girls,
according as whether we are aiming at muscularity or motherhood. We have
seen also that there is a thing called the higher education of women,
apparently laudable and desirable in itself, which may yet have
disastrous consequences for the individual and the race.

In a book devoted to womanhood, and written at the end of the first
decade of the twentieth century, the reader might well expect that what
we call the higher education of women would be a subject treated at
great length and with great respect. Such a reader, turning to the
chapter that professedly deals with the subject, might well be offended
by its brevity. It might be asked whether the writer was really aware of
the importance of the subject--of its remarkable history, its extremely
rapid growth, and its conspicuous success (in proving that women can be
men if they please--but this is my comment, not the reader's). Nor can
any one question that the so-called higher education of women is a very
large and increasingly large fact in the history of womanhood during the
last half century in the countries which lead the world--whither it were
perhaps not too curious to consider. Further, this kind of education
does in fact achieve what it aims at. Women are capable of profiting by
the opportunities which it offers, as we say. This is itself a deeply
interesting fact in natural history, refuting as it does the assertions
of those who declared and still declare that women are incapable of
"higher education," except in rare instances. It is important to know
that women can become very good equivalents of men, if they please.

Further, this higher education of women--and we may be content to accept
the adjective without qualification, since it is after all only a
comparative, and leaves us free to employ the superlative--may be and
often is of very real value in certain cases and because of certain
local conditions, such as the great numerical inequality of the sexes in
nearly all civilized countries. It is valuable for that proportion of
women, whatever it be, who, through some throw of the physiological
dice, seem to be without the distinctive factor for psychical
womanhood, the existence of which one has tentatively ventured to
assume. These individuals, like all others, are entitled to the fullest
and freest development of their lives, and it is well that there shall
be open to them, as to the brothers they so closely resemble,
opportunities for intellec