seless, reading.

I shall doubtless be asked whether I assert that one type of mind belongs
always to the man and one to the woman. By no means. I do not even lay
emphasis on the necessity of naming the two types "male" and "female." All
I say is that the types exist--with those intermediate cases that always
bother the classifier--and that the great majority of men possess one type
and the great majority of women the other. It is possible that differences
of training may have originated or at least emphasised the types; it is
possible that future training may obliterate the lines that separate them,
but I do not believe it. I am even afraid of trying the experiment, for
there is reason to believe that its success in the mental field might
react unfavourably on those physical differences on which the future of
the race depends. We may have gone too far in this direction already; else
why the feverish anxiety of the girls' colleges to prove that their
graduates are marrying and bearing children?

The fact is that the problem of the education of the sexes is not yet
solved. Educating one sex alone didn't work; neither, I believe, does the
present plan of educating both alike, whether in the same institution, or
separately.

II--_A Diagnosis_

Reading, like conversation, is, or ought to be, a contact between two
minds. The difference is that while one may talk only with his
contemporaries and neighbours one may read the words of a writer far
distant both in time and space. It is no wonder, perhaps, that the printed
word has become a fetish, but fetishes of any kind are not in accordance
with the spirit of the age, and their veneration should be discouraged.
Reading in which the contact of minds is of secondary importance, or even
cuts no figure at all, is meaningless and valueless.

In a previous paper, reasons have been given for believing that reading of
this kind is peculiarly prevalent among the members of women's clubs. The
value of these organisations is so great, and the services that they have
rendered to women, and through them to the general cause of social
betterment, are so evident, that it seems well worth while to examine the
matter a little more closely, and to complete a diagnosis based on the
study of the symptoms that have already presented themselves. As most of
the reading done in connection with clubs is in preparation for the
writing and reading of papers, we may profitably, perhaps, direct our