135

sisted that women had a full right to par- influential; one, in fact, the North Lon-
ticipate freely in public and economic don Collegiate School for Girls, served
life as well. as the model for Grey’s day school ven-
In their public careers, begun in mid- ture. Grey and Shirreff do emerge as vital
dle age, the Shirreff sisters gave con- figures who shared in many of the ideals
crete form to their ideals. Grey in 1871 and plans of nineteenth century English
launched the Women’s Educational social reform, but that they were of par-
Union to rally support and funds from ticular significance to that movement is
English reformers for reputable private left in considerable doubt by this
day schools for girls beyond the ele- biography.
mentary level. The Union in turn spon- The book is also hampered by an ex-
sored the Girls’ Public Day School cess of detail in some areas, yet in others
Company, which launched such schools leaves distressing gaps. Long lists of the
as commerical ventures; by the turn of names of supporters, contributors, and
the century three dozen schools had the like are provided but to those with-
been established and served as models out a great deal of knowledge of the
for still others. The Union also cam- nineteenth century reform crowd they
paigned to improve the status and quali- are devoid of significance. Emily Shir-
fications of female teachers and founded reff devoted great effort to promoting
a model teacher training institution. Froebelian ideas, but no short, coherent
Emily Shirreff became the principal summary of those ideas is provided,
English promoter of the ideas of the while later the reader is given a lengthy
German educator Froebel on early child- description of the work of an Italian edu-
hood education, and set in motion a cator of distinctly peripheral signif-
movement for the inclusion of kinder- icance. An American audience would also
garten programs within English education. benefit from a brief description of the
Although Ellsworth contends that the contemporary English educational sys-
Shirreff sisters were of central impor- tem for males. The reviewer also felt that
tance in the move to provide increased repeated references to Grey and Shirreff
educational opportunities for middle by their first names alone had an uncon-
class women, the work itself does not sciously patronizing tone.
provide adequate substantiation. This Liberators of the Female Mind does
stems in part from the organization of show a great deal of research on the part
the material. Instead of integrating the of the author, who has given American
work of Grey and Shirreff into the con- scholars access to a great deal of useful
temporary women’s movement, Ellsworth information on an important aspect of the
first provides chapters on English women’s movement in the Victorian Age.
thought on the question of women’s edu- CHARLOTTE L. BEAHAN
cation and on the establishment of Wichita State University
various institutions of higher education Kansas
for women, without mentioning the con-
temporary activities of the Shirreffs, JOEL F. HANDLER. Social Movements
which are instead treated in entirely
and the Legal System: A Theory of
separate chapters. This gives the impres- Law Reform and Social Change. Pp.
sion that their work ran parallel to the
mainstream rather than in it, and the xiv, 252. New York: Academic Press,
1979. $17.00.
reader is forced to assume it was in-
fluenced by, and influenced, similar The changes that social reformers seek
ventures of the times. Rendered com- might be fundamental if they were in-
pletely out of context, their work is stituted all at once, but they are com-
impossible to assess. mitted to incrementalism; they argue
Moreover, Ellsworth indicates that that they are defending the highest values
there were several other educational of the society. In short, they are moder-
undertakings initiated at the same time ates parading in radical clothing.
which seem, on the surface, at least as Handler deals with how social reform

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136
organizations use lawyers to seek through
the courts what they cannot achieve
through legislation. The law reformers
try to widen the scope of the law by
judicial mandate or to force govern-
mental agencies to modify their proce-
dures as a consequence of new judicial
interpretations. They argue that through
such procedures they will revitalize the
pluralist ideology of the United States.
In the Foreword, M. N. Zald urges that
Handler’s initial analysis in terms of the
&dquo;resource mobilization&dquo; approach is the
most significant contribution of the book;
Zald has been a major figure in the
formalization of that approach. While
competently done, this discussion of the
literature and its implications is poorly
integrated with the very interesting case
studies that follow.
The last part of the book is of com-
pelling interest. In it Handler points
out that the law reform activity of social
reform groups is so vulnerable to bu-
reaucratic resistance that it is question-
able whether law reformers can effec-
tively raise the level of participation
on the part of those who are presently
underrepresented. There are also in-
direct objectives which the social re-
formers seek through their legal actions,
but Handler points out that these are dif-
ficult to measure and that the social re-
form groups may only have succeeded
in securing symbolic reassurance (cool-
ing the mark) that the pluralist system
isworking as the ideology says it should
rather than an actual redistribution of
benefits and power.
Given a situation in which the social
movement organizations and their law
reformers become institutionalized
voices of vested interest groups (analo-
gous to organized labor and organized
agriculture), mostunderrepresented
segments of the population are likely to
remain underrepresented, even though
bureaucratic practices may shift im-
perceptibly under a residual pressure
from groups which have lost their dy-
namic qualities. Powerless before the
State, its legislative processes, and its
bureaucracy, there remains one further
way to have a voice-take to the streets.
Although no mention is made of it,
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Handler’s study fills in some gaps in a
theoretical analysis of how revolutionary
situations may develop in the modem
State.
LEONARD BLUMBERG
Temple University
Philadelphia
DAVID MECHANIC. Future Issues in
Health Care: Social Policy and The
Rationing of Medical Services. Pp.
xiii, 194. New York: Free Press, 1979.
$13.95.
In this thought provoking book that
reflects both a wide-ranging scholarship
and a practical knowledge of our medical
care system, David Mechanic argues that
the &dquo;rationing of care has always been
the norm in the United States and else-
where.&dquo; But, as the financial provision
of care has shifted from the individual
to government bodies, more explicit at-
tention needs to be given to finding the
best &dquo;mix of techniques that are respon-
sive to patient need, that enhance the
best aspects of physician discretion and
clinical judgment, and that protect the
public purse.&dquo; This book looks at the
options available to ration medical
services, some of the consequences that
are likely to follow from each of them,
the politics of rationing, and the kinds
of research that are needed to better in-
form policymaking in this area.
The book is largely descriptive and
analytical in nature rather than prescrip-
tive. It describes in great detail the com-
plexities of rationing in terms of illness
behavior of patients, the interface of pa-
tients with a variety of health care pro-
viders, and the structures within which
they work. The economics and politics
of rationing are also covered with a rather
pessimistic view provided that the com-
plexities of rationing, when coupled with
the politics of change, may not yield
extensive change rapidly.
Chapters two and eight develop an
analytic framework for policy choices
among rationing options. These chapters
are somewhat redundant and do not yield
a very clear scheme for rationing options
which are then systematically applied to