any men, and
I am at a loss to understand on what grounds of justice or
public policy a career which is open to the weakest and most
foolish of the male sex should be forcibly closed to women of
vigour and capacity. We have heard a great deal lately about
the physical disabilities of women. Some of these alleged
impediments, no doubt, are really inherent in their
organization, but nine-tenths of them are artificial--the
products of their modes of life. I believe that nothing would
tend so effectually to get rid of these creations of idleness,
weariness, and that "over-stimulation of the emotions" which,
in plainer-spoken days, used to be called wantonness, than
a fair share of healthy work, directed towards a definite
object, combined with an equally fair share of healthy play
during the years of adolescence; and those who are best
acquainted with the requirements of an average medical
practitioner will find it hardest to believe that the attempt
to reach that standard is likely to prove exhausting to an
ordinarily intelligent and well-educated young woman.

Twenty years later he supported the entry of women into public life
in a plainly reasoned letter, which he himself thought highly
complimentary, although a number of estimable ladies flew at him for
writing it:--

The best of women are apt to be a little weak in the great
practical arts of give-and-take and putting up with a beating,
and a little too strong in their belief in the efficacy of
government. Men learn about these things in the ordinary
course of their business; women have no chance in home life,
and the boards and councils will be capital schools for them.
Again, in the public interest it will be well; women are more
naturally economical than men, and have none of our false
shame about looking after pence. Moreover, they don't job for
any but their lovers, husbands, and children, so that we know
the worst.

Directly, then, as teacher, lecturer, and essayist indirectly as
organizer, he ranks among the great educators of his age. But he did
not establish a "school" of his own; such a thing was abhorrent to
him. A resolute seeker after truth, he bade others seek also; but he
refused to impose his own conclusions on any man.

Of all possible positions [he wrote in 1892], that of master
of a school, or leader of a sect, or chief o