Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-05-19
THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN.

At the Social Science Convention in Bos.
ton, on the 18th, the question of the education
Of women was discussed. Col. Hiygnson
opened the discussion and was followed by
Prof. Agassiz, whose remarks are reported
~ follows:
He said that he had come there with the in
tentiOn Of not saying word, and almost felt
but he thought it necessary to remark upon
some statements which had been made. and
with which he could not agree. Saying this,
he did not wish to place himself in q wrong
position, to be referred to the wrong side. He
believed he was on the right side Of the ques-
ton; that is, he held to the imperative neces-
sity Of granting woman in any enlightened
community all the privileges, political and ed
vocational, which any man has right to claim.
This sentiment was greeted with loud ap-
plause. Still he thought it necessary to cor
rect come of Col. Higgin.on's statements.
And nrst, 10 reference to the dinner table.
II have sat" said the Professor, ''for a lon
ger time than he, am sorry to say, at tables
at which have met ladies and gentlemen,
and have watched them, just as l am in the
habit Of watching everything which passes
around me; and have always found that la
dies and gentlemen would be helped to a diff
ferent dinner, one from the other; that their
preferences, their appetites, their needs with
reference to diet were not the same.
Whether the table 10 always so provided as to
snswer these needs, whether people have
always the discretion to take that which is
most useful and most beneficial, is another
question. But think that the absolute state
ment that men and women need the same diet,
and do take the same, is not correct. Physi.
Clans know 1t well. Even among men there
10 . discrimination made. The scholar who
sits 1t his table to do intellectual work needs
Z very different diet from the man who uses
only his muscles. A. long as there shall be
different vocations among men there will be
need Of that determination. And it is no
evidence of ignorance on the part of q physi.
elan that he alludes to this necessity of re.
garding the SEX" There are physicians who
have made wild assertions, and these he would
leave to the tender mercies Of the Colonel,
and his ready wit. He did not claim to be a
Psychologist. His training in science had
been in another direction; but he felt bound
TO say thai physiologists work upon facts and
statistics perhaps more thoroughly than any
other class. As to the question Of what shall
be taught and what is the range of
educational topics which belong to woman
or to man, he did not see that there
" any reason for discrimination. He did not
rs mat there are particular subjects of in
tsnectuai activity which belong more particu-
lafly 70 one sex than to the other. He wished
% DC permitted to cay few words in regard
70 ms own doings, to show by statement of
tact MS position on the question. When he
took his degree as a doctor of medicin. At
Munich in 1880 his thesis was upon this sinh.
ject: "Femtna humana superior mare" He
had assigned Ia that juvenile effort the better
part 70 woman, and they have it, because in