The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-12-12
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE
 FEMINIST MOVEMENT
By MRS. P. A. HoLLEY

coming modesty the laurel chaplet
 Doubtless they thought to educate wom- an, to light up the influences of home
 with the pervading spirit of an educated mind they would do more for the ad-
 vancement of civilization than all else
 beside. And it would indeed, be inter- esting to know what these dead and gone sa ges, these wise and enlightened states men, would think, could they know the outgrowth of this, of what must have been the first step in what is called the eman- cipation of woman.
 Is woman's brain the equal in weight capacity, etc., of mans, and will she with equal education and training equal or surpass man in intellectual achieve ment! IS question which has been dis cussed of late. Not many moons ago I talked with a physician and a scientist upon this subject, and in discussing it,
 he said: We see that the physiological functions of woman necesstate a diff
 ferent anatomy from that of man, and we infer that these functions and this structure preclude speaking generally, the kind of effort we call supreme genius, as also that kind of effort we call sustained executive power. While woman is not so far differentiated from man." he con- tlnued, that she canont enter with pleas ure into mans works and often in a great measure share in their productions 1t remains a fact that it is mans par ticular organization which is alone cap- able of either the highest manifestations of genius, or the most sustained exhibi- tion of energy; and that nature seems to tell us she cannot form the material out of which commanding intellectual genius of the female sex would proceed and science gives us good grounds for
 believing that the fact is deeply rooted in the very structure of sex.''
 Now, what could a defenseless wom-
 +~
 brain like that land with doubtless 8 still more cold-blooded, steely, scien-
 tific heart) even in defense of her
 own self? Finally, however I ven
 tured to remind him of George Elliott's
 great analytical mind and of George Sand and Madam de Stael and of Madam Curie in the scientific world of today, whereupon this scientific per
 sonage immediately replied that he
 had said Generally speaking" and that those were exceptions and ex- captions only proved the rule" After that I thought much upon this sub ject, and I recalled that woman has had far more training in the art of mu- sic than have men and wondered if na- ture only could explain the absence of great musical composers and of the feminine compeers of Titan and Raph- ael. the technique of whose art seems peculiarly fitted to woman; and that it was not education and training which enabled Paschal as a child to see his way through problems which not one man in thousand can under stand after prolonged mental drill. Neither was it training and educa- tion which gave the race its great men poets, for they lisped in numbers for the numbers came. Shakespeare belonged to a family of illiterate weavers, yet with little assistance from education he surpassed all the efforts of ancient or modern genius. But whether it will always be thus, and whether or not this scientist is right in his deductions, time alone can prove.
 It does seem, though in the broad sense, there is no equality in nature; as the earth we inhabit is kept in its orbit by the attraction which it owes to other and greater bodies, and we upon it's surface, by the attraction we owe to it, so the principle seems to be carried out alike in the phys ical, moral and intellectual organiza- tion; and the law of sympathy and of correspondence runs throughout the whole range of created matter, for the Great Architect Himself has stamped it upon every feature of His universe. Without it a night of darkness and gloom would settle upon us, life would be blank and heaven itself the off spring of a distempered thought.
 We cannot say because woman enters not the legislative halls, the temples of justice, the political arena and comes not to the ballot box, that she has nothing to do in the formation of gov- ernment, society and laws. for all his tory teaches that the condition of wom- an in every age and in every country Is a true exponent of it's manners, It's customs it's morals and it's laws.