WOMEN AND KNOWLEDGE.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1943, 29 December 1913, Page 2

WOMEN AND KNOWLEDGE.

! I Miss Jafto Harrison's very intcresting paper on "Woman and Knowledge," which attracted an unusually large audience to the meeting of the' Sociological S'ocicty in London, and which provoked a debate, discussed the intellectual differences between man and woman, and questioned how far they w»e the result of biological necessity, how far of environment, states ■ the" Manchester "Guardian." She traced their influence on the community, and tried to estimate their relative value. Woman, she suggested, was more resonant and sugge-3tibf-o;' man more insulated- and individualised. It was woman's duty to keep in touch with people and tho general affairs of tho world, while it was man's pleasure—sot free from the necessity of attending to details—to withdraw to some quiet place where he might specialise in his own line. Woman was concerned with the general welfare of the community; mail with individual achievement-. It was intellectually useful to be able, lik'o man, to insulate oneself, and it. wan also intellectually useful to bo in touch, as women were, with external affairs. The present day was marked by the emergence uf woman, the development of her faculties. _ It was also a. time of reaction against indirid'iialistu and intelkotnalfero, a time of racial consciousness. The only real safety for tho community was in a binocu'hr vision, ina-n and woman sharing in-the wider vision, man and woman , sharing in the wider view.- Speaking of her attempt to define intellectual differences between tho sexes, Miss Harrison said that flho owed a great deal to tho help'gives her by men in her work, but. when sho tried to analyse that help she found that after a period of study, when her mind was full of thoughts and ideas and she wanted to disentagle them, the help of a- man was invaluable. A. man's mind was restful in its insularity, and to talk to him was like coming out of a cauldron seething with suggestions into a quiet, wellordered room-

Professor Gilbert Murray, who presided, agreed on the whole with the paper. He said that, like many suffragists, ho had started with a strong inclination to deny all differences between the sexes, but expercncc of lii'o had convinced him that he 'was mistaken. Woman had e-onfimd her energies to casicreto things, and her range was wider than man's, but ho, working for a remoter need, for a big' ger aim, was able to do bigger things. In art lie did greater things, but women eared more for beauty. He built great theological systema, but women were morn religious. He had mastery of his subject, but woman brought to life vividness and a greater power of emotion. The moral of it all wa,s that it was a,''great pity for either side ill the struggle to bo proud of its limitations. Each should Iry sympathetically to realise tlw strength of the other.