29 



THE 604th ordinary MEETING, 



HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL, 

 WESTMINSTER, ON MONDAY, JANUARY 20th, 1919, 



AT 4.30 P.M. 



A. T. ScHOFiELD, Esq., M.D., in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read, confirmed and signed, 

 and the Secretary announced the election of Miss F. E. Newton, Miss 

 Violet H. Thorold, and the Rev. W. L. Baxter, D.D., as Associates. 



THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE POSI- 

 TION OF WOMEN. By Constance L. Maynard (First 

 Principal of Westfield College, University of London). 



rilHIS is a wide subject. Let me speak first on that duality 

 -L which, runs through human nature, that curious cleft which 

 cuts the race in two, that goes by the name of Sex. Physically 

 the division is obvious and runs through the animal world below 

 us (except among the lowest and brainless creatures such as coral 

 and sponge), but in the world of mind the cleft also runs, and 

 this is by no means so obvious, and needs careful study. 



The history of the individual runs parallel with the history of 

 our race, and if we want to trace the story of that obscure being, 

 Primitive Man, we may see it all writ small but very clearly in 

 our nurseries of to-day. First, we see a time when physical well- 

 being is the sole desire of life, and this we call the Age of 

 Passivity. Then the perceptions and the will awake, and the 

 supremacy — boy and girl alike — goes to brute force. This is 

 the Age of Self-will, the first evidence of the spirit of man. Our 

 babes awake to find they can, by effort, alter the world about 

 them ; there is no Reason as yet to guide their actions, and not 

 enough Affection to suppress their violence, but the blind Will 



