The position of woman: actual and ideal / with preface by Sir Oliver Lodge.

Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The position of woman: actual and ideal / with preface by Sir Oliver Lodge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    124/192 (page 108)
    persistence, ingenuity and what one can find no other name for than foresight. Where it strength- ens or abates during, and in the intervals be- tween, the birth and care of young, it changes the whole characters of birds and animals. The timid become bold, the stupid become cunning, the silent become noisy, the night-feeder becomes a day-feeder. It is at the root of all the poetry of bird and wild animal life. Colour and song are its accompaniments. The male is infected with the reproductive enthusiasm, sharing the work and contributing the music. It is without a doubt the period of the highest physiological and psycho- logical exaltation. Courage, pride, display, pug- nacity, skill, all join the protective and provid- ing instincts to make it a carnival of joy. There is almost nothing it cannot do. An instinct that is so marked out by Nature must be of the very highest importance biologically and socially. We cannot afford to neglect these facts about it. It is the most primary of all woman’s qualities. The question that above all others we have to devote our attention to to-day is, whether there is anything in our modern social developments that does or will be likely to change, lessen or destroy the maternal instinct. Ominous ideas are abroad on the subject. Sir James Crichton Browne the other day boldly stated that “professional women,” 1.e., those who had devoted. themselves during their adolescence to hard study, and had attained the highest culture that modern education could