44 



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



often pushed back by women so that they may secure the last vacant 

 seats in the smoking-carriage ! 



In the paper read to-night a standard or norm has been set up, 

 by approximation to which or otherwise the female mind is judged. 

 And that standard, it seems to me, is the male mind. Certainly the 

 female mind of the Victorian age was at the opposite pole to the 

 male. Whilst the progress it has since made by independency of 

 thought and action, by bachelor rooms and latch-keys, a progress 

 the paper praises, is in the line of approximation to the male mind. 

 And I join with Dr. Schofield in noticing the evolution of an asexual 

 woman during the process of this progress. Now from a long 

 experience as a physician I condemn this asexuality as the bane of 

 modern woman-kind. Its presence produces the tragedy of marriage 

 and puts the innocent joys of matrimony to flight. And is not 

 marriage the be-all and end-all of woman when it is crowned with 

 motherhood ? Anatomy and physiology answer, Yes ! So does 

 theology, as we also heard to-night. Otherwise where would be the 

 future race, the education, the eugenics, the discipline, of which 

 we have heard so much even now ? 



The minute left to me I devote to the expression of a hope that 

 we shall have the pleasure of hearing a paper by Miss Maynard on 

 the Psychology of the Male Mind, because from her remarks I judge 

 that her knowledge of that mind is even greater than Dr. Schofield's 

 apparently is of the female mind. 



Mr. Sidney Collett said : — Ladies and Gentlemen, anything 

 that Dr. Schofield says is always worth listening to ; and, as a rule, 

 I am in hearty accord with the views he expresses. But, on this 

 occasion, I must differ somewhat from him. 



On page 27 he compares " the gentle submission and downcast 

 eye " of the woman of the early Victorian days somewhat dispar- 

 agingly with " the modern latch-key young lady," and says " the 

 new is better ! " But when we consider these things from a 

 Scriptural standpoint, is the "modern latch-key young lady" 

 with her short skirts, powdered face, and cigarette in her mouth 

 really an improvement on the modest girl of earlier days ? (see 

 1 Tim. ii, 9). Indeed, it is difficult to understand how the 

 lecturer can speak as he does of " the wonderfully sober way in 

 which women have entered their new heritage without developing 

 the new w6man." 



