolved to fulfil different pur- 

 poses. Nothing is more instructive in the 

 history of modem educational progress than 

 the fact that women have asked merely 

 for what men have : at the universities they 

 have attended the men's courses; not one 

 single course have they demanded on their 

 own account. Higher teaching in relation 

 to domestic science so-called has only been 

 thought of very recently and mainly be- 

 cause men have urged its importance. Most 

 serious and, I believe, irreparable injury 

 is being done to women, in London espe- 

 cially, by forcing them to undertake the 

 same studies and to pass the same univer- 

 sity examinations as the men: and the 



damage is done to the race, not merely to 

 individuals, as the effect of education, 

 whether direct or indirect, is clearly to 

 diminish the fertility of the intellectual. 

 Some day, perhaps, when the present wave 

 of selfishness has passed over us, a rational 

 section of women will found a woman's 

 university where women can be taught in 

 ways suitable to themselves without injury 

 to themselves. In saying these things, of 

 course, I am laying myself open to the 

 charge of narrowness — in deprecation I 

 can only say, that what we are pleased to 

 call education is, for the most part, so futile 

 in substance and in its results that I shall 

 not mind in the least if I am accused of 

 decrying it : in my opinion, we shall all be 

 better without most of it, men and women 

 alike. So far as so-called intellectual edu- 

 cation is concerned, learning to read seems 

 to me to be the one thing worth doing: at 

 present it is the thing most neglected in 

 schools. 



To develop a rational system, we need 

 to take into account man 's past history and 

 to apply evolutionary and biological con- 

 ceptions. Education, as we know it and 

 practise it, after all is a modern supersti- 

 tion — something altogether foreign to the 

 nature of the majority of mankind; it is 

 based on the false assumption that we can 

 all be intellectual; whereas most of us can 

 only use our hands. But the schools neglect 

 hands and attempt the impossible by trying 

 to cultivate non-existent wits. Man is 

 doubtless pretty much what he was, and it 

 is useless trying to make of him what he 

 has never been. 



We are seeking to educate all. What 

 does this mean? Practically that we are 

 seeking to teach all to read. But when they 

 have learned, what are the majority to read 

 — what will they care to read? At the 

 schools for young gentlemen, the reading 

 taught hitherto has been mostly the reading 



