That this controversy is no new one may be proved by reference to a very curious black-letter volume now in the British Museum,[40] wherein the writer protests, “I mervayle gretely of the opynyon of some men that say they wolde not in no wyse that theyr doughters or wyves or kynneswomen sholde lerne scyences, and that it sholde apayre their cödycyons. This thing is not to say ne to sustayne. That the woman apayreth by connynge it is not well to beleve. As the proverbe sayeth, ‘that nature gyveth maye not be taken away.’” If it be argued that the study of Natural Science may injure a woman’s character, I would answer, in the words of one of the purest-minded women I know, that “if a woman’s womanliness is not deep enough in her nature to bear the brunt of any needful education, it is not worth guarding.” It is, I think, inconceivable that any one who considers the study of natural science to be but another word for earnest and reverent inquiry into the works of God, and who believes that, in David’s words, these are to be “sought out of all them that have pleasure therein,” can imagine that any such study can be otherwise than elevating and helpful to the moral, as well to the mental nature of every student who pursues it in a right spirit. In the words of Scripture, “To the pure, all things are pure,” and in the phrase of chivalry, “Honi soit qui mal y pense.” It has always struck me as a curious inconsistency, that while almost everybody applauds and respects Miss Nightingale and her followers for their brave disregard of conventionalities on behalf of suffering humanity, and while hardly any one would pretend that there was any want of feminine delicacy in their going among the foulest sights and most painful scenes, to succour, not their own sex, but the other, many people yet profess to be shocked when other women desire to fit themselves to take the medical care of those of their sisters who would gladly welcome their aid. Where is the real difference? If a woman is to be applauded for facing the horrors of an army hospital when she believes that she can there do good work, why is she to be condemned as indelicate when she professes her willingness to go through an ordeal, certainly no greater, to obtain the education necessary for a medical practitioner? Surely work is in no way degraded by being made scientific; it cannot be commendable to obey instructions as a nurse when it would be unseemly to learn the reasons for them as a student, or to give them as a doctor; more especially as the nurse’s duties may lead her, as they did in the Crimea, to attend on men with injuries and diseases of all kinds, whereas the woman who practises as a physician would confine her practice to women only. It is indeed hard to see any reason of delicacy, at least, which can be adduced in favour of women as nurses, and against them as physicians.