Early life and education

Born in Norton, Massachusetts, he was the fourth and youngest child of Reverend Pitt Clarke and Mary Jones Clarke. His father graduated from Harvard College and was a Minister of the First Congregational Society in Norton for forty-two years. His mother was known for writing many poems.^[1]

Clarke went to Harvard College for his undergraduate studies. During his junior year, he suffered a haemorrhage in the lungs and became so ill that he could not attend Commencement and was unable to obtain honours for his studies, despite being first in his class. He concluded his undergraduate studies in 1841. After Harvard, he decided to pursue a medical career and enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. He got his M.D. in 1846 and spent a great amount of time travelling in Europe, where he devoted time to studying otology.^[2]

Medical practice

On his return from Europe, he practiced in Boston and specialized in otology and general practice. Clarke was rated as a physician and well known for his expertise in otology although he later gave up the specialization and focused on general practice. His popularity with patients grew and when he became more well-known, most of them came from the upper middle class. He was said to have personable qualities and was described as having an “inquiring, observant, reflective, and judicial” mind suitable for medical practice.^[1] Most of Dr. Clarke's patient records were destroyed after his death since he did not wish to disclose information about his patients to the public.^[1]

He became the Professor of Materia medica at Harvard Medical School in 1855 and held the position until 1872.^[2] Despite the deterioration in his health, he continued to write about subjects that interested him, especially of a sociological nature, correlated with his views as a physician.

Views on education

Clarke first revealed his views on education for women when he was invited to speak at the New England Women's Club of Boston in 1872.^[3] Although he claimed that women should be allowed to learn whatever they could, he doubted women had the same ability to succeed as men. In fact, he believed that women's educational capacity was limited by their physiology. The members of the Women's Club were shocked by Clarke's contention about the alleged intrinsic inferiority of women's potential for education compared to men.^[3]

Clarke claimed that letting women follow the same education as men would cause harm to their reproductive organs. His views were not uncommon at the time. Many physicians, such as the gynaecologist Thomas A. Emmet and the neurologist S. Weir Mitchell, also disapproved of letting women pursue the same strenuous education as men. However, some women rights activists, such as Emma Willard, fought for equality in education. Throughout America, women in higher education institutions condemned Clarke's writing. Some who agreed with Clarke that women were not as physically and intellectually capable as men, nevertheless supported their access to higher education in the belief that they could meet its intellectual rigours.^[4]

Clarke and other antifeminists tried to use Darwinism to justify their beliefs in the inherent biological differences between the sexes. However, they could not justify their arguments against higher education for women empirically since women's access to it had only just begun and there was insufficient data, if any, relating to the effect of higher education on women's health.^[4] Clarke was diagnosed with cancer in the lower part of his intestine and died in 1877.^[2]

Publications

Clarke had several publications, including Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for the Girls, The Building of a Brain, and Visions: A Study of False Sight.^[1] His book, Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for the Girls (1875), where he discussed his views on the education of boys and girls and caused great controversy, especially among women's rights activists. The book was so popular that it sold out in a week. In the 1870s, education was a much-debated topic, especially education for women. People at the time thought education for girls should differ from that for boys. Clarke argued that girls would not be able to cope with the “intellectual demands traditionally placed on boys” and that imposing such demands on them during puberty would lead to “physiological disasters,” such as “nervous collapse and sterility.”^[4] To support his claims he cited the cases of seven women whose health condition deteriorated apparently as a result of "arduous" studies in college. For example, one of the women who had gone to Vassar College and was referred to Dr. Clarke, was depicted by him as “neuralgic and hysterical.”^[4]