Woman under socialism Part 21

The number of the countries that admit women to the Universities and High Schools has been greatly on the increase during the last twenty years; nor can any country, that lays claim to being a member of civilization, shut its ears in the long run to the demand. Ahead of all went the United States; Russia followed--two political systems that present in all respects the strongest contrasts; that notwithstanding, both were guided by the identical views with regard to the equal rights of woman. In the North American Union, women are to-day admitted in all the States to University studies,--in Utah since 1850, Iowa since 1860, Kansas since 1866, Wisconsin since 1868, Minnesota since 1869, California and Missouri since 1870, Ohio, Illinois and Nebraska since 1871; since then all the other States followed in rapid succession. In keeping with the extension of female studies, woman conquered her place in the United States. According to the census of 1890, there were in the country 2,348 female physicians and surgeons, 2,136 female architects, 580 female journalists, 300 female writers, 165 female ministers, 110 female lawyers.[146]

In Europe, Switzerland, princ.i.p.ally, opened its Universities to women.

There the number of female students grew, since 1887, as follows:--

Total Female Year. Students. Students.

1887 2,229 167 1888 2,339 206 1889 2,412 196 1890 2,552 248 1891 2,889 297 1892 3,076 318 1893 3,307 451 1893-94 (Winter course) 3,609 599

Accordingly, the partic.i.p.ation of women in University studies increased considerably in the interval between 1887-1894. In 1887 the number of female students was 7.5 per cent. of the total number of students; in 1893-1894, however, it had risen to 16.6 per cent. In 1887, there were, among 744 medical students, 79 women, or 10.6 per cent.; in the winter course of 1893-1894, there were, of 1,073 medical students, 210 women, or 19.6 per cent. In the department of philosophy, in 1887, there were, of 530 students, 41 women, or 7.8 per cent.; in 1893-1894, there were, of 1,640 students, 381 women, or 23.2 per cent. The large majority of the female students in Switzerland are foreigners, among them many Germans, whose number increases almost yearly. The example of Switzerland was followed in the early seventies by Sweden; in 1874 by England, in so far as medical colleges for women have been established.

Nevertheless, it was not until 1881 that Oxford, and 1884 that Cambridge decided to admit female students. Italy followed in 1876, then Norway, Belgium, France and Austria. In Paris, during 1891, there were 232 female students, mostly of medicine. Of these female students, 103 were Russian, 18 French, 6 English, 3 Roumanian, 2 Turk, and 1 each from America, Greece and Servia. In the department of philosophy there were 82 French female students and 15 foreigners matriculated.

As it will have been noticed, even Turkey is represented among the female students. There, more than anywhere else, are female physicians needed, due to the position that custom and religion a.s.sign to woman as against man. The same reason caused Austria also to open Universities to female students, in order that the Mohammedan women of Bosnia and Herzegovina might enjoy medical attendance. Even Germany, whose "pig-tail" was thickest, i. e., where the disfavor towards admitting women to the Universities was most bitter, has been compelled to fall in line with progress. In the spring of 1894, the first female student pa.s.sed her examination in Heidelberg for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and a second one in the fall of the same year in Gottingen.

In Karlsruhe and Berlin, High Schools were established to prepare women for the Universities; finally in the summer of 1894, the Prussian Minister of Public Worship issued regulations for the remodelling of the higher instruction of girls, looking for their preparation for the study of medicine. Also India has furnished a small contingent of female students. Obviously, there is progress everywhere.

All medical authorities are agreed that women render the best service as nurses of the sick, aye, that they positively can not be got along without. In an address, delivered by Prof. Ziemssen a few years ago, he said:

"Above all, see to it, gentlemen, in your practice that you have thorough, well trained, kind-hearted, characterful female nurses.

Without them, all your sacrifices of time and effort are idle."

In the September, 1892, issue of the "German Review", Prof. Virchow thus expressed himself in favor of female nurses:

"That the post of real responsibility at the sick-bed shall fall to woman is, in my opinion, a principle that should be enforced in all our hospitals. In the hands of a cultivated, womanly, trained person the care of even a sick man is safer than in those of a man."

If woman is fit for the extraordinarily difficult service of nurse, a service that places a heavy strain upon patience and self-sacrifice, why should she not be also fit for a physician?

Above all, the idea must be resisted that women shall be educated for physicians by separate courses of study, i. e., separated from the male students,--a plan that Frau Mathilde Weber of Tubingen has declared herself satisfied with.[147] If the purpose be to degrade the female physicians, from the start, to the level of physicians of second or third rank, and to lower them in the eyes of their male colleagues, then, indeed, that is the best method. If it is no violation of "ethics"

and "morality" that female nurses a.s.sist in the presence of male physicians at the performance of all possible operations upon male and female subjects, and on such occasions render most useful service; if it is "ethically" and "morally" permissible that dozens of young men, as students and for the sake of their studies, stand as observers at the bed of a woman in travail, or a.s.sist at the performance of operations on female patients, then it is absurd and laughable to deny such rights to female students.

Such prudery in natural things is the rage, particularly in Germany, this big children's play-room. The English, discredited by reason of the same qualities, may, nevertheless, be our teachers in the treatment of natural things.

In this direction, it is the United States, in particular, that furnish the example most worthy of imitation. There, and to the utter horror of our learned and unlearned old fogies of both s.e.xes, High Schools have existed for decades, at which both s.e.xes are educated in common. Let us hear with what result. President White of the University of Michigan declared as early as the middle of the seventies: "The best pupil in Greek, for several years, among 1,300 students, has been a young lady; the best pupil in mathematics in one of the strongest cla.s.ses of our Inst.i.tute is, likewise, a young lady; and several among the best pupils in natural science and the sciences in general are likewise young ladies." Dr. Fairchild, President of Oberlin College in Ohio, where over a thousand students of both s.e.xes are instructed in common, said at about the same time: "During my inc.u.mbency of eight years as professor of ancient languages--Latin, Greek, and Hebrew--also in the ethical and philosophic studies, and during my inc.u.mbency of eleven years in abstract and applied mathematics, I have never noticed any difference in the two s.e.xes except in the manner of reciting." Edward H. Machill, President of Swarthmore College in Delaware County, Pa., and author of a pamphlet,[148] from which these facts are taken, says that, after an experience of four years, he had arrived at the conclusion that, with an eye to both manners and morals, the education of the two s.e.xes in common had given the best results. Many a pig-tail has yet to be cut off in Germany before common sense shall have broken its way through here.

More recently, lively controversies have arisen in the literature of almost all countries of civilization on the question whether woman could achieve intellectually as much as man. While some, by dint of great ac.u.men and with the aid of facts supposed to be proofs, deny that such is possible, others maintain that, on many fields, it undoubtedly is the case. It is claimed that, generally speaking, woman is endowed with qualities that man is deficient in, and _vice versa_: the male method of reasoning is reflective and vigorous, woman's, on the contrary, distinguishes itself by swiftness of perception and quickness of execution. Certain it is that woman finds her way more quickly in complicated situations, and has more tact than man. Ellis, who gathered vast materials upon this question, turned to a series of persons, who had male and female students under their guidance for many years, and questioned them on their opinion and experience. McBendrick of Glasgow answered him: "After having taught female students for twenty years, I would sum up my observations with the statement that many women accomplish as much as men in general, and that many men do not accomplish as much as the female average." Other opinions in Ellis' book are less favorable, but none is unfavorable. According to the Yearbook of Berlin for 1870, pp. 69-77, investigation showed girls to be stronger in the sense of s.p.a.ce, boys at figures; the girls excelled in the telling of stories, the boys in the explaining of religious principles.

Whatever the way these questions may be turned and twisted, the fact appears that the two s.e.xes supplement each other; the one is superior on one, the other on some other field, while on a number of others there is no difference in point of s.e.x, but only in point of individual.

_It follows, furthermore, that there is no reason for confining one s.e.x to a certain field, and prescribing to it the course of development that it shall pursue, nor that, based on differences in natural bent, in advantages and in defects, which mutually equalize themselves, privileges may be deducted for one s.e.x, hindrances for another.

Consequently--equality for all, and a free field for each, with a full swing according to their capacity and ability._

Based upon the experience made during the last decades in the higher studies of woman, there is no longer any valid reason against the same.

The teacher can do much, by the manner in which he teaches, to affect the att.i.tude of his male and female pupils. Women, who devote themselves to a science, are often animated with an earnestness and will-power in which they excel most other students. The zeal of the female students is, on an average, greater than that of the male.

In reality, it is wholly different reasons that cause most professors of medicine, University teachers, in general, to take a hostile stand towards female students. They see in it a "degradation" of science, which might lose in the esteem of the narrow-minded ma.s.ses, if the fact were to transpire that female brains also could grasp a science, which, until then, was confined to the select of the male s.e.x only.

All claims to the contrary notwithstanding, our Universities, along with our whole system of education, are in poor plight. As, at the public school, the child is robbed of valuable time by filling his brain with matters that accord neither with common sense nor scientific experience; as a ma.s.s of ballast is there dumped into him that he can not utilize in life, that, rather, hampers him in his progress and development; so likewise is it done in our higher schools. In the preparatory schools for the Universities a ma.s.s of dry, useless matter is pounded into the pupils. These matters, that the pupils are made to memorize, take up most of their time and engage their most precious brain-power; whereupon, at the University, the identical process is carried on further. They are there taught a ma.s.s of antiquated, stale, superfluous lore, along with comparatively little that is valuable. The lectures, once written, are reeled off by most of the professors year after year, course after course, the interlarded witticisms included. The high ministry of education becomes with many, an ordinary trade; nor need the students be endowed with great sagacity to find this out. Furthermore, tradition regarding University life sees to it that the young folks do not take their years of study too seriously, and many a youth, who would take them seriously, is repelled by the pedantic and unenjoyable style of the professors. The decline in the zeal to learn and to study is a fact generally noticed at all our Universities and higher schools, and is even cause for serious concern with those in authority. Intimately connected therewith is the "grafting" tendency, which, in these days of ours, so poor in character, makes great progress and grows ever ranker in the higher schools. To have "safe views" takes the place of knowledge, and the poison spreads. To be a "patriot," that is to say, a person without a mind of his own, who carefully takes his cue from above, sees how the wind blows there, and trims his sails accordingly, bends and crawls,--such a person is more considered than one of character and knowledge. When the time for examination approaches, the "grafter" crams for a few months what seems most indispensible, in order to squeeze through. When, finally, examination has been happily pa.s.sed and an office or professional post is secured, most of these "ex-students" work along in a merely mechanical and journeyman style, and are then highly offended if one, who was not a "student," fails to greet them with the greatest respect, and to treat them as specimens of some other and higher race. The majority of the members of our so-called higher professions--district attorneys, judges, doctors, professors, Government officials, artists, etc.,--_are mere journeymen at their trades, who feel no need of further culture, but are happy to stand by the crib_. Only the industrious man discovers later, but only then, how much trash he has learned, often was not taught the very thing that he needed most, and has to begin to learn in good earnest. During the best time of his life he has been pestered with useless or even harmful stuff. He needs a second part of his life to rub all this off, and to work himself up to the height of his age. Only then can he become a useful member of society. Many do not arrive beyond the first stage; others are stranded in the second; only a few have the energy to reach the third.

But "decorum" requires that the mediaeval trumpery and useless curriculum be retained; and, seeing, moreover, that women, as a consequence of their s.e.x, are from the start excluded from the preparatory schools, the circ.u.mstance furnishes a convenient pretext to shut the doors of the University lecture rooms in their faces. In Leipsic, during the seventies, one of the most celebrated professors of medicine made the undisguised confession to a lady: _"The gymnasium (college) training is not necessary to the understanding of medicine.

This is true. Nevertheless, it must be made a condition precedent for admission, in order that the dignity of science may not suffer."_

Gradually is the opposition to the necessity of a "cla.s.sical" education for the study of medicine being felt in Germany also. The immense progress made in the natural sciences, together with their importance to life, require an early initiation. Collegiate education, with its preference for the cla.s.sic languages, Greek and Latin, looks upon the natural sciences as subordinate and neglects them. Hence, the students are frequently devoid of the necessary and preparatory knowledge in natural science that are of decided importance in certain studies, medicine, for instance. Against such a one-sided system of education opposition begins to spring up even in the circles of teachers, as proven by a declaration published in the autumn of 1894 by about 400 teachers of the German High Schools. Abroad, in Switzerland, for instance, the leading place has long since been given to the studies in natural science, and any one, even without a so-called cla.s.sic education, is admissible to the study of medicine, provided otherwise sufficiently equipped in natural science and mathematics. Similarly in Russia and the United States.

In one of his writings, the late Pro. Bischoff gave "_the rudeness of the students_" as the reason why he did not recommend the study of medicine to women. He certainly was a good judge of that. In another place, and also quite characteristically, he says: "Why should not one (as professor) now and then allow some interesting, intelligent and handsome woman to attend a lecture upon some simple subject?"--an opinion that v. Sybel evidently shares and even expresses: "Some men there are who have rarely been able to refuse their a.s.sistance and help to a female pupil, greedy of knowledge and not uncomely."

Pity the words spent in the refutal of such "reasons" and views! The time will come, when people will trouble themselves about the rudeness of the "cultured" as little as about the old fogyism and sensuous l.u.s.ts of the learned, but will do what common sense and justice bid.

In Russia, after much pressure, the Czar gave his consent in 1872 to the establishment of a female faculty in medicine. The medical courses were attended in the period of 1872-1882 by 959 female students. Up to 1882 there were 281 women who had filled the medical course; up to the beginning of 1884, there were 350; about 100 came from St. Petersburg.

Of the female students who visited the faculty up to 1882, there were 71 (9.0 per cent.) married and 13 (1.6 per cent.) widows; of the rest, 116 (15.9 per cent.) married during their studies. Most of the female students, 214, came from the ranks of the n.o.bility and government officials; 138 from the merchant and privileged bourgeois cla.s.s; 107 from the military, 59 from the clergy, and 54 from the lower cla.s.ses of the population. Of the 281 female physicians, who, up to 1882, had finished their studies, 62 were engaged by several Zemstvos; 54 found occupation in clinics; 12 worked as a.s.sistants at medical courses; and 46 took up private practice. It is noteworthy that, of these female students, more than 52 per cent. had learned neither Latin nor Greek, and yet they did as good work as the men. This notwithstanding, female study was far from being a favorite among the Russian Government circles, until the great services rendered by the female physicians on the theater of war in Turkey during the Russo-Turkish campaign of 1877-1878, broke the ice. At the beginning of the eighties, female studies took great increment in Russia: thousands of female pupils devoted themselves to several branches. Due thereto, and due especially to the fact that thereby free ideas were breaking through, threatening to endanger despotism, the female courses were suppressed by an imperial ukase of May 1, 1885, after the lives of the female students had for some time been made as hard as possible.[149] Since then, resolutions have been adopted at several Russian conventions of physicians to pet.i.tion for the re-opening of the medical courses for women,--more than a German convention of physicians would do. As yet the attempt in Russia has remained unsuccessful.

In Finland, a country that, although belonging to Russia, occupies an exceptionally privileged position in the Russian system, 105 female students were at the University of Helsingfors during the winter course of 1894-1895, as against 73 in the summer course of 1894. Of these 105 female students, 47 were entered in the faculty of philosophy of history and 45 in that of mathematics; 5 studied medicine, a strikingly small figure compared with elsewhere; 7 law; and 1 theology.

Among the women who distinguished themselves in their studies, belong the late Mrs. v. Kowalewska, who received in 1887 from the Academy of Sciences in Paris the first prize for the solution of a mathematical problem, and since 1884 occupied a professorship of mathematics at the University of Stockholm. In Pisa, Italy, a lady occupies a professorship in pathology. Female physicians are found active in Algiers, Persia and India. In the United States there are about 100 female professors, and more than 70 who are superintendents of female hospitals. In Germany also the ice has been broken to the extent that in several cities--Berlin, Dresden, Leipsic, Frankfurt-on-the-Main, etc.,--female physicians, especially dentists, are in successful practice.

With regard to energy and capacity in the scientific studies, England, in particular, can cite a series of handsome results. At the examinations in 1893, six women and six men held the highest marks. The examinations on art and on the theory and history of pedagogy were pa.s.sed by nine women and not one man. At Cambridge, ten women sustained the severest test in mathematics. According to the sixteenth report of examinations of female students in Oxford, it appears that 62 women sustained the test of the first cla.s.s, and 82 that of the second cla.s.s; moreover the honorary examinations were sustained by more than one-half of the female candidates. Surely extraordinarily favorable results.

Hostility to compet.i.tion with women is particularly p.r.o.nounced in Germany, because here the military turns out every year such a large number of mustered-out officers and under-officers as aspirants for the Civil Service, where there is little room for applicants from other sources. If, however, women are employed, and then at lower salaries, they appear to the already jealous men in a light that is doubly bad,--first, as cheap labor; then as lowerers of wages. An extensive field of activity have women gained as teachers, a field for which, on the whole, they are well fitted. This is particularly the case in the United States, where, in 1890, of 363,000 teachers, 238,000 were female.[150] In Berlin there were on January 1, 1892, along with 194 Rectors and 2,022 teachers, 1,024 pedagogically educated and 642 technical female teachers, inclusive of their helpers. In England, France and the United States there are, furthermore, since several years, women successfully engaged in the important service of Factory Inspectors, a move that, in view of the enormous proportions that female labor is a.s.suming ever more in the trades and industries, is well justified and becomes everywhere a necessity.

At the Chicago Exposition of 1893 women, furthermore, distinguished themselves in that, not only did female architects draw the plan and superintend the execution of the magnificent building for the exhibition of female products, but that women also appeared as independent operators in a number of products of art, which provoked general applause, and even astonishment. Also on the field of invention have women distinguished themselves, a subject on which, as early as 1884, a publication in the United States imparted information to the world by producing a list of female inventors. According to the list, the following inventions were made or improved by women: an improved spinning machine; a rotary loom, that produces three times as much as the ordinary loom; a chain elevator; a winch for screw steamers; a fire-escape; an apparatus for weighing wool, one of the most sensitive machines ever invented and of priceless value in the woolen industry; a portable water-reservoir to extinguish fires; a device for the application of petroleum in lieu of wood and coal as fuel on steamers; an improved catcher of sparks and cinders on locomotives; a signal for railroad crossings; a system for heating cars without fire; a lubricating felt to reduce friction on railroad cars; a writing machine; a signal rocket for the navy; a deep-sea telescope; a system for deadening noise on railroads; a smoke-consumer; a machine to fold paper bags, etc. Many improvements in the sewing machines are due to women, as for instance: an aid for the stretching of sails and heavy stuffs; an apparatus to wind up the thread while the machine is in motion; an improvement for the sewing of leather, etc. The last of these inventions was made by a woman who for years kept a saddle and harness shop in New York. The deep-sea telescope, invented by Mrs. Mather, and improved by her daughter, is an innovation of great importance: it makes possible the inspection of the keel of the largest ship, without bringing the same on the dry-dock. With the aid of this gla.s.s, sunken wrecks can be inspected from the deck of a ship, and search can be made for obstructions to navigation, torpedoes, etc. Along with these practical advantages, its application in science is full of promise.

Among the machines, the extraordinary complexity and ingenuity of whose construction excited great admiration in America and Europe, is one for making paper bags. Many men, leading mechanics among them, had until then vainly sought to construct such a machine. A woman, Miss Maggie Knight, invented it. Since then, the lady invented also a machine to fold paper bags, that does the work of 30 persons. She herself superintends the construction of the machine in Amherst, Ma.s.s. That German women have made similar inventions is not yet known.

The movement among women has spread even to j.a.pan. In the autumn of 1892, the j.a.panese Parliament decided that it was forbidden to women to figure as publishers or editors of newspapers, also of such papers as are devoted to fashions, cooking, education of children, etc. In j.a.pan, even the unheard-of sight has been seen of a woman becoming the publisher of a Socialist paper. That was a little too much for the j.a.panese legislators, and they issued the above stated decree. It is, however, not forbidden to women to act as reporters for newspapers. The j.a.panese Government will succeed as little in denying their rights to women as its European rivals of equal mental make-up.

FOOTNOTES:

[124] On this subject, the law for protection of working-women, adopted by the people of the canton of Zurich in August, 1894, with 49,909 votes against 12,531, contains an excellent provision. The law makes it a penal offence for working-women to take from the shop, where they are employed during the day, work to be done at home. This law goes further than any other known to us for the protection of working-women. It also prescribes an extra pay of 25 per cent. for the extra hours fixed by law: the most effective means to check the evil of overwork.

[125] The census of 1890 gives 3,914,571 women of at least 10 years of age engaged in gainful occupations in the United States; that is 17.6 per cent. of the total population engaged in gainful occupations, and 12.7 per cent. of the total female population of the country.

According to the census of 1900 there were 5,319,912 women of at least 10 years of age engaged in gainful occupations in the United States; that is 18.2 per cent. of the total population engaged in gainful occupations, and 14.3 per cent. of the total female population of the country.

Cla.s.sified by kinds of occupation, the census of 1900 shows: 977,336 women engaged in agricultural pursuits; 430,576 in professional service; 2,095,449 in domestic and personal service; 503,347 in trade and transportation; 1,313,204 in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits.--THE TRANSLATOR.

[126] For the sake of verification, and especially with the view of avoiding any serious discrepancy that might arise from a translation back into English from a German translation of the original English, an attempt was made to secure a transcript of the original of the above interesting article. A serious difficulty was encountered. Besides the indefinite date, the abbreviated form, in which the German text gives the name of the Maine paper quoted from--"Levest. Journ."--and as reproduced in this translation, forced a recourse to guess work. The nearest that any Maine paper, given in the American Newspaper Directory, came to the abbreviation was the "Lewiston Evening Journal." The below correspondence tells its tale:

"Daily People, 2, 4 and 6 New Reade street, "New York, May 18th, 1903.

"Editor 'Lewiston Evening Journal,' Lewiston, Me.:

"Dear Sir--The within is a translation from the German of what purports to be a German translation of an article, or part of an article, that appeared in the 'Journal.' The only date given is 1893.

"I shall esteem it a favor if you will let me have an accurate transcript of the pa.s.sage in the original. If the 'Journal' had such an article, the enclosed re-translation back into English may help to identify the article. Thanking you in advance,

Yours truly, "D. DeLeon, "Ed. 'The People.'"

"D. DeLeon, Esq., New York City:

"My Dear Sir--I regret that I can not find the article of which the enclosed is a transcript.