In France, and in many other parts of the Continent, this division of labour in Midwifery is fully carried out, and with great advantage to both parties—to the regular practitioner, who is relieved of part of his most arduous, most wearing and most unremunerative duties, and to the women who have a vocation for medicine, who are able, thus, in large numbers, to gain a respectable living in the profession they wish to practise. I think I may safely say that there are very few medical men who have been ten years in practice, who would not gladly, thankfully, hand over to a body of well-educated and friendly midwifes their half- guinea or guinea midwifery cases. To a young practitioner there is the charm of novelty, and the desire to improve, which make remuneration altogether a secondary consideration. But after ten years‘ practice, often long before, a very decided change comes over the spirit of the dream.” Footnote 66: June 18th, 1870. The part of the letter that follows is perhaps too technical for quotation; but the writer continues on the general question: “I would add in conclusion that, given women of exceptional energy, capacity, and intelligence, nothing would be easier than for them, if deserving, to rise out of the midwifery ranks into a wider sphere of activity and worldly success. Let them show by their energy, by their writing, by their contributions to the progress of medical science, that they had exceptional powers of observation and intellect, and fame would soon reach them. It has reached the very few women, who, like Mrs. Somerville, have given evidence not only of mere ability and talent, but higher powers, the power to grasp the more recondite and abstruse teachings of science. But even this power—the power to master and understand the existing state of science—does not constitute the characteristic feature of the male mind in the Caucasian race. The principal feature which appears to me to characterise the Caucasian race, to raise it immeasurably above all other races, is the power that many of its _male_ members have of advancing the horizon of science, of penetrating beyond the existing limits of knowledge—in a word, the power of scientific discovery. I am not aware that the female members of our race participate in this power, in this supreme development of the human mind; at least I know of no great discovery changing the surface of science that owes its existence to a woman of our or of any race. What right then have women to claim mental _equality_ with men?