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Editor Popular Science Monthly: 


 * In the April number of "The Popular Science Monthly" there was an article, by Dr. William A. Hammond, entitled "Brain-Forcing in Childhood," of which, in so far as it deals with that subject, I have nothing to say here. But the doctor took occasion to have another fling at women, and to that I wish to reply in a way to give him an opportunity to prove, if he can, that his statements are based upon scientific facts and discoveries. If such discoveries have been made they should be on record, and I am assured by the leading men of his profession that no such records exist.

I propose on my side to prove that his statements on this subject, both in this article and a previously published one, from which I shall also quote, are based upon assumption and prejudice, and can not be sustained by scientific tests either by the doctor or any one else.

Since the published opinions of such a man as Dr. Hammond, and in such a magazine as "The Popular Science Monthly," are likely to have a wide influence upon the welfare and prospects of a large number of women, it is most important that he either prove his case or correct his indictment.

In his article on "Brain-Forcing in Childhood" he devotes two and a half pages to a series of statements regarding the native incapacity of woman, the inferiority of her brain in quality, quantity, and development in what brain anatomists call the nobler proportions; and argues that it is an absurdity to allow girls and women to receive and use the means of development which he admits have produced these higher results in man!

Cause and effect, in man, he recognizes as related in the usual manner; while cause and effect in woman appear to have no possible connection.

The higher races of man have a higher brain development than have the lower races. This, he argues, is the direct result of the nature, variety, complexity, and accuracy of their mental training and opportunities. Women's brains in the lower races, he says, are very nearly like those of the men; but in the higher races there is a much greater difference between the brains of the sexes; which, oddly enough, he does not attribute to the fact that they have never been allowed the very training and opportunities which he claims produced the desired change in the males of their race. He holds that it is natural, unalterable difference in the brain-mass itself. Now, if this were the case, would not the difference be quite as marked in the lower races? That the disparity is not natural and unalterable, but that it is the result of lack of opportunity and inequality of education and environment, seems to be plainly indicated by his own argument when logically carried to its conclusion. But he argues that, since the ratio of difference in the brain of the sexes has not remained the same in spite of the great expansion of opportunity for the one and the restriction of opportunity for the other as they rise in the scale of civilized races, it proves inability on the part of the restricted sex. And he then asks for further restriction! This is surely as unscientific as it is illogical.

All this upon the basis that the doctor can prove that such great anatomical differences do exist in the adult brain. But I hold that it never has been done, and that the doctor can not do it. I prepared a number of questions, for which I regret there is not space here, which were submitted to twenty of the leading brain anatomists, microscopists, and physicians of New York, with the results given below.

Dr. Hammond asserts: "Again, it is only necessary to compare an average male with an average female brain to perceive at once how numerous and striking are the differences existing between them." (The italics are mine.) He submits a formidable list of striking differences which include these "The male brain is larger, its vertical and transverse diameters are greater proportionally, the shape is quite different, the convolutions are more intricate, the sulci deeper, the secondary fissures more numerous, the gray matter of the corresponding parts of the brain decidedly thicker." Of this latter point the doctor modestly says that the evidence is not so full as might be desired. But, as if all these were not quite enough to enable the merest novice to distinguish a male from a female brain, he offers these re-enforcements: "It is quite certain, as the observations of the writer show, that the specific gravity of both the white and gray substance of the brain is greater in man than in woman."

All this would seem to leave woman without a chance of escape; for if by any accident her brain did not fall short in gray matter, fissures, etc., the specific gravity of the rest of it would enable the doctor to