The record-union., 1896-04-19
FATAL TO BEAUTY.
Are We Really Destroying Woman's
Beauty?
Startling Warning of a Great English
Physician Against Higher Edu-
cation of Women.

Sir James Crichton Browne, one Of
the most famous of English physicians,
has made a fierce protest against the
higher education of women. He urges
many reasons against it, but the one
with which he chiefly seeks to arrest
public opinion before it is too late is
that this education will destroy the
physical beauty of woman.
His reasoning is so earnest so serious
and so scientific that it must force US
tC consider whether we are not doing
wrong in permitting women to enter
into a severe and continuous course of
study. Every educational institution
for women is concerned in this matter,
from the public schools of New York to
the best Of women's colleges. In both
cases girls and women are forced to en-
ter into educational competition with
boys and men.
We should remember how much is at
stake. The beauty of woman in our
clumsy civilization is the one relief to
the weary eye in a world Of ugliness
and sordidness. This man Of science
tells us that we have inaugurated a
system which will destroy it.
Shall we exchange the beauty of
woman for racial inheritance of nerv-
Gus degeneration?
Would it not be a sorry translation?
Should we not make an effort to pre-
serve those graces of form which have
inspired the art of the world and alone
keep US from utter absorption in the
struggle for gain? These are the Ques-
tions which the physician asks.
He has been reused to express his
opinions by the effort which Is now be-
ing made to force the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge to grant de-
greeS to women on the same terms as to
men. Dangers, he believes, lie in the
women's colleges now established near
these universities, but they will be
turned into assured evils if the women
students are practically forced to enter
into competition with the men.
The process by which a mans educa-
tion inflicted on woman reduces her to
ugliness he declares to be a very simple
and natural one It consists chiefly In
the disorganization of her nervous sys-
tenn The results are loss of graceful
outlines, loss of appetite. lines in the
face, bad teeth, bad complexion, short
sight and possibly hysteria, epilepsy
and insanity.
CEREBRAL DIFFERENCES.
There is a growing tendency around
us, says Sir James, to ignore intellec-
tual distinctions between the sexes.
The body differences between men and
women are universal and intimate, and
involve every organ and tissue. They
extend from the skin to the mar
row of the bones, from the crown of
the head-for, according to Broca, the
female Uranium Is less elevated than
that Of the male-to the sole of the foot,
for, according to Delaunay, woman has
a plantar arch fiatter than that of man,
which perhaps accounts for her parti-
ality for high-heeled boots.
But his chief purpose is to call atten-
ton to the sexual differences in one bod
lily organ-the brain. 1t is a matter of
common observation that women have
smaller heads than men, and 1t is
matter of scientific observation that,
in all peoples and races without excep-
ton, the absolute weight of the entire
brain is on the average greater In men
than in women. The advocates of
women's rights have argued that the
deficiency in her brain weight when
compared with that of men Is to be ac-
counted for by her fewer inches, but he
quotes figures to prove that there is a
great excess Of brain weight in favor
of the male, even when allowance Is
made for stature. The average excess
of weight in the male brain over the fe-
male, between the ages of twenty and
thirty years, is 6O1 ounces.
The smaller size of the female brain
is a fundamental sexual distinction. 1t
is not accounted for by the hypothesis
that environment, educational advant-
ages and habits of life, acting through
a long series Of generations, have stim-
ulated the growth Of the cerebrum in
one sex more than in the other. This
is made clear by the fact that the same
differences in brain weight between men
and women have been found in savage
races There are also grounds for be-
lieving that there is a difference in the
balance of parts in the male and female
brains respectively.
HER MORE SYMMETRICAL BRAIN.
Another difference between the brains
of men and women is one of cOnvolutial
arrangement. The brain of women,
like their bodies, are more symmetrical
than those of men. In the male the
right hemisphere usually exceeds the
left in weight by 81 grammes, and in
females only by 81 grammes.
Still another difference Is that the re-
male brain in proportion receives a
larger supply Of blood than the male.
although the blood is Of poorer quality.
The region of the brain which in men
is most richly flushed with blood is
that which is concerned 1--WE have rea-
son to believe) in volition, cognition and
ideo-motor processes; while the region
which in women is best supplied is that
concerned in sensory functions. This
has a most important bearing on the in
tellectual and emotional differences OF
the sexes, showing how natural 1t is
for women to be bright, quick and in
tuitive.
All through life the male brain differs
from the female in capacities, apti-
tudes and powers. Differences early as
sert themselves Thackeray has said
that little girls make love in the nur-
sery and practice the arts OF coquetry
of the page boy who brings the coal up
stairs, and as for the page boy 1t is
certain that his pugnacious propensi-
ties are already fully developed and
have brought him into conflict with
his brother buttons.
And differences subsist to the last.
The aged spinster left in maiden medi-
tation fancy free" lavishes her altruistic
emotions on cat, poodle, or parrot; and
the hoary veteran, f1dgety and irascible,
concentrates his egotistic attention on
his own liver.
These differences in brain structure
and function which at every stage of