Mr. COWPER-TEMPLE, in his Bill for allowing the Universities of Scotland to admit Women to Degrees, has raised one of those questions which are much more easily asked than answered, and which it is a matter of doubtful wisdom to ask. Moreover, it was one of those questions which are a great deal wider than they look - a circumstance curiously illustrated by the fact that Mr. COWPER-TEMPLE appeared unconscious of the extent of his own proposal. The nature of the question is best indicated by a description of the way in which it arose.
Six years ago two or three Women applied to the University of Edinburgh for admission to the Medical Classes. It was felt to be impossible to admit them to attend the ordinary classes of the young men, but the Medical Staff consented to give them separate instruction. Their liberality in this respect was very ill-requited by the charge of Trade Unionism which was yesterday cast at the whole Medical Profession by Mr. STANSFELD and Mr. ROEBUCK. Doctors, as a body, have given no ground for such an accusation. They have treated with respect and consideration the Women who have actually qualified themselves for practice, and, whatever their opinion on the merits of the innovation, they have not resisted it with any obstructive jealousy. But the admission of the Lady Students could not be more than an experiment, and it remained to be seen whether the University could legally admit them to Degrees. The question was eventually brought before the Scotch Court of Session, and it was decided that the University Courts, which are the governing bodies of the Universities, have no such power. Upon this Mr. COWPER-TEMPLE takes up the grievance of the ladies, and introduces a Bill to remove their disability. But the Bill, though very short, goes a long way. Mr. COWPER-TEMPLE argued the case as if he were simply proposing to facilitate the studies of female medical students. But, as was pointed out in the Debate, the Bill extends to all the Faculties of the Universities. It provides, in a single clause, that the admission of Women as students, and the providing instruction for them, either in separate classes or otherwise, and the granting of Degrees to them, and the enacting of regulations for such purposes shall be within the powers conferred by the existing Scotch University Acts.
The Bill, therefore, raised for Scotland, but for Scotland alone, the whole question of opening the present course of University study to Women. From this point of view, the matter seemed rather a large one to be thus summarily brought before the House of Commons, and members seemed for the most part to think it a sufficient justification for a negative vote that they could not be expected to entertain the proposal in its present form. The question, in fact, was not very seriously debated on either side. Theories and enthusiasms were broached on one side and snubbed on the other, but the House did not trouble itself to be very much in earnest. Mr. ORR-EWING, whose name is one of the four at the back of the Bill, said as much against the measure as for it, and after this there was no need for any further criticism than that the proposal was immature. The LORD ADVOCATE and Dr. PLAYFAIR both opposed the Bill, and it was rejected by a majority of 43. As many as 151 members, however, voted in its favour, and this is a sufficient sign that Mr. COWPER-TEMPLE has effectually asked his question, even if he has not enabled us to answer it.
It is not strange that there should be a considerable minority in the House of Commons unable to say offhand why Women should not be admitted to the same opportunities and the same career as men. It is rather like being asked to decide offhand what ought to be the form and construction of society; and the inquiry is equally perplexing in its principle and in its details.
We might give a good many reasons for not expecting Women to want such opportunities; but if they do want them, and claim them, and declare that the concession will be beneficial to themselves, it requires some resolution to refuse them. There could not be a greater misapprehension of the state of the case than to suppose there is any "Trade Unionism" in the attitude of the male sex in the matter. They have a shrewd suspicion that the Women are making a mistake, but nothing can be more disagreeable to them than to refuse. They are rather in the position of a man whose daughter wants to make a marriage which he cannot absolutely resist, but which he knows will not conduce to her welfare. If they will persist, perhaps they must have their way, but the uneasiness occasioned by the request is not primarily prompted by self-interest.
There are two sides, of course, to this as to all other practical questions, and it happens that the Women's side is much more obvious and easily urged than the other. Mr. COWPER-TEMPLE, for instance, was, perhaps, whether by accident or by intention, not unwise when he urged the advantages of allowing Women the opportunity, if they wished it, of making themselves acquainted with the principles and practice of medicine. The practice of nursing has been growing of late years to the rank of a female profession. Many of its members are at least as skilful as some ordinary practitioners; and it is not easy to draw an absolute line, as Mr. BERESFORD HOPE attempted, between the art of nursing and that of medical or surgical attendance. Women in training to become nurses at hospitals do in fact go through very much the same training as medical students; and the experience gradually being accumulated in this way may perhaps in time throw more light upon the general question. If, again, Women prefer for certain illnesses to be attended by Women, it seems, no doubt rather hard that they should be refused the opportunity.
Whether Women are capable of competing with men throughout the range of medical practice is one thing; but it is a different question whether they are as a class so inferior to the ordinary run of medical practitioners that the interest of the community requires that they should be debarred from the practice of the profession. Considerations like these are not deprived of weight by the irrelevant and extravagant pleas with which they are combined. It is difficult, for instance, to listen with much patience to the pathetic appeal advanced on behalf of Women not absolutely dependent on their earnings, who "would have the opportunity of rising above the life of idleness and frivolity to which they are now condemned." We cannot but ask why Women should be totally incapable of studying anywhere but in Universities. Books in these days are not inaccessible, and there are, we should think, few parts of the country in which Lectures cannot be heard sufficiently good to raise the female mind above a level of absolute frivolity. The complaint of young ladies that they have nothing to elevate their minds is like the lament of country curates that in their pathetic solitude they have no sufficient inducement to study. The great majority of busy men would give anything for a few of the idle hours which these interesting ladies and clergymen find it so hard to employ. We may safely go further, and say that many a wife would give anything to be able to recover the idle and frivolous hours she spent before her marriage in vain aspirations after something more magnificent than the opportunities she possessed. Most women marry, and, whether they do or not, they generally find some duties as they grow up; and the idle hours of which they complain are none too numerous for qualifying themselves for their future work. In short, if a young woman before her marriage is unoccupied, she ought to be very thankful for it, and do her best to store her mind, as she easily may, with information which may make her a better wife, mother, or friend. All that is reasonable in Mr. COWPER-TEMPLE'S report.
But they must be good enough to pay some little respect to the actual conditions of the problem. We are not altogether responsible for the general arrangements of the world, and the course of nature has established certain customs which cannot well be dispensed with by a single clause in an Act of Parliament. As men have hitherto been the sex upon whom the active and public work of the world has fallen, Universities have grown up to train them for their duties, and the whole system of such institutions has been constructed with reference to male capacities and male wants. The range of study, the severity of it, the mode of imparting it, the age at which it shall be given - these and a hundred other details of administration have been determined in accordance with what a long course of experience has proved to be most convenient to men. If a handful of ladies - for it is no more at present - ask to be admitted, it is scarcely reasonable to expect that arrangements which it has taken some five or six centuries at least to develop should be at once adapted to suit them. That, however, is what would be practically demanded by this Bill. The admission of Women-students would be referred to the various University Courts, and, consequently, in any University to which Women were disposed to go an agitation might any day be aroused for the adaptation of the old system to completely novel requirements. Mixed classes are on many subjects an impossibility, and it is no light demand to make upon a staff of Professors and Lecturers to double their work, or upon a University to double its staff, for the benefit of a new class of students. It does not seem clear, in short, why at the outset of such a movement as this the preliminary experiments, for they can be nothing more, should not be conducted with as little disturbance of existing institutions as possible. A plan has, we believe, been entertained, and was not long ago far advanced, for the instruction of Women by the independent action of a body of Physicians and Surgeons in London. It would be easier to admit Women to ordinary examinations than to ordinary classes, and some means might thus be found of giving them diplomas. It would seem more reasonable in every way to introduce the proposed innovation thus gradually than to summon every Scotch University to show cause why it should not undertake duties which were never contemplated by its constitution.
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