32 



ALFRED T. SCHOFIELD, ESQ., M.D., ON 



women — and also that men specially are distinctively the work 

 of the mother, we see again that the quality of our women 

 must be a great factor in the future of our country. The 

 mothers of England are her greatest hope, and that they should 

 be worthy of their high calling is of the first importance. 



Setting, therefore, in this paper the question of woman's 

 physique on one side, we see how much turns on the psychology 

 of the female mind of to-day. I do not wish here to enter into 

 the smaller distinctions that differentiate the female mind from 

 the male ; but I do wish to emphasize those broad points on which 

 woman's value depends. There can, I think, be no doubt that 

 woman's mind has been primarily adapted to its especial task — 

 that of rearing children in the same way that her body has been 

 constructed for bearing them. The accumulated physiology 

 of years has done much to assist and direct the act of childbirth 

 to the great advantage of women. And is it too much to expect 

 that the psychology of ages can do much to help in her subsequent 

 task of education ? It was in this belief that the Parents' National 

 Educational Union was founded by Miss Mason. To me, as 

 presiding over its councils for so many years since its inception, 

 its principal concept was the great importance of the education 

 of the Unconscious mind in distinction to the book-teaching of 

 the Conscious mind. In the paper read here by the Headmaster 

 of Winchester on teaching, it was a great j oy to me to see that he 

 fully recognized the primary value of the development of 

 character. Now the female mind, as I have already shown, by 

 her own use of the Unconscious mind, by her strong emotions, 

 and more developed spirituality, is especially adapted for the 

 formation of character in children ; and inasmuch as its broad 

 foundation lines are practically laid do"^m, as the Jesuits have 

 shown us, by twelve years of age, the task is well-nigh completed 

 before the schooldays begin. The character of women qualify 

 them for producing what Matthew Arnold declared were the 

 three essentials of true Education — an atmosphere, a discipline, 

 a life. No doubt in all three the father is of great assistance 

 and in discipline almost an essential ; but we need not dwell 

 on this in a paper on the Psychology of the Female Mind. 



Without a woman there is no home. It is created by her, and 

 its atmosphere is mainly the outcome of her personality. An 

 atmosphere may be well compared to the mould into which the 

 molten iron is poured, and which absolutely determines its 

 shape. In the same way the fluid personality — the child — takes 



