Emily Davies

“ It is not asked, be it remembered, that one single woman should be compelled to take a degree, or held disgraced for being without one; but simply, that she may try if she chooses, and that if she chooses and succeeds, then she shall receive that certificate of her strength and culture, which will be fairly her due.
But the value of degrees in female education would be far greater indirectly than directly; they would raise the standard of excellence by a sure process, even though it might be slow, of every school and every teacher in the kingdom. ”

“ It is surely not very surprising that women confine themselves to that sort of work which alone has been entrusted to them from generation to generation. It is not wonderful that they do that sort of work well, nor does it require any mystic difference between the sexes to account for the fact that they do not know what, through hundreds of generations, they have neither been required nor encouraged to learn. ”

“ It is usually admitted that examinations are almost essential as a touchstone of successful study, and as a stimulus to continuous effort. Such a touchstone, and such a stimulus, are even more necessary to women than to men; and though we should be most unwilling to obtain these advantages by the sacrifice of others still more precious, we are of opinion that in the University of London our object might be obtained without any contingent risk. ”

“ Whether the reasons for the study of the classical languages be understood or not, reasons of the utmost cogency do actually exist. They have been considered and reconsidered over and over again, and in all variety of circumstances, by those who are best qualified to judge; and they still retain their place of highest honour and prime necessity, in thorough human culture. The study of them justifies itself in every case where they are really studied, and not simply acquired as accomplishments. ”

“ She should not sacrifice the many for the one, nor the long endless future for the passing moment. And do we really wish to people the world with male creatures, devoid of all gentleness and affection, losing sight of the individual in the mass, irritable and impatient under the irremediable discomforts and reverses of life? ”

“ The course of study and of practice necessary for the M.B. or M.D. degree, is by no means a necessary part of that human culture, which every man and every woman should be encouraged and urged to seek. But the right to practise as a physician would be valuable as opening the way for useful and remunerative employment to those ladies who do not wish to be governesses, or to engage in ordinary trade; and as affording to all women the alternative of being attended by physicians of their own sex. ”

“ In the foregoing observations it is not intended to assert that the curriculum of the London University is absolutely the best that could possibly be devised for women. There are differences of opinion as to whether it is absolutely the best that could be devised for men. But in the meantime, here it is, ready made to our hands. Men accept it, admitting it to be imperfect, as the best at present attainable. ”

“ But after all, if a man can read Livy or Thucydides, Plato's Republic or Aristotle's Ethics, it really matters little how he obtained his knowledge of Greek and Latin; and if it be expedient to found a University at all, and if degrees are of any use, then the man who can prove that he possesses the requisite knowledge, has a fair claim to have that fact certified. ”

“ Amazons have never been persons of high intellectual attainments, nor have the most learned women shown any tendency to rush into Bloomerism and other ugly eccentricities. It is true, indeed, and a fact of the utmost significance, that women with great natural force of character, do, when denied a healthy outlet for their energy, often indulge in unhealthy extravagances, simply because it is a necessity of their nature to be active in some way or other. But the fast women and the masculine women are not those who sit down to their books and devote themselves to an orderly course of study. ”

“ Is it really necessary that women should be shut out from the knowledge of the physical sciences? Would a knowledge of physiology make them worse mothers, and an acquaintance with the chemistry of food less fit to superintend the processes of cooking? ”

“ Why should Latin give them a deeper insight into the philosophy of language, and introduce them to a literature and history which may raise them above the narrowness or the extravagance of their own age, and the language of the New Testament be forbidden, as too exhausting a labour, a toil fruitful only of imbecility or death? ”

“ In considering the education of women in connexion with recent proposals for its improvement by means of examinations for University Degrees, it may be well to inquire at the outset, what is a Degree? In what does its value consist?
A University degree is neither more nor less than a certificate. At Oxford and Cambridge it certifies that the graduate has lived during a certain number of terms in a college or hall, has been devoting his time chiefly to study, and has passed divers examinations, which were meant to test his ability and knowledge. ”

“ Mary Howitt, &c., and by a large proportion of the ladies concerned in the management of Queen's College and Bedford College, sufficiently attest the fact.
It is probably equally true that there are many others who are not very anxious for any alteration in existing systems of education. This ought not to be surprising to a reflecting mind. It is perfectly natural that people who do not know by experience the value of learning, and who are pretty well satisfied with themselves as they are, should not care much about securing to others advantages which they are incapable of appreciating. ”

“ The tendency, almost the professed object, of their education, has been to make them unreasonable. It would be strange indeed, if on this one subject, they should be able to reason and judge. Their indifference is much less astonishing than that of men, who willingly forego for their daughters, opportunities of intellectual advancement which they well know how to appreciate, and which they consider of the highest importance for their sons. ”

“ Does any one in his (or her) senses suppose that the understanding of average young ladies would be the better for passing this examination well, or for trying to pass it anyhow, as the proper aim of their education? We might get one or two clever women, several Miss Cornelia Blimbers, and many Miss Tootses—if we may suggest an intellectual sister to Mr. Toots—out of such a system, but certainly not an improved standard for ordinary women. I believe that we should have half the young women in the country in brain fever or a lunatic asylum, if they were to make up their minds to try for it. ”

“ If these are natural differences, it is idle to ask whether we should praise or blame them, for the nature of a thing has no moral qualities whatever. A tiger may be dangerous, but is certainly not cruel; a fox may be cunning, but cannot be dishonest; and if dogs delight to bark and bite, because God hath made them so, who shall find fault with them? But natural differences should certainly guide our systems of education ”

“ The want of skill or care may so easily and quickly produce fatal mischief, and even murder itself may be so easily hidden under the disguise of the unskilfulness of a physician, that it has been thought necessary to require the surest guarantees of competency from all those to whose professional attention, the health and lives of their patients are so often entrusted. ”

“ Does religion include no tender affections for the man, no intellectual strength for the woman? And do we not read that God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them? Should not a man's thoughts of God be a woman's thoughts also? ”

“ Graduates are a very small minority of the men of England, and yet their education has determined the education of the great majority who are not graduates. It is by no means obvious that it would do women any harm to know enough for the B.A. (London) pass-examination. They are already expected to learn not much less at Queen's College, in Harley Street; and a degree would be to women, in their present stage of cultivation, what honours are to men. ”

“ A very small proportion of girls would attempt to take them; fewer still would succeed; fewer still would take honours. But every school-girl in the land would very soon become aware of the fact, that women might hope and strive for a thorough culture, which has never yet been generally offered to them. The Arts regulations of the University of London would guide the studies of women as gently and effectually as they now guide the studies of boys and men. A very simple example of this may be given. There is an increasing neglect of the Greek and Latin Classics in ordinary education. ”

“ Great stress has been laid on the alleged fact that women do not themselves want University examinations and degrees. It is always difficult to ascertain the "sense" of women on any given subject. Many shrink from even affixing their names to a memorial, and there is no other recognised method by which they can, in any corporate manner, express their opinions. There can be no doubt that among the more thoughtful, there are many who are eager to obtain for younger women educational aids of which they cannot themselves enjoy the benefit. ”

“ That any scheme of education which might tend to foster them, ought to be energetically resisted, will scarcely be disputed by any—least of all by the advocates of extended mental culture for women.
It may be well to examine first that theory of the difference between manhood and womanhood which underlies most of the objections commonly brought against the thorough culture of women; and which, if it were true, would render all further argument superfluous. The differences between a man and a woman are either essential or conventional, or both. ”

“ In truth, it is exactly in this subordinating of the whole to its parts, that even the charity and affection of women has often done great mischief; and is capable of doing any amount of mischief, if it were not restrained by that power of generalisation, and order, which now women sometimes find in men, and ought to find in themselves. ”

“ This change was regarded with considerable disfavour by many of those who had graduated under the old regulations, and who imagined that the value of their degrees would be reduced when similar degrees were conferred upon those who had never been to a college at all. It is obvious, however, that the colleges must look for their prosperity to their own intrinsic worth; and that the University should confer degrees upon all those who could pass the examinations prescribed, wherever they might have been educated, was clearly in harmony with the original intention of the University. ”

“ It is a well-known fact that in those most melancholy diseases known by the names of hysteria, and nervous affections, under which so large a proportion of women in the well-to-do classes are, more or less, sufferers, the first remedy almost invariably prescribed is, interesting occupation, change of scene, anything in fact, that may divert the mind from the dull monotony of a vacant life. ”

“ We understand the nature of animals, because, and in so far as, we are animals ourselves. To the same extent possibly a dog might understand a man; but no ingenuity could ever impart to an animal the knowledge of the human spirit, with all its endless resources, its freedom, its aspirations, its power to "look before and after." ”

“ Those who entertain the fear that an enlarged course of study would, by overworking the female brain, eventually produce wide-spread idiocy, should remember that mental disease is produced by want of occupation as well as by an excess of it. It has been stated to us by a physician at the head of a large lunatic asylum near London, having under his charge a considerable number of female patients of the middle-class, that the majority of these cases were the result of mental idleness. ”

“ Few will deny the advantages of residence for two or three years in a college; and it may be easily seen how such residence, and the intercourse between students which it implies, may be made very greatly to lessen the dangers and disadvantages from which mere examination, taken alone, can scarcely be wholly free. It is possible that a young man, preparing at home for his degree, may be sufficiently crammed to pass, and may even find his name somewhere in a list of honours ”

“ It may be asserted with still greater emphasis, that the hard and cold women are precisely those whom a consciousness of their unimportance to the world in general has made callous to everything but their own petty, personal interests, and in whom the sense of duty and responsibility, or in other words, the conscience, has been deadened and seared by fashionable frivolity. ”