LITERARY NOTICES, 



377 



share. A democrat in instinct and feeling, 

 and holding the most radical views on grave 

 questions of social polity and political gov- 

 ernment, Mr. Mill lived under the most 

 compact and consolidated monarchical, aris- 

 tocratic, and ecclesiastical system that the 

 world possesses ; and the history of his war- 

 fare with the ideas in which that system is 

 embedded, while attractive as a philosophi- 

 cal study, has an especial interest for us, 

 who cut loose from that order of things a 

 century ago. Mr. Mill was never an ac- 

 tive politician, and only tried his hand at 

 parliamentary work for a short period, late 

 in life ; but he was much occupied with po- 

 litical and contemporaneous public ques- 

 tions, and was a virtual leader of a consid- 

 erable party of men who devoted them- 

 selves to active political work. 



Mr. Mill's estimates and criticisms of the 

 thinkers of his time, and his analysis of 

 their influence upon himself, are by no 

 means the least interesting portions of his 

 volume. Especially what he says of his 

 mental indebtedness to the influence of his 

 wife will be eagerly perused. He had al- 

 ready given expression to it in terms that 

 have been thought to savor of exaggeration, 

 but all that he had said before is here reiter- 

 ated with increasing emphasis. In speak- 

 ing of Carlyle, he observes : " I never pre- 

 sumed to judge him with any definiteness 

 until he was interpreted to me by one great- 

 ly the superior of us both — who was more a 

 poet than he, and more a thinker than I — 

 whose own mind and nature included his, 

 and infinitely more." After such a eulogy 

 from the author of the " Logic," the ques- 

 tion irresistibly arises, What could have been 

 the preparation of so wonderful a mind ? 

 Mr. Mill offers his autobiography confess- 

 edly as a study in education, of which he re- 

 gards himself, as he certainly was, a remark- 

 able exemplification. But why did he for- 

 bear to utter a word in relation to the cul- 

 tivation and history of that extraordinary 

 mind which spanned and included such 

 intellects as his own and Thomas Car- 

 lyle's ? The question, moreover, will be 

 wonderingly asked, why Mr. Mill, with all 

 his chivalric feeling toward the opposite 

 sex, never once mentions his mother, in the 

 full sketch of his childhood, although his 

 father figures prominently throughout. Per- 



haps she was not a woman of intellect, and 

 took no part in his early culture ; but she 

 had a share in his being, and, whatever may 

 have been the qualities or character of the 

 mother of John Stuart Mill, they should not 

 have been left out of consideration in an ac- 

 count by himself of his own life. 



The autobiography is written in Mr. Mill's 

 happiest style, and deserves to be, as it un- 

 doubtedly will be, very extensively read. 



Sex in Education ; or, a Fair Chance for 

 the Girls. By Edward H. Clarke, 

 M. D. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 

 181 pp. Price, $1.25. 



This little volume breaks the monotony 

 of the woman's rights discussion, and ex- 

 poses one of its current fallacies — the co- 

 education of the sexes. 



Whether or not there be sex in mind, 

 Dr. Clarke shows that there is a great deal 

 of it in body, and that this cannot be ignored 

 in the work of education without entailing 

 grave and often fatal evils upon the weaker 

 sex. One would think that there is suffi- 

 cient physiological knowledge current in the 

 community to prevent an educational sys- 

 tem that does not recognize and conform to 

 the radical differences of sex ; but, under 

 pressure of a so-called reform, which starts 

 from abstract assumptions rather than 

 physiological data, the strong tendency is 

 to put students of both sexes upon the same 

 footing, regardless of all consequences. Dr. 

 Clarke points out what some of these con- 

 sequences are. He shows that there is not 

 only a difference in powers of endurance, 

 by which the average feminine constitution 

 is certain to break down when brought into 

 prolonged competition with the average 

 male constitution, but, what is of far more 

 importance, he shows that the feminine con- 

 stitution is liable under these circumstances 

 to a whole train of derangements and per- 

 versions that are peculiar to itself. The 

 fact that women are designed to be mothers, 

 while men are not, is very far from being a 

 mere incidental circumstance that may be 

 left out of the account in their early train- 

 ing. Nor can women, by declining to be- 

 come mothers, escape from the peculiarities 

 of their nature, so as to assume the career 

 and encounter the discipline of men. The 

 female destiny, which is to give birth to the 



