She has many women contributors, whose work, she says, is as good as that of men, but who are not to be depended on for punctuality and regularity.'

For Sydney Smith, in the dark days of 1810, it was allowable to exclaim, 'Why should a woman of forty be more ignorant than a boy of twelve?' No such query would now be tolerated for a single moment. In the upper and middle classes, of which he wrote, there are no such women now, while his further queries, Does a mother's care depend on her ignorance of mathematics? Has ignorance been

the civiliser of the world?' have long ago been virtually and practically answered with an indignant and triumphant negative. No longer would it be allowed him to remark, en passant, Women have not their livelihood to gain by know'ledge;' for thousands of educated Englishwomen are at this present time earning their living by virtue of much and varied knowledge, gathered in the same channels, and by the same means, as men adopt. They have plucked of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and found it to be their only chance of success if they would win their way in life independent of male support. His prophecy that when learning ceases to be uncommon, learned women will cease to be affected,' has been amply fulfilled. A well-read educated woman is no longer regarded as a monstrosity; and with the death of the one anomaly the other has perished. But no longer can it be said, as he then asserted with considerable exaggeration, 'So completely has woman been crushed that scarcely a single work of reason or imagination written by a woman 'is in general circulation;' far less that scarcely one has 'crept into the rank of minor poets.' What would he now say to the works of George Eliot, Mrs. Barrett Browning, Rosa Bonheur, George Sand, and a host of other women of genius, who are not only popular, but worthy of their fame. Mr. Smith appears indeed to have forgotten his own contemporaries Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen, and Madame de Staël.

But now, leaving the days of 'Colebs in Search of a Wife,' and the argument as to woman's aim and work in life, as it then stood, we come to its second stage, when two doughty champions entered the lists, one being Mr. H. Maudsley, M.D., the author of Sex in Mind and Education;' the other, Mrs. Garrett Anderson, M.D., herself a brilliant example of the new school of medicine, who writes A Reply to the fiery onslaught of the well-known and skilful specialist. Both are accomplished and able scholars, both speak after

long experience, and both as if absolutely convinced of the truth of their own special views. Their line of argument, fairly and briefly condensed, runs thus:

Dr. Maudsley dashes into the conflict by charging his opponents, in their excessive zeal for the higher education of women, with becoming not merely enthusiasts, but fanatics, and positively ignoring the fact that there are physical differences in the organisation of the two sexes. It is all very well, he says, to treat this difference as a mere affair of clothes; but the male organisation is one thing, and the female another. There are, too, special and peculiar demands on the strength of woman to which man is not liable, and which at times try her utmost resources. She is not then capable of further endurance without danger of utter exhaustion; and, if the mental training of men be planted on women, it cannot be done without positive injury to their general health and strength. Against this no special exceptions are a valid proof.

Having laid down these premises, he widens the field of contention by boldly asking, 'Is it well for women to contend 'on equal terms with men for the goal of man's ambition?' a question which, as our readers see, lies at the root of the whole matter. In reply to it, the friends of progress say, 'Not only is it well, but supereminently good and necessary; whereas the learned doctor contends that, so far from being well, it is fatally evil. In support of this view, as we are free to admit, he makes many ingenious and sensible remarks, based on his own medical experience. He argues that the vital energies of women are at certain times so heavily taxed as to be incapable of further strain. Women, he says, are marked out by Nature for different offices and work in life from men; their success is improbable, if they venture on the same course and at the same pace with masculine rivals; there being sex in mind as distinctly as sex in body. His generalities are true enough, and patent. Most people, e.g., know that the brain is the highest organ of the body, and yet is affected by the ill condition of any other organ. Everybody, male or female, knows what it is to have a liver out of order, to grow gloomy, to indulge in savage tempers, thoughts of suicide, and despair. If the heart be out of order, idle fears and groundless apprehensions spring up and haunt one as a cloud, night and day, with-says Dr. Maudsley-a morbid condition of certain special organs, to which women are more liable than men. Hence arises the necessity of recognising sex in education. If this necessity

'be defied, the price of female intellectual work will be the peril of giving birth to a race of puny and enfeebled 'children.' And in support of this opinion he quotes the dicta of some Transatlantic medical men who say that the race of American women is gradually deteriorating and becoming incapacitated for their natural functions; and that if this deterioration goes on for fifty years, wives who are to be mothers in the Great Republic must be drawn from 'homes across the sea.'

6

A girl of fifteen, we are told, sets to work; by degrees goes through her school and college course, is ambitious, diligent, and eager, heedless of a strain on her strength that would make the stroke oar of the university boat 'falter;' triumphs over many competitors, male and female, is crowned, and all seems well. But sooner or later the penalty is demanded: health slowly fails; Nature cannot be defied; she grows full of aches and pains, and leaves college at last a good scholar, but an ailing woman, having never reached the ideal of perfect womanhood. Sex lies deeper than culture. You may hide Nature, but she is not to be extinguished.

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Such is the stern indictment to which Mrs. Anderson has to reply; and she does so-with readiness, skill, and logical force. Both as regards girls and women, she says, it is the assimilation of their education and the equality of their aim with those of boys and men which Dr. Maudsley specially condemns. But surely the question depends on the nature of the course and the quickness of the pace, and the fitness of both for women, and not at all on the likeness or unlikeness existing between men and women. So far as education is concerned, it is unquestionable that, were men and women ten times more unlike than they are, many things would be -nay, must be-equally good for both. If girls were less like boys than the anthropomorphic apes, nothing but ex'perience and the fruits of experience can prove that they 'do not benefit by having the best methods and the best ' tests applied for their mental training.'

But where are there now any such fruits of experience? Where are the hapless, broken-down women of whom Dr. Maudsley speaks? There is no trace of them at Girton or Newnham among students or professors, graduates or undergraduates. None in the honour list of the London University, or in the Oxford or Cambridge examination lists, though thousands of candidates have gone up from collegiate schools and have come away unbroken in health

and spirit. Of these thousands, a large number are now actually at work in the world, waging the battle of life as bravely as if they had never touched an examination paper. As far, therefore, as facts go, the indictment simply fails for want of evidence. It is true that literary and scientific culture are but two elements in education, and by no means the two most necessary; but if a given course of study be as likely to strengthen the mind as good food is to strengthen the body, while tending to develope habits valuable alike to both sexes, and if the pace be moderate, 'what good reason is there why the "physiological function ""of women should unfit them to run it," any more than it 'prevents them from eating bread and beef with as much ' benefit as men ?'

The question is scarcely settled by the physiological considerations on which Dr. Maudsley rests his argument. He has not even attempted to show how the adoption of a common standard of examination for boys and girls-with a fair range of choice of subjects-is more likely to interfere with a girl's health than an inferior examination for girls only. Either plan would hurt her, if unduly pressed; neither would be injurious if duly managed. As to the special point of physiological functions, Mrs. Anderson argues still more boldly, thus: While people, she says, are well, their bodily functions go on more smoothly without attention than with it. Are women an exception to this rule? Let facts, again, speak for themselves. Healthy girls and women as a rule disregard these functions completely; and among those of a lower class, where all available strength is needed for daily toil, the process goes on without interruption and without ill effects, as every domestic servant well knows. The cases in which it interferes with active work of mind or body are absolutely too rare to require notice. During early womanhood, no doubt, care is demanded, and in the best of English public schools due care is as freely given as in private schools and homes. Teachers need this warning far less than parents.

Were matters any better under the 'old' system? Surely not, she urges; and the 'new' has brought about countless improvements. The period devoted to education is prolonged, and at the critical age less pressure is applied. Girls are no longer kept standing for hours at a time, or sitting without support for their backs; school hours and terms are shortened; and, above all, physical exercise is no longer limited to the daily, monotonous, humdrum walk. Instead of it girls now have active games, gymnastics, and a daily

bath. 'No good results,' says the London Association of Schoolmistresses, can be obtained by sacrificing one part of our nature to another. If study leaves no time for play, there must be too much study going on. The lessons must 'be too many or too long, and ought to be at once curtailed.' What more, says Mrs. Anderson, does Dr. Maudsley want?

As to the query, 'Is it well for women to contend on equal terms with men for the goal of man's ambition?' They have never had the chance, it may be replied, of contending on equal terms, but are heavily handicapped all through the course. In addition to their assumed physical and mental inferiority, they have had to start without any such previous training as their rivals have enjoyed; and even the little allowed to them has been in an atmosphere of prejudice and hostility, which taxed both strength and endurance beyond any amount of mental work. Besides, university work does not come on at the age condemned by Dr. Maudsley; for no one proposes that girls of seventeen or eighteen should try for a place in the Cambridge honour list; but that, after plenty of healthful work and healthful 'play, when her developement is complete, and her constitution is settled, a girl should at nineteen begin her college course, and end it at two or three and twenty; a totally different plan from that pursued in America.'

As to Dr. Clarke's strong words against the peril of continuous mental work,' a far larger number of young women break down in nervous and physical health from mere want of adequate mental interest and occupation in the years immediately succeeding school life; sinking slowly into a dull, apathetic existence-morbid, hysterical, and self-absorbed. And even supposing that American girls and women do break down in the ways he describes, the real question is, 'what causes this condition of things?' If the abundant testimony of independent witnesses is to be trusted, the evils complained of are, in by far the larger majority of cases, to be found among the idle women of fashion-guiltless of ever having passed a single examination-rather than those who have gone through a course of hard work. Nor is it less notorious that the American type in both sexes is a highly nervous type; and, if Dr. Clarke's explanation of its existence among American women be correct, what is his explanation of it in the case of men?

Be that, however, as it may, it is hardly fair to apply, as Dr. Maudsley does, what was written against one plan of education to another plan unlike it in almost every