and that no woman should be permitted to practise without a regular diploma, certifying her capability and good moral character. This is the case in Germany. We do not see that it is particularly unpractical or un-English-to use the common phrases. There are at present in London two hospitals for the treatment of female diseases only, and two for children; they are under the management of men, and they are, like our other hospitals, considered as schools for young physicians and surgeons; women, except as nurses and subordinates, are shut out from them. There is now an intention of founding an hospital for women and children, "to be placed under the direction of women-physicians, in connection with a board of consulting physicians and surgeons," in which women will not only be employed in a subordinate capacity, but enter as students.* Lastly, we Englishwomen desire, or rather with the utmost humility suggest, that some principle of conscientious duty towards women might enter into the usual routine of education. In a large school, boys are trained by precept or opinion to certain duties towards each other, which they must practise as men towards men. Thus they are prepared for their life-battle so far, and for their relations with one half of their species; but how of the other half? Will any one say that their duty towards women is merged in their "duty to their neighbour," and included in the general law of truth, honour, sobriety, and all that is called. gentlemanly? Englishwomen regret to see that in the education of their sons and brothers, when entrusted to a great public school, all consideration of their manly duty towards women is either wholly ignored, or if treated at all by a "A Course of Lectures recently delivered in London by DoCTOR Elizabeth Blackwell" (I like to give her a title which she has well earned, and which is legally hers) first suggested this plan; many ladies of education, and rank, and influence, have long been impressed with the want of such an institution, and have appended their names publicly to the advertisement. с conscientious instructor, it is only occasionally as a religious precept which the pupil sees violated with impunity by his elders, and which is contrary to the whole tendency, of his classical studies (Homer excepted, as Mr. Gladstone assures us). But the warning when given is not so often inculcated on moral or religious, as on purely selfish grounds, founded on the eventual suffering in various horrible forms entailed by what is cautiously termed "imprudence." I know a father who thought to impress his son's mind by taking him through the wards of an hospital: could he not have placed his duties towards women on higher grounds, considering that his relations with them must form a large part of his obligations as a man in after life? I have quoted elsewhere the saying, “As the girl is, so the woman is; as the woman is, so the home is; and as the home is, that will be the character of the population for good or evil;" it is well said, but only the half is said. Has then the training of the boy no result in the character of the man? is the man nothing in the influences of the home? and has he no responsibility in determining the moral results to the population at large? Is it all thrown on the woman? All! Englishwomen are really glad, ambitious to take half this responsibility; but we would ask that in the training of the boy some part of those home obligations on which we are emphatically told that the character of our population depends for good or for evil, should be inculcated then as the home is, so the man will be; and as the man, the nation. Englishwomen ask, with all humility, that in our schemes of national education these considerations should not be wholly ignored. My Lord, I have been challenged to set down in a definite form the advantages and privileges which Englishwomen require and do not possess; the objects in which they desire the help of men, and find a difficulty in obtaining it: I have done so in no defiant, no presumptuous spirit, but with a hope that, if found worthy of attention, they will be openly, wisely, earnestly considered and discussed. Even amid all the clash of foreign war and conflict of political parties echoing round us at this moment, I cannot think it necessary to apologise for calling your Lordship's attention, and that of the Association over which you preside, to some of the questions I have touched upon. It has been said wisely and truly that "all healthy public life springs out of the relations of home," and it is a popular saying that " as the woman is, such is the home," and the aggregate of homes constitutes the nation. I hope it will be remembered that I call for no rash innovations, no fanciful experiments. A State may be revolutionised by a coup-d'état, and we know what comes of such revolutions; but society cannot be revolutionised-luckily! You may change a form of government, but you cannot change the life of a community by any outward pressure; it must live and grow by some organic law of development which, to be healthful and permanent, must be gradual. Lord Shaftesbury, in his admirable speech at Liverpool (the wisest and the most practical, to my mind, he ever delivered), described sanitary reform as being partly physical, partly moral. I consider a larger infusion of the female element into our social institutions as one item of that moral sanitary reform to which Lord Shaftesbury alludes. Generally speaking, women are by nature helpful, and feel themselves in their "proper sphere" when they have something to do, to suffer, to conquer, for others; but I allow that there are exceptions. I know many who are by their whole organisation unfitted to minister to others. I know women to whom the mere sight of physical suffering, of haggard and decrepit age, of deformity, of mental aberration, of vice and cruelty, causes such positive pain, such intense disgust, that they could not enter an hospital or a prison without an interval of mental preparation-without a physical recoil through every nerve; such are often the women of artistic temperament, born to be objects to others, not to make objects of others; with hands which we see were never formed to do anything—only to be held out to be kissed, like those of Giovanna d'Arragona, in Raphael's picture. Well, in "this working-day world" we accept them, and make room for them, and are glad and thankful that God has given them to us; but because we have such charmers - charm they wisely or unwisely-is that a reason why all women should be trained as if the sole purpose of their existence was to please? as if for us life had not its solemn and sacred significance, its responsible present, its awful hereafter, as well as for men? You, my Lord, and many others, have openly expressed the opinion that it is to women we must look for the " regeneration of society." For myself, I hesitate to believe that social morals, social progress, can depend wholly on onehalf of the human race. But if such be the will of God, if to such lofty duties, such a dread responsibility, we are called by His providence and by the dictate of those who rule our earthly destinies, these can only be fulfilled through our influence over the minds as well as the hearts of men; and for this influence to be exercised effectively and healthfully, two things are necessary:-that in the higher classes the woman's standard of manly virtue, and in the working classes the man's standard of feminine virtue, be both more elevated; and that the woman's sphere of knowledge and activity should be limited only by her capacities. I have the honour to be, &c., &c., ANNA JAMESON. |