primitive and long-protracted condition of slavery, she still continues to be dominated by the man in numberless ways, which, although of a less brutal kind, are scarcely less effectual as mentally dwarfing influences. The stunting tendency upon the female mind of all polygamous institutions is notorious, and even in monogamous or quasi-monogamous communities so highly civilized as ancient Greece and pagan Rome, woman was still, as it were, an intellectual cipher—and this at a time when the intellect of man had attained an eminence which has never been equaled. Again, for a period of about two thousand years after that time civilized woman was the victim of what I may term the ideal of domestic utility—a state of matters which still continues in some of the Continental nations of Europe. Lastly, even when woman began to escape from this ideal of domestic utility, it was only to fall a victim to the scarcely less deleterious ideal of ornamentalism. Thus Sydney Smith, writing in 1810, remarks: "A century ago the prevailing taste in female education was for housewifery; now it is for accomplishments. The object now is to make women artists—to give them an excellence in drawing, music, and dancing." It is almost needless to remark that this is still the prevailing taste; the ideal of female education still largely prevalent in the upper classes is not that of mental furnishing, but rather of mental decoration. For it was not until the middle of the present century that the first attempt was made to provide for the higher education of women, by the establishment of Queen's College and Bedford College in London. Twenty years later there followed Girton and Newnham at Cambridge; later still Lady Margaret and Somerville at Oxford, the foundation of the Girls' Public Day-Schools Company, the opening of degrees to women at the University of London, and of the honor examinations at Cambridge and Oxford.
We see, then, that with advancing civilization the theoretical equality of the sexes becomes more and more a matter of general recognition, but that the natural inequality continues to be forced upon the observation of the public mind; and chiefly on this account—although doubtless also on account of traditional usage—the education of women continues to be, as a general rule, widely different from that of men. And this difference is not merely in the positive direction of laying greater stress on psychological embellishment: it extends also in the negative direction of sheltering the female mind from all those influences of a striving and struggling kind, which constitute the practical schooling of the male intellect. Woman is still regarded by public opinion all the world over as a psychological plant of tender growth, which needs to be protected from the ruder blasts of social life in the conservatories of civilization. And, from what has been said in the earlier part of this paper, it will be apparent that in this practical judgment I believe public opinion to be right. I am, of course, aware that there is a small section of the public—composed for the most part of persons who are
