The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-02-12 00:00:00

A Daily News telegram from Rome states that the
Italian papers are unanimous in paying a eulogistic
tribute to the memory of Thomas Carlyle.

MR. CARLYLE ON THE DUTIES OF WOMEN.

A Correspondent sends us (says The Standard) the follow-
ing letter, written by Mr. Carlyle to a Medteal tudent who
had been a prominent supporter of his candidature for the
Lord Rectorship of Edinburgh University,and who had written
to him requesting an expression of his opinion in regard to
the entrance of women into the medical profession. Our
Correspondent thinks that there can be no reason now for
withholding the letter from publication :
"5, Cheyne-row, Chelsea, Feb. 9, 1871.

"Dear Sir,—lt is with reluctance that I write any-
thing to you on this subject.of Female Emancipation
which is now rising to such a height, and I do it only
on the strict condition that whatever I say shall be
private and nothing of it get into newspapers. The
truth is, the topic, for five•and-twenty years past,
especially for the last three or four, has been a mere
sorrow to me, one of the most afflicting proofs of the
miserable anarchy that prevails in human society, and
I have avoided thinking of it, except when fairly com-
pelled. What little has become clear to me on it, I
shall now endeavour to tell you.
"In the first place, then, I have never doubted but
the true and noble function of a woman in this world
was, is, and for ever will be, that of being a Wife and
Helpmate to a worthy man, and discharging well the
duties that devolve on her in consequence as mother
of children and Mistress of a Household—duties high,
noble, silently important as any that can fall to a
human creature; duties which, if well discharged,
constitute woman, in a soft, beautiful, and almost
sacred way, the Queen of the World, and which, by
her natural faculties, graces, strengths, and weak-
nesses are every way indicated as specially hers. The
true destiny of a woman, therefore, is to wed a man
she can love and esteem, and to lead noiselessly under
his protection, with all the wisdom, grace, and
heroism that is in her, the life prescribed in conse-
quence.

"It seems, furthermore, indubitable that if a
woman miss this destiny, or have renounced it, she
has every right, before God and man, to take up
whatever honest employment she can find open to
her in the world. Probably there are several or
many employments now exclusively in the hands of
men for which women might be more or less fit—
printing, tailoring, weaving, clerking, &c. That
'ledicine is intriniscally not unfit for them is proved

from the fact that in much more sound and earnest
ages than ours, before the medical profession rose
into being, they were virtually the physicians
and surgeons as well as sick nurses—all that the
world had. Their form of intellect, their sympathy,
their wonderful acuteness of observation, &c., seem
to indicate in them peculiar qualities for dealing
with disease; and evidently in certain departments
(that of female disease) they have quite peculiar
opportunities of being useful. My answer to your
question, then, may be that two things are not doubt-
ful to me in this matter.

"1. That Women—any woman who deliberately so
determines—have a right to study Medicine; and
that it might be profitable and serviceable to have
facilities, or at least possibilities, offered them for so
doing. Brit—

"2. That, for obvious reasons, Female Students of
Medicine ought to have, if possible, Female Teachers,
or else an extremely select kind of men, and, in par-
ticular, that to have young women present among
young men in anatomical classes, clinical lectures, or
generally stud 7, ing Medicine in concert, is an incon-
gruity of the first magnitude, and shocking to think of
to every pure and modest mind.

"This is all I have to say; and I send it to you,
under the condition above mentioned, as a friend for
the use of friends.

"Yours sincerely,
"T. CARLYLE."