page_title: Matilda Chaplin Ayrton
section_title: Education and career
hierarchical_section_title: Matilda Chaplin Ayrton / Education and career
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: childlifeinjapan01ayrt (find matches) Title: Child-life in Japan and Japanese child stories Year: 1901 (1900s) Authors: Ayrton, Matilda Chaplin, Mrs. 1846-1883 Griffis, William Elliot, 1843-1928, ed Subjects: Children Fairy tales Publisher: Boston and New York, D.C. Heath &amp; co. Contributing Library: The Library of Congress Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: is shoes with-out socks, but you see the other boy has socks on.His socks are made of dark blue calico, with athickly woven sole, and a place, like one finger ofa glove, for his big toe. If you were to wear Japa-nese shoes, you would think the thong betweenyour toes very uncomfortable. Yet from theirhabit of wearing this sort of shoe, the big toegrows more separate from the other toes, and theskin between this and the next toe becomes ashard as the skin of a dogs or a cats paw. The boys are not cold, for their cotton clothes,being wadded, are warm and snug. One boy hasa rounded pouch fastened to his sash. It is redand prettily embroidered with flowers or birds,and is his purse, in which he keeps some littletoys and some money. The other boy very likelyhas not a pouch, but he has two famous bigpockets. Like all Japanese, he uses the part ofhis large sleeve which hangs down as his pocket.Thus when a group of little children are disturbedat play you see each little hand seize a treasured Text Appearing After Image: A Game of Snowball. 4 Child-Life in Japan. toy and disappear into its sleeve, like mice runninginto their holes with bits of cheese. In the next large picture are two boys who arefond of music. One has a flute, w^hich is madeof bamboo wood. These flutes are easy to make,as bamboo wood grows hollow, with cross divi-sions at intervals. If you cut a piece with adivision forming one end you need only make theoutside holes in order to finish your flute. The child sitting downhas a drum. His drumand the paper lanternshanging up have painted onthem an ornament whichis also the crest of thehouse of Arima. Ifthese boys belong to thisfamily they wear the samecrest embroidered on the centre of the backs oftheir coats. Korean Lion is the title of the picture whichforms the frontispiece; it represents a gamethat children in Japan are very fund of play-ing. They are probably trying to act as wellas the maskers did whom they saw on New Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: Matilda Charlotte Chaplin Ayrton was an English physician. She studied medicine in London, Edinburgh and Paris, pursuing higher studies at the latter's universities, and is one of the Edinburgh Seven, the first seven matriculated undergraduate female students at a British university. She travelled to Japan, where she opened a school for midwives, and was an author of anthropological studies.
context_section_description: After beginning her studies in art she commenced the study of medicine in 1867, and continued to do so until her death. She spent two years at the Ladies' Medical College, and having passed the preliminary examination at Apothecaries' Hall in 1869, she presented herself for the later examination, but was refused admission on the ground of her gender.
  Recognised as one of the heroic 'seven against Edinburgh' women, also known as the Edinburgh Seven, (Mary Anderson, Emily Bovell, Helen Evans, Sophia Jex-Blake, Edith Pechey, Isabel Thorne as well as Chaplin) she eventually matriculated at the University of Edinburgh, but was barred from instruction in higher branches of medicine. Legal intervention allowed her to gain high honours in anatomy and surgery at the extramural examinations held in 1870 and 1871 at Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh, before a judgment in 1872 finally prohibited women students.
  In 1871, when she found the chief medical classes in England and Scotland closed to her, she resolved to complete her education at Paris, where every facility was afforded her. The University of Paris recognised her abilities by bestowing upon her the degrees of Bachelier ès-Sciences and Bachelier ès-Lettres. During her studies, Chaplin maintained connection with Edinburgh, attending some of the classes open to her there.
  In 1872, she married her cousin, the noted scientist William Edward Ayrton, an Edinburgh student, and a distinguished pupil of Sir William Thomson. Early in the following year, she obtained a certificate in midwifery from the London Obstetric Society, the only medical qualification then obtainable by women in England. Shortly afterwards she accompanied her husband to Japan, where he had been appointed to a professorship in the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo.
  While in Japan, she pursued anthropological researches, and opened a school for Japanese midwives, in which she lectured with the aid of an interpreter. In 1877, she developed tuberculosis forcing her return to Europe. In 1879, she took the MD at Paris, and presented as her thesis the results of her Japanese studies, which were printed under the title of Recherches sur les dimensions générales et sur le développement du corps chez les Japonais (Paris, 1879). In 1880, she became a licentiate of the King and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland, where she was the only female candidate at the examinations. She headed the pass lists in medicine and midwifery. In 1880, she lived in London, chiefly studying diseases of the eye at the Royal Free Hospital.
  As a result of her tuberculosis, her health continued to decline and for the next two winters, she continued her studies abroad in a warmer climate. The first year winter, she spent at the hospital of Algiers and then second at the physiological laboratory at Montpellier.
caption: Child Life in Japan
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