New York Times
LIKENS WOMEN TO SAVAGES.
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Prof. Thomas Puts Them on a Level So Far as Intellect Is Concerned
Special to The New York Times.
Chicago, Jan. 19. — So far as intellect is concerned, the modern woman is on a plane with the savage, according to Prof. W. I. Thomas of the Sociology Department of the University of Chicago. The author of a new book, "Sex and Society," Prof. Thomas has spent a lifetime in studying women in the abstract as one of the important elements of sociology, and he thinks he ought to know. As for woman’s intellectual development in the future, the Professor is not exactly optimistic.
The sociologist has completed the first few chapters of his work, which is expected to produce a sensation, under the title of "Mind of the Woman and the Lower Races," and they will appear to-morrow 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.
"The savage and woman are no what we call intellectual, because they are not taught to know and manipulate the materials of knowledge. The savage is outside the process from geographical reasons, and the woman does not participate, because it is neither necessary nor womanly.
"The American woman, with the enjoyment of greater liberty, has made an approach toward the standards of professional scholarship, and some individuals stand at the tope of their university studies and examinations.
"The personal liberty of women is, comparatively speaking, so great in America, suggestions and copies for imitation are spread broadcast so copiously in the schools, newspapers, books and lectures, and occupations and interests are becoming so varied that a number of women of natural ability and character are realizing some definite aim in a perfect way. But these are sporadic cases.
