Higher Education of Women.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1891, 20 October 1886, Page 2

Higher Education of Women.

The members of the British Medical Amo* elation opened their 64th annual meeting at Brighton on August 10th, and it ii estimated that no less than 2000 members of the profession were in the town, including many from America. Dr Withers Moore delivered an address on the higher education of wumou in the course of which he said he thought that it w»« not for the good of the human race, considered as progressive, that women should be free from the restraints which law aud custom had imposed upon them, and should receive an education intended to prepare tnem for the exercise of brain power in competition with man. Music, painting, poetry, literature, and cookery had been as free to women as to men ; and yet • Beethoven, a Titian, a Shakespeare, a Bacon, or a Soycr have never yet appeared in their midst; and they might rest assured that the day was far distant when a Hippocrates, e Harvey, a Haller, or a Hunter, would adorn the ranks of the lady doctors. He held that this " higher education " unfitted women lot matrimony, and after quoting opinions in support of this, he said that in these days there seemed to he danger, both in and out of Parliament, that the attempt may he mad* to turn women into men. He pointed oat thu physical differences between men and women, especially in the weight of the brain, and quoted figures showing the comparative rates of sickness in boys and girls. In conclusion he said: My argument may be summed up very simply. Excessive work, especially in youth, is ruinous to health, both of mind and body ; excessive brain work more surely so than any other. From the eagerness of woman’s nature, competitive brain work among gifted girls can hardly but be excessive, especially if the competition be against the superior brain weight and brain strength of man. The resulting ruin can be averted—if it be averted at all—only by drawing so largely upon the woman’s whole capital stock of vital force and energy as to leave a remainder quite inadequate lor maternity.