Life, 1904-10-06 · page 27 of 38
Life — October 6, 1904 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two separate satirical pieces from *Life* magazine (a 19th-century humor publication, not the photo magazine). **Main Article:** A tongue-in-cheek complaint about educated women. The author laments that modern women now possess both beauty *and* intelligence—making courtship dangerously intimidating. He mockingly suggests women should graciously "dumb themselves down" for men's comfort, since educating men to their level is "hopeless." The satire mocks male insecurity about female education and learning. **Lower Section:** A darkly comic monologue from an unnamed American surgeon praising Russian (not Japanese—the text appears garbled) military surgeons for *not* operating unnecessarily on wounded soldiers. The surgeon ironically complains that high soldier survival rates threaten surgeons' profitable practices and prestige. This satirizes surgical greed and the financial incentive to over-operate. Both pieces use exaggeration and ironic voice to critique social attitudes—male anxiety about educated women, and medical profession self-interest over patient welfare.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SO NEAR, courage they possess, for it is one that vitally concerns them. It is already remely hazardous to fall in love with a girl too hastily, when all the time she may have con- cealed about her such a stock of knowledge as would make future companionship a matter of continual reproach. And when we consider that among women learning is no longer confined to the homely, but has spread to the beautiful, the gravity of the crisis is apparent. For it seems to be true that Beauty and Brains are nolonger distinct entities ; and girls so handsome, that to keep from loving them seems a criminal waste of time, are so hopelessly imbued with facts, so fiercely erudite when approached too near, as to render mere courtship almost dangerous. Girls are caught so young nowadays that, with care, there is time enough, before they get to be of age, to con- nect them with all the systems of education there happen to be. And when new systems of education arise, they are added on to the others without apparent discomfort. It would be extremely impolite and discourteous for mere man to suggest that the ladies have not the right to know as much as they want to. But is it not possible for them, in their companionship with him, to put him more at his case, by laying aside their own learning and stooping to his level ?- When woman realizes—as soon she must—that the task of instructing man, of making him her intellectual XD VET SO FAR. equal, is really hopeless, it is highly probable that she may then be willing to look at the matter in the right light; to be loved by an inferior creature in the absence of anything better, and thus to accept the inevitable, with that scientific resignation which art, logic and philosophy have taught her. In the meantime, let us struggle on as best we may ; ad- mitting our own inconsequence with due humility, and hoping for that blissful time to come when we can k some lovely and beautiful and learned creature, over and over again, if need be, without even caring how ignorant Tom Masson. we really are. “ M Y sympathi id the famous Anferican surgeon, “were entirely with the Japanese, until I discovered that their surgeons only operate in cases of absolute neces- sity, with such mischievous results that an enormous percentage of their soldiers recover from their wounds. ‘This is monstrous! We surgeons spend our time in impress- ing on the human mind the fact that the free use of the knife is necessary to the preservation of life. By removing as many organs as possible from the individual, we have provided him with an unfailing topic of conversation. And must our missionary labors, and, incidentally, our princely incomes be endangered by a few yellow-terror surgeons? More power to Russia's arm !"" comicbooks.com