Woman’s Struggle for Educational Rights
By Mrs. H. M. Swanwick
(English contemporary. Author of “The Future of the Woman’s Movement,” from which the following is taken.)
All the world knows of the foundation of the great modern career of sick-nursing; of the more bitter and prolonged struggle of women to study medicine and surgery and qualify as practitioners therein.... All these changes had, to a greater or less degree, to be fought for by those who desired them.... People resisted them with more or less tenacity, and used against the reformers the sort of arguments they are still using against further emancipation.... There are, of course, some Orientalists, even in England, who think in their hearts that it was a great mistake to teach women to read. But most people now accept the principle that women should have the best education available, and only differ as to what that education should be.