Certainly in such a haphazard industrial world as ours the accession of a fresh army of workers will cause, and is causing, confusion. On the _laissez-faire_ principle this overcrowding of the market is good; it gives a greater play to selection and promotes efficiency. But we have, as I said, forced _laissez-faire_ to compromise with decency. We prefer a little overcrowding, but not too much. The opening of the doors of all the professions to woman means a worse overcrowding than ever in the medical and legal worlds, and we naturally hesitate.
Naturally, but not justly or logically. Between logic and justice the modern man pleads that he is distracted, and he asks time for reconstruction; asks, in other words, that we should leave the trouble to another generation. This shrinking from trouble is of no avail. We have sanctioned the principle of female industry outside the home--millions of women are so employed in England to-day--and we have absolutely no ground to limit it except the natural disability of woman or the social need for her to undertake other functions. Of her natural disability little need be said here. We have had, in most countries, decades of experience of the employment of women in many industries--teaching, nursing, journalism, factory-work, art, theatre, post-office, type-writing, shop-work, and so on. What proportion of complaint to the number of workers is there that their periodical functions make them unfit for employment? We do not need learned experts on gynecology to tell us of the acute and exceptional cases which have come under their observation. The scientific and practical procedure is to make a general inquiry into the net result of our employment of millions of girls and women. Most of us would await such a report with confidence. As long as the wages of women are lower than those of men, we hear very little complaint; nor do we find the work of our schools or the play of our theatres very much interrupted by peculiarly feminine weaknesses. Of late years women have shown that they are equally qualified to be dentists, doctors, chartered accountants, etc. Common-sense would persuade us, if we would find the real limits of woman's capacity, to open to her all the doors of the world of work and learn it by experience.