at causes it to work intuitively, instead of by the
slower and sounder processes of logic. To neglect a faculty is by no
means synonymous with developing it. Hence woman's powers of thought and
observation are embryonic rather than matured. The work they perform is
not a tithe of what would be accomplished by them under the auspices of
judicious encouragement and skilled training. The faculty has neither
been destroyed by over-cramming nor fostered by enlightened treatment.
It has simply been allowed to lie more or less dormant, according to the
natural environment of the individual.

If man, with his superior brain capacity, were encouraged to cultivate
the habits of observation at present restricted to woman, and to apply
his intelligence to everything, instead of to a few selected objects,
the ratio of the world's progress would be enormously increased. Who
first started the notion that man is being manufactured into a superior
article, and that woman cannot do better than submit herself with all
haste to the same process, I do not know. At any rate, it is a
disastrous doctrine, and the sooner the fallacy of it is perceived the
more chance there will be of saving future generations of women from the
blunder that is handicapping the masculine sex at the present moment.

It would be a grand thing if educationists could be persuaded to open
their eyes to the fact that women, having been providentially saved from
school instruction for past generations, have been enabled to preserve
mental faculties that no amount of cramming and corporal punishment has
ever succeeded in awakening in man. They would then cease from their
ignorant attempt to deprive woman of her intellectual gift, and possibly
even do something towards securing man a little mental room for the
installation of his own thinking faculty.

CHAPTER X

YOUTH AND CRIME

We now come to the consideration of an aspect of the educational problem
that involves questions of great difficulty and importance. The
discussion has hitherto been limited to the lesser evils attributable to
the forcing upon the masses of the people a useless and unsuitable kind
of education. But there are far graver possibilities than the mere
unfitting of large numbers of individuals for the occupations their
natural propensities intended them to pursue.

People are, as has been pointed out, driven by the stupidity of the
teaching system into all kinds of uncongenial employment.