75° 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



for herself a curriculum of studies 

 suited to the requirements of her own 

 nature ? 



That woman has a sphere marked 

 out by her organization, however the 

 notion may be scouted by the reform- 

 ers, is as true as that the bird and the 

 fish have spheres which are determined 

 by their organic natures. Birds often 

 plunge into the watery deep, and fishes 

 sometimes rise into the air, but one is 

 nevertheless formed for swimming and 

 the other for flight. So women may 

 make transient diversions from the 

 sphere of activity for which they are 

 constituted, but they are nevertheless 

 formed and designed for maternity, the 

 care of children, and the affairs of do- 

 mestic life. They are the mothers of 

 humankind, the natural educators of 

 childhood, the guardians of the house- 

 hold, and by the deepest ordinance of 

 things they are this, in a sense, and to 

 a degree, that man is not. For woman 

 in these relations, education has hith- 

 erto done but little, and humanity has 

 suffered as a consequence. To the 

 mothers of the race, especially, belongs 

 the question of its preservation and im- 

 provement. The problem is transcend- 

 ent, and woman's interest in it more 

 immediate and vital than man's can be. 

 Science has furnished the knowledge 

 that is required, a vast mass of truth 

 that is waiting to be applied for the 

 conduct and ennobling of the domestic 

 sphere. Man has originated it; is it 

 not for woman to use it ? And now, 

 when there is so much agitation to 

 give woman larger mental opportuni- 

 ties, and she is pressing for the advan- 

 tages of a higher education, we have a 

 right to expect that she will consider 

 the subject from her own point of 

 view, and supply the great educational 

 need that has been so long recognized 

 and deplored. The new departure of 

 higher female education should unques- 

 tionably be from the results of the 

 medical profession. We believe that 

 physicians have by no means yet taken 



the share in general education that the 

 interests of society require ; but, when 

 the mental cultivation of women is to 

 become systematic and they have their 

 own higher institutions, the agency of 

 physicians will be indispensable. It is 

 not that all women are to be doc- 

 tors, but that they are to be instructed 

 and become intelligent first of all in 

 the sciences of life, with which also 

 the physician has to deal. If, to get 

 the A. M. of Yale or Harvard, would 

 be worth the struggle for women, as 

 qualifying them for the intelligent ful- 

 fillment of their destiny, let the doors 

 be battered down if necessary for their 

 entrance ; but, if it would not conduce 

 to this end, and would rather be fatal 

 to it, let the doors remain double- 

 locked. If the present aspiration is to 

 be utilized, the movement must not 

 take a false direction. New institu- 

 tions are called for, that shall supply a 

 new education on the feminine side. 

 The system of studies may be broad 

 and liberal in the best sense, but what 

 we insist on is that it should be shaped 

 with fundamental reference to the life- 

 needs of female students. From this 

 point of view our existing female col- 

 leges are liable to criticism ; in so far 

 as they are imitations of the old mas- 

 culine establishments, they do not meet 

 the wants of the sex, and rather ob- 

 struct than aid the true course of femi- 

 nine cultivation. 



EXPERIMENTS UPON LIVING ANIMALS. 



There is no element of human na- 

 ture more noble than that sympathy 

 with inferior creatures which leads to 

 a kindly regard for their welfare, and 

 protects them from wanton or careless 

 suffering; and it is gratifying to ob- 

 serve that this feeling is becoming so 

 definite, so strong, and so extended, as 

 to have embodied itself in organizations 

 for the systematic prevention of cruelty 

 to animals. With all our boasted civ- 



