The Camp
Sunningdale
June 5/[18]97
My dear La Touche*1
I did not answer your last, & now that I have seen the Cambridge Laboratories, I can tell you that perfect[?] & costly as Mr Barber's apparatus may be, I do not think it possible that any would be required for Cambridge. I think there were 7[?] are seven chemical Laboratories -- all perfectly[?] equipped for the different objects, culminating in a spectroscopic, with an apparatus which I was assured was unique in size & construction. Of students there are hundreds -- who go through the elementary[?] departments[?]

of the inorganic & organic & from thence branch off to the special laboratories.
The fact is that the only way of getting rid of apparatus, however good, is to send it to the auction room; so in exceptional case, you may light upon a nascent Institution[?] requiring apparatus -- but such are generally as poor as rats!
I found Cambridge all agog about the defeat of the women's degree. F. Darwin*2 & his wife hot in favor [sic]; George*3 & his dead against; & Horace*4, now Mayor of Cambridge, neutral. I find that the women do not necessarily pass the same exam as the men, that they [1 word illeg, struck through] can go in for the Tripos utterly ignorant of Latin Greek & Mathematics as far as [the] exam goes -- & this, though flatly contradicted, is really the case. The fact is

that the whole question of women's degrees has never been faced by the women -- nor what is more important, has the University faced the questions of Lecture room, laboratory, library, & museum accommodation, all of which will have to be greatly enlarged (for which there is no money) if they go in for women's education. As it is, the young[?] men[?] now complain of the girls occupying the first benches of the classes, & being being [1 word illeg.] in the Library &c. [Word struck through, illeg.] I further[?] entirely agree with all you say as the in respect of the women themselves; that the function of woman in the scheme of creation is not fully understood, by themselves that is, or rather greatly misunderstood. What is wanted is to raise their their standard of education throughout, without interfering with their special function. I doubt however if they have what you call a "great future before them"*5 -- i.e. in a strictly intellectual sense. No education will give

them originality, & scarcely even intellectual individuality. The Epicene man is a poor woman, but the Epicene woman is a bad man, or nothing. (What a miserable parody!) -- There is no shirking the great fact, that woman's function is to be wife & mother, & that a degree certifying high intellectual powers or qualifications is not that recommendation to the choice of a wife, that it is to a man that of a husband, who must live & maintain wife & children by his wits, however manual his craft may be. Now the drift of all this very high education of women is to lead her to ignore her true place in the scheme of creation -- & most unfortunately it is pushed on at the most critical period of women's life. The Excuse is, that so many women must who either live by their wits, or if they have money & do not marry, must have intellectual food to keep them out of idleness & possible mischief. This is all very true & points to a good reason for giving to those women who must live by their wits, a substantial Degree of some sort (such as they have at the L[ondon]U[niversity]). Hence I rejoice

in recognizing the a public stamp of intellectual merit in such a cases: but do not in seeing a rich man's dau[ghte]r having any tittle title of the sort --But what do we see? the poor[?] hard working girls alone take the L[ondon]U[niversity degrees -- the ladies aim at the incomparably inferior ones of Oxford & Cambridge! Practically it is a question of rich & poor after all, which degree is chosen; & this vitiates the desire for C[ambridge & O[xford] degrees as objects of ambitiousn desire. In the broadest aspect, masc[uline] & fem[inine] of the human species are anatomically, physiologically & intellectually different (I will not allow inferiority) least so in the last respect but still manifestly so. They therefore require different treatments in all their respects as they grow up, & this treatment must be different throughout life -- there is no abrupth abrupt intellectual stop at the period when women's higher education begins, as t whereas at that period when the fem[inine] functions are exacerbated, & the mind more or less affected disturbed (as that of the man is not) in consequence of physiological peculiarities of the sex.
We found Joe*6 well & happy -- his Tutor & coach[?] speak well of him -- I am sure that he is doing his best.*7

He has an exam this week which will tell us what proficiency he has attained. I shall of course let you know as soon as we do. Hughes has been most kind to him. Nothing is done towards building the Geolog[ical] Mus[eum] for which they have ample[?] funds, they assure me that the delay is all due to Hughes*8, who puts every difficulty in the way.
Thence we went for 2 nights to Charlie*9 at Cirencester -- he is doing well & has 4 children.
Foreign affairs are as dull now as they were interesting a fortnight ago -- I see no satisfactory ending of the Crete affair -- I suppose that the powers cannot agree as to the steps to be taken before removing the Turkish troops -- but for whom the Mohammedan population would be butchered by the Christians (so called).
What do you think of Balfour's prospective Bill for Ireland? We there seem to give money to 2 classes as we did to one in the case of British Agriculture[?], but I suppose in the eye of the radicals 2 blacks here do make a white!
Ever with Lady Hooker's kind regards | Sinc[erel]y y[ou]r | J.D. Hooker [signature]