Chicago Tribune
THINKS WOMEN’S INTELLECT
WEAK
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Sociologist Declares Few Feminine Human Beings Mentally Efficient.
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MUCH ROOM TO IMPROVE
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White Men Still Possessed of Too Great Amount of Fighting Instinct
Prof. W. I. Thomas of the University of Chicago in his new book, "Sex and Society," deals a hard blow to many popular theories of the white man’s superiority over his black and yellow brothers.
The sociologist has completed the first few chapters of his work, which is expected to produce a sensation, under the title "Mind of Woman and the Lower Races," and they will appear tomorrow in the American Journal of Sociology, published by the University of Chicago press.
"The world of modern intellectual life is in reality a white man’s world," Prof. Thomas writes. "Few women and perhaps no blacks have ever entered this world in the fullest sense. To enter it in the fullest sense would be to be in it at every moment, from the time of birth to the time of death, and to absorb it unconsciously and consciously, as the child absorbs language.
Civilization Can Go Higher.
"When something like this happens we shall be in a position to judge of the mental efficiency of woman and the lower races. At present we seem justified in inferring that the difference in mental expression are no greater than they should be in view of existing differences in opportunity.
"Whether the characteristic mental life of women and the lower races will prove to be identical with those of the white man or different in quality is a different question and problematical. It is certain, at any rat, that our civilization is not the highest possible.
"In all our relations there is too much of primitive white man’s fighting instinct and technique; and it is not impossible that the participation of woman and the lower races will contribute new elements, change the stress of attention, disturb the equilibrium, and force a crisis which will result in the reconstruction of our habits on more sympathetic and equitable principles.
"Certain it is that no civilization can remain the highest if another civilization adds to the intelligence of its men the intelligence of its women.
Why Some Are Not Intellectual.
Referring to the intellectual capacity of women Prof. Thomas declares:
"The savage, the peasant, the poor man, and woman are not what we call intellectual, because they are not taught to know and manipulate the material of knowledge. The savage is outside the process from geographical reasons; the peasant is not in the center of interest; the poor man’s needs are pressing, and do not permit of interest of a mediate character; and the woman does not participate because it is neither necessary or womanly.
"Even the most serious minded women of the present day stand, in any work they undertake, in precisely the same relation to men that the amateur stands to the professional in games. They may be desperately interested, and may work to the limit of endurance at times; but, like the amateur, they get into the game late, and have not had a lifetime of practice, or they do not have the advantage of that pace gained only by competing incessantly with players of the first rank.
Marriage System Is Blamed
"The American woman, with the enjoyment of greater liberty, has mad an approach toward the standards of professional scholarship, and some individuals stand at the top of their university studies and examinations. The trouble with these cases is that they are either swept away and engulfed by the modern system of marriage or find themselves excluded in some intangible way from association with men in the fullest sense, and no career is open to their talents.
