diff options
Diffstat (limited to '78278-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 78278-0.txt | 4458 |
1 files changed, 4458 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/78278-0.txt b/78278-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7c1b835 --- /dev/null +++ b/78278-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4458 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78278 *** + + + + +[Illustration: DR. MARIE STOPES as thousands have seen her on the +lecture platform.] + + + + + THE + AUTHORIZED LIFE + OF + MARIE C. STOPES + + BY + AYLMER MAUDE + + AUTHOR OF + + _Life of Tolstoy_. + + _Editor of the “Maude Tolstoy” in the World’s + Classics Series._ + + + LONDON: + WILLIAMS & NORGATE, LTD. + 14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.2 + + 1924 + + +MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENT. + + +The author expresses his grateful thanks to the following firms who +have kindly given permission for the use of some of the photographs +illustrating this book:--Messrs. Swaine, Elliott & Fry and Neame. + + + + + TABLE OF CONTENTS + + I. The Theme. + + II. Glimpses of Childhood. + + III. The Student. + + IV. Academic Life. + + V. World Travel. + + VI. Marriage. + + VII. “Married Love” and its Developments. + + VIII. Opponents. + + IX. Inner Life. + + APP. A. List of Books and Pamphlets by Dr. Marie Stopes. + + APP. B. List of Dr. Stopes’s Scientific Memoirs, etc., Embodying + her New Discoveries. + + APP. C. The tenets of the C.B.C. + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + 1. Dr. Marie Stopes as thousands have seen her on the lecture + platform. + + 2. The author at Givons Grove with Mrs. Zangwill on his left, Dr. + Marie Stopes kneeling, and her mother on his right. + + 3. Marie Stopes as a student, with a group of professors, in the + mountains. Prof. Goebel on her left. + + 4. The first portrait in her robes as Doctor of Science of London. + + 5. Humphrey Verdon Roe. + + 6. Dr. Marie Stopes at the time of her marriage to Mr. H. V. Roe. + 1918. + + 7. An Industrial Conference at Givons Grove. + + 8. Dr. Stopes, seated, with her husband’s father and mother. + + 9. Mr. H. V. Roe and “Wuffles” as a puppy. + + 10. Members of the Birth Rate Commission. The Bishop of Birmingham + in the centre. Dr. Stopes on his left. + + 11. Dr. Marie Stopes and her Baby, Harry Verdon Stopes-Roe, aged 3 + months. + + 12. Dr. Marie Stopes. + + 13. Dr. Marie Stopes. + + 14. Inner home life: Dr. Stopes as gardener, and her husband with + the car. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE THEME. + + +To write the life of a friend who is still very much alive presents +difficulties, but they are compensated for in the present case by +the fact that I am able to consult the subject of my work and her +family, and draw much of my material direct from the fountain head. +I had a similar experience when I wrote _The Life of Tolstoy_, but +there my subject was eighty years of age and had nearly completed +his life’s span, whereas my present subject is still young, and her +work in full progress without any sign of exhaustion. In the former +case I wrote of the ablest man I had met, and now I am writing of the +ablest woman I have met. In both instances their personality and the +influence exercised by their works, as well as misunderstanding and +misrepresentation to which they have been exposed, invite attention. + +Dr. Stopes’s world-wide reputation as a scientist, especially as a +leading authority on palæobotany and coal-research, is not the sort +of reputation that quickly reaches the general public. What has made +her name rapidly familiar the world over has been the revolution she +has effected in the general attitude towards sex. When, under the +influence of painful personal experience, she began to touch that +question, six years ago, no intelligible principles were recognisable +among us to guide people in their matrimonial arrangements. There was, +on the one hand, an obscure impression that virginity, celibacy, and +the suppression of the sex-instinct, were ideals for normal men and +women to aim at, while on the other hand there was an equally cloudy +belief that married couples ought either to avoid marital relations or +produce as many offspring as chance might send--regardless of whether +such offspring were likely to be healthy or unhealthy and whether +the parents could support them or not; regardless also of the effect +continuous child-bearing would have on the health, or even on the +life, of the mother. Guidance was sometimes offered on the basis of +a misapplication of the 38th chapter of Genesis--which relates to a +pre-Mosaic state of morality and has to be violently twisted before +it can even be made to appear to apply to the problems of to-day. All +this was merely a darkening of counsel with words, unsatisfying alike +to those who read the Bible for themselves, and to those who sought +reasonable guidance elsewhere for their sex-relationships. + +Many felt the need of a sensible principle on which sex morality could +rest, and in the chapter on “The Sex Question” in my book _Leo Tolstoy_ +I ventured to say: “It may be necessary to overhaul the accepted ideals +on this subject and to consider it afresh,” and had suggested the +principle that “those things are good in sexual relations which make +for the health, happiness, and efficiency of the present and future +generations”; but this was a cold philosophic conclusion, and it was +Dr. Stopes who supplied what was really needed, namely, an application +to the detailed treatment of the sex problem of a keenly trained +scientific brain in combination with artistic ability to convey her +feelings, and an appreciation of the immense importance of the subject +for the welfare of mankind. + +Love and hunger are the two great driving forces of humanity, and we +cannot afford to allow a taboo to inhibit the application of thought +to the problems relating to either of these, nor can any system of +morality be effective the reason for which cannot be so stated as to +commend it to the acceptance of rational people frankly facing the +facts life sets before us. + +In relation to ordinary normal humanity Dr. Stopes agrees with what +is said in the Bible: that it is not good that “man should be alone,” +and with the implication of the text which says that “male and female +created he them.” She also agrees with St. Paul’s injunction to +husbands and wives: “Defraud ye not one the other, except it be by +consent for a season”; and she is sure that it is nothing less than a +crime for people recklessly, or deliberately, to bring into the world +children who cannot be healthy or be decently provided for, and that +it is also a crime to sacrifice the health and lives of women by +demanding that they shall bear children beyond their capacity to do so +healthily and willingly. + +To indicate on the one hand scientific reasons why normal marital +relations are favourable to the development of one’s mental and +physical powers and one’s capacity to serve God and man, and why on +the other hand the ascetic type of celibate is often cantankerous, +embittered, and troublesome, required up-to-date knowledge of the +action of secretions in the human body. To discover and point out the +hidden rocks on which many marriages are wrecked owing to ignorance +of a normal sex-rhythm in healthy women, was work specially suitable +for a woman scientist. Considerable courage was needed to present +these matters to the general public (whom they so greatly concern) +in defiance of the social taboo that then still prevailed, and of a +medical prejudice against the lay public being permitted to understand +things that pertain to their peace. Besides these qualities, literary +skill was needed, and much tact had to be employed, to present the case +so that it should reach a wide circle of readers and convince them, +without creating any avoidable friction. + +The effect of Dr. Stopes’s efforts, in so short a time as six years, +has amounted to nothing less than a revolution in the general attitude +towards sex. She has created a new atmosphere and a new terminology. +Even her opponents now use her language; the difference noticeable +before and after the publication of _Married Love_ is most marked. +Heaps of imitators and heaps of converts have appeared. + +On the special question of birth control (which by the way is only +briefly alluded to in a couple of pages of _Married Love_) a great +deal had been written before Dr. Stopes dealt with the matter, and as +long ago as 1868 there had even been a voluminous correspondence about +it in a leading London newspaper, but, in spite of much discussion +concerning this and some other special aspects of the sex problem, +it somehow happened that up to the time when Dr. Stopes began her +work ignorance on the general subject was so prevalent, and so +widespread was the superstition that peculiar moral virtue pertained to +ignorance, that it was still possible for an intelligent, alert, and +scientifically-minded woman to experience great difficulty in obtaining +information that to-day is readily accessible to every intelligent +inquirer. + +The battle is now set between a reasonable and an unreasonable moral +code; and though the force of inertia and a long tradition of ignorance +are on the side of the obscurantists, the ultimate triumph of light +against darkness is already assured. + +In this introductory chapter I will merely quote the opinions expressed +by two writers well qualified to judge of the value of Dr. Stopes’s +work. Owing to the extreme urgency of the need, the public has +over-emphasized her birth control work and under-estimated her general +work on sex. Concerning this latter Dr. Havelock Ellis, the leading +world authority on sexology, writing in the _Medical Review of Reviews_ +(Vol. 25, No. 2, Feb., 1919), says of some of the new observations in +_Married Love_:-- + + “This seems to represent the most notable advance made during recent + years in the knowledge of women’s psycho-physiological life.” + +And Mr. Luther Munday wrote:-- + + “There always have been situations experienced that neither the Bible + nor Science have hitherto explained.... But through your thought has + come, once for all, a message clean and pure, linking the mystery + of sex with the majesty of the Eternal and giving happiness to all + during life’s little part of immortality here on Earth.” + +The following chapters furnish some account of the preparation Dr. +Stopes had for her work, of the fields in which she has made her mark, +of what she herself is like, of the personal experiences that directed +her attention to the problems of sex, and of the opposition she has +encountered. + +It is greatly to be hoped that, both on the problems of sex and on +other subjects, Dr. Stopes will add much in the future to what she has +already given us. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +GLIMPSES OF CHILDHOOD. + + +Marie Carmichael Stopes, the first child of Henry Stopes and Charlotte +Carmichael, his wife, was born in Edinburgh, the town of her mother’s +birth and upbringing, but her father was pure English, and at the age +of six weeks the baby girl became a Londoner, which, in essence, she +has remained ever since. + +Henry Stopes was by profession an architect, but since early childhood +had a passion for fossils and the stone tools left by prehistoric +man. Indeed, at the age of eight years he was whipped soundly for +insisting on taking his stones to bed with him, and through life his +passion for archæological research furnished him with a second career, +which undoubtedly greatly influenced the home surroundings of his +children and, in the case of his elder daughter, largely directed +the line of her development. Long before his death Henry Stopes had +accumulated the largest private collection in the world of prehistoric +stone implements, and their constant care and classification, as +well as collection, was a great feature in his elder daughter’s life +from her earliest childhood. Henry Stopes’s interests were profound +in many directions and very human; in addition to these two main +interests he was a noted agricultural expert, writing regularly under +a _nom-de-plume_ for agricultural papers, and being Chairman of the +British Judges of Barley; being indeed a pioneer in the critical +judging of grain. He accumulated statistics on the effects of different +rotations of crops in connection with prize-winning strains and so +on, which meant a great deal of statistical work from the records of +numerous entrants for the annual barley competitions, in which his +little girl, before she was twelve years old, used to help him, or +was led to believe that she was helping him, while undoubtedly he was +training her in arithmetic and in a scientific attitude of mind towards +life in general. + +Marie Stopes sometimes calls herself a “British Association Baby,” for +Henry Stopes and Miss Carmichael were first introduced at a meeting +of the British Association; and Marie was taken, from childhood, to +almost every meeting of the Association during her school days, only +missing those meetings which were held overseas. + +Charlotte Carmichael Stopes, her mother, was one of the pioneers of +women’s University education, having been the first woman to take the +University Certificate in Literature, Philosophy, and a number of other +subjects at Edinburgh University when they were given by the Professors +privately for the ladies, who were afterwards examined with the same +examination papers as the men, but from whom degrees were withheld. +Charlotte Carmichael headed many a list in the early days when Miss +Jex Blake was studying medicine. After marriage Miss Carmichael +came to live in London, and took up the study of Shakespearean +contemporary history, becoming an expert in reading early records +and ferreting out many of the facts time had rendered obscure about +Shakespeare’s life history. She is the author, among other works, of +“The Bacon-Shakespeare Question Answered,” “Shakespeare’s Warwickshire +Contemporaries,” “The Life of the Earl of Southampton,” and a large +number of serious original contributions published by the learned and +periodical press. + +Thus on both sides the baby Marie inherited a variety of intellectual +interests. One of her maternal great grandfathers was Brown, the Royal +Architect, in Edinburgh, who not only repaired Holyrood Palace but +designed and built many of the finest streets and squares in the West +End of Edinburgh which still delight the town-planners of to-day. +Another maternal great grandfather was William Carmichael, Writer to +the Signet, assistant and then successor to Sir Walter Scott. The Scott +family were intimate with the Carmichaels, and Lady Scott personally +embroidered a beautiful Christening robe for one member of the family, +which descended to Marie, was used for her own Christening, and is now +handed on to her son. + +On her father’s side, behind an immediate Quaker connection, there was +a long line of Anglican clergy. + +Inherited also was a great liking, indeed almost a passion, for +travel. After the journey at six weeks from Edinburgh to London, the +nine-months-old baby was taken to the seaside and plunged into the sea, +and thereafter never less than twice a year, and often more frequently, +she made a journey to some part of England or Scotland, becoming later +on a world-wide traveller. + +After a few years little Marie had a sister, called Winifred, and these +two were the only children of their parents, no boys being wished for. +This fact, and the attitude of generous appreciation towards women +that was characteristic of her father, undoubtedly had a favourable +influence on her character and achievements through life, for she was +brought up from her earliest consciousness not only to feel that her +birth had been desired, but that she, as a girl, had been wished for +and that no boy would have satisfied her parents as she did. For an +eldest child who has the misfortune to be a girl when a boy is desired, +a very different home and outlook must develop. Whilst still a tiny +child, when asked by enquirers if, besides her sister there was no +brother, she would gravely announce that pussy was her brother, and +she thinks she was probably 8 or 9 years old before she realised +that pussy was not a brother. Her father being particularly fond of +cats, and having an almost magical power of training them, the family +pussy had its own dinner-service and used to sit up at table with the +children, eating off its own plate on the table from a high chair just +like Marie’s little sister. + +From her uneventful childhood, a few points stand out in her memory +as being of great importance in the development of her character. One +of these was a nurse who was for many years their devoted attendant, +and after whom the favourite doll was called “Little Annie.” Nurse +Annie, one day, looking at the doll’s dress which the child was sewing, +remarked that it was very good “for a lady,” and Marie, at that time +not more than six or seven years of age, blazed with indignation that +it should not be very good in itself. In some queer childish way she +resented the fact that a lady should be considered incapable of doing +things as well as other people, and determined that she would sew, at +any rate, as well as a servant. This she did, but unfortunately the +nurse said nothing about knitting like a lady; so that when she was +twelve years old and went first to school, she immediately took first +place in the sewing class and bottom place in the knitting class. + +A rather absurd introduction to her later well-known birth control +ideas also may be traced to the nursery. Her mother one day, when the +nurse told her that new boots were needed, laughingly remarked, “Oh, +what should I do if I had a dozen children?” Little Marie gravely +remarked: “You would drown all the others, and keep Winnie and me.” + +In London the Stopes family lived beside the Crystal Palace in a house +in Cintra Park, overlooking private grounds on one side and with +ground behind the three central gardens of the neighbouring circle of +houses, which went uphill and downhill, so that the children had much +space in which to play. Mr. Stopes built a wing on to the house that +they took and, having very enlightened architectural ideas for those +days, had an open verandah connecting the back parts of the house, +for the convenience of the maids and to make an open-air playground +for the children in wet weather. In the garden an old quince tree +was a favourite resort of the children, because they could lie on +its branches and overlook the stableyard, and watch the horses being +groomed. It was under this quince tree, too, that Marie Stopes says +she first got the idea, as a very small child, which finds expression +in her pamphlet “Mother, how was I born?”--for it was just by that +quince tree that, as a prattling child of four or five, she was talking +about babies and where her little sister had come from, and she felt, +rather than saw, that people were laughing while telling her the +gooseberry-bush fiction, and she then felt, with a flush of insight +and indignation, that they were lying to her. The matter however did +not actually interest her, but the vivid impression of that moment +has painted on her memory every leaf, and the exact arrangement of +the grass and of the border walks, so that it is the most vividly +remembered scene of the whole of that home. + +The children were taken regularly once or twice a year to some seaside +place, and for many years they went to different seaside resorts in the +South of Scotland. At about the age of nine, North Berwick was the +choice, and Marie’s inherited passion for fossils had full vent in the +collection of crinoids which were washed up thickly on the seashore. +There too Marie Stopes tells me that she has a very vivid memory of +lying on her back in the garden at North Berwick and really, for the +first time in her life, noticing the clouds; noticing them, that is to +say, in such a way that to this day she can remember their shapes and +patterns and the thrilling sense of portentous glory their mounting +and swiftly riding god-like forms created in her mind. She thinks +this was connected in some way with the reading of a book, “Tales of +Ancient Greece,” which had been given to her not long before; but she +says it felt as though she had suddenly looked through a glass-door +into the whole Universe, peopled with mysterious beings she had never +seen before and never ceased to see thereafter. A little later, indeed +she thinks that very summer, a sense of personal shame and inferiority +developed in her, which she did not get over for many years, and +at that time almost her only consolation was the story of the Ugly +Duckling in Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales. The first sense of personal +shame resulted from her mothers’ advanced, and as we moderns would +think very sensible, ideas. Little Marie had been given a knitted +dress to wear, when no one else, at any rate in that seaside place, +was advanced enough to be wearing knitted dresses; and instead of +feeling happy and distinctive in it she felt utterly ashamed to appear +different from other children; a feeling that was accentuated by the +fact that a young cousin laughed at her. About this same time, owing +to the curious inaccuracy and incompleteness of a child’s ideas, this +feeling was emphasised and increased by the following incident. The +Stopes family and three or four other families in the district combined +to employ the services of a private dance-mistress, who came in turn +to each of the four houses, where the class was held in rotation. +Mrs. Stopes, when her turn came, gave the children a nice tea of +wholesome cakes without currants, and to make them attractive used to +send to town for cakes with coloured icings and various fancy things +she thought the children would like. One of the other households, +however, gave only rock buns and milk. Poor little Marie thought that +rock buns, as they contained currants, which she was never allowed to +have at home, were something much grander and more expensive, and was +always ashamed of the fact that they were not rich enough to have rock +buns for tea. As usual with her however no external sign of this deep +shame was ever shown, but for years she felt crushed and humiliated by +the fact that to her a halfpenny rock bun was far grander than an iced +gateau. At this time and all through her earlier childhood her father +was very well-to-do--but he had great financial losses when she was +about eleven, which left them permanently impoverished in comparison +with the earlier expectations. + +Marie’s education was exceptional in many ways. Her mother having been +brought up in the good old Scottish school, started the little girl of +about five on Greek and Latin roots, so as to give her a fundamental +knowledge of the structure of the English language. But Marie proved +so stupid that this was dropped and, beyond being taught to read and +write, she had indeed almost no education until, a few days before +she was twelve, she was sent to school. This statement should however +be qualified by mention of something that, again, greatly influenced +her mental attitude towards the Universe. A large atlas was solemnly +brought out every morning, and on its title-page this atlas had a +circle in which part of the world was drawn with clouds around it. Her +first memory of any lesson at all was pointing with a stubby little +baby finger at this circle, representing a sphere, and repeating “The +world is round and rolls in space.” This formula, which was repeated +daily for years, so impressed itself on her that she was always trying +to feel the world rolling in space and even, as a very small child, +used to wonder which way up she was standing at any given moment. + +Marie and her sister Winifred were sent to St. George’s School in +Edinburgh for their first schooling, and then the unusual nature of her +preliminary training, pitted against the ordinary school curriculum, +left her woefully behind her age in attainments, so that she was +put with a class of girls much younger than herself. In half a term +however she began to find her feet, but not before her backwardness had +emphasised the feeling of shame and humiliation at her inferiority, +which indeed throughout her schooldays was strongly characteristic of +her, and which she tried to hide by making the most of any attainments +that she thought she had; and she undoubtedly had some that were +unusual in a child of her age. For instance, she had been entrusted +by her father with a small collection of flint implements he was +presenting to the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries in Edinburgh, +and when she was taken down with them to Dr. Anderson, the learned +Director of the Museum, without any hesitation or embarrassment she +gave him what amounted to a lecture on their nature and uses, and told +him what to write on the labels for the exhibition cases. So amused +were her elders by her expert knowledge of these implements, that her +head mistress asked her to lecture to the assembled school on the +subject. This she did, her audience consisting of the entire school +including the teachers. Having never been brought up to an acute +personal consciousness or any personal conceit, she did not realise +then that there was anything unusual or surprising in facing such an +audience. A diary which Dr. Stopes kept as a child for some weeks still +exists, and begins with an entry concerning her first day at school: +“Oct. Tuesday 4. I went to school at 10 o’clock and did not like it +at all. I went to bed very cross.” Three days later comes an entry +relating to what subsequently became one of her chief studies. “Friday, +7th. Went to school. It was so nice we had an object lesson on coal +mines and coal.” + +While in Edinburgh she had the immense advantage of the kindly personal +friendship of Miss S. E. S. Mair, her mother’s friend, one of the +originators of the St. George’s Girls’ School, the best school in +Edinburgh, and a leader of social life and advanced thought in that +city. Miss Mair used to give famous parties for little girls, at which, +after a sumptuous tea, each child was asked to make a clever remark to +entertain the whole company. Marie’s remarks, though presumably not +clever, were extremely embarrassing to her and kept her petrified with +fear throughout the whole tea, so that she used to feel that it was a +great pity the remarks were not asked for before tea, because then her +appetite would have been so much better for the tea itself--a feeling +that no doubt many after-dinner speakers have shared. In Edinburgh also +the horizon of the two little girls was enlarged by the kindly care and +interest of Miss Menzies, who had a great interest in Iceland and read +many Icelandic and Northern sagas aloud to them. Miss Menzies too had +a comfortable elderly cook who took Marie’s domestic education in hand +and on Saturdays taught her home cooking and the making of real Scotch +scones and shortbreads, interesting her in cooking, and sowing the +seeds of an accomplishment which later in life proved of great value +when she was out camping, or living under unusual conditions, as she +often did. + +After two years in Edinburgh the children were brought back to +London and were sent to the North London Collegiate School, whose +head mistress was Dr. Sophie Bryant, the successor of Miss Buss, the +original founder of the School. Although two years of Edinburgh +schooling had made Marie rather better able to meet girls of her own +age on an equality, she was still far behind her years in many of +the routine school subjects; and when she finally passed the London +matriculation, second-class, her Latin mistress said to her: “I do +not know how you did it, you had no business to get through,” and she +replied: “I did it by writing very clearly everything I knew and saying +nothing about the things I did not know; for I thought it would save +the Examiners’ time”--a remark which showed much penetration, for in +later years, when Dr. Marie Stopes herself became an examiner, she +learnt how examiners are worried by illegible handwriting and screeds +of mazy reading which do not make it clear to them what the candidates +know and what they do not know. At the North London Collegiate School +the two girls were still educated in a rather unusual way. They were +not permitted to go to afternoon school, and only lived in London from +Monday mornings till Friday middays, going home to a country house +in the then beautiful village of Swanscombe. The house there was +an old Elizabethan oak-panelled house which Marie was old enough to +appreciate, and the charm of which, and the mysterious beauty of some +of its rooms, fascinated her in her early adolescence. At the age of +about fourteen she often got up at four or five in the morning in order +to be alone in the old rooms, one or two of which she sketched very +industriously though with little talent. These pictures however are +still precious to her as recalling the house she has ever loved. It had +a very high stone wall along the tiny village street on one side, and +opened into cherry orchards leading to woodlands on the other, and it +was in these woods and flowery lanes that Marie first really saw the +beauty of flowers. She says: + + “At the age of fifteen I remember observing the faces of flowers as + passionately as I had at the age of about nine observed the sky. I + escaped by myself one day into the woods and spent several hours + lying motionless, gazing into the faces of the violets. That too was + the opening of a door into another universe. Of course, I suppose I + must have seen flowers before, but till then I had never felt the + sight of them.” + +This home in Swanscombe had been taken because of Henry Stopes’s +great interest in the brick-earths and gravels of the surrounding +neighbourhood, which teemed with relics of prehistoric man in the shape +of both palæoliths and neoliths, and there Marie, and to a less extent +her sister Winifred, spent nearly all their holiday time and almost the +whole of every Saturday and Sunday, collecting specimens with their +father in the quarries and on the fields, washing them, labelling them, +and cataloguing them, with him. To this house also came many visitors +of interest to the growing children. + + “One of my schoolgirl memories of Swanscombe is the famous editor, + Mr. Norman Maccoll, the editor of the then thunderer, the _Athenæum_. + He was always very charming to us children, but disapproved of + our going into the woodlands without gloves, as he said we were + to be young ladies in the future and should have white hands. So + on the days that he came to lunch we used to put on gloves to go + round the woodlands with him, but never on other occasions. He was + a very stout, elderly gentleman with long beard and a benign, + fatherly face, though his literary criticisms were the terror of + many a serious author. We did not look upon him with such awe as we + undoubtedly should have done, and I remember once luring him to sit + on a very firm bush, through which he promptly went, leaving only his + head and his feet sticking up, and from which the united strength of + my little sister and myself were insufficient to extricate him, red + and indignant, and very much less pompously impressive than usual. + I remember another occasion when, to avoid climbing a high fence, + we children stepped through, and he, miscalculating the width of + the bar, followed us but stuck midway. No pushing or pulling could + get him either in or out. He became purple in the face, and we were + all frantic. My mother, as one of his reviewers and an author whose + reputation could be made or marred by his paper, was almost in + tears, and my father at last was so genuinely concerned that he ran + home for a saw. I also remember Seton Karr, the famous lion hunter, + lunching with us and being escorted across the cherry orchard by my + sister and myself, wherein we encountered two or three cows from + whom Seton Karr fled with teeth chattering, while my sister and I + remained a protective bodyguard between him and the cows. We were + firmly convinced at the time that he was in real fear of them, and I + remember preaching to myself a moral lesson on the vanity of courage. + Now, however, I begin to wonder whether he was not an adept in the + art of pleasing children. A man who also made a great impression + on my early childhood was the very lovable late Dr. Furnivall, the + famous Shakespearean, who often came to lunch with us in his pink + shirt and with his pink bald head, and went with us through the woods + in a state of childlike glee. He first among all my acquaintances + showed me the delight of lying flat on one’s back in the baking + sunshine, and I well remember his refusal to proceed round the + woodland with my mother and the rest of the party, and insisting on + lying where he was on the violet-decked slope in the sun for an hour + at a time, while the rest took the decorous walk round the crest + and picked him up on their return. I remember also there Professor + Sayce, the famous Assyriologist, whose life has just been published, + and who was much interested in my father’s implements; and also Mr. + Mabson, the owner and editor of the _Statist_, a journal for which my + father sometimes wrote. + + “As a young girl I met so many of my parents’ friends, mostly + people who were doing something in the world of thought, that it is + difficult to say who influenced me and who did not; but I clearly + remember an outstanding influence from one talk with Sir Francis + Galton and also from Mrs. Alec Tweedie, whose house I was sometimes + taken to visit. Once at a party at Robert Mond’s country house she + introduced me to him as ‘a girl who is going to do great things.’ + I felt it was incumbent upon me to try to live up to such an + introduction!” + +With the exception of one annual day for their chief school friends, +the children had almost no young companionship, but listened to the +talk of scientific or literary experts at their parents’ table, and +found their chief amusement in the constant companionship of their +father. When the elder girl was about fifteen however the parents +thought it wise to come nearer to their school, and the family moved +to Hampstead, by chance to the house next door to Professor Bonney, +the geologist. Professor Bonney had not grasped who his new neighbour +was, and when hundreds of butter boxes were piled in the garden, he +gave out a groan round the neighbourhood, that his new neighbour was +a wretched grocer. Professor Bonney, who was more a geologist than an +archæologist, showed only a polite interest in the boxes when he found +out that the contents were museum specimens of stone implements and not +the remains of a grocery business. + +The continuous unconscious education which companionship with her +father gave Marie was supplemented, whilst settling into this house, by +really expert lessons in carpentry. Her father, always anxious that she +should not do things in a “ladylike” way, taught the girl when and how +to use screws instead of nails, and how to mitre a corner, in making +cabinets or shelves, and both girls helped their father to put up many +shelves and make arrangements for his specimens. This resulted in a +passion to do things for herself, and a small room was allotted as a +study for the girls, which Marie distempered with a stencilled design +of her own make, and for which she constructed a good deal of the +furniture. In this room she pursued her school studies in an erratic +way, hurrying through the official homework and, as she grew older, +reading many books it would probably have surprised her elders to +know that she read. “Between the ages of sixteen and seventeen I read +most of Kant and Swedenborg, a great deal of comparative theology, as +well as a large number of out-of-the-way novels, and, of course, many +scientific books, such as ‘The Origin of Species’ and others then new +to me, which it would have shocked my mother very much to know that I +was taking seriously.” + +In her later school years Marie had more or less caught up to the +standard for her age, but until she reached the Sixth Form and was a +Prefect, she never felt really sure among her school contemporaries. +Even though in many classes she headed the list, she always came down +in some other subject. She was seldom indisputably top of the class, +but when she was nearly seventeen the chemistry mistress, Miss Aitken, +developed scarlet fever, and for the next morning’s work there was +no teacher. Marie, without hesitation, went to the headmistress and +said that as she had been spending some hours in the laboratory she +knew just what Miss Aitken had intended to give to those classes, and +that she could show where the apparatus was ready prepared. Dr. Sophie +Bryant, the headmistress, in view of the crisis, and also possibly +to test the quality of a girl in whom she felt some interest, asked +Marie if she could take the classes, which she did; and then for six +weeks, directed only by correspondence from Miss Aitken, Marie took the +chemistry for the whole school, including the class of which she was +herself a member. She was very proud when she received a present of £5 +for having done this, and much humiliated when having sent a receipt +without a stamp on it, this was returned for her to rectify the error. +Nevertheless she went through the school leaving a general impression +on most, if not all, the mistresses, except Miss Aitken and Dr. Sophie +Bryant herself, that she was a stupid girl whose plodding perseverance +alone saved her from disgracing herself in the examinations. Among +her school-mates she made a few lasting friendships. Her great school +friend, and the only one whose life has remained in close contact +with her own, is Olga Kapteyn, a girl of Dutch descent, niece of +Professor Kapteyn, the famous astronomer. These two girls, who both +had a passion for colour, including a love of gold and orange tone for +silk (which was then almost unattainable), came together over their +intense appreciation of their teacher, Miss Aitken. Of Miss Aitken, +Marie Stopes says: “She was, undoubtedly, the greatest influence in my +school career. She opened to me the door that led to all the exquisite +beauty of Italian art and of the school of artists represented by +Watts, Rossetti, and their contemporaries. She taught me chemistry +so well that I was doing work of honours degree standard in physical +chemistry before I left school, and she strengthened and hardened my +character by her mingled austerity and beauty. I had undoubtedly the +usual schoolgirl’s ‘Schwärmerei’ for other teachers whom I thought I +loved more at the time. But Miss Aitken and Dr. Sophie Bryant are the +two mistresses who understood me and influenced me, and to whom I owe +a lasting debt of gratitude.” + +On leaving school Marie Stopes was given a leaving Scholarship in +Science, and under the influence of Miss Aitken she went to University +College, London, rather than to a Woman’s College which had been +suggested for her. Miss Aitken wisely said: “If you are going to do +science at all, do it under the biggest men of the day.” + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE STUDENT. + + +Whether Marie Stopes should go to a Women’s College or to University +College, London, was being discussed by her parents, the headmistress +and teachers. The girl however settled it for herself by going down +to University College and entering herself there as a student in the +faculty of science. That was in the days of Miss Rosa Morrison as the +women’s tutor, and after due formalities and recommendations had been +put through the question came up of the classes she would take. As her +last two years at school had included considerably more training in +zoology and chemistry than is usual for a schoolgirl, the chemistry +indeed being far beyond the intermediate standard, and up to the +degree standard, Marie wanted to enter for honours in the intermediate +examination at the University. Professor Sir William Ramsay was +always very sympathetic towards any student with ambitions, but did +not himself conduct the practical classes for the juniors, though he +gave them their lectures. The Professor naturally would not hear of +her doing honours degree work until the intermediate examination had +been passed, so that chemistry, from being the young student’s chief +interest and most advanced study, dropped into second place. Receiving +considerable encouragement from the Professor of Botany, Professor +Oliver, who was willing to give the necessary attention even to one +honours student, the girl took up honours in that subject, in which +at school she had taken very little interest; and she made botany her +main work for the first year at the University. At the close of the +first year, naturally, there were the College class examinations, +and owing to the curious lack of personal supervision--which, though +it is in many respects one of the best features of University life, +has its inconveniences--no one, not even the dons under whom she was +working or the Dean of the University, ever told her that by taking the +class examinations she would enable the Professors to place her for +some of the various scholarships which were available. When the young +student asked Professor Oliver at the end of the Session whether it +was compulsory, or wise, for her to take the class examination, his +reply was “It is a free country.” The Professor of Zoology, the famous +protozoologist, Minchin, on the other hand, most kindly came to her in +the laboratory one day shortly before the examinations, and urged her +to take sufficient trouble with the nomenclature of the bones, saying +that if only she would work up the bones with their foramina she would +be nearly certain to get the medal for the class. But the obstinate +young student replied that no medal would be worth her wasting the +small amount of brains she felt she possessed on learning the names of +the bones, and that she could not see the advantage of learning them, +when they were always available in a book; what she wanted to do was to +learn things she could not find in books. The Professor laughed, and +had another friendly, but rather reproachful, smile when she took the +second place in the class instead of the first. + +How much this unguided young student lacked orientation was also +shown by the fact that on the annual Prize Day of the College she was +spending the morning fishing for algæ in the Botanic Gardens with a +fellow-student, who urged her to come to the College in the afternoon. +Her dress was wet and covered with the slimy green of the algæ, and +she did not feel inclined to go at all, but her fellow-student pressed +her to do so, and she slipped into the back of the Hall when prize +distribution was in progress, entirely unaware even of the possibility +of any prizes coming her way, and was incredulous when the fact that +she was the recipient of a gold medal was announced and her name was +called. Instead of being pleased, she was much distressed at receiving +this gold medal, for she felt that if work such as hers secured a gold +medal, it must indeed be a disappointing thing to be a Professor with +such poor students. She told me she stayed awake the whole night crying +about it, and vowed to herself to be worthy of it in the future. + +Ridiculously unoriented also was she about the little feminine things +generally of interest to girls. For some time after going to the +University, for instance, she wore a ring on her engagement finger, and +when asked by her fellow-students when she was going to be married, +was amazed to learn that this was the engagement finger, as she had +not known that there was any such thing. The ring had been given her +by her mother, and the girl had no knowledge that any significance +was involved in wearing it. Similarly, when in the first year of her +college course she received her first proposal of marriage, the man was +surprised at her reply: “But I am not nearly old enough to think about +such things; surely I do not look twenty-five.” And he had to learn +that, of course, she would not consider anything of the sort until she +was twenty-five, “because nice girls do not.” Her father had brought +her up in this belief, with the very proper intention of delaying her +sex-consciousness as long as possible, and so strictly and implicitly +had she accepted the idea, that nothing the man could say could +persuade her that it was not most improper of him even to have thought +it possible that marriage could be discussed with a nice girl under +twenty-five. Naturally such a girl was not always understood by her +fellow-students, but she was popular enough to be made the President of +the Women’s Union Debating Society and one of the hockey eleven. + +Shortly after the College examinations the open University examinations +took place. Marie Stopes took the first place in first-class honours +and gained the University Scholarship. + +During that first year at the University, in addition to the +Intermediate work at University College, she was pursuing, without the +Professors or anyone else knowing it, work beyond the ordinary Degree +standard in zoology--partially under the tuition of an old school +teacher, a friend, and partly at Birkbeck College, where she went to +the Evening Classes for the honours course in zoology--on the small +animaculæ and invertebrates. In this way she gained a considerably +wider training and experience in zoology than is generally recognised, +and this point is of some importance in connection with the rather +absurd criticisms sometimes levelled at her work in human research, to +the effect that she is “only a botanist,” and therefore has no business +to make discoveries in fields outside the floral world. She had in fact +a very adequate training in a number of branches of science, including +microscopic zoological work which pre-eminently qualified her to tackle +scientifically the branch of human research work in connection with +birth control which she took up later on. + +For the tripos for her degree she had originally intended to take +chemistry, but having been diverted to an interest in botany greater +than she had expected, and also from a sense of indebtedness to the +Professor of Botany who had so kindly encouraged her work, as well as +from the fact that her scholarship was given on the results of the +botanic examination, she felt it incumbent on her to take botany as the +main subject. Then, too, she had not outgrown the “inferiority complex” +which always made her doubt her own powers, and without telling any of +her Professors, she secretly decided that she would get some practice +in taking examinations, so she quietly entered for the external honours +degree at the end of one year instead of at the end of three. For this +it was possible, in those days, to take only two subjects instead of +three, if the student passed in honours standard in one subject and +obtained a first-class pass in the second. When the Registrar of +the University (Dr.--now Sir--Frank Heath) received this entry as an +external examinee from an internal student at University College, he +sent for her very kindly and begged her to reconsider what she was +doing, saying it was ridiculous and impossible for anyone to try to +do honours as well as first-class pass in one year. A kindly argument +was of no avail, and the headstrong girl said: “I will not only get +first-class pass, I will get honours in _both_ subjects at the end of +the year,” an undertaking which, as the event proved, she made good +under tragic circumstances. The two subjects she then decided on were +botany and geology, and for the geological work she had the immense +advantage of a practical training in the field all through the summer +from a member of the Geological Survey who was training a couple of +young men as mining engineers in survey work. Shortly before the actual +examination took place, on which she had started rather as a joke or a +purely experimental effort, it became seriously urgent and important +for her to succeed, owing to the grave illness of her father. Indeed, +on the night of the main examination in botany the girl was up all +night with the fear that her father would die at any moment. This, +though it reduced the quality of her work, fortunately did not prevent +her winning a first-class honours place, and as her father’s death +appeared imminent, her Professor very kindly obtained the results of +the degree for her privately, so that she was able to tell her father, +before his death, what greatly interested and pleased him, namely, that +she had passed the Bachelor of Science Degree in double honours--though +the published lists were not out until after his death. The mutual love +between herself and her father was exceptionally intense, and the shock +of his loss affected her inner life for many years. + +The result of her hurried examination brought her a further +scholarship, which was sufficient to take her abroad; but as she had +defied the Professors and taken the degree after too brief a period +of study, she conscientiously made up the remains of another year at +University College, doing minor research work and completing some +of the classes she ought to have taken. At this period Professor +Oliver and Dr. Scott were actively engaged on a research of great +palæontological significance, which led to the recognition of an +entirely new group of extinct plants. In order to find some small clues +necessary to complete the association of the fragmentary remains of +the fossils, some Sherlock-Holmes-like scientific detective work had +to be done on all the leading collections of fossil plants in England, +and the young student had the good fortune to be deputed by Professor +Oliver and Dr. Scott to do this on their behalf in Manchester and +in some private collection in the north, as well as at the Natural +History Museum. The work on the Owens College collection in Manchester +University was not only of technical value to that research, but of +great educational value to the student, and an incident that occurred +in connection with it proved important to Dr. Stopes later on. +Professor, now Sir William Boyd Dawkins, was the Professor of geology +in whose charge the collections were, and he very kindly arranged to +take the student out on to the moors and show her horizons in which +fossils occur in the Todmorden district. On the morning of the little +expedition there was a hopeless downpour from early dawn, but the +opportunity of going to these districts was too precious to lose, and +of course Marie Stopes turned up at the station, but equally of course +she found no Professor there to meet her. She then decided to go by +herself, though she did not know the district at all; and she spent +the day walking the eight or ten miles across the solitary moor in the +drenching rain, very pleased with herself that she found the various +spots they had planned to visit, but feeling all the time that the +rain, and the absence of the instruction Professor Boyd Dawkins would +have given, meant that she had seen much less than she would have done +on a fine day. She thought no more of the event, but, curiously enough, +this little incident proved to be a turning point in her career; for +Professor Boyd Dawkins was so impressed by her serious interest in the +subject and by her determination and independence of character, that +later on, when a much-coveted post was open for election, he used his +influence in her favour, and she was appointed the first woman to teach +science in the University of Manchester. To return however to the +young student, the post-graduate scholarship from the University was +just sufficient to take her for a year to some foreign University, and +her interest in fructifications and the study of egg-cells and ovules +(fostered both by Professor Oliver’s researches and by her zoological +work), led her to desire to study the fructifications of a unique group +of plants, the cycads. For this purpose Munich was considered the best +continental locality, as Professor Goebel, the famous morphologist, who +had travelled far, had an exceptionally fine collection there, both of +living and spirit material of the kind suitable for research. + +Languages had always at school been a main stumbling block between +Marie Stopes and class prizes, and it was therefore rather adventurous +of her to go to Germany, for she had only had three or four lessons in +the language before she reached that country. She found however that +learning a language in a country itself is a very different, and a much +easier thing, than learning it in classes; and though her German was +a source of great amusement to her fellow research-students in the +laboratories, it carried her not only through her University course, +but finally also through the _viva voce_ examination for the degree. + +On presenting herself to Professor Goebel, the English student +announced that she had come to study under him the structure of the +ovules and the fertilization of the cycads, and the genial and amused +smile in the vivid blue eyes of the Viking-like Professor encouraged +her, although his words were discouraging. Though some women had +received degrees from Munich University, none had hitherto entered +from the Botanical Institute, and it would require an alteration in +the Regulations to make it possible. Marie Stopes was disappointed, +but replied that she had come to work, and would rather stay and +do the work than go elsewhere and get a degree for work that did +not interest her as much; and after about three months in Professor +Goebel’s research laboratories he came to her one day and said: “It is +ridiculous that any Regulations should stand in the way of you getting +your degree; I will have them changed.” And the Regulations were +changed, so that at the end of the year she was allowed to enter for +the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. During that year, though working +hard in the laboratory which opened at eight o’clock in the morning, +the young student enjoyed all the pre-war delights of Munich: the +Opera, a great deal of dancing, excursions every week-end to the snow +mountains in the winter and to the Tyrolese flowering valleys in the +summer; while in Goebel’s laboratory she met as many nationalities as +there were research-students, and entered with great zest into the +profound discussions which knots of students often embarked on far from +the fields of their own immediate work. Most of the research-students +in the laboratory that year were themselves Professors or lecturers +in their own countries, and they included a Polish Professor, a +Japanese, a Norwegian, a Dutchman, an American, and a number of other +nationalities and types. Frequently a quartet composed of a Buddhist, a +Roman Catholic, an atheist, and Marie Stopes, would discuss with great +earnestness and animation the problems of the Universe. + +[Illustration: The author at Givons Grove with Mrs. Zangwill on his +left, Dr. Marie Stopes kneeling, and her mother on his right.] + +[Illustration: Marie Stopes as a student, with a group of professors, +in the mountains. Prof. Goebel on her left.] + +Though life at a University College had somewhat educated the girl, +she was still remarkably sexless, and quite unaware of the nature +of the stimulant her presence must have been in this laboratory of +men. One rather amusing incident may be cited. The geological and the +botanical students were taken into the mountains by their Professors +for scientific expeditions, and on one of these occasions a lecturer +from another faculty joined the party and insisted on talking, in +English, to the only girl there. His English however was very poor, and +he neither attracted nor interested her. She spent most of the time +chatting in lively colloquial German with a man on her other hand, +merely saying “Yes, yes,” at intervals to be polite to the lecturer. A +day or two later she was rather surprised to be sent for by Professor +Goebel to his private sanctum, where he broke the news to her startled +incredulity that the relatives of the lecturer who had bored her on +the expedition had been to Professor Goebel with a request to induce +her not to drive this man mad, as they feared for his reason and +that he would have to go to a lunatic asylum if she persisted in her +attitude of not recognising their engagement to be married. Marie +Stopes, in open-mouthed amazement, denied any knowledge of being +supposed to be engaged, and said that the man had never even proposed +to her. It transpired however that the bad English and the many boring +exclamations he had made, to which she had automatically replied “Yes, +yes,” had really included a proposal of marriage, to which the “Yes, +yes,” was naturally enough taken to signify her acceptance. The family +were much distressed when it was made quite clear that no marriage +would be contemplated by Marie Stopes, and they begged that she would +at least permit the man to write to her until she left the country. As +a result she possesses to this day a large pile of unread love letters +in a very small German hand, unread and for her unreadable, as she has +long since forgotten how to read German handwriting. + +In such a narrative as this it is perhaps difficult to make it clear +how much hard brain work was included in her days. She told me once +her longest spell of _uninterrupted_ mental work was thirty hours at +a stretch, when she worked with beef-tea and a spirit stove at her +elbow, and did not leave her work even for meals. Steady work, and +the extremely valuable and interesting material supplied by Professor +Goebel, yielded sufficient results in the discovery of new and +interesting features in the cycads to justify the preparation of her +thesis towards the end of the first year, and this she herself wrote in +German, but it was German of such an amusing quality that the Professor +kindly suggested that a Swiss student should sit at the same table as +she did in the laboratory and go through it with her. He was a very +handsome and attractive, but safely married, man, so that a few days +later, when the Professor inquired how she was getting on with him, the +whole laboratory was sent into convulsions, and the Professor himself, +with tears hopping out of his bright blue eyes, sank into a chair +shaking with laughter beyond his control, when she replied that he had +been very kind, “Er ist es mit mir durchgegagen.” + +She meant this to be, as it is, a literal translation of “He has +gone through it with me,” and was quite unaware of the fact that the +German phrase means “He has eloped with me.” Laughable however as her +German was, it was very fluent, and when the day of the _viva voce_ +examination came it served its purpose sufficiently well. Professor +Hertwig, the great zoologist, meaning no doubt to be kind, questioned +the young botanist on the structure of volvox, a microscopic organism; +and Professor Rothpletz, also meaning to be kind, whispered, “Have they +been nice to you?” before he began his _viva voce_ in geology--for +the _viva voce_ examination for the German degree takes place audibly +in the presence of the University Court, so that the student has not +only the nervous work of replying to the Professor, but of knowing +that outsiders, and critical outsiders at that, are listening to the +replies. She however got a high degree, _Magna cum laude_, and all +the members of the research laboratory were cordially enthusiastic. +Professor Goebel was exceedingly generous and kind to the young foreign +student, and of him Marie Stopes says: + + “Although, of course, lots of people had been kind to me before, + Professor Goebel was the first who really treated me as a father + might have done. Toward the end of my time in Munich, when I told + him that I was returning to England, where I must take up work that + would bring me a salary, he said, ‘But it is a shame that you should + not continue doing research work, and if you would only permit me + I would, out of my own purse, defray all the expenses for you for + another few years if you would stay and do research work here.’ He + and his wife lived almost opposite the University Institute and were + on many occasions extraordinarily kind to me, and this was all the + more remarkable as Professor Goebel did not like women to study, and + until I went to his Department and practically forced my way in, he + had never permitted a woman student to work in his laboratories. I + shall never forget his noble generosity and his fine impatience at + the trend of modern life, particularly of German life, his hatred + of the Prussians, and his Viking-like appearance and zest and + joyous gallantry when, in Tyrolese costume, he went to his mountain + laboratories. Munich was a second home to me until the war and the + desolation the war brought.” + +A junior lectureship in botany at Manchester University was vacant at +the close of the year in Germany, and for this Marie Stopes sent in +her application. No woman had ever lectured in the science faculty at +Manchester University, and the Committee was nervous about appointing a +woman, for the classes of the junior students were large, and contained +medical students who were notoriously hilarious. The Committee was +helped in its decision to select Marie Stopes, in preference to any of +the male applicants, by an extraordinarily cordial recommendation from +Professor Boyd Dawkins, which resulted from the impression she had made +on him more than a year before, when she had gone by herself through +the drenching rain, over the moors to Todmorden. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ACADEMIC LIFE. + + +In other Universities women were beginning to obtain posts hitherto +given only to men, but Manchester had not before had a woman on the +science staff, though a lecturer in English literature had been in +office for some years. Biological classes were attended by large +numbers of the young medical students, who with the engineers are +generally the rowdy element in any University, and the authorities +of the College were in some trepidation as to the result of their +experiment in appointing a young girl to the Staff. With Dr. Marie +Stopes however no untoward events occurred, and the junior classes were +indeed quieter when she lectured or demonstrated to them than they +were in a good many other departments. The staff of Professors and +Lecturers, mostly men from Oxford, Cambridge, and other Universities, +formed a very friendly circle and became truly colleagues to the junior +lady lecturer. Indeed in after years, when Dr. Stopes was appointed +to the staff of her own college in London, she felt the contrast, +for there the Professors’ Common Room was barred to women, whereas +in Manchester she was immediately made a member of the Professors’ +Common Room and always cordially welcomed and made to feel at home +whenever she used it. Her immediate chief and those members of the +staff associated with her work made things very easy and pleasant, +and outside the University, too, she made many friends, notably old +Mr. R. D. Darbishire, the philanthropist and founder of the Whitworth +Galleries, who with Miss Dymes, his secretary and companion, made his +home in Victoria Park ever open with a warm welcome for the girl, who +learnt both to reverence and love the fine autocratic old gentleman. +Professor, now Sir Arthur, and Lady Schuster, also in Victoria Park, +were friendly, and the social life in Manchester was an attractive +feature and much more real and cordial than life in London. After the +plentiful dancing and opera of Munich, Dr. Marie Stopes missed dancing +very greatly and, in addition to private dances, took the then rather +audacious social step of giving a dance herself, and cajoled the +elderly Professors to come to it in fancy dress. Out of that sprang a +little dancing club among the members of the staff, which survived for +a good many years after Dr. Stopes left Manchester. The young lecturer, +feeling that she was very inadequately trained in the art of lecturing, +went to hear a number of the Professors and lecturers in the University +deliver their lectures to their students. Mostly, it seems, she learnt +what to avoid in lecturing; she observed a good many little points +which explained the reputed rowdiness of the junior classes. On one +occasion she was present at the back of the room when a distinguished +Professor of world-wide fame faced his class of 200 juniors, and with +a quivering hand took a piece of chalk, drawing a wriggly thing which +might have been a triangle or a hexagon, and commenced his lecture by +saying, “Let us suppose that a circle is a circle”; and he could not +understand the roars, and the cloud of dust from the stamping feet, +with which this opening was greeted. Dr. Marie Stopes was amused to see +how well her own students behaved when they were given the chance. + +In addition to the teaching work in the biological classes, time was +available for the young lecturer to follow up her own researches; and +the great interest in fossil plants which must always associate itself +with Manchester University where Williamson’s original work was done, +combined with the fact that the coal mining districts lay so close +all round the town, led her to penetrate to a number of collieries +in search of fossils, as well as to follow out some research on the +structure and deposition of the coal seams. In this connection she +came into personal contact with a number of mine owners, who always +met her with warm cordiality and helpfulness, and among whom a Mr. +Sutcliffe should be particularly remembered. He purchased an extensive +series of microscopic sections of a rare new fossil which had been +discovered, and presented them to the University to be placed at +the service of Dr. Marie Stopes, who undertook the work of their +scientific investigation and description. The fossil proved to be a +species unique in the British Isles, which she named _Tubicaulis +sutcliffii_, and was the subject of the first paper that she read to +the Manchester Philosophical and Literary Society. The work on the +collieries and coal mining industry which began with this connection +in Manchester was persisted in and is still actively continued by +Dr. Stopes to the present time, and has led her to a large number of +scientific discoveries and to the contribution of publications in the +Royal Society and elsewhere (see Appendix B, p. 216). Among the many +interesting people that this collegiate life gave her the opportunity +of meeting, Captain Scott, the Antarctic explorer, was one who most +impressed the girl. She was invited by Lady Schuster to meet him at a +luncheon and, fired by her intense enthusiasm for the palæontological +history of coal, she begged Captain Scott to take her with him on his +then projected Antarctic Expedition. They met again at a dancing party +in the evening. She found him the most “divine waltzer and reverser” +she had ever met, and he promised to take both her and Lady Scott with +him if that was possible, or failing that he undertook to bring her +back the fossil she wanted from the Antarctic. He came down to the +University before leaving Manchester and spent an hour or two with her +studying the external appearance of the fossils, so as to bring back +with him exactly what she desired. The tragedy of this expedition is +known to the world, and it is also known that he was found dead with +a few fragments of fossil plants by him. These however, although so +obviously collected for her, were not given to Dr. Marie Stopes to +describe; and she was glad of it, for unfortunately they were not those +she had longed for from the Antarctic regions. + +In all this busy, happy life in Manchester there was however one secret +trial, and that was that after a very few weeks there Dr. Stopes, +whose vitality and general health were quite exceptional, developed +acute neuralgia. This neuralgia vanished immediately vacations came +and she could leave Manchester, but always returned within three days +of sleeping in Manchester. In spite of this her intense vitality +kept her going in many directions, and lectures to the students were +followed by an attempt to organise a seminar on similar lines to those +she had had experience of in Germany, excursions, plant collecting +and fossil collecting up on the moors and, in addition, evening +lecturing to the very poor in the slums at Ancoats; where the Ancoats +Settlement had organised classes of factory hands and others anxious +for intellectual work. There for a time she came in touch with some of +the worst conditions of city life, and she only gave up these lectures +when neuralgia and the acute pain of seeing human beings under such +appalling conditions were undermining her strength to such an extent +that it was impossible to go on. Among her treasured possessions is a +glowing testimonial spontaneously given to her by her poor students at +the Settlement. + +By no means exclusively serious, Dr. Stopes, in a skittish mood, +instituted the first, and I believe the only, international comic +scientific journal. She called it _The Sportophyte_, and in it made +fun of a good many of the great biologists, and lampooned the style +of more than one publication. It achieved not a little success, and +one learned Professor said to her: “Oh, of course it is very funny, +but you cannot possibly do it again.” “Why not?” said Dr. Stopes. +“You must not be allowed to do it again; think what _power_ it gives +you.” This was hardly the way to stop the activities of an independent +and enterprising young woman, and _The Sportophyte_ lived until the +international calamity of the war killed the spirit of international +jocularity. + +The suffrage movement naturally attracted Dr. Stopes’s interest, and +without becoming an aggressive extremist she put a good deal of time +into quiet work for the suffrage, joining the Tax Resistance League +and lecturing from time to time, as well as joining in processions and +deputations. Fired by a sense of the injustice of obliging women either +to forego marriage or to forego a career, she ardently supported the +efforts to stop the restrictions on married women’s work, and in that +connection met Miss Margaret Ashton, who was then a Councillor and one +of the most active of women’s champions in the north. Her attention +also was drawn to the yet deeper problems of married women by an +incident which occurred to one of her own students, who happened to +be a woman older than herself and who had been assisting a doctor in +dealing with out-patients at a hospital, when a woman had brought in a +miserable little baby which wailed all the time and which, the mother +explained, would not put on any flesh or grow into a nice, healthy baby +whatever she did with it. The mother, with tears in her eyes, made an +intensely earnest appeal to the doctor to tell her what was, to her, +unaccountably wrong with the infant. She said this was her fourth, and +the others had all died when they were very little. The doctor put her +off with some soothing platitudes, but the woman, driven to despair, +said: “I believe there’s something wrong with my man. If there’s +something wrong with my man I won’t have babies no more--it’s just +cruel to see them miserable like this and have them dying one after +the other. Won’t you, for God’s sake, tell me whether there’s anything +wrong with my man or not?” This appeal was met by the assurance that +there was nothing wrong, and she should do her duty by her husband +and go on having babies. The medical woman student said that it was +glaringly obvious that the baby was syphilitic. + +That not only such ill-fated mothers, but that _all_ mothers, should be +freed from the appalling slavery of unwilling and undesired motherhood +became a conviction so intense as to necessitate action. Dr. Stopes +realized with the astonishment that youth always feels towards the +cruelty of its elders, that although the knowledge of birth control has +been freely circulating in our country for very many years, it has been +available chiefly for the educated and the well-to-do. + +While Dr. Stopes studied more and more deeply the work on the coal +mines, she was following up several branches of research in connection +not only with fossils and their deposition but with their mode of +origin, and in connection with the petrifaction of the internal +tissues which is so wonderful a feature of some structurally preserved +specimens, she was led to the belief that, given certain conditions +in the surrounding horizons, the existence of the type of fossil for +which she was searching could be more or less predicted. Combining +this with an intense desire to discover the origin of the angiosperms, +which was one of the desiderata then, as it still is, of biological +science, she considered the horizons in any and every country in the +world from which she could get the necessary data, and came to the +conclusion that in an horizon in the northern mountainous Island of +Hokkaido petrified specimens of angiosperms, such as she sought, should +be found; and she applied to the Royal Society for financial assistance +to go there and investigate the matter, at the same time having a +sample specimen sent over from Japan, from the rocks _in situ_, and +she had the thrilling experience of seeing her scientific prediction +fulfilled, and finding in the very first cut a beautiful petrified +angiosperm. This strengthened her application to the Royal Society, +which was still under consideration, and though they had never before +sent a young woman out of the country on any such work, her application +was so well backed that an exception was made in her favour, and she +finally went to Japan alone, with a grant from the Royal Society, and +with the assistance of the Japanese Government, through the Imperial +University at Tokio. There she went up country and collected large +quantities of unique and hitherto unknown fossils which, on her return +to Tokio, she cut with the assistance and collaboration of Professor +Fujii, who together with her wrote a memoir, subsequently published +by the Royal Society in its Transactions, containing an account of +a number of plants new to science, and containing also the first +petrifaction of the flower, and the only one yet discovered. In Japan, +as in Manchester, she found the Professorial staff cordial and kindly, +and Baron Hamao, the President of the Imperial University, made her +an honorary member of the Professors’ Luncheon Club, where she met +the personnel of the various faculties, and thus saw the true life of +Japanese intellectual circles in a way seldom permitted to a foreigner. +A room and research facilities were allotted to her in the Institute of +the Imperial University, and in exchange for all this courtesy she gave +a short course of lectures on plant palæontology to the students and to +others of the staff who cared to attend. A fairly full account of her +manifold interests and experiences in Japan was published by Blackie in +her book entitled _A Journal from Japan_. She returned _via_ America, +and a fresh post in Manchester University was offered to her: the +first lectureship in palæobotany in this country. It was exactly the +post for which her researches fitted her and which her heart desired, +and she was happy to get back to her many friends in Manchester; but +it was no good, for the neuralgia, which had not touched her all the +time she was away, returned after a week in Manchester as violently as +before and became intolerable, so that at the end of the first year of +this new post she had to leave it and finally settle in London, which +all along had been her home. + +[Illustration: The first portrait in her robes as Doctor of Science of +London.] + +After obtaining the degree of Ph.D. in Munich she had, on returning to +England, followed up her B.Sc. in London by obtaining the Doctorate +of Science, London, when she became, I believe, the youngest Doctor +of Science in England, and shortly afterwards she was made a Fellow +of University College, London. She was invited by the Geological +Department of the British Museum to prepare a special memoir for them +on the Cretaceous Flora of the World, a memoir that took several years +to complete, and which was published ultimately in two volumes by +the Trustees of the British Museum. The Royal Society published in +their Transactions some of the results of the Japanese Expedition and +she was invited to exhibit her specimens from Japan at the ladies’ +soirée, where she met Count Solms-Laubach, the veteran palæontologist +of Germany, whose classic treatise had been her original text-book. +He, though a woman hater and extremely reserved, showed the kindliest +appreciation of her new species. The advantage of meeting such men, +which all men of any note in the scientific world can do by attending +the Royal Society’s meetings, was a rare privilege to this young +woman. When some of her later discoveries were made she was invited +by representatives of the Royal Society to send her specimens for +exhibition, but not on ladies’ night. She said she could not send them +without being there herself to demonstrate and guard them, and was told +that she could send any of her own men-students, or even her butler, +but could not be admitted herself. With natural indignation she refused +to exhibit. It seems strange that to this day, however brilliant a +woman’s scientific work may be, her sex precludes her from equality +of treatment in the senior Society of Science in the world, and she +can never hope to be made an F.R.S. The Royal Society of Literature, +however, early recognised her, and on the proposal of old Lord Halsbury +she was elected a Fellow. + +In the course of her travels for palæontological research Dr. Stopes +was once again in the United States, and took the opportunity of +attending the American Association of Science at St. Louis, where +she met Dr. Gates. He, like many others before him, immediately fell +passionately in love, and proposed marriage within a few days of making +her acquaintance. He was a botanist and in many respects apparently a +suitable husband, and Dr. Stopes and he were married before her return +to England a few months later. + +Dating from her earliest childhood, and strengthened by her interest +in the suffrage, Dr. Marie Stopes has always very keenly felt the +rightness of the old Scottish and Norwegian customs, whereby a married +woman retains her patronymic after marriage, and she arranged with Dr. +Gates that she should retain her own name. In English law--though +many people are unaware of it--provision is made for such cases, and +to retain her own name legally, all a married woman has to do is +to announce at the time of her marriage that she intends to do so, +and to use it systematically for legal documents and transactions. +The effect of loss of personality arising from change of name has +undoubtedly had a psychological influence on women, and such a change +is most unreasonable when one has made such a name for herself as Dr. +Stopes had; a name which was then already recorded in thousands of +card-indexes and catalogues in Universities all over the world. A good +deal of press interest was shown in her revival of this old custom of +keeping her own name, and a number of women have followed the example +since, though old-fashioned people try to make things difficult for +a woman who thus desires to preserve her identity, and Dr. Stopes on +more than one occasion has had to threaten to take legal action against +scientific committees and other persons who endeavoured arbitrarily to +decide for her what her name is to be. + +This marriage seems to have been arranged by destiny to give Dr. +Stopes the almost unique experience which completed her fitness to +undertake the work on sex-reform by which she is now best known. On her +marriage she was still, in spite of her zoological training and her +travel and experience of men of many countries, amazingly innocent, +and she was quite happy for six months or more. After that she began +to feel instinctively that something was lacking in her marriage. +Although she was living within a stone’s throw of her mother and of +her family doctor, they neither of them detected what was amiss or +offered any help or solution of the problems which confronted her. +Finally her life became quite intolerable, and I heard her say one +day: “I should go mad if it were not that I say to myself, ‘Why have +I a scientific brain and all my scientific knowledge, if it is not +to find out things that seem to puzzle everybody?’” and, in a very +impersonal manner, she took up her own case as a piece of scientific +research. She went to the British Museum and read pretty nearly every +book on sex in English, French, or German, just as she would read +every book on palæontology before publishing on her own subject. She +also read Lord Halsbury’s Laws of England, and then returned to her +family doctor and family lawyer, and when matters were made thoroughly +clear to them, it became a comparatively easy matter to put through +a nullity suit, in which she sued as _virgo intacta_ for the legal +annulment of her marriage, which her husband’s abnormality had never +allowed him to consummate. Dr. Gates was a passionate lover but an +incomplete husband, and as a result, after years of marriage, was not +only leaving his wife a virgin, but had developed an absurd jealousy +and attempted a domination which rendered life intolerable. At that +time I was frequently a witness of ridiculous little scenes, one, for +instance, in which he “forbade” this independent and high-spirited +young woman even to purchase a paper which she had been reading for +years. As was natural perhaps, Dr. Gates made things as difficult +and in some respects as scandalous for her as he could, but the war +was on before the legal case was finally settled, and shortly after +its outbreak he left England and sought refuge in America, returning +however before hostilities were over. Meanwhile, throughout all her +heartbreaking difficulties, Dr. Marie Stopes remained outwardly very +calm, and continued her palæontological work at the British Museum +and at University College, where, following on her Manchester work, a +palæobotanical lectureship was founded for her in London University. +This attracted much interest and attention at the time and her first +lecture was widely attended and published, and there is little doubt +that but for the war, which swept away her classes of young men, it +would have led to the founding of a regular school of palæobotany. +Meanwhile however the war diverted all who were able to do anything +of practical utility, and the more abstruse and academical aspects +of palæobotany were left on one side, and Dr. Stopes concentrated +on what seemed immediately useful, namely, the application of her +knowledge to the problems of fuel, and of coal in particular. The +Scientific and Industrial Research Department of the Government, under +Sir Frank Heath, actively supported her work, and she collaborated +with Dr. R. V. Wheeler of the Home Office Experimental Station in the +preparation of what _Nature_ described as a “classic”--a Monograph on +the Structure, Chemical and Palæontological, of Coal. (See Appendix B, +p. 216.) Following on this, Dr. Stopes continued researches, both in +collaboration with Professor Wheeler and independently; and the Royal +Society, in 1919, published her short paper on the four ingredients of +coal, in which she originated the now well-known words, clarain, durain +and vitrain. + +Professor Wheeler and his students and collaborators, and many others +now doing research on fuel, have followed up the initial research of +Dr. Stopes on the ingredients of coal; for her work made possible for +the first time a discrimination in the analysis of different zones +in the same coal, which is leading to a knowledge of its intimate +structure and potential uses of a much more accurate kind than was +previously possible. + +In the course of her scientific researches Dr. Stopes has made a great +number of original discoveries, and has published the results in a +number of learned _Transactions_ and journals, a more or less complete +list of which is given in Appendix B. + +Among so many additions to scientific knowledge it is difficult to +say in a few words which are her most important contributions, but, +in the main, they deal with three themes: (_a_) the structure of +the reproductive organs both in living and extinct forms; (_b_) the +composition and structure of coal; and (_c_) the structure of the +vegetable inhabitants of the Cretaceous epoch. + +Her discoveries of fossils in Japan, which were published jointly with +Professor Fujii in the _Transactions_ of the Royal Society (Appendix +B, p. 219), brought to light a flora of the existence of which nothing +was known, and which was of interest and importance as including the +only petrified flower hitherto discovered in any part of the world. The +public perhaps do not realize that the vegetation which is conspicuous +to-day in the landscape, and which alone provides all our agricultural +plants and food, did not come into existence until the early Cretaceous +epoch. + +The earliest known angiosperms in the world were also discovered by +Dr. Stopes and described in the _Transactions_ of the Royal Society +(Appendix B, p. 218), and further facts about them are embodied in her +big volume published by the Trustees of the British Museum. Of this Dr. +(now Sir A.) Smith Woodward said: “There is so much that is new in it. +No one would have believed it possible to get so much out of the Lower +Greensand; it is quite wonderful.” + +As regards coal, when she was first appointed as a junior lecturer in +Manchester, a centre of one of England’s coal mining districts, she +enthusiastically investigated the local mines. She read an important +paper on the subject before the British Association. It was the first +time she had done so, and the then Director of the Geological Survey, +Sir Jethro Teall, attended the lecture. The discussion proved most +interesting and cleared up a number of points hitherto obscure, and Sir +Jethro (then Dr.) Teall said that he was “astonished at the quality and +quantity of the detail given. I went to encourage a young girl, and I +remained to learn from a master.” + +Her short paper on the composition of coal before the Royal Society +(Appendix B., p. 216) has led to an enormous change in the attitude +both of palæontologists and chemists towards coal structure, and +the terminology instituted by Dr. Stopes is now not only almost +universally followed, but the ideas in that short paper of hers have +proved fruitful in many directions--see, for instance the work of Dr. +Lessing on coking, of Dr. Ivan Graham, the Assistant Director of Mining +Research at Birmingham, and the many papers in the technical journals +arising from the inspiration in her original paper. + +Although the outer public did not know her as a lecturer until +recently, in the course of her academic career Dr. Stopes lectured +regularly in Manchester and London Universities, and had given +brief courses or single lectures in the University of Tokio, in the +Parliament House in Hokkaido, in Chicago University, in Toronto +University, and in many other institutes and halls in various parts of +the British Isles and other countries, and her palæontological work was +utilized by various Government Departments in addition to the British +Museum and the Home Office. The Canadian Government, for instance, +sent for her to settle a problem which had been in dispute for over +40 years, about the age of certain potential coal-bearing deposits in +Eastern Canada, and the results of her investigations were published +by the Geological Survey of Canada in a large Memoir. (See Appendix +B, p. 217.) Amidst this life of manifold activities her relation to +her students was such that she always brought to every lecture some +fresh idea of vital interest. No doubt had she taken up some popular +subject instead of so remote and academic a field as she pursued, her +name would have become a household word among us years sooner than was +actually the case. Her personality was bound to make its impression on +our national life even had she never touched so burning a subject as +that with which she has been recently associated. + +In addition to her many scientific associates, Dr. Stopes has had +warm friendships and interesting literary associations with many +distinguished literary men. For instance, with Maurice Hewlett, the +novelist and poet, who was so retiring and _difficile_, a warm +friendship started long before she was known to the world. Hewlett +wrote to her:-- + + “Yes, the writer of the ‘Letters to Sanchia’ is Senhouse. I can’t say + that he is a portrait of anybody in particular, though it does so + happen that I have known a man who lived, and still lives, much the + same life. But the two have nothing else in common, and I think my + man is more what I should like to believe myself to be than anything + more definite. _Video meliora._ He is one of the better things I see. + I won’t go nearer than that as yet. + + “But if you, who have travelled far and been quit (for a time, at + all events) of our horrible trammel of circumstance, find truth and + reason in the substance of what I have imagined, I feel enormously + encouraged to go on. It was really kind of you to tell me so.” + +And soon after he wrote:-- + + “Senhouse will feel that he has done something when such a letter as + yours is communicated to him. You evidently haven’t read his third + volume, ‘Rest Harrow’--which I beg leave to send you herewith. + Therein you will discover how he and Mrs. Germain parted company, and + in what unearthly manner he and his Sanchia found each other--the + where and when as well as the how. I personally am unable to + distinguish the fairy tale from the other tales, or the dream from + the daylight reflection. I don’t know whether I write truth or lies. + To me they are truth--to a large proportion of mankind foolishness: + but I write for myself because I have to, and am lucky to have such + readers as you.” + +Israel Zangwill, the author-dramatist, and his wife, the novelist, were +both cordial friends much interested in her literary work before she +became well known through “Married Love,” and it was Edward Carpenter +who first encouraged her to publish “Married Love.” + +Both before and after she was well known she has had some friendly and +amusing little encounters with Bernard Shaw, and I may quote a postcard +which he sent to the C.B.C. regretting his inability to attend the +Annual Dinner in November, 1923:-- + + “I shall not be able to come as I shall not be in London. If it could + possibly be made an M.S. (Marie Stopes) dinner without being a B.C. + one, I should greatly regret this. As it is, it is rather convenient + for me, because I cannot find a satisfactory public position about + B.C. If I went into the movement merely to fight the Malthusians + I should do more harm than good; and I really could not sit quiet + in it and seem to acquiesce with them. I am sure M.’s (Marie’s) + psycho-physiology is right; but neither of us can prove it. + + “G. B. SHAW.” + +Her poems brought her many warm and interesting letters from literary +men whom she had never met personally. For instance, about these poems +Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch wrote:-- + + “First let me thank you for the little book that brought me such + jolly discoveries as ‘Marjorie’ and ‘Tokio Snow’--and such fine ones + as ‘The Beaters’ and ‘The Brother’ (this last the sort of thing that + walks straight and takes a seat in memory for the rest of one’s + days).” + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +WORLD TRAVEL. + + +The taste Dr. Stopes had inherited for travel found practical +justification in many journeys in connection with her scientific +research work. In addition to these expeditions, which were often +long ones, she was continually travelling both in the British Isles +and on the Continent. At the close of the first Session after her +appointment to Manchester she attended a scientific Congress in +Vienna, where she enjoyed the gathering of learned men, and also the +city and its beautiful surroundings. She then returned to Munich for +a further couple of months’ work in Professor Goebel’s department, +including some research in his Alpine laboratory perched high up on the +Bavarian Tyrolese mountains. The research she was engaged on was on the +structure and development of the fertilized ovum or egg-cell, together +with a study of its actual fertilization by the male sperm cell and the +introduction of food granules from the sperm into the ovum. This work +led to very interesting original observations, to make which she had to +be up all night for a series of nights, cutting into the living ovules +and examining their structure under the microscope at regular intervals +through the whole 24 hours. These investigations, though minor in +comparison with her other researches, were part of the preparation +which subsequently enabled her to speak with authority on problems of +fertilization in other connections; for the nucleus and the detailed +structure of ovum and spermatozoa and the immediate after-effects of +fertilization, are remarkably uniform wherever life is sufficiently +evolved to have two distinct sexes. + +Holland, especially Amsterdam, and also Leiden, the home of so much +of Holland’s scientific life, were visited several times, as also was +Switzerland and France. On one occasion, after having spent a few weeks +in the University of Caen where she was visiting Professor Lignier, one +of France’s great palæobotanists, she set out to walk from that town +to the distant coast of Brittany, there to form one of an expedition +organized by Professor Oliver, on then new and interesting lines, for +the study of œcology. Sending her luggage on in advance, she started +with a knapsack across Normandy, first making a bee-line for the coast +and then following the ins-and-outs of the rugged headlands and bays. +A characteristic anecdote may be told of this expedition. Failing to +find an hotel in one of the further portions of Brittany, she decided +to sleep on a ledge of rock on the coast which seemed safely far from +the sea and afforded some shelter approximating to a roof. Having a +camper’s equipment with her, she made her evening meal and, curling +up in her long cloak, went peacefully to sleep. Next morning she was +waked by a gurgling suck of water at her very toes, and found that the +ledge, that had afforded a roof at night, shut her in with no possible +outlet of escape. The tide had come in much further than had seemed +possible the evening before. Fortunately the sea was calm, and Dr. +Stopes examined the rock on which she sat and, finding certain lichens +in its crevices, she felt reassured that she would not be swamped out, +and turning round went to sleep again until the tide had receded. + +It has sometimes been said by those anxious to destroy her reputation +that she spent her vacations in “very curious ways,” implying that +what she did was improper. Unusual many of her vacations undoubtedly +were. Not the least so was one spent in Norway, when she and the only +Norwegian woman Professor, Frau Resvoll, went together to the north on +an œcological expedition, touching the Lofodon Islands and then going +to the northern coast of Norway, into the Arctic Circle. They walked +back in a bee-line over snowy mountain passes, and past glaciers, +in places where houses were sometimes forty miles apart, carrying +provisions, as well as their clothes, on their backs, sleeping on more +than one occasion in little isolated huts provided by the community +for those who travel in the only way possible in these districts, +namely, on foot. In Norway, accompanied by one so well known and +appreciated as Frau Professor Resvoll, she saw something of the type of +life which years before had influenced Ibsen when writing his plays. +A deep impression was made upon her by the austerity and difficulty +of the life in some of those isolated homes, where the flatbrød was +baked only once a year, and the muscles of dried reindeer were scraped +to a kind of powder for meat, and where, except for brief seasons in +the summer, potatoes and fruit were an unknown luxury. She will never +forget looking down from a mountain crest and seeing a herd of reindeer +fording the icy water below, and she has an equally keen recollection +of the exhilarating effect of a sun that set at 11 p.m. and rose again +at 1 a.m. In Christiania she and Frau Professor Resvoll were the only +women present at the opening of the University by King Haakon, and was +afterwards heard laughingly to say he was the only king with whom she +could fall in love! However abstruse and scientific the work occupying +her days in the laboratories and in the various Universities she +visited, time was always found in the evening for opera or theatre, and +she was fortunate enough to see “Peer Gynt” presented in its native +theatre, as well as to meet some of those who had been connected with +its original production. + +The journey to Japan, of which mention has already been made (p. 66) +and which preceded her marriage to Dr. Gates, opened new and delightful +vistas. Dr. Stopes went across the Continent, embarking at Genoa, +visiting Naples and the great aquarium there, and then proceeded +down the Red Sea. Of this she says: “I was peculiarly fortunate when +travelling through the Red Sea to have it shown me in such a way as to +understand its name. One evening I came on deck and found the whole sky +from east to west and north to south one blazing crimson and copper +fiery mass of light; this was reflected in the sea itself, so that +it looked blood red, and the desert rocks on either side glowed in +orange and coppery colours. I should never have believed such a sight +possible had I not seen it with my own eyes. After a quarter of an +hour or so it had almost faded, but I saw that the Red Sea undoubtedly +can be red.” Aden, with its ostrich feathers and diving natives, its +pathetic “ladies’ garden” and rock-bound sterility, was succeeded by +the luxuriant beauty of Ceylon and Singapore. At Singapore the ship +stayed in port two or three days, enabling Dr. Stopes to visit the +botanical gardens, one of the famous gardens of the world, where she +collected specimens, besides seeing living in their native haunts many +plants which had hitherto only been significant names to her. Shanghai, +with its great river, affords a curious little memory. Of this Dr. +Stopes says: “I noticed telegraph lines, and thought them incongruous +enough in ancient China, but I was surprised to see them made of what +looked like barbed wire. On closer examination I found that what I had +taken for the barbs were seated dragon-flies perched at intervals from +each other as far as the eye could see all along the wire.” In Shanghai +a sidelight on the population problem gripped the girl’s heart. With +the rest of the tourists she was investigating the town in a rickshaw; +there on the street, kicked aside by the passers-by like garbage in the +gutter, was a dead baby. + +Penang left a memory of moonlight and wonderful sleeping trees. Some +of the wide streets were lined by avenues of some kind of leguminous +tree which folded its leaves in sleep as a clover does. In the native +quarter an outdoor stage was showing one of the interminable Chinese +plays, which had lasted all day and was still going on at midnight. +Finally Japan was reached, and about this I need not say very much, for +the _Journal_ kept by Dr. Stopes has been published. From that book, _A +Journal from Japan_ (Blackie, 1909), one may take a few characteristic +passages, but, first of all, let us note Dr. Stopes’s remarks on +a trait in her own character which, though perhaps an inevitable +accompaniment of some of her best qualities, has struck many people as +a defect. It is not surprising that an able, energetic and successful +woman should exhibit a high degree of self-confidence, tenacity and +perseverance in pursuing her aims. There is a driving power about +Dr. Stopes which, if mistakenly applied, would be blameworthy, and +those who have not had experience of her uncanny trick of being right +have often been taken aback by the decision and emphasis with which +she speaks and acts. It is unwise to expect a racehorse always to go +quietly, and if one expected Dr. Stopes to be placid in her activities +and struggles, one would be courting disappointment. But let us see +what she herself says on this matter in her _Journal_. + + “In many ways I had wonderful opportunities of touching the living + reality in the Japanese; opportunities so exceptional that it is + to my lasting shame that my stock of patience and sympathy was not + always equal to them.... It is true that from an ordinary standpoint + there are many things in Japan which are exasperating to a Westerner, + but that was no excuse for me. Let me quote as an illustration a + small incident that I have ever since regretted. On page 43 (of the + _Journal_) you will find the account of my involuntary visit to the + courteous principal of a College, when I was really bound for a + coal mine. This young gentleman asked me to give a lecture to his + young men, and I refused. It is true that I was really anxious to go + directly to that mine, that it would upset my plans if I were at all + delayed, and that at the moment the disturbance of those plans seemed + a serious matter. But nevertheless I was the first European woman + that many of the people there had seen, and the first scientific + woman that any of them had seen or heard of. Their curiosity and + interest about me were as natural as my curiosity and interest about + their coal mine, but I gratified my own curiosity and not theirs.... + It would be practically impossible for them to realize how many + other claims had been made on that hasty young scientist who visited + them; they would only feel that in place of the human interest and + understanding which might have been shown there was a blank wall of + refusal. I tried to explain that science is a hard taskmaster, but + what good are explanations?...” + +The following entries in the _Journal_ give some idea both of her work +and her play while in Japan:-- + + “Some of the Professors kindly took me to visit the Principal of + the University in solemn state; he was most gracious, and (through + an interpreter) said most ridiculously flattering things. According + to him only one ‘specialist’ lady has visited Japan before, and she + was elderly. Therefore, they all marvel at me, as though I were some + curious kind of butterfly! We then visited the Director of the + Imperial Geological Survey. The Director is _most_ kind, as is also + the Chief Inspector of Mines, and they put every facility in my way. + The Director gave me all the information he could and the largest + geological map of the district, which is very small, only about + one-hundredth part of the scale I am accustomed to do geological + work with, so that things will be difficult. The Government here has + kindly written to the Governor of Hokkaido and to the owners of the + mines, so that I shall fare as well as possible.” + + * * * * * + + [In Hokkaido.] “The Governor insists that as well as Professor + Y---- (who is to be interpreter), _as well_ as an official from the + Department of Agriculture and Commerce, _as well_ as several coolies, + I must have a policeman to escort me to the mountains. I besought + him not to enforce him on me, but it is an honour they delight to + give me, and I had to submit. Too much zeal and too much kindness + are as difficult to contend with as too little. We then called on + the Department of Agriculture and Commerce, and there were more + formalities and more talk--when I shall get to the actual hammering + of rocks I can’t imagine.” + + * * * * * + + “We began the day at five, and the regular escort is now raised to + ten, with temporary additions between every stage! I have given up + protesting that so many people require quantities of food, which will + have to be carried, and will now look on 100 without a murmur. + + “We went through the forest and up the river prospecting, and found + scrambling along the steep banks of friable shale by no means easy; + but the escort assists me greatly, and one of them carries me on his + back on the frequent occasions when it is necessary to cross the + river. The only use the policeman has been so far was to lend his + sword to cut chopsticks which had been forgotten, and of course we + had no knives and forks with us at all, for I have learnt to get on + very comfortably without.” + + * * * * * + + “A long day going up-stream collecting nodules, which are very + big and very hard to break. The scenery up the rivers, with the + magnificent forests, is very fine. It is a curious sensation to be + in the midst of this boundless forest and see peak after peak densely + clad by trees which no man has touched.” + + * * * * * + + “Really it is hard work to carry tents and everything along these + rivers. Often I alone find it difficult to go, and I have nothing to + carry--except my fan and my hammer, both of which are in constant + use. Sometimes it would be impossible to go where we have been with + boots, the straw-sandals give such a clinging grasp that we are able + to get a foothold on a steep rock which in boots it would be mad to + attempt. + + “Fortunately the river, into which one would be precipitated, is + seldom deep enough to be dangerous. The day’s scientific results are + solid, but not thrilling. Tents are a luxury, but I would rather + sleep out under the stars. With all these coolies and people I am not + allowed to do my own cooking, but I most fervently wish I might.” + + * * * * * + + “Sapporo once more. A day of official calls, bowing, compliments + and formalities. They asked me to lecture to the women’s Aikoku + Fujinkai: the request of the Governor can hardly be refused after all + he has done, so it had to be. The lecture was held in the large hall + of the Government House, the body of the hall filled with women, the + galleries with men; the Governor acting as Chairman and giving an + immensely lengthy introductory speech, of which I could only guess + the drift from words here and there, Professor My---- following on + with another. It is easy to speak in an interpreted address, because + there is so much time to think between the paragraphs; but I am sure + it has not the same effect on an audience as the direct address. + Some, of course, understood my English. Before the lecture there was + a reception, and I was regaled with tea and cakes and left to the + tender mercies of the ladies, and men who can only speak Japanese; + later, however, the Governor’s German was available, and so it was + all right, and we were quite cheerful till the interpreter arrived + with a solemn face and a black suit.” + + * * * * * + + “[Tokio.] Professor Sakurai took me to visit Count Okuma in the + morning; he has a lovely house and grounds, which he was gracious + enough to show me. Every ordinary day he has about thirty or forty + visitors, and is one of the busiest men in the country. He has an old + face, with almost no hair, and is tall for a Japanese, and dignified + in his silken robes, and distinctly pleasing. He could speak no + English, so that conversation was rather limited, as he spoke more + than usually indistinctly, but he was amused with Professor S----’s + account of me and very gracious. The rooms are nearly all provided + with European chairs and tables, rich and handsome, the drawing-room + in which he received me upholstered in gold brocaded silk, which + harmonized well with the handsome old gold and painted screens from + ancient Japan which stood around the room. I begged to see the + Japanese wing of the house, which he showed me. His Japanese guest + chambers were, to my taste, far more beautiful, though perforce less + able to display his wealth. He is the Chamberlain of Japan in one + sense, and has the finest orchid houses in the country.” + + * * * * * + + “November 24.--This morning early I started off on foot in glorious + hot sunshine to get the fossils, and succeeded in getting more + than my coolie could carry. I am almost the only visitor in the + place, and everyone is very kind and very interested. My colloquial + Japanese comes a cropper now and then--but I get what I want, which + is the main thing. The rocky valleys and woods are very lovely, and + I appreciate the loneliness after these Tokio weeks. I should like + always to live in complete solitude two days in seven.” + + * * * * * + + “[Tokio.] All yesterday the Institute had been undergoing + extensive cleaning, and this morning was spent in expectation and + preparation of exhibits--the great Dr. Koch, the world-famed German + bacteriologist, was coming to see the Institute. Professor Fujii was + brought back from the mountain before his cure was finished, to be + on duty; my fossil slides were borrowed and put under microscope, + and the spermatozoids of _ginkgo_ were on show. He came, after + the whole Institute and Baron Hamao had waited in a flutter of + excitement for nearly an hour; he is a big stout man, not very + intellectual-looking. Though interested, he had evidently been + trotted round a great deal. He seemed to like my fossils, and asked + me to show him a section of a leaf, as well as those I had under the + microscope.” + + * * * * * + + “[Tokio.] I went early to the Institute, where there is grand + excitement over _ginkgo_; the sperms are just swimming out, and they + only do it for a day or two each year. It is no such easy business to + catch them, in 100 you can only get five with sperms at the best of + times, and may get one and be thankful. I spent pretty well the whole + day over them and got three, and several in the pollen tube, not yet + quite ripe. It is most entertaining to watch them swimming, their + spiral of cilia wave energetically.” + + * * * * * + + “[Tokio.] At work all the morning, lunch with the Faculty at the + Goten, and then at work all the afternoon. The fossils proved so + enticing that though I had worn a traily frock all day intending to + go to the Belgian Legation garden party, when it came to the point + the fossils won, and I didn’t go. In the evening I cycled down to + dinner at our Embassy. + + “When once one makes up one’s mind to a cycle, one can even go out to + dinner on it. I wondered, however, what the footman thought when he + had to lift it into the Embassy hall in case of thieves getting it + in the garden (I was told he has a brother who is an attaché at the + French Embassy! The Japanese are very quaint that way--one Count or + Baron or other is driven up to the door every day by his own brother + as a coachman). Thanks to the unmoved countenance of flunkeydom, + added to the immobility of the Japanese, I could sail into the + dining-room, past the same man, trailing a pink silk skirt with + apparent dignity.” + + * * * * * + + “[Tokio.] ... When I got to the Embassy garden party (it was given + to welcome Admiral Sperry and the American fleet) I found it had + been postponed in the morning, but as the weather was now so lovely + it was put on again. That is to say, it was half on and would be + repeated to-morrow. So we had one of the bands and quite a lot of the + American officers and other people turned up. The chief sight was + seeing Admiral Sperry and Admiral Togo sitting side by side looking + on at a kind of sword dance.... Admiral Sperry, though not imposing + or impressive in any way, seemed pleasant and keen, and was tall.” + + * * * * * + + “[Tokio.] Sven Hedin lectured to-day at the University, and I had + been asked to tea previously to meet him before it.... He gave me the + impression of being a genial, friendly, hardy, _pushful_, but not a + great man. The only other lady there was Madame G----, the mother of + the French Ambassador, whom I think I have mentioned before. She was + very gracious, as she always is, but cannot speak a word of anything + but French. We all walked over to the Lecture Hall from the Goten--a + slow and solemn procession. About the only people who spoke were + Hedin and Madame G----, a few people said a sentence or two to me, + but even the genial Dean seemed to be overpowered by the funereal + solemnity of the march. I had my cycle, and the French Ambassador + helped me to haul it up the steps! His only remark was _très + moderne_, which was very moderate of him. In the lecture I was placed + in the front row, between Madame G---- and Baron K----, and got into + nice hot water! The poor lady couldn’t understand a word of the + lecture, and Hedin often said things to make us laugh, and she could + not join in, so now and then I translated a word or two for her. This + upset Baron K----, who nudged me violently from the other side, so I + had to stop, but then I hurt the lady, for I didn’t dare answer her + further questions.” + + * * * * * + + “[Tokio.] Almost immediately after lunch we went over to--where do + you think?--Lafcadio Hearn’s house to see his wife and family! A + rare privilege, for the sanctum is unusually well guarded. But Mrs. + Noguchi’s friendship has won me the way in, for, as I said, the + eldest boy learns English from her and is devoted to her.... + + “As we entered we passed along an _engawa_ (verandah) bounding a tiny + internal square of garden on our way to the reception-room. This was + in the purest Japanese style, well-built, with pretty woodwork, a + thing one learns to notice in this country. I immediately observed + the _kakemono_, which was exceptionally beautiful, tall peaks of bare + rock pillars standing up against a grey sky, where a moon half shone + through a band of cloud. A picture that one could never forget and + yet would ever wish to see instead of merely remembering. I remarked + on it to Mrs. Hearn, who told me that ‘Lafcadio had very good taste + in _kakemonos_,’ and always bought only what pleased him exactly. + Wise man! when he had the cash! There was also a bronze in the room, + the bent stalk of a fading lotus leaf with the collapsed blade of the + leaf, and though there sounds no beauty in that, the bronze throbbed + with it. Mrs. Hearn was very friendly: less shy and quiet than most + Japanese women, she was yet distinctly Japanese in her shyness and + quietness. Without beauty, she pleased. + + “She and the children were all in usual Japanese costume, and the + only ‘foreign’ things in the room were ourselves and the cakes and + cups of tea she brought us. I inquired if she liked foreign food, and + she told me that she did, _very_ much, and that ‘Lafcadio’ always + ate it, for though he liked all the things to be pure Japanese, and + would have nothing he could help that was not, Japanese food upset + him, and he always had foreign food, but that now she never prepared + it. We chatted about many things, and she spoke freely of Hearn, of + whom I did not dare at first to ask any questions till she had spoken + voluntarily so much, to show that she liked to speak of him.... + + “The children were with us most of the evening, showing Brownie + picture-books, of which they had a fine stock. Hearn evidently liked + Andrew Lang’s fairy books, for they were nearly all there. + + “In his study, where we had supper, was the little family shrine, + built rather like a miniature temple of plain wood; within was + Hearn’s photo, and before it burnt a tiny lamp and stood dainty + vases of small flowers. According to Japanese ideas, the spirit of + the departed inhabits this dwelling and needs the love and attention + of his kindred, and takes part in their life. Is Christianity more + consoling to the bereaved than this? From the window by the shrine + could be seen the grove of the tall bamboo Hearn loved, and in the + room floated one or two of the mosquitoes with which he had such + sympathy.” + +Some of the Japanese ways must have startled a girl brought up in the +propriety of the Stopes family. One finds indications of this in such +passages as the following of _A Journal from Japan_:-- + + “The life in this train is different from anything I have yet + seen in trains, yet very comfortable, with dining-car where they + cook beside you what you order. Near me was sitting a smart man, + cultured-looking, and extremely well-dressed in perfect English + style. Thus he remained for an hour; then, the heat being great, he + took off his coat, then his waistcoat, and finally came to his shirt + alone! Then he pulled over him a loose kimono and removed every + stitch but that, finally winding a soft silk sash round his waist and + sitting down, all without removing his gold-rimmed glasses or turning + a hair! The transformation was extraordinary, and during the whole + ridiculous scene, acted within two feet of me, he was so utterly + unconscious and dignified, and so many others in the long car did + the same, that I began to wonder if we aren’t a little super-prudish + in England. During the night that man was most thoughtful and kind + to me, insisting on my using his rug, and finally doing an act + of service that called for such unselfishness that I am sure we + underrate the innate courtesy of Japanese men to women; and he was, + of course, a perfect stranger.” + +And also from Hokkaido: + + “I arrived at Aomori early this morning, and lost much temper because + I had to lose much time in getting on to the ship. The language, of + course, was partly the difficulty, but the natives are excruciatingly + slow to move. After _three hours_ of talking and arguing and going + over things again and again, at last I reached the steamer--a very + good little ship with nice state-rooms and saloons; of course + _very_ small. The state-rooms have three berths, and I find my two + companions are men. It was a shock at first, but they seemed so + surprised at my being surprised, that I thought again that we have + too much of the trail of the serpent about our customs. I slept in + the train with men near me, why not in the steamer? It is only for + one night.” + +And again: + + “Life in the Club-house last night was not without its interest. + I couldn’t get to bed for constant visits and interviews from + officials; the last gentleman came after I had prepared for bed, + and I conversed with him in my night-gown (which, mercifully, was + long and rather like a tea-gown), but he never turned a hair--coming + in on me before I could put on a dressing-gown. The maids are all + excessively sweet and polite, but they slide open the partitions + noiselessly, with no warning, and catch me unawares. + + “I put up at a little hotel near the sea, and after six went down for + a bathe. The coast was perfect, shelving rocks sloping out to sea, + with little bathing coves and sheltering rocks, and, as I imagined, + perfect solitude. But, of course, in this out-of-the-way place I had + been noticed, and before I was in the water a minute a crowd of women + and children had collected. Nothing I could do or say would drive + them away, and so I had to get out and dress under the fire of their + eyes and criticisms. In their long-drawn country tones they kept up + a running commentary, ‘Ooá--how white she is!’ ‘Is she married?’ ‘Why + does she wear a dress in the sea?’ ‘How old can she be?’ ‘Perhaps + twenty years.’ There was no escape from nearly fifty people forming + a cordon but three feet away from me; if I had fled they would have + followed, so I dressed, as leisurely and as unconcernedly as if I + were at home, and gravely buttoned the little buttons of my bodice + and put on my stockings while I returned the compliment and made a + searching examination of them. + + “The boy children were naked, with smooth glowing copper limbs like + sun-burned clay--as indeed they were. The girl children had usually + some floating robe of a dressing-gown nature, open to show the whole + body, or caught at the waist and turned down to leave the upper part + free. Bright-eyed they were and muddy-cheeked, but neither pretty + nor attractive. The women were naked to below the waist, the kimono + being turned down over the girdle to form a kind of double skirt. + No one wore any ornament of any kind, save a few coloured beads to + tie their hair, but few of them had even that. The men wore three + inches of cloth round their waists and sometimes a band round their + heads made of a small Japanese towel. All were perfectly quiet, and + the remarks were made one at a time by the older women; the children + stood open-mouthed. I know that the blue of the sea-water makes one + gleam like white ivory, and as all my clothes were white, I suppose + the effect must have seemed novel to them. The deep colour of the + Japanese is chiefly due to sunburn, but as they are exposed to it + from their earliest days, it gets so ingrained that they may not + realize it is an attempt at clothing on the part of a body otherwise + so unprotected.” + +From the above extracts it will be realized that, after a short stay +at Tokio, Dr. Stopes set off by herself to the northern trackless +forests in Hokkaido. She found however that the introductions kindly +sent by Sir Edward Grey and the Royal Society left her less free than +she would otherwise have been to travel in obscurity, and on arriving +in Hokkaido an interchange of visits with the Governor was necessary. +Before matters were settled she found that an escort of considerable +magnitude was considered essential. Among them of course was an +interpreter, as she had no knowledge of the Japanese language. Whilst +on the expedition with a party of coolies however the town of Hakodate +was burnt down entirely and the interpreter had to return hurriedly to +see to his family affairs, leaving her, with the meagerest smattering +of Japanese, to cope with her entire expedition, an experience she +found most salutary and not a little amusing. In many of the villages +to which Dr. Stopes penetrated, no white person of any sort, male +or female, had ever been seen before, and the curiosity her arrival +aroused was naturally great and often embarrassing, as, for instance, +when an entire school was brought to watch her dress, the natives +having noiselessly removed the sliding panels of her room before +waking her. The fossils she sought proved to be there, and her coolies +returned laden with specimens of great interest and new to science. +From Tokio she made many expeditions in other directions, including +one to the Southern Island of Amakusa, where coal mines of a very +primitive sort existed. Throughout her stay in Japan she continually +experienced difficulties in consequence of the ramifications of +Japanese interests she aroused. “It was so difficult,” she said, +“to get anywhere I wanted to go because they always wanted me to do +something else!” + +In Japan the aristocratic or “No” plays greatly attracted and +interested Dr. Stopes, and she attended as many performances of these +as possible; and in collaboration with Professor Sakurai, then the Dean +of the Imperial University, she made the first translation of three of +them into English. They were published by Heinemann in 1913, with her +notes on this most interesting and archaic of all still living forms of +the drama. Concerning this, Baron Kato, then Japanese Ambassador, wrote +of Dr. Stopes and her co-translator: “I am glad to be able to extend +to them my sincere congratulations on their remarkable achievement. +They have succeeded in their work to the best extent anyone can hope to +succeed, and in my opinion have placed Western students of Japanese art +and literature under a debt of gratitude to them.” + +After living for some time as a paying guest with a Japanese officer’s +family, Dr. Stopes decided to try the experiment of having a little +Japanese home of her own in Tokio, which city she always made her +headquarters. To run this, she had a delightful Japanese maid, and +lived as nearly as was convenient in the Japanese style, using +chopsticks and sleeping on silk quilts on the floor, though she kept to +European cooking. As the French Ambassador said, “Next to the French, +the properly trained Japanese made the very best cooks in the world,” +and her maid was remarkably skilful over a little charcoal brazier. + +The many dances and dinners, garden-parties, and receptions at the +Embassies, which social life at Tokio offered, afforded ample gaiety as +a contrast to her serious and arduous palæontological work. At an “At +Home” in Tokio one day a matron, talking to a slender young woman in a +pretty art gown of blue velvet, said: “Who is this Dr. Stopes people +are talking about? He collects fossils, and I expect he is a bit of a +fossil himself.” Later on the same lady said to her hostess: “Who is +that nice girl I have been talking to in the blue dress?”--“That is +Dr. Stopes, the learned geologist,” said the hostess, and the Yokohama +matron collapsed. But Dr. Stopes wanted some social activity rather +more serious than any that were available, and so she hit on the idea +of founding a ladies’ debating society like one her mother founded +many years earlier in London. For the ladies in Tokio nothing beyond +the superficialities of social life existed, since, being foreigners, +the various fields of social usefulness open to women in their own +countries were not available, and her idea was taken up with zest. The +debates were both animated and interesting, but, to the amazement of +all concerned, no men were admitted. This of course, in such a circle +as the Tokio diplomatic one, caused great astonishment, and Baroness +d’Anethon, the English wife of the Belgian Minister, who was the doyen +in Tokio, pleaded in vain when the debate was held in her house, +for exception to be made in favour of the Baron. This being sternly +refused, he hid in the room, and had to be dislodged amid laughter. In +looking back, Dr. Stopes thinks that this unexpected attitude of the +women was what secured the initial success of the little Society. It +undoubtedly filled a want, and it took root, and in an expanded form, +with many added activities, is now the Tokio Ladies’ Club. Dr. Stopes +also initiated a club for both men and women, the London University +Club, in Tokio. She, as a graduate of London University, felt that the +graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, who each had their club in Japan, +should not be the only ones to foregather. In this undertaking she +was much helped by the fact that several of the most distinguished +statesmen in Japan, as well as Professor Sakurai, the Dean of the +Imperial University, were graduates, or had been students, at London +University. That club, too, still maintains its existence and from time +to time communicates with her. + +On leaving Japan Dr. Stopes was the recipient of many beautiful +gifts from various departments, including a pair of exquisite silver +cloisonné vases, with a dedication to her from the Japanese Government +“in recognition of the service she had been to science in Japan.” + +After a year and a half in Japan Dr. Stopes returned home across the +Pacific and _via_ Canada. The ship encountered a terrific storm. The +manuscript containing her original drawings and the only copy of the +results of Professor Fujii’s and her work for the last year and a half +was with her in her cabin. The sea broke in, bursting the port-hole, +and before anything could be done water was waist deep in her cabin +and the precious manuscript was floating about with the rest of her +luggage. When rescued it was well-nigh ruined, but, having been tightly +tied up, there was some hope of saving it if it could be dried quickly. +The storm by this time was so terrific that she could not walk along +the corridor of the ship at all, and, with her heart in her mouth, +had to see the manuscript taken out of her care to the engine-room to +be dried, while she was tightly wedged in with pillows and fastened +into her bunk. Some days later the manuscript, with its pages entirely +disarranged, was retrieved; and from that experience the authoress +learnt a lesson she has never forgotten, and never now allows a +manuscript of hers to remain uncopied. + +On her arrival in Vancouver she was asked to lecture before the +Women’s Canadian Club. In Toronto, too, she was most cordially received +and made much of by Dr. Helen MacMurchy, a well-known figure in the +medical and Government circles of Canada. She then proceeded to New +York, where she received much cordial and friendly hospitality. + +It was not very long before she returned to America for a stay of +over three months, a large part of which was spent in Washington, +where she was correlating the palæontological collections with those +in the British Museum, in preparation for the volumes published later +by the Trustees of the British Museum. She was the guest then of +Hennen Jennings and his charming wife, who gave her many delightful +opportunities of meeting Americans of note. At a dinner-party to meet +Viscount Bryce, in whom she found an Ambassador not merely broad and +sympathetic, but with a profound knowledge of unexpected subjects, as +he showed in his table talk. Of him she says: “He was the only man of +general world-culture and note I have ever met who knew the correct +scientific names of fossils in coal-bearing horizons and mentioned +them as though they were everyday matters of conversation. He amazed +and delighted me.” + +In New York she met Andrew Carnegie, who invited her to his palatial +home, and she found him very different from the hard old man rumour had +described him as being. He gave her tea in tête-à-tête comfort, and +though he refused an endowment for palæontological research in London, +which she asked him for, he received the request with such humour and +such personal charm that she went away feeling she had gained a great +deal. And perhaps she had, for this wise old man said to her: “You are +far too clever, my dear, to be wasting your time over fossils; _things +that live matter more_. If you had come to me with a proposition that +would help the peace of the world, I would not have given you a quarter +of a million” (dollars, presumably), “I would have given you a million, +and gladly. Take my advice, and do not waste your time over these +dead-and-gone things.” (Alas for the later work of Dr. Stopes, that +is so essentially calculated to help the peace of the world, Carnegie +died before she was ready to ask him to redeem his promise.) The +palæontological enthusiast then pointed out to him that the whole of +his wealth rested on the use of coal, and therefore the palæontological +study of its nature and structure must have value, even to him. But +he would not see it, and said: “You are clever enough to make all the +millions you want for yourself. We dug coal before you scientists +existed, and we can go on digging it without you.” Patting her kindly, +he led her downstairs, right down his front steps on to the street in +most kindly and fatherly fashion, and next day sent her a book of his +own, inscribed as follows: “For relief from severer studies likely to +destruct the brain.” + +In St. Louis, as has already been mentioned, Dr. Marie Stopes met +Dr. Gates whom she afterwards married, and in Chicago, where she was +invited to lecture at the University, she met Jane Adams, the great +social worker, and a number of academic men of world note. Of American +cities, Boston, next to Washington, attracted her most, and there +she was entertained by old Mrs. Fields, whose home was one of the +last links between modern times and the glorious days of American +literature, and who showed her a manuscript collection of many of +the great English authors. Other friends in Boston gave a dinner for +her to meet Henry James on his native heath. “That night,” she said, +“I really felt that I had achieved fame. Henry James entertained the +dinner-table with a number of stories from one of my books. I suppose +he had forgotten their origin, but I played up, and laughed in the +proper place every time. I felt for the first time in my life that I +really had accomplished something.” + +In Ottawa she was the guest, at Government House, of the +Governor-General and Lady Grey. Here she met the Premier, Sir Wilfred +Laurier, who was full of reminiscences and confidences about his youth. +The Minister of Finance sat next to her at dinner one evening, and +semi-officially asked her to name her own terms for remaining in Canada +to develop palæontological work in connection with their Government +departments, but she then felt that she would rather have a junior’s +salary in London than comparative riches elsewhere. + +Shortly after this she went on to Montreal, staying only a few +days. Lord Grey, who was visiting Montreal at the time, opened Lord +Strathcona’s house and gave a luncheon party to Dr. Stopes. In Montreal +she visited Professor Penhallow, the palæobotanist, who had charge of +many interesting fossil specimens, some of them dating from the famous +Dawson’s time. She also met Sir John Macdonell and Professor Adami and +others of the University staff. + +In Montreal she was married to Dr. Gates, who came to meet her there +for that purpose. + +Dr. Stopes has twice seen Niagara: once in brilliant summer sunshine, +pouring over in torrential floods, and once frozen, with an ice halo +round all the neighbouring trees, with an ice bridge across it, and a +rainbow sparkling in the sunshine from the small central stream. + +In Stockholm, Professor Nathorst, one of the greatest palæobotanists +in the world, had unique collections it was necessary for her to +correlate with those in the British Museum. She stayed a good many +weeks in Stockholm, and while she was there the city was also visited +by Professor Seward (now the Master of Downing College, Cambridge), a +palæobotanist, and his wife and daughter. This palæobotanical party, +together with Professor Nathorst, was invited to a lunch by the British +Minister, Sir Cecil Spring Rice, at his beautiful summer villa some way +out of Stockholm, who made a deep personal impression on Dr. Stopes. +His sympathetic and charming personality and real interest in science +was unusual. She had often experienced in Japan, where she moved +freely among the diplomats, and at Washington and elsewhere where she +met Ambassadors and their kind, a superficial courtesy and a pretence +of interest which seemed to her unreal, but Sir Cecil created an +impression of noble sincerity and sympathetic understanding. + +Since the war Dr. Stopes has travelled little, though she has been once +to New York and in 1923 attended the Fuel Congress in Paris, where she +had been invited to give a paper on her researches on the structure of +coal. + +[Illustration: HUMPHREY VERDON ROE.] + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +MARRIAGE. + + +About eighteen months after having been freed from the legal +matrimonial entanglement which had proved itself no true marriage, +Dr. Marie Stopes and her real husband met at a luncheon party given +by a mutual friend. They were immediately attracted to each other +under rather curious circumstances, each having been invited to meet +the other and each of them thinking that the other had not turned up, +but that the delightful young person they were meeting was a son or +daughter of the one they were to have met. + +Humphrey Verdon Roe was the son of Dr. Edwin H. Roe and Annie Verdon, +his wife, and was one of seven children. Medical men were numerous in +his family, and he was the son, nephew, and brother, of medicals. He +himself went straight into the Army from school and from his crammer, +and entered the First Battalion of the Manchester Regiment as a +subaltern. The regiment was stationed in Gibraltar, where he first saw +foreign service with its vivid new experiences, and the regiment was +drafted to South Africa in 1899, where he served through the whole +siege of Ladysmith, suffering permanently in health to some slight +extent from the starvation he then endured. At the end of the South +African war he resigned his commission and entered first one and then +another business, making himself independent of his family. A brother +a year older than he, Alliott, who had a varied engineering experience +and a great gift for invention, was interested from a very early date +in the possibilities of flying. Humphrey Verdon Roe placed his business +knowledge and resources at his brother’s command, and the two worked +in partnership: a partnership in which Alliott benefited by the keen +common sense of Humphrey, who kept a steering-wheel on the development +of the many ideas coruscating from his brother. The development of +those that could lead to solid results was organized by Humphrey, and +the machine they then constructed is still of value. Together the +two brothers founded the firm which manufactured the “Avro” biplane +in 1910, when flying was still thought to be almost an impossibility, +and only a few years after _The Times_ had published an article saying +that from an engineering point of view it was not possible to fly, the +brothers had mastered the obstacles before them. In the first year +of the war Humphrey Roe’s policy was more than justified. Avros were +on active service all over the place, and in November, 1914, Avros +were selected for the successful raid on the Zeppelin headquarters at +Fridrichshafen. + +The development of the production of Avros, and others modelled on +them, naturally expanded enormously during the war, but Humphrey +Roe, though at the head of a rapidly increasing business, at once +endeavoured to take up a fresh commission in the Army, but was held +back as being of more service to the country as a producer of flying +machines. In 1917 however, the huge expansion of production having been +fully organized and established, he succeeded in rejoining the Army; +and resigning all direct interest in the firm, got his commission, and +went flying in France. At this time, at the age of 39, he was in such +good physical condition that he went night-bombing over the German +lines. His machine was brought down, and he was sent home with a broken +foot and a jarred spine, gaining a wound stripe early in 1918. An +account, with a photograph, of his night-bombing work is given in the +“Annals of the 100th Squadron.” + +Besides being a successful business man of many interests, H. V. +Roe has been through life a most abstemious liver, a teetotaller, a +non-smoker, and of very simple personal tastes and habits. Before he +met Dr. Marie Stopes, in conjunction with Councillor Margaret Ashton, +M.A., the well-known philanthropist and social worker in Manchester, he +had, for some time, been endeavouring to improve the lot of the working +women by founding a clinic for birth control. Indeed he made an offer +to a Manchester Hospital of £1,000 a year for five years and £12,000 at +his death if they would open such a clinic, but through fear of losing +some of their other supporters if they took such an advanced step, they +regretfully refused to do so. On going to the front Mr. Roe made a +will, leaving his whole property for the endowment of birth control +and the foundation of various scholarships. It is an indication of the +extraordinary ignorance that then prevailed on that very important +subject, that his solicitors in 1917 were exceedingly chary about +allowing him to make any bequest for birth control, warning him that +probate might be refused. Fortunately however his marriage with Dr. +Marie Stopes in 1918, who was equally anxious to promote birth control, +resulted in the mutual efforts they have made to do this in their own +lifetimes. They founded the first clinic for birth control in the +British Empire, which under their supervision has steadily progressed. + +[Illustration: Dr. Marie Stopes at the time of her marriage to Mr. H. +V. Roe. 1918.] + +His meeting with Dr. Marie Stopes took place just before he went to +France, but on his return he and she decided to marry as soon as he was +allowed out of hospital, and arrangements were made for the marriage to +take place at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, the Bishop of Birmingham, an +old friend of Dr. Stopes, and Mr. Roe’s uncle, the Rev. Russell Napier, +the Vicar of Old Windsor, were to officiate. The demand for officers +was then so great however that he was ordered to the front sooner +than had been anticipated, and they were hastily and secretly married +a month earlier than had been planned, at the Registrar’s Office at +Westminster. Then, fortunately, his orders were changed, and the +religious marriage at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, could proceed. The +couple were then in the amusing position of having been really married +a month when, with all due pomp and solemnity, they were in the eyes of +the world, being married for the first time. No one but myself, and one +other friend,--not even the bride’s mother--had been informed of the +first marriage hastily arranged in view of the tragic possibilities at +that time. + +Humphrey Verdon Roe had many years previously determined to retire +from business at 40, and, after his marriage, he and his wife decided, +when the war should be over, to devote their whole leisure to public +service in one form or another. In addition to his interest in birth +control Mr. Roe, as an employer of labour, had often endeavoured to +bring employers and employed to a better understanding, and he +actively took up the work of the Industrial League and Council, joining +its committee and furthering its efforts to promote Whitleyism. He was +also interested in other public service, in particular, town planning. +Dr. Stopes had for some time been living at Leatherhead, and as the +district offered just the kind of beauty and facility of access to +London they desired, he bought a beautiful property and they settled +down at Givons Grove, where they now live. + +[Illustration: An Industrial Conference at Givons Grove.] + +After they had been married fifteen months their first baby son was +born, a beautiful and well-built boy of 8-3/4 lb., whose tragic death, +and all the attendant circumstances, involve a story too strange and +horrible for me to tell here. Fortunately, their second son, who was +born in 1924 (and who also weighed 8-3/4 lb. at birth), is another +beautiful and sturdy baby, so like the first that he might be his own +elder brother come to life again. + +Humphrey Verdon Roe was so severely injured in France, where he had a +foot broken and two bones in his spine jarred, that he was invalided +out of the Army before the close of the war. With the exception of +a brief visit to Switzerland, he and his wife have done none of the +travelling they had planned, but have lived very quietly since their +marriage. Whatever strength each of them has had has been devoted +principally to work in connection with birth control: the founding of +the clinic for birth control, and the Society for Constructive Birth +Control, of which H. V. Roe is honorary secretary. Further reference to +this will be given later (p. 221). + +Those who, like myself, have often stayed at Givons Grove, know +well how complete and real a marriage this is. Much is said of the +Brownings’ ideal marriage, but here, in living fact, is another +equally perfect in harmony and sentiment and in many respects more +actively vital. Each with a pioneering instinct, though exercised +in different directions, each serene in disregard of their own +immediate advancement, each having an almost childlike sentiment and +sensitiveness, they have strengthened and completed each other in the +happiest way. No reference to life at Givons Grove would be complete +without mention of their beloved Chow dog, who goes everywhere with +them, even on their honeymoons, and whose affectionate disposition fits +well into the home life there. + +[Illustration: Dr. Stopes, seated, with her husband’s father and +mother.] + +[Illustration: Mr. H. V. Roe and “Wuffles” as a puppy.] + +I am convinced that Dr. Stopes is one of those rare people whose mental +and moral energy never allows them to rest long on their oars, but who +when they have mastered one problem have to engage on another. The mere +diversity of tasks she has already undertaken indicates this, including +as it does a considerable body of important scientific work, besides +elementary text-books, a book of travels, a book of poems, plays, a +cinema story, and fairy tales, as well as the series of works on sex +that have had such a large circulation here, and have been translated +into French, German, Swedish, Danish, Czeck, Polish, Roumanian, Dutch +and Spanish. This forms a surprisingly varied output for anyone, and +still more for a woman of her age, and there is every reason to expect +much more from her yet. + +The characteristics observable when one gets to know her well are a +curious blend of feminine charm with a trenchant intellectuality such +as one rarely encounters. She is clear-headed, but not of the aridly +intellectual type; on the contrary she frequently jumps to conclusions +by a kind of intuition, though she verifies and tests them afterwards. +I have already alluded to the exceptional tenacity--some people would +say obstinacy--with which she clings to her purpose, great or small, +and also to the surprising frequency with which she reaches her aim +when an onlooker does not see at all why she should. Perhaps I may +illustrate this by an example. When her husband bought Givons Grove, +Dr. Stopes set to work to beautify and decorate it, a task for which +she is highly qualified. Well, at Givons Grove she resolved, among +other things, that the upper part of the dining-room walls were to be +painted a particular shade of blue. It was war-time, and after the +decorators at her instigation had tried a dozen different sources, +they declared the required paint to be quite unobtainable. Dr. Stopes +would not have the walls painted any other colour. About that time she +underwent the serious operation previously mentioned, and stayed at +Torquay to recuperate. The first day she was strong enough to go +out, she asked a policeman to direct her to the best oil and colour +shop in the town. He did so, and on reaching it Dr. Stopes asked for +two pots of the shade of blue paint she required. The shop-keeper said +he had none of it, but Dr. Stopes insisted he had. She said she must +have it, and would he please be quick and examine the stock in his +cellar, as she was not at all well and very weak, did not want to wait +long, and _knew_ he had it in the shop. She was, in fact, by this time +so exhausted with weakness as to be almost collapsing over the counter +at which she sat. The man replied that he had no cellar; but, on being +questioned, he admitted that he had a small attic, and at her bidding +he went to see what was there. He soon returned, having to his surprise +found just two pots of the identical shade required, which Dr. Stopes +promptly purchased, and the paint from which is now on her dining-room +walls. + +[Illustration: Members of the Birth Rate Commission. The Bishop of +Birmingham in the centre. Dr. Stopes on his left.] + +[Illustration: Dr. Marie Stopes and her Baby, Harry Verdon Stopes-Roe, +aged 3 months.] + +Physically Dr. Stopes matured slowly, and must have been nearly thirty +before her sex-instincts were at all fully developed. Slowness of +development does not however imply any incompleteness, and besides +being very happily married, she is the mother of an unusually fine +baby: a particularly bonny, healthy little chap, whom she nurses +herself and who, in the first six months of his life, has never had a +wakeful night, and spends all his waking daylight hours laughing and +crowing. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +“MARRIED LOVE” AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS. + + +The book, _Married Love_, was the outcome of Dr. Stopes’s scientific +investigation of her own case, in the course of which, as already +mentioned, she had read in the British Museum and elsewhere nearly +everything that mattered on cognate subjects. This research revealed +to her the great gaps that exist in the information available to +ordinary people, as well as the lack of a book of instruction in +sex, sufficiently simple to be understood, scientifically accurate, +yet sympathetic, and written with a basis of romance and poetry, +which she deemed to be the atmosphere in which alone the subject can +properly be broached. In addition to this, she made a very fundamental +physiological discovery on the subject of women’s spontaneous +sex-rhythm and potential response to sex appeal. Concerning this Dr. +Stopes brought to the science of human physiology a contribution which +has already had, and should yet have, far-reaching sociological +results. In her chapter on Rhythm, together with charts, a fundamental +law was laid down, or rather the existence of it was detected, but +couched in simple and direct language suitable for the readers of any +ordinary book instead of for the _Transactions_ of a learned Society. +Its profound value has still perhaps not been fully realized, although +it was followed up by Havelock Ellis, whose reference to it has already +been quoted. + +_Married Love_, drafted at first to crystallize her own ideas, was +approximately completed in 1914, but Dr. Stopes then made no definite +effort to publish it, and it was early in 1918 before she felt that +the time for it was absolutely ripe and that it should immediately +be published. I had read it in manuscript, and thought it of great +interest, but I did not think it would find a ready market, and +told her she would be fortunate if 2,000 copies of it were sold in +twenty years in the form in which it was being published. In her +usual independent way Dr. Marie Stopes laughed, and her laughter was +justified, for the first 2,000 copies were sold in a fortnight. The +second and third editions were sold without a single advertisement, +and Mr. Fifield, who was the original publisher, soon began to be +oppressed with the burden of keeping the market supplied. When Dr. +Marie Stopes, who knew him to be in general an active, efficient and +capable publisher, went to him with the book (sole control of which +she retained), she asked him in the initial interview whether he could +deal with a book likely to sell by the ten thousand for some years, +and probably ultimately by the million, and Mr. Fifield assured her +that such was his capacity and desire. He put his heart into the +publication of the book, and it owes much to his initial care. When, +however, it had begun to get into the ten thousands the successful +author was rather astonished to receive urgent telegrams from the +publisher saying, “Stop this boom,” and letters bewailing that he had +to sit up all night to deal with the orders, and she was startled to +find that where she had ordered a printing of 10,000 copies he had cut +it down to 7,000. She pathetically remarked, “Most publishers, I should +have thought, would be only too glad to have an author who helped them +sell their books,” particularly when no financial responsibility was +involved. In order to get the book out early in 1918, when paper was +at a premium, Dr. Marie Stopes took everything in hand herself, and +within three weeks of deciding it should be published, had it on the +market. She bought the paper herself, and had to go from one wholesaler +to another to obtain the supplies of paper needed for the successive +reprintings, as paper was at that time rationed, and it was no small +achievement to have kept the book on the market in the way it was. +Ultimately, as Mr. Fifield was in any case retiring from business, in +the most friendly fashion she transferred the book to Messrs. Putnam, +who have published since then. + +When first bringing out _Married Love_ I remember hearing Dr. Stopes +say that she thought knowledge on these sex matters now so urgent and +so well worth her time that she would risk her academic position in +London University and everything short of life itself to bring it out. +She was quite prepared to be imprisoned. The one thing she was not +prepared for was the avalanche of thanks and heartfelt gratitude, the +thousands and tens of thousands of touching letters which inundated +her from all parts of the world. Indeed, for the first year or two +after the publication of _Married Love_ Dr. Stopes’s life was made +a positive burden by grateful readers. She had deliberately in this +book said very little on the subject of birth control, deeming it a +minor matter, for _Married Love_ presupposes a knowledge of birth +control, and was planned to give instruction in the general problems +facing potentially happy married people. But such a large number of +her letters were not only from private individuals requiring birth +control help, but from those who had been to their doctors and been +refused information, or whose doctors knew nothing satisfactory to +tell them, and so large a proportion were from medical men themselves +thanking her for the information she gave and asking for more, that it +became impossible to reply to the individual letters, and instead of +a letter she wrote a very small book called _Wise Parenthood_, which +was first published in paper covers as a pamphlet. This has grown, and +been kept up-to-date as a small book concerning several methods of +contraception, and is planned for the general reader. Public memory +is very short, and it may not be generally realized or remembered how +great has been the effect of Dr. Stopes’s outspoken and scientific +work on the subject of sex in general and contraception in particular. +Before 1918 it was the exceptional doctor who was able and willing to +give contraceptive information to his parents; to-day the position is +almost reversed. After some time a further need became apparent, for +a centre where trained experts could give personal advice to the very +large number of people who require individual attention and cannot +follow written instructions, and Dr. Stopes and Mr. Roe often spoke of +the idea of a clinic and endeavoured to urge suitable societies and +institutions to found one. Everyone feared to do so and shirked the +responsibility. At last they said: “We seem to be the only two people +independent enough, and with the necessary freedom, resources, and +determination, to do it. No one can oust us from our positions, no one +can stop us; obviously _we have got to do it ourselves_.” + +The first birth control clinic in the British Empire therefore was +founded by Dr. Marie Stopes and her husband in 1921 as a demonstration +of what was needed throughout the country. It was deliberately kept +small and simple, because they did not desire, as reformers often do, +to create a large institution with an expensive staff, but desired +to demonstrate how, with a simple everyday shop and rooms, easy of +access, with equipment costing only a small sum well within the means +of every welfare centre in the country, the knowledge of the control +of conception could be brought to the very poor and ignorant. As they +explain in the little brochure describing the first foundation of the +clinic: “Here mothers will be considered not only as the producers of +mere babies, _but as the creators of splendid babies_. Only motherhood +which is in the control of the mother, can now truly advance our +race.... Birth control knowledge will be given not in the crude +repulsive form it is advocated in some quarters, but as the keystone in +the arch of progress towards racial health and happiness.” + +In order not to be hampered by the conflict of ideas and ideals, no +committee was organized in connection with this first clinic, but a +number of distinguished persons from different social circles kindly +showed their interest in the work by lending their names as patrons, +including several distinguished medical men and women. The clinic was +opened on March 17, 1921, and its simple accommodation was very soon +overtaxed to such an extent that it has hardly dared to advertise its +existence since the first great meeting of welcome which was held at +the Queen’s Hall. + +Dr. Stopes served as a member both on the Cinema Commission and on the +Birth Rate Commission. The latter in its previous Report had dealt with +birth control questions, and in the Sessions arranged for 1920-1921 +intended not to deal with that subject. Dr. Stopes was willing to take +no active part in drawing attention to it; but witness after witness +skirted so near the subject in giving evidence, that questions on it +were unavoidable, and it ultimately became one of the most important +topics before this Commission as it had been on the former one. + +At the conclusion, however, contrary to the weight of the evidence, a +majority of the Commission signed a reservation opposed to scientific +birth control; whereupon a minority resolution was drawn up by Dr. +Marie Stopes, which was signed by Lord and Lady Willoughby de Broke, +Dr. C. W. Saleeby and herself. + +About the time of the foundation of the clinic Dr. Marie Stopes, in +connection with coal mining and other work, was to some extent in +touch with Downing Street and met the Prime Minister personally, who +naturally could not at that stage commit himself to any open approval +of a subject which had not yet been voiced in a reputable public +manner. He said to her however, “Show us that there is a public behind +you; hold great meetings. There has never been a really _respectable_ +great meeting on the subject in the country.” Dr. Marie Stopes +responded. “All right,” she said, “I will take the Queen’s Hall myself +and pack it,” and this she did without any committee or backing beyond +that of a small number of private friends, and a brilliant platform of +speakers gathered round her. The Hall itself was packed to overflowing, +and the phrase “Constructive Birth Control” coined and set in +circulation. An American journalist who was present said: “That meeting +took my breath away; twice you knocked us sideways. Once by daring to +do it at all, and the second time when you gave us that idea that birth +control could be _constructive_, a pro-baby idea; we had always thought +of it as a purely negative and repressive movement.” Letters of cordial +approval and support were sent for public reading at this meeting by +Miss Maude Royden, Lady Constance Lytton, the Lady Glenconnor, Sir +James Barr, C.B.E., M.D., and many others. + +Speeches were made by Rt. Hon. G. H. Roberts, Dr. Jane L. Hawthorne, +Dr. Killick Millard, Admiral Sir Percy Scott, Councillor H. V. Roe, Dr. +Marie Stopes, and myself. + +All the speeches were reported verbatim, and are published in a +pamphlet,[1] together with some impressions of the meeting by people +who were present. + +Dr. Jane Hawthorne said: + + “I am here this evening to represent those who have neither the + opportunity nor the power to make their own appeal, and therefore I + am anxious to put before you as clearly as possible the position of + the very poor, hard-worked wife and mother.... The other week a woman + came into one of our clinics to tell us that in twelve years she was + the mother of nine children, and of these two only were alive, and + this, ladies and gentlemen, is the history of that family.” + +After giving terrible details of this and a second family, Dr. +Hawthorne continued: + + “Another woman, whom I know well, comes regularly to the Infant + Welfare Clinic every eighteen months with a new baby, and that mother + is mentally deficient, whilst her husband is deaf and dumb. None of + these children are normal, and so they are born to very quickly find + their way into the hospitals, the asylums and other institutions. + + “These, ladies and gentlemen, are only a few--a very few--of the + hundreds of similar cases which one meets with in the year, and + yet it seems to me that these few voice an appeal which ought to + be irresistible to those of us who have ears to hear, and those + of us who have the knowledge and power to help. By what right + do we withhold this knowledge and take upon ourselves so great a + responsibility?” + +In the course of her own speech Dr. Stopes said: + + “Sometimes those who feel intensely with me, yet shrink from doing + anything for the poor mothers, because they think that by so helping + them young girls and others will learn methods of birth control and + may thus be sent downhill on a life they ought not to embark upon. + So I want to make it clear once and for all that such an idea must + not be allowed to hinder us. One of the very first experiences in the + Birth Control Clinic was a strong case to show how misguided that + would be. The second person who came to my Clinic when it was first + opened came on behalf of a girl of twenty who was pregnant for the + sixth time! And every previous time she had had an abortion performed + by her own mother! We, of course, had no help for that girl. We + cannot deal with such cases. Yet it shows that in that terrible + underworld of misery and anguish which we selfish, self-centred, + lazy people so seldom visualize and understand, there _is_ already + ‘knowledge’ of a kind. ‘Knowledge’ is going round which is utterly + detrimental, utterly unwholesome and tragic in its effects. The + true knowledge which we are bringing to counteract that is clean + and wholesome, and is pure physiological information to replace the + miserable half-knowledge which already exists. + + “Then, too, another aspect of my Birth Control Clinic is lit up + by the fact that by the word ‘control’ I mean CONTROL. It is + extraordinary how the words ‘birth control’ have become associated + with a negative and repressive movement. Now, in my opinion, control + consists in being able to go uphill just as well as to go downhill; + to turn to the right as well as to the left. I will tell you the + story of one woman who came a fortnight ago. + + “She was one of the type that certain clergymen in their pulpits + would refer to as ‘those wicked women who refuse maternity.’ All + through her marriage she had openly declared she did not want + children. But to me she came for help and said: ‘I have been married + seventeen years and have not had a child.’ I asked her whether she + wished she had one and she said: ‘Of course, _of course_ I want a + child, but I’ve never told anyone; I pretend that I do not want one + because I can’t get it,’ and then she cried, and exclaimed: ‘I would + give my life, and suffer any torture to have a child.’ We gave her + information which I think will help, and I hope that in about nine + months there may be a Clinic baby in that home.” + +There have been many other cases yielding “Clinic babies” since then. + +Dr. Stopes continued: + + “Another incredible thing is the general lack of knowledge about sex + and all the wonderful and beautiful mysteries of marriage. The extent + of this ignorance is extraordinary. Do you know we had five cases of + people married for years, and in each case the husband has not known + how to play his part, and the wife is still a virgin and she wonders + why she does not have a child!... + + “We have already to-day sufficient sound physiological knowledge to, + from this moment (if one could only get everyone to know of it), + check the birth of every diseased, unhealthy, unprepared-for child. + We really can, as Dr. Killick Millard quoted, stem at the source + this incessant stream of misery which is always greater than our + resources can deal with. + + “How great this misery, and how great the expense of it is to + our race, can be found by reading a few of these Blue-books. You + could very advantageously spend a few shillings at Imperial House, + Kingsway, buying Reports in regard to prisons, costs of maintenance + of schools of detention for the feeble-minded, asylums for the blind, + schools for the defective, and so forth. Surely it is far better to + spend the money on healthy, happy children who cost us far less per + head than the wastrels! (Applause.) + + “To get rid of the wastrels in a Christian way we must see that they + are not born. + + “Beyond this, this ideal which I present is not _merely_ that we + shall be simply healthy people and have only healthy children born; + it is further that we shall consciously step forward to a greater + potentiality of health, beauty, happiness, and understanding of life. + An old false idea, which early got incorporated into Christianity, is + that the enjoyment of beauty and sex-life in marriage was a wrong, + or at any rate a lesser thing than the ascetic and repressed life. + That idea is now doing us infinite harm. It is a lower and baser + ideal which was suited to the earlier stages of evolution, but we + have now passed through the stages of human evolution, when that + idea is of any further use. The ideal which humanity to-day needs is + the ideal of a full joyous life of real understanding, coupled with + control, and with the full use of every beautiful aspect of the life + of man and woman together.... + + “I absolutely deny that the so-called ‘self-control’ which consists + of the ascetic repressing of mutual love between man and woman is a + high ideal. It was a temporary ideal suited to a phase of life in + which there was no scientific knowledge. I now say quite clearly that + the truest and a far higher ideal is for a man and woman to love each + other profoundly as a pair of individuals, and to benefit by that + love and interchange which each needs from the other. And at the same + time, but as a separate conscious act, to create only those children + for which they have sufficient means, sufficient love, and sufficient + health. That is to say, that married lovers should play the part of + parents _only_ when they can add individuals of value to the race.” + +Following Dr. Stopes, I said: + + “Some three or four thousand years ago Moses and his successors, + using the scientific knowledge of their times, and well understanding + the difficulties and dangers of the small Jewish tribe they + represented, formulated a code of morality based on the broad + common-sense principle that everything possible should be done to + induce their women to bear as many children as possible for fear + the race should be exterminated by the hostile nations and the wild + beasts that surrounded them on all sides. + + “That morality no longer fits our case to-day. If every woman in + England were induced to bear a score of children the resulting misery + would totally eclipse the sufferings caused by the Great War. It + was very well 3,000 years ago to say: ‘Happy is the man that hath + his quiver full of them (i.e., children); they shall not be ashamed + when they speak with their enemies in the gate.’ With twenty fine, + strapping sons of his own, he could indeed talk ‘like a father’ to + any foe. + + “But times have changed. We no longer insist on a man going to his + deceased brother’s widow to perform the husband’s duty and raise + up seed to increase the family. We even place obstacles in the way + of his marrying his deceased brother’s widow if he wants to. Then + again, we do not tolerate public polygamy in the old-fashioned way, + and we should be much scandalized if we had a king whose matrimonial + experiences were as melancholy and as multitudinous as those of King + Solomon. + + “Evidently in our new conditions we need some clear guidance suited + to our present-day conditions, but which shall preserve the spirit + of ancient religion by dealing with the questions of marriage and + motherhood on lines as clear, broad, reasonable, and humane, as were + the precepts of Mosaic morality for the people and time when they + were formulated. It is not creditable to those who now sit in Moses’s + seat that they have made no serious attempt to do this. They have + tithed the mint and anise of church ceremonies and legal enactments + while forgetting the weightier matters necessary to the promotion + of healthy and happy homes for men and women rearing cheerier and + sturdier offspring to fill our places when we have passed to the + Great Beyond. It was under these circumstances that Dr. Stopes, three + years ago, produced her great work, ‘Married Love,’ which has since + been followed by ‘Radiant Motherhood’ and other works. + + “These offer sound and sane guidance which we can oppose to the + quackery, ignorant confusion of thought, and ascetic malignity, of + those who love the darkness rather than the light. That is why I wish + particularly to emphasize the thanks due to Dr. Marie Stopes.” + +Mrs. Zangwill, the authoress, wrote of that meeting: + + “I had not heard Dr. Stopes speak in public before, and so was + unprepared for the beauty of her voice, and the amazing way in which + it carries. She put forward yet another aspect of the case. Birth + control is control and not negation, she insisted. Her clinic is not + only to prevent the unwanted baby; it is to produce the wanted. She + touched on instances of disastrous marital ignorance--ignorance that + is only possible through our ignoring the most important subject in + life--the subject that _is_ life.” + +It seemed that the enthusiasm and interest showed at this meeting +should not be allowed to die down with no permanent growth, and +consequently a Society was founded to carry on birth control propaganda +and work on the lines indicated at the meeting. The Society for +Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress was founded at the +Hotel Cecil on August 16, 1921, Mr. H. V. Roe being elected honorary +secretary and Dr. Marie Stopes president, with a distinguished +committee and list of vice-presidents. In a few weeks this Society +secured more public support than the old Malthusian League had done +in forty years, for it was run in a way more in keeping with the +feeling of the time, a yearning for constructive help for a pro-baby +organization which recognized the sacredness of motherhood and the need +of knowledge to space babies so as to give the best conditions for both +mother and child. This spirit is embodied in the tenets of the Society +(see Appendix C). Regular meetings have been held in London, and a +number of others all over the country, which have stimulated men and +women in many directions, so that now the birth control movement is a +powerful constructive movement in the country, though it is not yet +fully organized, nor are its adherents all conscious of how large is +the number of those who, like themselves, privately approve but still +fear their next door neighbour--who also probably privately approves, +but fears to say so. + +Following her first presidential address to the Constructive Birth +Control Society, Dr. Marie Stopes responded to an invitation to speak +in the Town Hall in New York, and “popped across” the Atlantic for a +three-days’ visit. She found herself compelled to stay five days, as +there was no suitable return sailing, and during that time she gave an +address to the first great meeting on the subject in the Town Hall in +New York, a verbatim report of which was published by the Voluntary +Parenthood League; besides which she spoke at some private drawing-room +meetings at which the formation of clinics for birth control in America +was discussed and a scheme set on foot. + +Dr. Stopes’s little book, “Truth About Venereal Disease,” had the +good fortune to be mentioned with praise and approval in the House of +Lords by the presidents of both the then opposing Societies that were +combating the evil--Lord Gorell and Lord Willoughby de Broke--and it +did something towards the object with which it was written, namely, the +unification of the opposing factions. + +The Society for Constructive Birth Control, finding the press +indifferent, needed an organ, and when it held its first public dinner +(a very successful affair), Dr. Marie Stopes produced from under her +dinner napkin, as a surprise, the first number of the _Birth Control +News_, which was circulated among the guests. This monthly, in the +form of an ordinary newspaper so as to be readable and attractive to +the man-in-the-street, has ever since then chronicled the world-wide +development and interest in birth control, which is now beginning to be +recognized by thinkers in all directions as one of the most useful and +urgent subjects for social consideration. + +When _Married Love_ was first published Dr. Marie Stopes won the +approval of almost everyone, as it was written in a sympathetic strain +of idealism. With its plea for temperate wholesome living and the +spread of sound knowledge it was difficult to disagree, and she had +too, in the first six editions of the book, the cordially expressed +support of a Roman Catholic priest of the Society of Jesus, who said: + + +“DEAR DR. STOPES,-- + + “I have read _Married Love_ with deep interest. As a piece of + thoughtful, scientific writing I find it admirable throughout, and + it seems to me that your theme could not have been treated in more + beautiful or more delicate language, or with a truer ring of sympathy + for those who, through ignorance or want of thought, make shipwreck + of their married happiness. + + “Your clear exposition of the rhythmic curve of sex-feeling and of + the misinterpretation on the part of so many husbands of what they + call their wives’ contrariness, arising from their ignorance of its + existence, should bring happiness to many married couples whose lives + are drifting apart through want of knowledge. In the exercise of my + ministry I have repeatedly traced the beginnings of the rift to this + want of knowledge, and consequently of sympathy. + + “So far we are in complete agreement, but our ways part when you + treat of birth control.” + +Then follow the usual Roman Catholic objections to birth control, in +the course of which he says: + + “Let me take in illustration of my meaning the case you give of the + worn-out mother of twelve. The Catholic belief is that the loss + of health on her part for a few years of life and the diminished + vitality on the part of her later children would be a very small + price indeed to pay for an endless happiness on the part of all.” + +He does not explain why “endless happiness” should be obtained by +irrational conduct, but concludes his letter with the words: + + “I cannot end without thanking you very sincerely for allowing me + to read your book. Apart from what, as a Catholic, I object to in + it, it contains so much most helpful matter that I feel sure it will + bring to many a happiness in married life now wanting through the + ignorance and the consequent want of sympathy which you so rightly + deplore.” + +After Dr. Stopes and her husband founded the clinic however, and +thus came into the arena not merely as dreamers and talkers, but +as people who were practically active, hostilities arose of which +something will be said in the next chapter. These pioneers naturally +enough encountered sporadic animosity often in unexpected quarters, +and sometimes, much to their distress and surprise, in the very +quarters from which they had expected helpful co-operation; but no +organized opposition exists except in one direction, namely, in the +official attitude of the Roman Catholic Church and its associates, +which became actively hostile after the founding of the clinic. Until +then many Roman Catholics had been Dr. Stopes’s ardent admirers and +public supporters, but after that date they were forbidden to express +public approval, and were positively encouraged to suppress knowledge +of her and of her work, as well as to pursue a hostile policy. These +hostilities began to take the form of scurrilous articles in the press, +which Dr. Stopes was advised to ignore. Later however a Roman Catholic +medical practitioner published a book which contained statements +against which Dr. Stopes, as the leader of a movement, felt herself +bound to take legal proceedings. Owing to the fact that at the time of +writing an appeal is before the House of Lords, this case is still _sub +judice_, and cannot be discussed in detail; but I may be permitted to +say that among its remarkable features were the medical contradictions +voiced by the defendant’s witnesses. In the _Birth Control News_ for +November, 1923, some of this medical evidence was analysed. + +This case, though costing Dr. Stopes many thousands of pounds and +incalculable worry and waste of time, did not hinder the birth control +movement; on the contrary it gave it a great advertisement and educated +large numbers of people into becoming sympathizers who had previously +held aloof not realizing the issue at stake. All over the country, +meetings continued to be held on the whole question of contraception, +social economics, and sex life. Among the larger meetings addressed +by Mr. H. V. Roe and Dr. Marie Stopes was one at Stockport, organized +by the Labour Party, which was attended by a packed audience of 3,000. +A couple of thousand squeezed into the Central Hall in Edinburgh; a +meeting of 1,000 was held in the Battersea Town Hall; a meeting of over +1,000 in Liverpool. + +Previously, in 1922, a meeting had been held at the Town Hall at +Deptford, when the mayor in office officially countenanced the meeting +by taking the chair. Delicate health alone has prevented Dr. Marie +Stopes from “stumping the country”; for a few years ago she had to +undergo a serious operation, and has never regained sufficient strength +to travel as she did previously. From the point of view of the movement +this is unfortunate, for undoubtedly the time is ripe, and Dr. Marie +Stopes, going from town to town, would set fire to the great mass of +public opinion now smouldering red hot in its demand that birth control +shall be made available at the Welfare Centres, or in small clinics all +over the country, and that the self-respecting, thrifty, and healthy, +members of the community shall no longer be burdened with the upkeep +of large families of C3’s and wastrels who are on the rates, and, still +more important, that the enslavement of mother shall no longer exist +among us. + +Unable herself to speak night after night, she devised the idea of +making others speak for her, and wrote a play. Nothing has so far been +said here of Dr. Stopes’s interest in the drama. That also is, perhaps, +inherited from her mother’s passionate interest in Shakespeare. But I +know that if she had not so many other calls on her time, she would +have devoted herself to the drama. As it is she has published an +interesting volume on the _No_ plays of Japan (see p. 110 and Appendix +A), one of which was produced at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, +besides being set to music by Boughton and performed several times +by the Glastonbury Festival Company. She has also published two or +three modern plays besides “Our Ostriches.” One of them, “Conquest,” +is symptomatic of the tendencies which led up to the inception of the +League of Nations. + +The birth control play, “Our Ostriches,” ran at the Royal Court +Theatre, London, for three months, and contained an amusing scene in +which a Commission (a replica of many official Commissions) sat on +the stage, the heroine of the play eliciting ardent applause every +night from the audience. “Our Ostriches” afforded Dr. Marie Stopes the +experience of a riotously successful first night, when, in reply to +calls for “Author,” she gave a short speech in which she mentioned that +this birth control play had been permitted, but another play of hers, a +pro-baby one, had been blocked by the Lord Chamberlain. + + +[1] _Queen’s Hall Meeting on Constructive Birth Control._ Putnam’s +Sons, Ltd. 1921. 1s. net. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +OPPONENTS. + + +No one of so dynamic a temperament could pass through life without +making some enemies and rousing opposition, but until recent years +the number of Dr. Stopes’s opponents or enemies was remarkably few. +Before she published “Married Love” she once said to me: “I believe +the only people who do not like me, and try to minimize what I do, are +the men who have made love to me--and, of course, to whom I have not +been able to respond.” There were also a few small-minded wives of the +professional men with whom she came in contact, whose instinct was +to feel that any woman who could enter into the intellectual fields +pursued by their husbands must be dangerous, but beyond these trifling +and sporadic difficulties she might be said to have had no enemies +until she encountered the Roman Catholics. That she encountered them, +purely by accident, was due to the publication of her book of poems, +_Man, Other Poems and a Preface_. Up to that date she had not realized +that such a thing as organized Roman Catholic hostility to any person +existed, nor, consequently, that it was possible to arouse it, and +she was much surprised to find she had aroused the rabid hostility of +a botanist on the staff of the British Museum, Mr. James Britten. He +was a Roman Catholic and an exceedingly active worker for the Catholic +Truth Society. + +Dr. Stopes tried, but failed, to make him understand she had had no +intention of offending Roman Catholics, and could not imagine that +they would apply to themselves the words of her poem, as she had no +antagonistic thought when they were penned. The hostility of this Roman +Catholic botanical editor was unappeasable however. + +Warned by this previous encounter, when she published _Married Love_, +she thought she would secure herself by obtaining a commendation from a +Roman Catholic, and, as previously mentioned (see p. 155), she obtained +a most cordial foreword of approval of the book from a member of the +Society of Jesus. Undoubtedly this safeguarded the first appearance +of the work, which was hailed by many Roman Catholics and was pushed +actively by them in many directions until her more practical work in +the foundation of a birth control clinic aroused the hostility of the +Church of Rome. Thereafter her books were taboo, the cordial treatment +she had received from many experienced Catholics who well knew the +value of her work was quenched, and organized hostility against her was +instituted which, to those who have not themselves suffered from such +organized hostility, may appear incredible in England in the twentieth +century. What Dr. Stopes has to tell of underground opposition would +fill a volume, and includes whispered slander of the most personal +kind, definite tales and stories circulated in London clubs, some of +which sound very plausible, for almost correct anecdotes about her are +subtly twisted to convey a false meaning. Almost every newspaper has +been bombarded by her enemies. + +In illustration, let me note what happened in _The Times_. Up to the +date of this hostility, and after the publication of _Married Love_, +Dr. Marie Stopes had always had very kindly treatment from _The Times_ +newspaper. She was, for instance, one of the few people of a literary +tendency who had never had a letter refused for publication, nor an +article rejected. Indeed, one day she took down an article of a column +length and said: “This simply _must_ go in to-morrow, and I hope you +will put it in,” and it appeared. Other papers would often telegraph to +her to send articles by return, but since the Roman Catholic campaign +against her began changes in the attitude of the newspaper press became +so remarkable that some details of them should be mentioned. One may +say, in general, that editors and advertisement managers are very busy +people whose chief contact with their public is through correspondence, +and that if they receive two or three dozen letters expressing more +or less similar opinions, they are apt to imagine that these letters +represent a general feeling, and to allow themselves to be guided by +them. + +A skilfully organized campaign of anonymous and also of signed letters, +against Dr. Stopes and the work that she stands for, is a part of the +Roman Catholic campaign. Evidence of this appeared in the course of +the trial in the High Court between herself and Dr. Sutherland, a Roman +Catholic, when, before giving judgment, Lord Justice Scrutton made the +following statement:-- + + “Since we reserved judgment in this case I, in common with other + members of the Court, have been pestered by anonymous communications + all proceeding from and advocating the side of the defendant. + Of course, I acquit the legal representatives of the defendant + absolutely of having anything to do with these communications. I have + also no reason to believe that the defendant himself had anything to + do with these communications, but I think it is right to say that + such communications are absolutely improper and are punishable as + contempt of Court.” + +Judges in the High Court are not, of course, swayed by correspondents, +but letters fictitiously signed, or signed by persons paid to write +them, in addition to those written by individuals who really feel what +they write, are handy weapons to use against an opponent whose natural +outlet through the press certain people wish to stop. The result of +such influences is seen in _The Times’_ refusal of advertisements +of her books for the last year or two, though they were previously +advertised in its columns, as indeed in those of almost every other +reputable paper in the country. _The Times_ also began to refuse the +lecture announcements of the C.B.C. Society when they contained Dr. +Stopes’ name as taking the chair, and it was necessary to see one of +the Directors to get this ban lifted, as it has recently been, since +when the Society’s announcements have regularly appeared. Still more +incredible seems the fact that a double advertisement of the birth +of her son was refused by _The Times_, although the announcement +was worded in the simplest and quite usual form,[2] first, under +the surname “Roe”; second, under the surname “Stopes” (as the baby +will have both surnames, Stopes-Roe), and in the exact wording of +the announcement which appeared in the _Morning Post_, the _Daily +Telegraph_, and other first-class papers. Moreover this refusal was +not made to an employee, but personally to Mr. Roe, who took the +advertisement himself to all the offices that there should be no +mistake. After the birth of her son Dr. Marie Stopes was seriously ill +for a long time.--As a consequence of her world-wide travels she has +many friends in various parts of the world who are anxious to have +news of her. _The Times_ is the principal paper to penetrate Embassies +and outlying British homes, and was therefore practically the only +convenient medium of communication with those friends, but a short +paragraph for the Social Column, announcing that she was out of danger, +was also refused, and friends consequently remained in ignorance of the +state of her health, although a little later on an advertisement was +accepted by a different department for the personal column. Neither Dr. +Stopes nor her friends attribute such disheartening incidents to any +definite policy on the part of the press, but to the sporadic successes +her enemies achieve through individuals who come directly or indirectly +under their influence. + +_The Times_ report of the Sutherland case had been quite fair, yet in +its legal columns reporting her application against two Roman Catholic +editors, the words of her own Counsel, as also of the Judge, were +altered so as to degrade her from being “Dr. Stopes” to “Mrs. Stopes.” +On the day that this appeared, her solicitor wrote to _The Times_ +drawing the editor’s attention to this mistake. Nevertheless a few days +later in the Judgment of Mr. Justice Roche _The Times_ report again +altered his words so as to alter her description, and this in a case +in which the title to which, as a learned Doctor of Science, she is by +Act of Parliament entitled, was of material importance to her. This is +amazing, considering the reputation _The Times_ has long enjoyed for +accuracy, and the fact that it is frequently referred to in Court as +evidence of what has occurred. + +It is hard to calculate what Dr. Stopes’s movement has lost by the +absence of the normal press publicity and support to which her work is +entitled, and which it would no doubt have continued to receive from +the press had it not been for the machinations of the Roman Catholics, +for the public forms its opinions of persons and movements very largely +by what it reads of them in the press. + +Those who wish to minimize her work sometimes say of Dr. Stopes: “But +she is not a _proper_ doctor, and is therefore not qualified to deal +with these matters.” But, in the first place, under the laws of the +land, only the learned doctors of the various Faculties, that is to +say, Doctors of Science, Doctors of Laws, Doctors of Medicine, Doctors +of Music, Doctors of Divinity, and so on, are legally entitled to +be called “Doctor,” though the practising medical profession very +frequently and impudently appropriates that title, and many who are +only Bachelors of Medicine, or even less, call themselves “Doctors,” +and are so called by the public. + +An M.B. (_bachelor_ of medicine) is, of course, fully qualified to +practise in this country as a physician, but this does not legally, and +should not in any way, confuse him with the learned _doctors_. If a +short name is wanted, he should be called a “Medico.” Dr. Marie Stopes, +as a learned Doctor of Science, has more right to the title than the +majority of the medical profession. + +It should also be pointed out that what the ordinary medico practises, +he or she has learned from the Doctors of Biological and Medical +Science. Pasteur was not a practising medical, but nearly the whole +science of medicine now bases itself upon his scientific foundations. +It is fully within the province of a learned Doctor of Biology to +instruct practising medicals on the scientific bases of any advances in +any branch of their science, and to contribute new knowledge to it. To +give a more recent example, the late lamented Sir William Bayliss, the +greatest physiologist in the world, was not a practising medical, but +medical practitioners all over the world are proud to learn from him. + +Dr. Stopes has even lectured to medical students at more than one +medical school. As a fully trained biologist she has published the +first medical and scientific manual in any language on contraception. +This book is entitled “Contraception: Its Theory, History and Practice, +A Manual for the Medical and Legal Professions.” It is published by +a Medical Publisher, and has been cordially received by the medical +press, the _Lancet_ saying: + + “Much of the evidence contained in the book is quite unobtainable + elsewhere.” + +Dr. Christopher Rolleston, a Medical Officer of Health, said of this +publication: + + “I predict a great success for the work, and I wish to record my + thanks to the author for her pioneer work in preventive medicine.” + +It is also warmly endorsed by Sir James Barr, M.D., a former president +of the Medical Association, and many doctors from all over the world +use it as the source of their practice. + +The fact is that the medical profession had in the past seriously +neglected this subject, which greatly affects the health of the present +and future generations. No instruction in the use of contraceptives +was included in the training of doctors at any of our hospitals before +Dr. Stopes’s work appeared, and practising doctors are generally too +busy to investigate matters not included in their training, and even +if they had the time, most of them lack the kind of training needed +for original research in sex-problems and especially in the relation +of those problems to women. Yet when a qualified woman scientist +specializes in the matter and supplies what the doctors had failed to +provide--the objection is raised that she does not belong to their +trade union, and that matters should continue to be neglected till one +of them some day finds time to deal with the matter. + +But while the doctors neglected the subject, another class of people +were actively harmful in disseminating erroneous information. These +were the Roman Catholic priests, whose celibacy, one would suppose, +deprives them of sexual experience and renders them ill-qualified to +deal with the problems of married life, even apart from the fact that a +theological training is a poor substitute for the scientific training +needed for the investigation of such questions. + +I have no feeling of ill-will towards the Roman Catholics, whose Church +at various times has rendered great service to humanity, but I feel +sure that many Catholics who value intellectual integrity must blush to +read the pitiful futilities that are put forward as the Catholic case +against birth control. + +Beyond the bald assertion that it is “wrong”--which, being the very +question at issue, cannot be decided by mere assertion--they rely on an +obvious misrepresentation of the plain meaning of the 38th chapter of +Genesis, and on other statements and arguments that are so childish as +to be ridiculous. For instance, they habitually confuse abortion--that +is, the killing of the embryo after conception--which is a dangerous +and harmful practice, and a criminal offence in English law, with the +prevention of conception, which is neither dangerous, nor harmful, nor +a legal offence. Those who confuse these two different matters are +either so ignorant that they have no business to offer guidance on the +subject, or they seek with deliberate mendacity to darken counsel by +their words. + +Besides this, we have statements that a rational control of births, +to ensure a moderate birth rate with a high survival rate among those +who are born, and a healthy posterity, is “race suicide,” leading +to the depopulation of the world, the spread of immorality, and +various other evils. These assertions are backed by references to the +state of France (a Roman Catholic country, in which birth control +information and the sale of contraceptives is illegal), where, in +spite of a terrible amount of abortion, the birth rate, as shown by +recent statistics, is higher than in England, but the death-rate among +children is so great that the survival rate is very low. + +It is natural that people who obstinately opposed the dissemination of +knowledge on these subjects, and have no better arguments than these +to adduce in support of their views, are tempted to betake themselves +to methods such as those referred to above in what has been said about +the pressure exerted on the press to stifle news of the birth control +movement, and the falsehoods disseminated about Dr. Stopes herself. + +Before long it may occur to the more intelligent among Dr. Stopes’s +opponents, that when a great public question fundamentally affects +the vigour of the race, the health of mothers and children, and the +happiness of the whole people, a thin black line of priests and their +dupes cannot permanently block the way to the free and open discussion +of the subject. + +The public is naturally asking for an authoritative statement from +the medical profession on the matter, and it should be more generally +known that there is now a Medical Research Committee dealing with +the technique of contraception. When it issued a statement to the +medical and general press early this year after sitting two years +its composition was as follows: Sir James Barr, C.B.E., M.D., LL.D., +F.R.C.P., F.R.S.E.; Professor Sir William Bayliss, F.R.S., M.A., D.Sc.; +Harold Chapple, Esq., M.C., F.R.C.S.; Dr. Jane L. Hawthorne; Geo. +Jones, Esq., M.A., M.B., D.P.H., Barrister-at-Law; Dr. Maude Kerslake; +Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane, Bart., C.B., M.B., M.S.; Sir John MacAlister, +F.S.A., F.R.G.S.; Sir Archdall Reid, M.B., F.R.S. Ed.; Christopher +Rolleston, Esq., M.D., M.R.C.P., D.P.H.; D. Sommerville, Esq., B.A., +M.Sc., M.D., M.R.C.P.; Marie C. Stopes, D.Sc., Ph.D., F.L.S., F.G.S.; +H. M. Telling, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.P.; Dr. Mather Thomson; E. B. Turner, +Esq., F.R.C.S. + +It will be noted that the majority of the Committee are medicals, +and biological science was represented by Sir William Bayliss, Dr. +Sommerville, and the President of the Society, Dr. Marie Stopes. In +addition to the medical members of the Committee, other distinguished +practitioners are in helpful association with it. + +In accordance with the objects of its foundation, the Committee +considers a variety of current affairs concerning Contraception, but +its proceedings and minutes are strictly confidential and none of its +deliberations are published, except about points which are specially +passed for publication. The Committee, feeling the importance of the +questions concerned, is in no hurry to draw up reports or make public +statements, but desires to observe and investigate carefully. A number +of new, or supposedly new methods have been brought before it from +various quarters. Due consideration confirms the view that no one +method is applicable, but that several of the simple and well-known +methods which have had a long trial still are the best to meet ordinary +requirements. + +At a Committee meeting last spring the following resolution was passed +for publication in suitable quarters: + + “The Medical Research Committee of the Society for Constructive + Birth Control and Racial Progress wishes to place on record its + joint and several opinion that the methods now used at the _Mothers’ + Clinic_ are the best known at the present time.” + +The Mothers’ Clinic, it will be remembered, is the Birth Control Clinic +founded by Dr. Stopes and her husband which has been the subject of so +much ignorant attack. + +[Illustration: DR. MARIE STOPES.] + +Her Roman Catholic opponents scored a great coup in connection with +Dr. Marie Stopes’s film _Married Love_, or _Maisie’s Marriage_, +which was beautifully produced by Messrs. Samuelsons. The producers, +Captain Walter Summers who collaborated and Dr. Stopes, all agreed +that it should _not_ be pre-eminently a birth control play, but a +melodramatic story of general interest. Dr. Stopes had been a member of +the Cinema Commission, and always desired to produce a film to which +no exception could be taken. This she thought she had done, and the +producers did not believe it possible that any objection could be made +to a film which had been so cautiously produced. The trade show was +very successful, but the Censor, instead of giving the certificate +necessary for universal exhibition in a few hours or a day or two as is +usually done, _held up the matter for four weeks_, a delay which caused +great loss to the producers, for in the cinema world everything must +come like hot cakes after the first announcements. It is an unfortunate +coincidence in this case that the Chief Censor, Mr. T. P. O’Connor, +is a Roman Catholic. In a personal interview all the facts presented +to him failed to influence him, and he insisted on alterations so +harassing that the author could not consent to them. For instance, +though no exception was taken to a cabaret scene that occurs in the +picture, he considered a beautiful rose which faded into a baby’s face +to be improper, and demanded its excision! The play however in its +_complete_ form, exactly as written by the author, was shown to the +trade, was rapturously received, and obtained excellent reviews in many +solid papers such as the _Daily Telegraph_, and has been shown in its +original form in many of the large towns in England with the approval +of the local Watch Committees; for instance, the very strict Manchester +Watch Committee approved of it, and the film was shown to packed +houses in Manchester. Sometimes efforts were made locally to block it, +but generally the committees came out in its favour; for as Colonel +Giles, of the Folkestone Watch Committee, reported in the _Morning +Post_, said: “One could safely take one’s grandmother to see it, +there being nothing obnoxious in it.” Scotland too welcomed it in its +original form. Mr. T. P. O’Connor wanted to enforce his alterations, +though he had no real _power_ to do so if local Watch Committees +approve of a film he bans. The L.C.C., misinformed about details, +backed the Censor, and at one time even endeavoured to stop the use of +the words “Married Love” in association with the film. Dr. Marie Stopes +received a letter from the L.C.C., however, as a result of her personal +interview with the Theatres and Music Halls Committee, in which they +stated: “The Council has not raised, and will not raise, objection to +the use, in posters and descriptive pamphlets issued in connection with +the film, of the description ‘Maisie’s Marriage,’ a story by Dr. Marie +Stopes, the author of ‘Married Love,’ provided that the words ‘the +author of “Married Love”’ are printed in type which is appropriate to +the description of that nature, and relatively small compared with the +type used for the title ‘Maisie’s Marriage.’” + +One wonders under what statutory right they dictated to the advertising +world of the cinema the size of type they may use! + +Mr. O’Connor’s intervention with the Home Office led to a circular +letter being sent out from the Home Office to every Chief Constable in +England. Such communications from the Home Office led to local trouble +here and there, notably in Portsmouth, where the booking was cancelled. +Dr. Stopes was personally in Portsmouth the same week and saw the Chief +Constable, and the Town Clerk under whose orders he acted, and they +assured her that there was a misapprehension and mistake in the matter, +and if it came up again no exception would be taken to the display +and exhibition of the film under the above title. Fortunately those +authorities did not take a tape measure to the lettering. + +It was a curious coincidence that the week she was banned in the +cinema, Dr. Stopes spoke from the pulpit in Portsmouth. At the Sunday +evening service at which she spoke, the crowds down the aisle, and +standing even on the gravestones outside to hear through the windows, +were so great that people asked if some member of the Royal Family was +there, as they could think of no other attraction likely to draw such +crowds. + +Mr. T. P. O’Connor’s interference seemed likely to become the subject +of a public inquiry. In the printed order of the day for the House of +Lords, “Bills appointed and Notices” for Wednesday, November 13, 1923, +the following appeared: + + “The Earl Russell.--To call attention to a communication from the + Home Office, of June 30 last, addressed to the Chief Constables and + Watch Committees and marked ‘Confidential,’ attempting to interfere + with the production of a film entitled ‘Married Love,’ by Dr. Marie + Stopes, and to ask His Majesty’s’ Government what official status, if + any, the Board of Film Censors has; whether the censorship is in fact + administered by Mr. T. P. O’Connor; and whether it is the practice + of the Home Office to act as Mr. T. P. O’Connor’s representative in + endeavouring to interfere with the production of particular films + without any independent inquiry on their part.” + +Unfortunately it was a few hours too late, for the Baldwin Ministry +resigned, and under the rules of the House the subject could not again +be raised in the succeeding Administration, despite the injury done to +private individuals, who, one would think, should have some means of +obtaining redress from those who succeeded to office. It is a pity that +Mr. Baldwin did not hold the reins a little longer, for in a debate in +the Lords many things of considerable general interest would have come +to light. + + +[2] Exact wording of the advertisement was--“Roe--On the 27th March +to Dr. Marie Stopes, wife of H. V. Roe, of Givons Grove, Leatherhead, +Surrey--a son”; and “Stopes--On the 27th March, to Marie Carmichael +Stopes and her husband, Humphrey Verdon Roe, of Givons Grove, +Leatherhead, Surrey--a son.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +INNER LIFE. + + +In any life that is worth writing at all the outward events have +but a superficial interest in comparison with the landmarks in the +development of consciousness and the soul. This was pre-eminently so in +the life of Tolstoy, whose biography I wrote chiefly because it was in +so marked a degree a spiritual adventure. + +My many years’ acquaintance with Dr. Marie Stopes have made me in +some small degree acquainted with the landmarks in the development +of her inner life, but as in the case of Tolstoy the data carrying +conviction are those afforded by autobiographical evidence. So I feel +in the present instance that we must await an autobiography fully to +understand the character whose life it has here been my task to sketch +in outline. + +A certain amount of autobiographical detail is to be found in the +volume of travels already referred to, the _Journal from Japan_, as +also in the preface to _Man, Other Poems, and a Preface_; on these I +have drawn, but for the main outline of her spiritual growth I depend +upon personal notes which I asked Dr. Stopes to write. + + “From my earliest childhood religion, not in its narrowest sense + of outward performance but in the inner sense of absolute reality, + has been a matter of the very greatest concern to me. My mother was + Scottish of almost Calvinistic tendencies, and my father a Quaker, + but one who felt that the religious education of a little girl should + be left absolutely to the mother. I was brought up in the rigours + of the stern Scottish old-fashioned Presbyterianism, in which hell + was presented to me as an absolute reality which I stood in imminent + danger of inheriting; special books were kept for Sunday reading; no + toys were allowed on Sundays, when Bible chapters and texts had to + be learnt as well as church attendances fulfilled. All this I took + with childlike literalness, which was rendered all the more intense + by a feeling of guilt at being unable to _see_ Christ and the angels, + which I felt, somehow, was my own fault. In spite of my father’s lack + of interference I used, even in the very earliest days, to feel that + he was wiser than mother, and that his aloofness from our religious + observances was not hostile, but something superior; that in fact he + dwelt in more direct communion with God than we, who had to make an + outward office of it. This, I think, shows how through all the early + years of my childhood he must have exercised the greatest care not to + interfere in any way with my mother’s more specific instructions. + + “One of the earliest religious landmarks that I remember was when, at + the age of six or seven, my manifold sins had been made very evident + to me, and I felt that if only I were a better girl I would _feel_ + the actual floods of the Blood of Jesus which would purify me. I + felt I must try to be converted in such a way that I really could + see and feel these things. I remember placing myself at the foot of + a long flight of stairs at the bottom of which was a sheepskin mat, + dyed crimson, and I rubbed myself in the crimson wool of the mat and + shut my eyes and tried to picture the stream of the Blood of the Lamb + cascading down the stairs and over me, purifying me and taking away + my manifold sins. I was discovered by nurse before this process had + completed itself, and was led away, but I remember to this day the + feeling that the only barrier between me and an actual sensation + of the Blood of the Lamb was my manifold crimes of omission and + commission, and that I stood in imminent danger of hell-fire if I did + not succeed in persuading my senses really to feel the Blood of Jesus. + + “Childhood’s memory fades concerning the resolution of that problem; + and next I remember clearly, at the age of about eight, getting into + very profound religious difficulties over the conflict between the + existence of hell-fire, in which human beings, and even children, + were burnt eternally, and an all-loving and all-kind God. These + difficulties worried me to the extent of keeping me awake at night. + The problem was not one that I could take to my mother, because + when I was seven years old I had one day observed her sewing in her + bedroom on a Sunday, and had hence come to the conclusion that she + was ‘not truly religious.’ My grandmother, however, who read the + Bible every day and was always spoken of as a very saintly woman, + seemed to me to be in immediate communication with God and to be the + person to whom I should take this very profound difficulty. I well + remember going into her room with her breakfast tray, finding her + reading her Bible as usual in bed. Sitting down near her, I began to + ask her about the problem of hell and a loving God. She laughed; I + suppose I must have sounded absurd, but it shut me up so completely + within myself that I do not think I ever spoke of the difficulty + to anyone for years. But I remember, most clearly, thinking it out + for myself, and in the course of a few months evolving in elaborate + detail, something that resembled the Roman Catholic faith, with the + exception that I omitted, of course, any idea of the Pope. No Roman + Catholic was in contact with me, and my home, as I have explained, + was a Calvinistic and Quaker establishment, and yet I came to the + conclusion that the only possible God, that was the true God, must + be one who did not entirely burn people up in hell, but only allowed + them to burn so far as to burn the badness out of them, and that the + goodness was then allowed to go into Heaven as a very tiny baby and + grow there big enough to be a grown-up soul in Heaven; in short, the + theory of purgatory. I evolved also, in my inner consciousness, the + theory of saints, and I remember most clearly, night after night + through the winter, lying on my side, taking up the least possible + room at the edge of my bed, and spreading the bed-clothes comfortably + across the part of the bed that I did not inhabit, so as to allow + the saints, whom I fancied were there guarding me and talking to me, + to be comfortable and warm while they were there. I was convinced + that they were there, and felt that it was my own wickedness which + prevented my feeling their presence. + + “This phase, of course, also passed, although I do not remember when. + Then I remember clearly, from the age of about eight to ten, or nine + to ten, reading the whole of the Bible through, including all the + enormously long and dreary chapters in the Old Testament. I was still + ignorant of the Roman numerals, and could not understand them, and + I remember going through the Bible with a pencil and counting up on + my fingers the numbers of the chapters as I read them and writing + them in ordinary numerals, so that I should know how far I had got. + The thin pages adhering here and there, naturally the sequence of + the Roman numerals was transcribed quite wrongly, a thing I only + discovered a good many years after, when I came to look through the + same Bible again. At the time I felt that perhaps, if I were good + enough to read the whole Bible without skipping a word, I might + understand the religious puzzles which still haunted me. At the age + of eleven I was still so much a believer in the literal understanding + of the Bible that when I was asked by one of my aunts what I wanted + for a birthday present, I asked for a New Testament small enough to + put in my little pocket, so that I could continue to study it and try + to learn the whole of the New Testament by heart. + + “At the age of eleven I remember most vividly another experience + which was perhaps rather remarkable for a young child. My grandmother + was then apparently in good health, living in Edinburgh, and my + mother and we children were staying a night or two in Edinburgh. + No anxiety had warned us of my grandmother’s condition, but one + evening, after being put to bed, I could not sleep for a terrible + feeling of icy coldness and death. I had never thought of death + before, and my sister and I were sharing a large bed, and all night + through I kept putting my hand across, quietly, to see if she were + cold, or if it was only I who was cold, and wondering who was dead + and what death meant, feeling that it was very, very near. The next + day my grandmother was found, quietly sleeping after her afternoon + nap, dead in her bed. I may say that quite a number of times during + my life similar premonitions of events before they have happened have + come to me, but not with a sufficient regularity to allow me to plan + my life on the assurance that they will come. Such foreknowledge is + always scrappy and incompletely conveyed. + + “A few days before I was twelve I was sent to school in Edinburgh, + living with a family and attending St. George’s School. The family + with whom I stayed were also old-fashioned, extremely Protestant, + Scottish people, and I remember being shown, with such strong + expressions of disapproval that I looked upon the whole surrounding + atmosphere as contaminated by it, an Anglican Church near Alva + Street in which the people were wicked enough to have an organ to + sing with. I remember my young indignation at such ‘Popery,’ a word + that by that time I had learnt, although I still did not realize its + meaning. At that age, too, the sense of responsibility, which I felt + very early became intensely oppressive. I think it was due to the + fact that my parents had admonished me so very much to take care of + my younger sister, but it was deeper in origin and seemed to embrace + the whole world. It developed about that age into a feeling that I + was so terribly guilty that I corresponded to a ‘Jonah,’ like the + one whose presence risked the lives of all his fellow-travellers in + the ship, and that my guilty presence in the world was responsible + for disasters to others. I remember clearly one day the lady with + whom we stayed reading some paragraph from a paper about a great + calamity abroad--I think an earthquake--when I burst out crying, and + said: ‘Oh, but I can’t help it; I can’t help it. It is really not my + fault.’ I have never entirely lost this sense of _burden_, and I + still do my birth control work because I feel that the responsibility + for the unborn whom I had not helped would be unbearable if I were + not to carry it on. + + “Life in the more mellowed atmosphere of Kent, where the only church + possible for us to attend at Swanscombe was the English Parish + church, removed some of the childish supersensitive feeling of guilt, + and life became a little easier, more normal, and less narrow. I + remember, however, always feeling on my guard against the errors + of the Anglican Church, and although I became a communicant, there + were certain words and phrases in the creeds and hymns that would + cause me to close my mouth firmly, and that nothing could induce + me to say. My father still held aloof from religious discussion, + but I had a feeling that when I grew up to him, there within him + was wisdom that would understand me and that I could meet. Looking + back on the extraordinary intimacy and quite exceptionally profound + affection between my father and myself, I feel it very curious that + I did not go to him with my religious puzzles. I think possibly I + may have done so, and that he may have said that I must do what my + mother told me in these things till I was older. Certainly about the + age of fifteen or sixteen I began to realize the difference between + a Friend, that is, a member of the Quaker Society of Friends, and + members of other religions, and to feel all my sympathies with the + Friends. + + “When at the age of sixteen I was away at the seaside, somewhere near + Folkestone, in a little village (I do not know what was its name), + I used to take long rambles by myself, and I remember one Sunday + attending a Quaker meeting on an explorative expedition of my own. + At that Quakers’ meeting a very remarkable incident occurred which + made the profoundest impression upon me, and which I have narrated + literally in a poem called ‘The Brother’ in _Man, Other Poems, and + a Preface_. This incident coloured my life for many years, and + inhibited all further desire openly to become a Quaker. So deep was + my affection for my father and our mutual understanding, that I + always felt that if I could find the proper, old-fashioned type of + Quaker community, there would be my spiritual home. + + “About this time we gave up the Swanscombe home and moved to + Hampstead. In this house I had a little study in which I prepared my + ordinary school work and, in addition, read unobserved and without + even the companionship of my sister. This was a great pleasure, for + by this time I had developed a characteristic which has remained with + me, that is, intensely to desire as much solitude as is possible, + and to feel certain powers and the capacity to understand what I am + reading very much reduced by the presence of any other person in + the room. From the age of sixteen to eighteen I read voraciously. + The Hampstead Lending Library was an exceptionally good one, and I + tapped its uttermost resources. I also had access to a number of + other supplies of books. I read all sorts of things, but particularly + comparative theology, and a number of works seldom read even by + adults to-day; for instance, in these years I read pretty nearly + everything that I could get in English by Swedenborg, all Kant’s + voluminous philosophy, and a number of old-fashioned and curiously + abstruse books, such as the early histories of the Rosicrucians, + translations of the Vedas, books of Buddhistic philosophy, + Confucius’s writings, and many theological works. Walter Pater and + George Meredith were my favourite authors of a lighter kind. I also + read all Darwin’s published books, and can well remember one Sunday, + when about sixteen or seventeen, my mother’s sister, a very religious + Scottish woman, being shocked by some chance phrase of my father, + who was speaking of his collection of flint implements. This aunt + was shocked to learn that my father read Darwin and took his work + seriously, and still more shocked that mention of such a man should + be made in the presence of an innocent young girl. I, naturally + enough, championed the cause for which my father stood, and proudly + boasted that I also had read Darwin. I remember my aunt said no more, + but followed me up to my little study to demand my repentance and + recantation. When she could not obtain these, she solemnly committed + me to hell. I was still young enough, and the childish memories of + hell were still sufficiently easily revived, for this to make a + great impression upon me, but, of course, not in the least to alter + my loyalty to my father or to affect the scientific attitude of + mind which was growing in me. I remember not very long after that, + I think when I was sixteen and a half, being taken for our spring + vacation to Jersey, and there delighting in the stretches of rock and + solitude into which it was possible to escape owing to the fact that + my sister had caught a cold on the voyage and was laid up, and, my + mother taking care of her, I was sent out for walks by myself. Here + then I found sunny corners and enjoyed what had already become, and + has remained through life, one of my deepest enjoyments as well as my + greatest restorative--lying flat on my back without moving for hours. + In Jersey a spiritual renaissance, one might call it, took place + after a succession of such happy days, and that experience is also + published in _Man_, in a form written at the time, ‘Revelation.’ + + “I was always very sensitive to the marital relations of those with + whom I came in contact, and I remember, as a very young girl, being + shocked and hurt by matrimonial bickering. We met Mr. and Mrs. James + Huddart (the Huddart who originally planned, many years before, the + All Red Route _via_ Canada and Australia), and I was enchanted by + something exceptionally feminine and sweet in Mrs. Huddart, and also + by the beautiful devotion of her husband and sons. She reciprocated + to some extent the feeling I had for her and became one of my warmest + friends, and as a girl I was often invited to stay at her house, + and there learnt many things that only an older woman of sweet + disposition could teach a girl, and which I should never have learnt + but for her. Certainly chief among the lessons she taught me was the + recognition of the vital importance of the relationship between the + two who are the centre of any home life, and how far-reaching may be + the influence of any home. I think I may say that here was laid the + first seeds of a desire to do the work which ultimately resulted in + _Married Love_. + + “The religious phases of my early childhood having been lived + through, I naturally enough entered into a phase of scientific + materialism, but had already grown out of it by the time I was + commencing my college studies, and I remember the keen sense of + appreciation and delight with which I listened to Professor Sir + William Ramsay, whose classes I attended, once speaking to his large + chemistry class, when dealing with the waves of light in vacuum + tubes, of the mysticism which is compatible with a profound knowledge + of science. I cannot remember his exact words, but they were to + the effect that atheism and hostility to religion was no longer in + keeping with a really profound knowledge of the wonders of natural + science, and that whenever one knew more deeply the details of any + subject, it led always to an ultimate mystery in which one might well + maintain that the truths of religion could reside. So far as I can + remember that was the only reference of any sort at all that I heard + to either religion or the deeper philosophy of life in the whole of + my time as a student at the University, and his few words, passed + over so swiftly in his physical chemistry lecture, left me with a + sense of tremendous respect for Sir William Ramsay. + + “Before my first term at college I had reached the phase in my inner + development that included a great deal of reading on psychological + and psychic themes, and so, naturally enough, I wanted to see if + I had any psychic powers. At first I spoke to no one about these + subjects. No one at all, neither my teacher, nor my college friends; + only my school friend, Olga Kapteyn, was in the least degree in my + confidence, and she not very completely, as by this time she was + staying once more in Amsterdam. I tested in one or two ways at the + University whether I had power to hypnotize and perform some of the + various semi-psychic tricks made much of in some of the books I was + then reading. Under the influence of a member of the Theosophical + Society I found I had undoubtedly such powers, but I very sanely came + to the conclusion that their use was mean--not quite playing the + game--and also that I should undoubtedly be in danger of becoming + nervous and ‘queer,’ as I observed the people who claimed such + powers generally were. Hence I, to myself, formally, definitely and + specifically renounced their use, and decided for the next few years, + at any rate, to lead my life in accordance with the revelation in + Jersey. I have never again attempted to use these powers. + +[Illustration: DR. MARIE STOPES.] + + “Now, many years later, I still think it most important not + to hasten the human acquisition of what we call supernatural or + supernormal powers. I feel that having taken so long a time to become + human, and being now in the present imperfect link between the past + and the future, we serve the race and whatever cosmic design there + may be behind our existence best by being the best kind of human + beings we can; by starving neither our bodies nor our minds, nor + wearing out one aspect of ourselves at the expense of normality. The + neurotic, half-starved, highly-abnormal ascetic, the psychic, the + ‘spiritual’ healer, and other cranks generally fill me with a slight + feeling of repugnance and a profound feeling of regret that they + took on a job for which they are so obviously unfitted. Even as a + young girl I did not wish to become like that. My ambition is to be + as normal, healthy, and wholesome a human being as I can be while I + am a human being; it will not be very long in any event, even if one + outlives the Biblical three-score years and ten. + + “I have always had a peculiar sympathy with stones, undoubtedly + inherited, for my father’s delight in fossils and flint implements + is traceable to his earliest childhood, and I have a sympathy with + them which, curiously enough, often includes a knowledge of where + they are, almost as if I were a stone-diviner, like water-diviners. + Their smell delights me. Of course not all stones have a very + noticeable smell, but to me, in quarries, almost every freshly + chipped stone has a peculiar, and most have a pleasing, smell. The + consciousness of fossils, even at a distance from them, has often + manifested itself most usefully in my expeditions, and I may give + just one example of this. I remember Dr. D. H. Scott, the leading + English palæobotanist, in a discussion at the Linnean Society, + speaking of a classical find of a well-preserved fossil in the + Isle of Wight, saying that in this deposit, which he had himself + examined, there remained no more petrifactions. Like a sudden flash + of light a queer, intense feeling came to me that there were lots of + petrifactions there calling to me and waiting to be found. Within + a few weeks I was able to take my vacation in that locality, at + Luccomb Chine in the Isle of Wight, and spent the first day lying + comfortably on the shore in hot sunshine gazing up at the cliffs. By + the afternoon I had come to the conclusion that at a certain point + up the cliffs I should find these specimens, and the next day I went + there and found enough to enable me to bring away nearly a bushel, + many of which were new to science, and some of which are described + and illustrated in my volume on the Palæontology of this horizon, + published by the Trustees of the British Museum (Appendix B, p. 217). + + “Useful in another way is this sympathy with stones, and I remember + on one occasion my sister and I had spent a whole holiday together + camping in a cave on the coast of Devonshire. She and I had played + at Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday for five or six weeks, sleeping in + this cave by the sea with a sense of perfect security and peace, when + one night I suddenly felt that I must not allow her to stop there, + for it would be most dangerous for us to sleep there, and we must go + into the open. We shifted our sleeping bags along the pebbles of the + beach, right into the open and away from the cave, leaving however + all our little cooking utensils and other camp equipment in the cave. + When I went back next morning I found part of the roof had fallen + in, with a large slab of stone just where my head would have been. + The next night we were quite calmly and happily sleeping in the cave + again, probably most foolishly, but nothing happened. + + “Possibly correlated with this feeling for stones is the + consciousness I have had since early childhood in my spine of the + direction of the north. It is as though I were a magnet, and I + shall never forget my delight, when I was a girl, at discovering Du + Maurier’s book, ‘Peter Ibbetson,’ in which one of the characters is + conscious of the position of the north, for I thought I alone was + peculiar in this, and was greatly pleased to find that someone else + shared that sensitiveness. In childhood it took the curious form of + making me twist round and wake with a dazed feeling in bed if my bed + was placed wrongly. And still, unless I sleep either north and south, + or south and north, I tend to twist round in the night and lie in the + direction of the magnetic field, sometimes waking up to find myself + lying right across the bed if I am staying in a house where the bed + cannot be placed correctly before I go to sleep. A long illness, or + a number of nights in London or a big city, tend to reduce this + sensitiveness, but when I have been long alone or in the country it + becomes intensely strong, and I remember being tested once in a thick + fog--a fog so blanket-like that one could not see a yard before one’s + face, when I was being trained by Mr. W. H. Dalton, F.G.S., a member + of the Geological Survey. At first he laughed at my saying that I + could feel the north, and led me zigzags and twists and turns, and + then tested me with his compass. Every time I was dead right. Since + I have had an operation however this capacity is much reduced, and I + only feel it intermittently, depending, I fancy, on some electrical + condition of the atmosphere. + + “My passion for solitude resulted in a very curious initiation + for me at the beginning of the war. I had, when staying earlier + as a guest of Lord and Lady Grey at Howick Castle, been greatly + attracted by the long stretches of sandy bays and quiet rocks in the + neighbourhood, absolutely out of reach of the tripper, and longed + to pitch my tent there, which I did, through their kindness, in the + summer of 1914. This time I had not even my sister with me, desiring + to be absolutely alone, because I felt within me ripe for birth + a very long poem which, at the time, seemed important. Life in my + tiny tent, weighing only two pounds, had for years been one of my + principal enjoyments, and I fixed my tent on psamma grass at the + corner of a rocky bay with wide stretches of sand between me and the + sunsets. There I deliberately cut myself off from everyone, only + going into a neighbouring farmhouse now and then to get fresh scones + and bread, and having milk brought to me by one of the farmer’s bonny + children. I deliberately refused to read newspapers, and the result + was that I had no conception that even a cloud or rumour of war had + settled on Europe. I had not heard of the murders at Serajevo. One + evening, however, I suddenly felt that the long poem I had come + to write had died within me. In the dusk I felt, literally, that + I suddenly saw, green and horrible, the corpse of a young man and + another standing over him smiting at his dead body. The impression + was most vivid, and for two days afterwards I was restless, and could + not concentrate in the least on the work I had intended to do. The + third night after this I, still unconscious as an unborn babe that + anything in the way of war was affecting Europe, tucked myself into + my sleeping bag, lying with my head and shoulders outside my tent, as + I generally slept, and went off into a sound sleep, to be awakened + most startlingly by a young man with a bayonet shouting to me ‘Halt! + Who goes there?’ Wakened out of sleep, I replied rather absurdly, + ‘Halt yourself; I am lying down.’ I had not succeeded in explaining + my existence to the young man before another young man with a fixed + bayonet rushed up to him and the bayonets clashed. I thought the two + were going to fight each other, both contending that I was their + prisoner. I, thinking it was some absurd joke and that an appeal to + Lord Grey would straighten matters out, explained that I was there, + although not in the house, in a sense as the guest and under the + protection of the Greys, and they might leave me in peace until the + morning and then decide whose prisoner I really was. Their story that + a war was on I took as nonsense. They allowed me to sleep, and by six + o’clock in the morning, after some hours of cold, wet mists, both of + them were very thankful, rancour ended, to creep to my tent for a cup + of hot cocoa. One, a young fellow from Manchester, had not weathered + a night on a solitary coast before, and his teeth were literally + chattering. I got out my maps and directed them to the nearest place + where they could get a square meal, and that was the last I heard + of being anybody’s prisoner. I went however into the village to buy + newspapers and, running across Viscount Howick (now Lord Grey), was + reassured by his telling me that his uncle, Sir Edward, was at the + helm and doing everything possible to maintain peace. He asked me + to hop into his car, and went round villages and outlying districts + reassuring and calming the people. Soon, warships were stationed + directly opposite us and rushed up and down, because a landing was + actually expected within a mile or two of where I was camping, and + the Greys were hurriedly turning Howick Castle into a potential + hospital. I think no one who was plunged into the horror of the war + thus with no preparation, can ever get over the shock of the first + few days and of the news of what was done in Belgium. Perhaps the + next generation may again feel the ease and security that we all felt + before this war, but shall never feel again. Since that poem was + slain on Howick shore, I have never really been able to do the things + that I have personally wanted most to do, always being impelled to + expend what power I had only on things that seem urgently necessary, + either in connection with scientific research on coal and fuel, or in + connection with the sex and birth control work. Since the publication + of _Married Love_ early in 1918, nearly the whole of my time has been + spent in a very inadequate response to the anguished cries of poor + mothers and their potential babies for that knowledge and help which + is available if it can but be brought to them. + +[Illustration: Inner home life: Dr. Stopes as gardener, and her husband +with the car.] + + “1918 was an important year; I published _Married Love_, _Wise + Parenthood_, and, in conjunction with Dr. R. V. Wheeler, _The + Constitution of Coal_, and I met and married my husband, Humphrey + Verdon Roe. + + “In 1920 I was impelled, against my worldly judgment, to publish a + brief piece of writing called _The New Gospel to All Peoples_. In its + preface I explained how and why it was written, and sent to each + of the Bishops in Conference at Lambeth in that year. About sending + it to the Bishops I had no hesitation, my orders were so explicit, + but my mundane intelligence was perfectly aware that from a purely + worldly point of view I was doing a foolish thing in _publishing_ it. + The matter was simply taken out of my hands however, and my inner + life rendered unlivable until I decided to do what was necessary to + get it published. When I say that I was unwilling to publish it, I + do not mean to imply that I in any way shirk what is said therein; + but knowing the materialistic spirit which rules the greater part + of the intellectual world at present, I knew very well that I was, + to some extent, jeopardizing the approval of those whose opinion + I valued. Beyond a little chaff however and the antagonism of a + few materialists, I have suffered nothing to weigh in the balance + against the wonderful adherence of other souls and the joy of seeing + my message spreading in the whole Empire, now often from the lips + of others. For instance, that great heroine, Lady Constance Lytton, + wrote to me: ‘I cannot say how much I thank you for sending me + your beautiful _A New Gospel_. It is so reverently given forth, so + beautiful in the way it is given. I have promised to write a little + article on Constructive Birth Control. I hope you will approve of it, + for all I know of constructive birth control is through you.’ + + “The work for birth control and a reformation in the sex life of the + people has for years been a consciously performed task--but all the + time I realize that the need for it is a phase in human progress, + and my immortal soul has other interests--and a desire ‘to paint + the things as I see them for the God of things as they are.’ And + among the things I have always desired to do is to write a volume of + fairy tales. In my opinion, fairy tales rank among the very highest + form of literature. I remember Professor Alexander, the Professor + of Philosophy, once saying that all our scientific discoveries were + ephemeral and bound to be swept away, and that the only really + lasting thing anyone could do is to write a poem. I incline now to + agree with him, although then I hotly disputed his conclusion. A + good fairy tale, being essentially a poem though in prose, might + have well-nigh as long a life as a poem. But in the press of work of + recent years I have not had time to write the volume of tales I so + much desire, and only one or two have been completed and published. + Certainly one of my proudest achievements is the fact that I have + had a fairy tale in the _Fortnightly Review_, the only fairy tale, I + think, that periodical ever published. I have also had two or three + fairy tales in the _English Review_; but the rest have either been + slaughtered unborn, or await the leisure I am always longing once + more to have, to do the things that _I want to do_ instead of those I + am impelled to do by the present crisis in human affairs. + + “What am I? An immortal soul, having lived previously to this + particular life on earth, and destined to live again after my body + wears out; of that I am as certain as that I am in the world at + present. _Nothing_ can remove me from the universe; one plays at + being human for a while, and it is great fun. _Why_ one is given such + hard jobs and has to encounter such difficulties on one’s own behalf + and on behalf of others I don’t know, but I still feel as I felt at + the age of sixteen and a half when I wrote the poem ‘Revelation’ + (later on published in _Man, Other Poems, and a Preface_), that + one should ‘be tranquil, at the same time that you strive ... for + _joyous_ life alone is perfected.’” + +The sketch of her inner life given in the above autobiographical notes +may well conclude this short life of one who is still in mid-career. + +Dr. Stopes is an example of the truth of John Stuart Mill’s forecast +that, as soon as the obstacles that hampered the exercise of women’s +powers were removed, they would prove themselves the equals of the +best men in fields where they had heretofore always been regarded as +inferior. Though she is a very modern woman, Dr. Stopes, in another +aspect, reminds one by the variety of her achievements of those +artist-scientists of the Renaissance who, before specialization had +become so customary as it is to-day, claimed all science and all art as +their province. + + + + +APPENDIX A. + +List of Books and Pamphlets by Dr. Marie Stopes. + + +SEXOLOGY. + + “=Contraception.=” Published by Bale and Danielsson, 1923, pp. xxiii, + 1-418, plates iv. + + “=Married Love.=” First published by Fifield, 1918; now in Fourteenth + Edition, published by Putnams, pp. xxi, 1-169. + + “=Wise Parenthood.=” First published by Fifield, 1918; now in + Eleventh Edition, published by Putnams, 1918, pp. xii, 1-62. + + “=Radiant Motherhood.=” Published by Putnams, 1920, pp. ix, 1-236. + + “=Truth about Venereal Disease.=” Published by Putnams, 1921, pp. + vii, 1-52. + + “=A New Gospel.=” Published by A. L. Humphreys, 1922, pp. 1-27. + + “=A Letter to Working Mothers.=” Published by the Author, 1919; now + by the Clinic; pp. 1-16. + + “=Early Days of Birth Control.=” Published by Putnams, 1922, pp. 1-32. + + “=Mother, how was I Born?=” Published by Putnams, 1923, pp. 1-25. + + “=The Control of Parenthood.=” By the Bishop of Birmingham and + others. Edited by Rev. Sir James Marchant. (One Chapter in this + published by Putnams.) + + “=Queen’s Hall Meeting on C.B.C.=” Published by Putnams, 1921, pp. + 1-48. (Contains report of Dr. Stopes’s speech.) + + “=Verbatim Report of the Town Hall Meeting.=” Published by the + Voluntary Parenthood League, New York City, 1921, pp. 1-23. (Contains + report of Dr. Stopes’s speech.) + + +BOTANY. + + “=Ancient Plants.=” Published by Blackie and Son, 1910. Pp. viii, + 1-199. + + “=The Study of Plant Life.=” Published by Blackie, 1906. Pp. xii, + 1-202. + + “=Exploitation of Plants.=” Edited by Prof. Oliver. Published by + Dent. (One Chapter in this.) + + “=The Sportophyte: ‘The Botanical Punch.=’” Founded and Edited for + the years 1911-1914. + + +TRAVEL. + + “=A Journal from Japan.=” Pp. 1-250, illustrated. Published by + Blackie. + + +LITERARY. + + “=Man, Other Poems and a Preface.=” Pp. 1-76. Published by Heinemann. + + “=Conquest=,” a Three-Act Play. Published by French. Pp. 1-94. + + “=Gold in the Wood=” and “=The Race=.” Two Plays. Published by + Fifield. Pp. 1-101. + + “=Our Ostriches.=” Produced at the Court Theatre. Published by + Putnams, 1923, pp. 1-105. + + “=Plays of Old Japan: The Nõ.=” (With Prof. J. Sakurai.) Published by + Heinemann. Pp. 1-102, illustrated. + + “=A Japanese Mediæval Drama.=” _Transactions of the Royal Society of + Literature_, vol. 29; (separate) pp. 1-26. + +Also fairy stories in the _Fortnightly Review_, _English Review_; +articles in _The Times_, _Manchester Guardian_, _Science Progress_, +Reviews in the _Athenæum_, etc. + + + + +APPENDIX B. + +List of Dr. Stopes’s Scientific Memoirs, etc., Embodying her New +Discoveries. + + + “=Contribution Paléobotanique à la Connaissance du Charbon.=” Résumé + of Communication to the Congress in Paris. Published in _Chaleur et + Industrie_, Paris, 1923. + + “=The Spontaneous Combustion of Coal.=” (With Prof. R. V. Wheeler.) + Bulletin No. 1 of “Fuel.” Published _Colliery Guardian_, London, + 1923, pp. 1-125, 2 plates and text figs. + + “=Terminology in Coal Research.=” (With Prof. R. V. Wheeler.) In + “Fuel,” London, 1923, pp. 5-9, 1 plate. + + “=The Constitution of Coal, Palæobotanical Aspects.=” Lecture + published (with those of others in pamphlet called “Coal”), Colliery + Guardian Company, London, 1922, pp. 1-8, and text figs. + + “=The Missing Link in _Osmundites_.=” _Annals of Botany_, vol. 35, + 1921, pp. 56-61, text fig. and plate. + + “_Bennettites Scottii_, Sp. Nov., =A European Petrifaction with + Foliage=.” Extr. _Linnean Society’s Journal_, 1920, vol. 44, pp. + 483-496, plates xix and xx. + + “=The Four Visible Ingredients in Banded Bituminous Coal: Studies in + the Composition of Coal=,” No. 1. _Proceedings Royal Society B_, vol. + 90, 1919, pp. 470-487, plates xi and xii. + + “=New Bennettitean Cones from the British Cretaceous.=” _Phil. + Transactions Royal Society B_, vol. 208, 1918, pp. 389-440, plates + xix-xxiv. + + “=The Constitution of Coal.=” (With Dr. R. V. Wheeler.) Monograph, + published by H.M. Stationery Office for the Department of Scientific + and Industrial Research, 1918, pp. 1-58, plates i-iii. + + “=Roots in _Bennettites_.=” _Annals of Botany_, vol. 31, 1917, No. + 122, pp. 257-259, plate xiv. + + “=Plants as a Source of National Power in the Exploitation of + Plants.=” Edited by Prof. F. W. Oliver. Published Dent, 1917, pp. + 155-170. + + “=An Early Type of the Abietineæ (?) from the Cretaceous of New + Zealand.=” _Annals of Botany_, vol. 30, 1916, pp. 111-125, text figs. + 1-7, plates iv. + + “=The Cretaceous Flora in the British Museum (Natural History), Part + II: Lower Greensand (Aptian) Plants of Britain.=” Published by the + Trustees of the British Museum, 1915, pp. i-xxxvi, 1-360, plates + i-xxxii, 112 text figs. + + “=The ‘Fern Ledges’ Carboniferous Flora of St. John, New Brunswick.=” + Published by the Geological Survey of Canada: Memoir 41, Ottawa 1914, + pp. i-vi, 1-142, plates i-xxv, 21 text figs. + + “=The Cretaceous Flora in the British Museum (Natural History), Part + I: Bibliography, Algæ and Fungi.=” Published by the Trustees of the + British Museum, 1913, pp. i-xxiii, 1-285, plates i-xi, 25 text figs. + + “=A New Cretaceous Plant from Nigeria.=” _Geological Magazine_, Dec. + 5, 1914, vol. 1, No. 604, pp. 433-435, plate xxxiii, text fig. + + “=A New _Araucarioxylon_ from New Zealand.=” (Published by permission + of the Director of the Geological Survey of New Zealand.) _Annals of + Botany_, vol. 28, 1914, pp. 341-350, plates xx, text figs. 1-3. + + “=Palæobotany: Its Past and Its Future.=” _Knowledge_, vol. 37, 1914, + pp. 15-24, figs. 24-30. + + “=Palæobotany versus Stratigraphy in New Brunswick.=” _British + Association Report_, 1912, Dundee. + + “=The Red Crag Portrait.=” _Geological Magazine_, vol. 9, Dec. 5, + 1912, pp. 285-6, text fig. 1. + + “=Petrifactions of the Earliest European Angiosperms.=” _Proceedings + Royal Society B_, vol. 85, 1912 (Abstract). + + “=Petrifactions of the Earliest European Angiosperms.=” _Transactions + Royal Society B_, vol. 203, 1912, pp. 75-100, plates vi-viii. + + “=The Correct Name for the Dragon Tree of the Kentish Rag.=” + _Geological Magazine_, vol. 8, 1911, No. 568, pp. 467-9. + + “=The Dragon Tree of the Kentish Rag.=” _Geological Magazine_, vol. + 8, Dec. 5, 1911, pp. 55-59, text fig. + + “=On the True Nature of the Cretaceous Plant _Ophioglossum + granulatum_, Heer.=” _Annals of Botany_, vol. 25, 1911, pp. 903-907, + text figs. 1-2. + + “=A Reply to Prof. Jeffrey’s Article on _Yezonia_ and + _Cryptomeriopsis_.=” _Annals of Botany_, vol. 25, 1911, pp. 269-270. + + “=The Value and Interest of Japanese Fossils.=” _Transactions Japan + Society_, vol. 9, 1910, pp. 1-12, plates i-iii. + + “=Further Observations on the Fossil Flower, _Cretovarium_.=” _Annals + of Botany_, vol. 24, 1910, pp. 679-681, plates lvi-lvii. + + “=Adventitious Budding and Branching in Cycas.=” _New Phytologist_, + vol. 9, 1910, pp. 235-241, text figs. 8-14. + + “=The Anatomy of Cretaceous Pine Leaves.=” (With Miss Kershaw.) + _Annals of Botany_, vol. 24, 1910, pp. 395-402, plates xxvii-xxviii. + + “=The Internal Anatomy of _Nilssonia Orientalis_.=” _Annals of + Botany_, vol. 24, 1910, pp. 389-393, plate xxvi. + + “=Studies on the Structure and Affinities of Cretaceous Plants.=” + (With Prof. Fujii.) _Phil. Transactions Royal Society B_, vol. 201, + 1910, pp. 1-90, plates i-ix. + + “=Plant containing Nodules from Japan.=” _Quarterly Journal + Geological Society_, vol. 65, 1909, pp. 195-205, plate ix. + + “=On the Tent-building Habits of the Ant _Lasius niger_ Linn. in + Japan.=” (With Dr. Gordon Hewitt.) “Memoirs” and _Proceedings + Manchester Literary Philo. Society_, vol. 53, 1909, pt. 3, pp. 1-6, + plate 1. + + “=On the Present Distribution and Origin of the Calcareous + Concretions in Coal Seams, known as ‘Coal Balls.’=” (With D. M. S. + Watson.) _Phil. Transactions Royal Society B_, vol. 200, 1908, pp. + 167-218, plates xvii-xix. + + “=The Flora of the Inferior Oolite of Brora.=” _Quarterly Journal + Geological Society_, vol. 63, 1907, pp. 375-382, plate xxvii. + + “=The Relation of the Concretionary Nodules of the Yarra to the + Calcareous Nodules known as ‘Coal Balls.’=” _Geological Magazine_, + Dec. 5, 1907, vol. 4, pp. 106-108. + + “=The Xerophytic Character of the Gymnosperms.=” _New Phytologist_, + vol. 6, 1907, pp. 46-50. + + “=A Note on a Wounded Calamite.=” _Annals Botany_, vol. 21, 1907, pp. + 277-280, plate xxiii, text figs. 1-4. + + “=The Nutritive Relations of the Surrounding Tissues to the + Archegonia in Gymnosperms.=” (With Prof. Fujii.) _Beihefte zum Botan. + Centralblatt_, vol. 20, 1906, pp. 1-24, plate 1. + + “=A New Fern from the Coal Measures: _Tubicaulis Sutcliffii_=, Sp. + Nov.” “Memoirs” and _Proceedings Manchester Literary Philo. Society_, + vol. 50, 1906, pp. 1-34, plates i-iii. + + + + +APPENDIX C. + +THE TENETS OF THE C.B.C. + + +=The objects for which the C.B.C. was founded are as follows:--= + +The objects of the Society are (_a_) to bring home to all the +fundamental nature of the reforms involved in conscious and +constructive control of conception and the illumination of sex life as +a basis of racial progress; (_b_) to consider the individual, national, +international, racial, political, economic, scientific, spiritual and +other aspects of the theme, for which purpose meetings will be held, +publications issued, Research Committees, Commissions of Enquiry and +other activities will be organized from time to time as circumstances +require and facilities offer; (_c_) to supply all who still need it +with the full knowledge of sound physiological methods of control. + +As these objects indicate, =the scope of the Society is very wide, its +interests far-reaching, and its possibilities of future development +very elastic=. Even to-day the tenets which appear fundamental to +different members of the Society will naturally vary, hence =no one of +the following is binding on an individual member. General agreement +with the objects of the Society suffices for membership.= + +Nevertheless, it has been felt that it would be useful explicitly to +state in concise form what may be described as the bedrock of general +agreement in the Society. This is as follows:-- + +1.--The hygiene of sex is as suitable and proper a subject for +scientific and serious study as the hygiene of nutrition, locomotion, +or any other human function. + +2.--Owing to the shamefaced attitude which has until recently +characterized our dealings with the subject, all the manifold data +involved in the different aspects of sex life have not had the direct, +scientific and physiological handling they deserve and require. We +deplore this and shall endeavour to remedy it. + +3.--We maintain that the highest spiritual development, the noblest +intellectual illumination, and the sweetest romantic possibilities +of individual sex experience, are not damaged by sound scientific +knowledge, but contrariwise, are enhanced and elevated. + +4.--We consider that in relation to the procreation of additional +members of the community, the best possible knowledge of scientific +and technical details should be available to those undertaking this +important social duty. + +5.--We believe that the haphazard production of children by ignorant, +coerced, or diseased mothers is profoundly detrimental to the race. We +believe, therefore, that parenthood should no longer be the result of +ignorance or accident, but should be a power used voluntarily and with +knowledge. + +6.--We maintain that to achieve this result a knowledge of the simple +hygiene of contraception is essential. + +7.--We advocate no individual contraceptive measure as final or +fundamental, but maintain that the =best= measures =available= at any +time should be taught and known by the people. + +8.--We desire to keep constantly in touch with all advances in science +which may have a bearing on the practical details of contraceptive +measures, and for this purpose we have organized a Medical Research +Committee to keep our Society informed as to the current scientific +position of the hygiene of contraception. + +9.--AS REGARDS THE POPULATION AT PRESENT. We say that there are +unfortunately many men and women who should be prevented from +procreating children at all, because of their individual ill-health, or +the diseased and degenerate nature of the offspring that they may be +expected to produce. These considerations would not apply to a better +and healthier world. + +10.--There are many women unfortunately so constructed--suffering from +weakness of certain organs--that they would risk death if they were to +attempt to bear children, and who, therefore, should not bear them. + +11.--There are unfortunately many couples so ill-provided with this +world’s goods, or with means to acquire them, that they cannot support +further children, and therefore should not bear them. Women, owing to +their own or their husband’s incapacity to be self-supporting, may be +permanently or temporarily in such a position owing to disaster or +unemployment. The following Resolution was passed by our Society: + + +_Resolution passed at General Meeting November 22nd, 1921._ + + “Both to spare your own personal distress and to avoid bringing + a weakly child into the world, it is important that all should + realize that no one should conceive in times of individual misery + or ill-health. Of course wherever a child is already on the way, + the best must be made of it. But sound and wholesome methods of + Birth Control (Control of Conception) are known, and advice will be + given free by a qualified nurse to all unemployed married persons + who present this slip at the Mother’s Clinic, 61, Marlborough Road, + Holloway, London, N. 19.” + +12.--The Society approves and welcomes the work done by the first +British Birth Control Clinic (The Mother’s Clinic, 61, Marlborough +Road, Holloway, N.19), where the very poor and ignorant receive +personal instruction; but we consider that this public service should +not be left to private enterprise to maintain, and hence that the +Ministry of Health should supply suitable help and contraceptive +instruction to working-class women at the many Ante-natal Clinics, +Welfare Centres, etc., already in existence all over the country. + +13.--We maintain that science has already made available contraceptive +measures as safe and as simple to use as any other hygienic measures +widely known and practised, such as brushing one’s teeth, or the +removal daily of a dental plate by one who has artificial teeth. We, +therefore, maintain that knowledge and instruction in these matters +for the normal and healthy is an =hygienic= and not a medical matter. +The problem of controlling conception on the part of those who are +diseased, abnormal and unhealthy is on the other hand a purely medical +matter and may involve measures which this Society would not advocate +for general use. + +14.--We as a Society are at present working for the dissemination of +the best possible hygienic knowledge to all who are intelligent enough +to be capable of using it, but we recognize the grave National problem +raised by the fertility of those too degenerate or too careless to be +capable of using any form of contraceptive. + +15.--We are convinced that children spaced by voluntary means have +a less mortality, and that the mother of such children has time to +recover her health and attend to the young child in a better way, than +if the pregnancies follow rapidly one after the other, and we are +therefore in favour of voluntarily spacing all the desired children of +even the healthiest woman. + +16.--In short, we are profoundly and fundamentally a pro-baby +organisation, in favour of producing the largest possible number of +healthy, happy children without detriment to the mother, and with the +minimum wastage of infants by premature death. We, therefore, as a +Society, regret the relatively small families of those best fitted to +care for children. In this connection our motto has been “Babies in +the right place,” and it is just as much the aim of Constructive Birth +Control to secure conception to those married people who are healthy, +childless, and desire children, as it is to furnish security from +conception to those who are racially diseased, already overburdened +with children, or in any specific way unfitted for parenthood. + +17.--We hold no fixed opinions concerning the total numbers either of +individual families or of populations, desiring only that the =optimum= +shall be attained. + + Passed by the Executive Committee, C.B.C. + + March, 1923. + + +_Everyone who is interested in securing the best future for our Race +should join the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial +Progress._ _Apply for Membership forms to the Hon. Secretary_, =C.B.C., +4-5, Adam St., Adelphi, London, W.C.2. Gerrard 4431.= + + +Transcriber’s Notes. + +Italic text is indicated with _underscores_, bold text with =equals=. +Small/mixed capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS. + +Evident typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected +silently. Inconsistent spelling/hyphenation has been normalised. + +Half-titles and reiterations of chapter titles have been discarded. + +End of page footnotes have been sequentially numbered and relocated to +the end of the relevant chapter. + +Illustrations have been relocated between paragraphs. + +A Table of Contents and List of Illustrations have been compiled by the +transcriber. + +New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the +public domain. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78278 *** |