妇女应受不同的高等教育吗? Should Higher Education for Women Differ?

    只要在各行各业中、有男女竞争ˇ有男女交往ˇ那么ˇ男女为同一职业所做的准备就不能有两样而又心安理得。

    Mˇ凯里ˇ托马斯(1857ˇ1935)似乎生来就是一个女权主义者。还是孩提时代ˇ她就立意要接受大学教育ˇ以求自立。她出生 于巴尔提摩一个著名的贵格教家庭ˇ是家里九个小孩中年岁最大的。她先是就读于康奈尔大学ˇ然后入约翰士ˇ霍普金斯研究学院(在那里被拒参加研究生讨论会)ˇ最后在苏黎世大学获文学博士学位。回美国不久ˇ她被任命为宾夕法尼亚新创立的布尔ˇ穆尔学院的一个系主任。十一年后ˇ也就是1899年ˇ她成为该院院长。从此她致力于建设一个在课程设置及综合水平方面ˇ都能与最好的男子学院ˇ匹敌的国内一流女子学院。

    l899年ˇ托马斯因反驳哈佛大学校长查尔斯ˇWˇ艾略特而闻名全国。艾略特曾宣称ˇ从历史继承下来的伟大知识遗产“对妇女教育毫无用处”ˇ因而必须去寻找新的模式。托马斯反驳说ˇ艾略特倒不如让妇女教育家去发明“一种新的交ˇ乐ˇ一种新的戏剧ˇ一个新的贝多芬ˇ一个新的瓦格纳ˇ一些新的塑ˇˇ新的绘画ˇ一个新的菲狄亚斯(公元前五世纪希腊雕刻家ˇˇ译者注)ˇ一个新的提ˇ……所有这一切要比为妇女创造一个知识的新天地更容易。”

    在1901年发表的这篇文章里ˇ托马斯阐明了应为男女设置同样的高等教育课程的理由。

    假如妇女为了自立ˇ必须以医生或律师身份与男子竞争ˇ那么ˇ不管是医生还是律师、是男性还是女性ˇ所能获得的最佳训练是什么呢? 没有任何理由认为ˇ女医生用一种方法治愈伤寒、猩红热或肺结核ˇ而男医生治疗这些疾病就得用另一种方法。我们完全有理由认为ˇ病人要得不到最佳的治疗就得死去。医生性别对医疗结果的影ˇ要比病人性别的影ˇ还要微乎其微。只要我们深信世上绝无独特的妇女治病之道ˇ问题就再明了不过了。因此ˇ在法律、建筑、电力、以及所有力学艺术、技术学科里ˇ我们都必须致力于提供最科学的教育ˇ最广泛的训练ˇ使男女学生都能在自己选择的职业中发挥出最高水平。假定分别有男女两位桥梁建造者ˇ要去建造指定的一座桥ˇ在建造这一独特的桥及其它一般的桥的力学规律总是不变的情况下ˇ简直不可ˇˇˇ男女建造者所受的基本教育应有所不同ˇ更不可ˇˇˇ只是因为在施工时ˇ一个穿灯笼裤ˇ另一个穿防雨裙ˇ而必须让他们在质量、数量及教学方法上接受不同的教育。你或许以为ˇ上帝并不ˇ让妇女去建造桥梁。当然ˇ你有权持这种偏见。但既然你生活于美国ˇ而不是亚洲或非洲内陆ˇ那么你可能无法将这种偏见强加给希望成为桥梁建造者的妇女。你可能会说ˇ妇女的智力无法使她们建造出好桥梁。假如你认为这一观点是正确的ˇ其它一切你都不必操心了ˇˇ妇女建的桥反正大都要塌ˇˇ能建造出好桥梁的男人将把她们挤出这一行业的竞争。这些都还只是枝节问题ˇ不管今后如何给予ˇ定ˇ根本影ˇ不了我们提出的主要问题ˇ即在职业技术学校里男女应学同样的课程。你可能会进一步说ˇ男女应分开ˇ而不是要在同一所学校学医、学法律、学桥梁建筑。但过去经验及ˇ时实践ˇ都无法使人就男女同校学习ˇ提出任何令人信服的反对意见ˇ而且公众舆论也是一边倒ˇ对你们的观点极为不利。在这种情况下ˇ你若坚持让职业技术学校的昂贵设施ˇ专为女子教育而依样画葫芦地重添一套ˇ未免过于愚蠢、过于浪费了。为方便讨论ˇ我们不妨假设每一所男子职业技术学校旁ˇ都并排办有类似的女子学校。可专门为女子教育另开职业学校对于解决这种学校该教什么的问题仍于事无补。只要在各行各业中ˇ有男女竞争ˇ有男女交往ˇ那么ˇ男女为同一职业所做的准备就不能有两样而又心安理得。假如男子准备充分ˇ准备不足的女子将在竞争中落伍ˇ假如女子更有准备ˇ准备不够的男子在与女子竞争中将吃亏……

    上述观点同样适用于大学文理研究所的教育。据统计ˇ绝大多数男女研究生毕业后打算从事高等教育的职业ˇ在美国研究生中有三分之一多是女性ˇ而且研究生的年增长率ˇ女性要超过男性。在基础阶段的教学队伍中ˇ男性几乎已经停止与女性竞争ˇ在更高阶段ˇ即大学教学队伍中ˇ女性则刚刚开始与男性竞争ˇ在这一竞争中ˇ女性遇到前所未有的男职业性嫉妒。在美国ˇ独立的女子学院仅有十一所ˇ而男女同校的学院则有三百三十六所。只有在女子学院中ˇ女教师才有机会与男教师竞争教授位置。男女同校的学院聘任女教师是很罕见的ˇ有的话ˇ也只是根据需要和惯例ˇ指派她们负责女生的纪律或家庭生活。当女性在男女同校的学院里与男性一道执教时ˇ女教师的成功将招来男教师的极端不满。由于这种性别嫉妒ˇ学院院长及董事会理事(按常规是清一色的男性)即便有心也无法真正增加女教师人数ˇ无法给女教师晋级。但选修课制度使我们发ˇˇ男生却没有这种性嫉妒ˇ他们肯定女教师教学能力的方式ˇ就是拥ˇ优秀女教师的课堂。在中小学ˇ女教师总的说来工作成绩大大超过男教师ˇ取得了辉煌的成果ˇ所以一旦取ˇ人为的ˇ制ˇ在大学教学中ˇ她们将必定取得同样的成功。教师职业本来正是女性的用武之地ˇ可在其最高分支领域ˇˇ在的偏见对她们极为不利。在这种情况下ˇ没有人再可以固执己见ˇ使女性雪上加霜ˇ让她们接受与男性不同的职业训练……

    当然这种推论还不够全面ˇ我们还得考虑是否真有某些专业尤其适合女性ˇ因此需要开办特殊的女子技术学校。答案是肯定的ˇ确有三种职业学校ˇ其中女生已大大超过男生ˇ即师范学校(包括大学的师范系)、幼教学校及图书馆学的学校。如果烹饪和家政能成为有利可图的职业ˇˇ尤其是当富有的男子果真根据烹调和卫生经验选择妻子ˇ而不是ˇˇ在这样ˇ以妻子的社会地位及知识程度给自己增光的时候ˇˇ就可能到处涌ˇ烹饪和家政学校ˇ而且ˇ师范学校那样ˇ其生员十之八九肯定是女性。毫无疑问ˇ假如这些学校里都是清一色的男生ˇ那么怎么教这些男生ˇ也就怎么教那些女生。烹饪的教授法不会因厨师的性别差异而有所不同……

    继续论证的责任落在那些认为大学教育应对男女区别对待的人的头上。三十年来ˇ大学教育的内容基本上是不分男女性别的ˇ而且女生的收获实在可喜可贺。受过大学教育的女子跟未受过大学教育的姐妹们一样ˇ大都结婚ˇ成立家庭ˇ而且往往家庭更为美满ˇ因为她们选择了大部分有职业的男性。她们也不ˇ人们预测的那样ˇ死于分娩过程ˇ而是生出了数量可观的婴孩ˇ并将他们抚育成人ˇ而不使他们早年夭折。受过大学教育的女性都是称职的好管家ˇ好妻子ˇ好母亲。作为教师ˇ她们成果辉煌ˇ令人刮目ˇ看ˇ以致使那些未受过大学教育的女教师正面临着被挤出教师队伍的厄运。总而言之ˇ学过男子课程的女子ˇ其成功ˇ其能力ˇ其健康状态都是无可挑剔的……

    当然ˇ离开大学后ˇ女子的生活将有别于男子。她们当中大约一半的人谨慎地选择了自己的如意郎君ˇ总的说来ˇ婚后生活轻松自在ˇ不需自谋生计ˇ感到非常快活。她们当中约有三分之一的人成为职业教师ˇ而且可能终生执教。剩下的ˇ大都终身未嫁ˇ但生活轻松、充实ˇ对社会有益。妇女离开大学后ˇ只有三分之一的人ˇ在教书这个独特的极其有ˇ的职业中ˇ才得到终身从事商业或其它职业的男子所受到的更广泛的训练。正因为如此ˇ妇女在大学期间应该ˇ有最广泛的教育。这种教育应是不分男女性别的ˇ原因是ˇ一、我ˇ信最好的教育只有一种ˇ二、男女将作为同志、知心朋友、生活伴侣ˇ一道生活ˇ一道工作ˇ三、如果男女在大学里ˇ受到同样的知识训练ˇ拥有同样的学术ˇ往ˇ具有同样的道德情操ˇ那么ˇ他们本身卓有成效的幸福生活以及他们后代子女的幸福日子都有增无减。

Once granted that women are to compete with men for self-support as physicians or lawyers, . . . what is the best attainable training for the physician or the lawyer, man or woman? There is no reason to believe that typhoid or scarlet fever or phthisis can be successfully treated by a woman physician in one way and by a man physician in another way. There is indeed every reason to believe that unless treated in the best way the patient may die, the sex of the doctor affecting the result less even than the sex of the patient. The question needs only to be put for us to feel irrevocably sure that there is no special woman's way of dealing with disease. And so in law, in architecture, in electricity, in bridge-building, in all mechanic arts and technical sciences, our effort must be for the most scientific instruction, the broadest basis of training that will enable men and women students to attain the highest possible proficiency in their chosen profession. Given two bridge-builders, a man and a woman, given a certain bridge to be built, and given as always the unchangeable laws of mechanics in accordance with which this special bridge and all other bridges must be built, it is simply inconceivable that the preliminary instruction given to the two bridge-builders should differ in quantity, quality, or method of presentation because while the bridge is building one will wear knickerbockers and the other a rainy-day skirt. You may say you do not think that God intended a woman to be a bridge-builder. You have, of course, a right to this prejudice; but as you live in America, and not in the interior of Asia or Africa, you will probably not be able to impose it on women who -wish to build bridges. You may say that women's minds are such that they cannot build good bridges. If you are right in this opinion you need concern yourselves no further―bridges built by women, will on the whole, tend to fall down, and the competition of men who can build good bridges will force women out of the profession. Both of these opinions of yours are side issues, and, however they may be decided hereafter, do not in the remotest degree affect the main question of a common curriculum for men and women in technical and professional schools. But you may say that men and women should study bridge building and medicine and law in separate schools, and not together. You may be foolish enough, and wasteful enough, to think that all the expensive equipment of our technical and professional schools should be duplicated for women, when experience and practice have failed to bring forward a single valid objection to professional coeducation, and when the pres- ent trend of public opinion is overwhelmingly against you; and for the sake of argument let us grant that beside every such school for men is to be founded a similar school for women. But this duplication of professional schools for women leaves us just where we were in regard to the curriculum of professional study to be taught in such women's schools. So long as men and women are to compete together, and associate together, in their professional life, women's preparation for the same profession cannot safely differ from men's. If men's preparation is better, women, who are less well prepared, will be left behind in the race; if women's is better, men will suffer in competition with women. . . .

      The above argument applies with equal force to the training given by the university graduate school of arts and sciences. Statistics indicate that an overwhelmingly large majority of men and women graduate students are fitting themselves for the profession of higher teaching, that over one-third of all graduate students in the United States are women, and that the annual increase of women graduate students is greater than that of men. In the lower grades of teaching men have almost ceased to compete with women; in the higher grade, that is, in college teaching, women are just beginning to compete with men, and this competition is beset -with the bitterest professional jealousy that women have ever had to meet, except perhaps in medicine. There are in the United States only eleven independent colleges for women of at all the same grade as the three hundred and thirty-six coeducational colleges where women and men are taught together, yet only in these separate colleges for women have women an opportunity of competing with men for professors' chairs. It is very rare indeed for coeducational colleges to employ any women instructors, and even then only so many women are as a rule employed as are needed to look after the discipline or home life of the women students. Where women are teaching in coeducational colleges side by side with men their success is regarded by men teachers with profound dislike, and on account of this sex jealousy college presidents and boards of trustees (all of whom are, as a rule, men) cannot, even if they would, materially add to the number of women teachers or advance them. The working of the elective system, however, permits us to see that men students show no such jealousy, but recognize the able teaching of women by overcrowding their classes. Women have succeeded so brilliantly, on the whole so much better than men, as primary and secondary teachers, that they will undoubtedly repeat this success in their college teaching so soon as artificial restrictions are removed. No one could seriously maintain that, handicapped as women now are by prejudice in the highest branches of a profession peculiarly their own, they should be further hampered by the professional training different from men's. . . .

      But this line of reasoning will be incomplete unless we ask ourselves whether there are not some subjects peculiar to women in which we must maintain special women's technical schools. There are certainly three professional schools where women students already largely outnumber men: normal schools, including normal departments of universities, schools of nursing, and schools for library study. If cooking and domestic service ever become lucrative professions, and more especially if men of wealth ever come to choose their wives for culinary and sanitary lore instead as at present for social and intellectual charm, such schools will tend to spring up and, like normal schools, will undoubtedly be attended almost exclusively by women. They will beyond question be taught exactly in the same way as if they were to be attended exclusively by men. The method of teaching cooking is one and the same and does not depend on the sex of the cooks. . . .

      The burden of proof is with those who believe that the college education of men and women should differ. For thirty years it has been as nearly as possible the same, with brilliantly satisfactory results, so far as concerns women. College women have married as generally as their non-college-bred sisters, and have as a rule married better than their sisters, because they have chosen a larger proportion of professional men; they have not died in childbirth, as was predicted; they have borne their proper proportion of children, and have brought up more than the usual proportion of those born; they have made efficient housekeepers and waives as well as mothers; their success as teachers has been so astonishingly great that already they are driving non-college-bred women teachers out of the field. There is, in short, not a word to be said against the success and efficiency and healthfulness of these women educated by men's curriculum. ...

      Undoubtedly the life of most women after leaving college will differ from that of men. About one-half will marry in a rather deliberate fashion, choosing carefully, and on the whole living very happily a life of comparative leisure, not of self-support; about one-third will become professional teachers, probably for life; and the greater part of the remainder will lead useful and helpful lives as unmarried women of leisure. And just because after leaving college only one-third, and that in the peculiarly limited profession of teaching, are to get the wider training of affairs that educates men engaged in business and in the professions all their lives thru, women while in college ought to have the broadest possible education. This college education should be the same as men's, not only because there is, I believe, but one best education, but because men and women are to live and work together as comrades and dear friends and married friends and lovers, and because their effectiveness and happiness and the welfare of the generation to come after them will be vastly increased if their college education has given them the same intellectual training and the same scholarly and moral ideals.