Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men

[288] meeting of the intercollegiate society of Phi Beta Kappa — the only such society based on scholarship in America, all others existing merely for social purposes --it came out incidentally that at least three out of the twenty chapters now composing the fraternity had already admitted women as members, Cornell having a dozen. All these signs indicate a steady progress in the admission of women to the ranks, not of thought and action alone, but of study and scholarship.

When we turn from science to literature, the advance is not quite so marked. It is considerable and substantial; yet in view of the completeness with which literary work is now thrown open to women, and their equality as to pay, there is room for some surprise that it is not greater. Women have engaged largely in journalism, and with much success; but it must be remembered that journalism is not literature, though it belongs to the same genus, and may be quite as important. Journalism is to literature --to use a culinary comparison — as are the breakfast griddle-cakes to the loaf of bread. The former are to be eaten hot or not at all, while the bread only improves by a day or two's keeping. Tie same cook may happen to excel in both, but this is a combination of two different gifts, and cannot safely be counted on. The department in which one may next hope for an advance among the graduates of our women's colleges is in what may be called the