Page:Address on the Medical Education of Women (1864) - Blackwell.djvu/10

 for good or for harm? It needs but a moment's consideration to see how very deplorable the influence of an ignorant class of female physicians must be!

This brings us to the point to which we wish to call especial attention; the method, viz., by which a thoroughly reliable class of women physicians may be secured.

We will commence the subject by one simple statement—there is not in the whole extent of our country, a single medical school where women can obtain a good medical education. I trust that no one will construe this statement into an attack upon the schools already organized. We have watched their growth with deep interest; we have been solicited to take part in most of them, and would gladly have done so, could we have conscientiously approved of them; but we are very much in earnest in this matter, and dare not waste whatever influence God has given us; and we think that when we have shown what women really require for a medical education, that all will agree with us that a school is needed, which shall be formed on a different plan, organized on a much broader basis.

Consider how women stand in this matter; how alone, how unsupported; no libraries, museums, hospitals, dispensaries, clinics; no endowments, scholarships, professorships, prizes, to stimulate and reward study; no time-honored institutions and customs, no recognized position; no societies, meetings, and professional companionship; all these things men have, none of them are open to women. One can hardly conceive a more complete isolation.

These are external hindrances; there are still more intimate sources of difficulty. Women have no business habits; their education is desultory in its character; girls are seldom drilled thoroughly in any thing; they are not trained to use their minds any more than their muscles; they seldom apply themselves with a will and a grip to master any subject. It may be said that their domestic duties, nursing younger children, helping their