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.

    77/192 (page 61)
    knowledge, nor the avowal of an interest in politics befitted what Mr Collins or Mrs Mala- prop would have termed an “ elegant female,” that it was hardly unlearned half a century ago. For a woman to write a book or even a poem meant almost the loss of character, Miss Burney had to smuggle Evelina to the publisher, and Miss Austen and Jane Elliot could hardly be brought to acknowledge Pride and Prejudice and the Flowers of the Forest. Learning in a woman was only tolerable when—as Horace Walpole said “the petticoat hid the stocking.” We have reached our last period. It is needless to go into detail; we have lived and are living in it. The pendulum has begun to swing to the other side. We shall only notice three points. First, although Democracy has hitherto been chary of | granting opportunity to women, because established custom is against them, and accidental, adventitious aids such as rank, have little weight in a democratic society, still, the “ dim inarticulate millions” of women, as Carlyle might have said, are now coming into view. For women of all ranks and in almost all countries are beginning to be conscious of solidarity. And, whatever other influences are or have been at work, to bring about that great awakening to individual development and public responsibility which marks our age, it is the half- conscious driving power of the masses which is behind, and forces on reform, political and social. Industrial changes have brought independence to