Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/195

 In Medicine, women have made more than a decided mark of triumph. It is almost impossible to over-estimate the priceless value of the work done by women doctors and women surgeons in the harems of India and Turkey, where the selfishness and jealousy of the Eastern sybarite would give his women over to cruel agonies of disease and death, rather than suffer them to be so much as looked upon by another of his own sex. Yet, though perfectly conscious that Woman's work in this branch of science is day by day becoming more and more precious to suffering humanity, we have quite recently been confronted by the spectacle of a number of men deciding to resign their appointments at a certain hospital, rather than suffer a woman to be nominated house-surgeon. Her skill and efficiency were as great as theirs, and she had all the qualifications necessary for the post; but no! sooner than honour a woman's ability, they preferred to resign. Comment on this incident is needless, but it is one of the straws that show which way the wind blows.

Much excellent work is done, and remains yet to be done by women, as inspectors of schools. They alone are really fitted for the task of ascertaining the conditions under which children are made to study, and they are not likely, while examining infant classes, to make such ponderous statements as that passed by a certain male inspector, who, according to an amusing story told me by Sir John Gorst, found the babies (not above five years old) "deplorably deficient in mental arithmetic!" It takes a man to deplore "lack of mental arithmetic" in a baby. A woman