Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1889-09-26
THE WEIGHT OF TRADITION.

The Obstacles to Woman's Intellectual
Advancement In Foreign Lands.
An eminent teacher has lately written
paper directed against certain ex-
treme theories of teaching, and entitled
Tho presumption of Brains" What
has weighed down woman, and still
weighs her down, says writer in Har-
pers Bazaar. is not so much any tempo
rary or local inconvenience, as the
great collective tradition still held
against her-"The Presumption OF No
Brains" There is a solidarity Of the
human race, and the total soil and at
mosphere of the planet, socially speak
ing. is to be taken into account in her
case. The most gifted woman, strug-
Cling for Intellectual progress in the
most favorable surroundings, is still
like single plant or little group OF
plants, trying to sustain itself where
the soil as whole is not yet fitted for
its reception, and it is only in some ia
vored nook that it manages to exist at
all. The traditions of Turkey still keep
down Europe; the vast East, with its
solid and unbroken prejudice discour-
ages our little England and America.
When we consider that out of the
1,S77,942 pupils in the schools of Brit
ish India in 1878 less than 100000
were girls, we have a fact which makes
it seem as if this planet, taken as a
whole, was still intellectually uninhab-
liable for women. Then we must take
farther into view that in the Presidency
of Bombay the prize books distributed
to deserving girls in the Government
aided schools have such passages as the
following:
III the husband OF a virtuous woman be ugly,
of good or bnd disposition, diseased, fiendish,
irascible a drunlard, old, stupid dumb, blind,
deaf, hot-tempered, poor, extremely covetous,
slanderer, cowardly, perfdious and immoral,
nevertheless she ought to worship him as God
with mind, speech and person. The wife who
gives an angry answer to her husband will be-
come village pariah dog; she will also become
a female jackal, and live in an uninhabited des-
ert. . . The woman who speaks disrespect-
fully 10 her husband will be dumb in the next
incarnation. The woman who hates her hus
bands relations will become from birth to birth
a muskrat living in ordure and hlth."
We must remember that the mar
riages for which this code is provided
are ostly child marriages, made with
out the consent OF the bride; we must
remember that these prize books are
distributed virtually at the expense of
the British government-and how vast
is the abyss of ignorance and degreda-
tion in which these things show women
as plunged! But that abyss comprises
the greater part uf the human race. and
the teeming millions OF China, Africa
and Oceanica would show nothing much
better.
The moral is that any intellectual
opportunities given to woman, even in
the most enlightened countries, are but
exceptional and recent things. She
enters every competition burdened with
the worldwide Encouragement and re-
preston OF her sex. The obstacles
with which she has to contend are not
merely the obvious and local ones, but
have the vast superintendent OF weight
Of cosmic tradition behind them.
The local obstacles are often quite
enough. An accomplished German
woman, long resident in England, told
me that she once went back to her ma
tive land to live, but found the INTEL
lectual position Of women so humiliat-
ing, compared with England that she
could not remain. Yet about the same
time brilliant American woman told
me that it took her a whole year in
England to get accustomed to tho sub
ordinate position of women there, as
compared with America As to France,
Mr.. John ID. Philbrick told me at the
Exposition of 1873. where he had
charge of our educational exhibit that
he spent a large part of his time in
trying to convince incredulous French
men that there were actually in
stitutions in the United States
where girls studied Greek. They went
away, he said. bowing courteously. but
evidently unconvinced. Yet these are
the foremost countries OF the world In
their recognition Of brains in women
and even these, it seems, ara backward
and reluctant But behind these lies
it must always be remembered, ths
vast hopeless, impenetrable incredulity
OF India, China and the Dark Cont
nent This dense resistance may no
affect, directly and obviously. the NOR,
enlightened sentiment OF more favoret
regions. but it affects it indirectly ant
unconsciously; the status of woman i
determined by the condition Of mind o
the human race. The wonder will on,
day be. not that she did not accomplish
more in the nineteenth century. but tha
she accomplished what she has Fo