STATISTICAL STUDY OF EMINENT WOMEN 597 



The curves are similar during the period of Greek supremacy. The 

 male curve for the Eoman period is much more regular than the female. 

 The last half century of the pre-Christian era which produced more 

 eminent Roman men than any other, produced but one eminent Eoman 

 woman. The lines cross for the first time in the second half of the 

 third century after Christ. From the sixth to the eleventh century the 

 number of women equals or exceeds the number of men. With few ex- 

 ceptions, the eminent women of these centuries are sovereigns, abbesses 

 and saints, or belong to the groups " Marriage " and " Birth." If the 

 eminent women were selected as rigidly as the eminent men, the posi- 

 tion of the curves through these centuries would undoubtedly be re- 

 versed. Of the later period, Professor Cattell writes, 



In our curve there are three noticeable breaks. . . . Thus, in the fourteenth 

 century there was a pause followed by a gradual improvement and an extraor- 

 dinary fruition at the end of the fifteenth century. . . . There was then a pause 

 in progress until a century later England and France took the lead. . . . The 

 latter part of the seventeenth century was a sterile period, followed by a revival 

 culminating in the French Eevolution. 



If we except the first half of the sixteenth century, when the male 

 curve fell and the female rose, the identical words might have been 

 written of the eminent women. Whatever the factors in these centuries 

 that cooperated to produce genius, they were effective in both sexes, 

 though to a lesser degree in the one than in the other. 



The 868 eminent women are natives of forty-two different nations. 

 England has furnished eight more distinguished women than France. 

 Germany ranks third with 114; America, only two centuries old, is 

 fourth. Italy produced 60, Eome 41, Austria 24, and Spain 23, emi- 

 nent women. Eussia claims 20, Sweden 16, Greece 15 and Scotland 14. 

 Twelve of the eminent women belong to the Byzantine Empire, 11 to 

 Holland, and 9 to Ireland. Twenty-seven nations each produced fewer 

 than ten eminent women. 



The relative number of women of ability produced by England, 

 France, Germany, America and Italy, at different periods, is shown in 

 Curve II. In the fifteenth century, France and Italy were leading in 

 the number of eminent women. By the beginning of the sixteenth 

 century France was declining and England had surpassed them both. 

 But England had a subsequent fall, and France a rapid rise, at the be- 

 ginning of the seventeenth century. Later in the century, France de- 

 clined again; England gained; the German curve rose rapidly; and 

 the Italian remained very low. Of the five modern nations which have 

 contributed the largest number of eminent women, France is the only 

 one for whom the incomplete records of the nineteenth century show a 

 decline in the number of eminent women over the eighteenth century. 

 We quote as peculiarly applicable what Professor Cattell said regarding 

 the eminent men: 



