252 



The Journal of Heredity 



ClaS5 0f 79 80 81-82 •83-84-85-86-87-88-89- 90-91 -az-gS- 94-95-96-97-98-99-000I- 



Wellesley Graduates and Non-qraduaies 



Graph showing at a glance the record of the student body in regard to marriage and birth 

 rates, during the years indicated. Statistics for the latest years have not b.>en com- 

 piled, because it is obvious that girls who graduated during the last fifteen years still 

 have a chance to marry and become mothers. (Fig. 6.) 



of the eugcnist an historic bhindcr. 

 They arose because (1) women were 

 debarred from the eastern men's colleges 

 — a most unfortunate circumstance, 

 (2) because the mental capacity of 

 women was at that time all too fre- 

 quently considered to be too inferior 

 for college training. It was, therefore, 

 a natural result that colleges for women 

 should be established. But, unfortun- 

 ately, to correct the current depreciation 

 of woman's mentality, it was thought 

 necessary to give her the same cttrricu- 

 lum as that used by men. 



The results of the experiment, how- 

 ever, have been utterly inconclusive 

 because no direct comjjarison of the 

 men and women was possible. It was 

 in the coeducational colleges that the 

 test was conducted under satisfactory 

 conditions. Today it is well known 

 that the women capture more than their 

 projjortion of the honors and average 

 higher in their marks. Is there any 

 real reason, then, for these ca.stcrn, 

 separate, women's colleges to continue 

 along the same old lines, with the 

 unsatisfactory results that wc have 

 seen ? 



The stubborn resistance of these 

 colleges to the introduction of education 

 for domestic efficiency, especially in 

 the care of the infant, has been amazing. 

 They are thereby neglecting one of the 

 most important factors in a woman's 

 sound education. 



May it not be that this ill-adjusted 

 education is ]3artly responsible for the 

 fact that Cattcll finds in American men 

 of science at the time of his inquiry 

 that those having college graduates as 

 wives had 2.02 children each, while 

 those with wives of i^artial college 

 training had 2.12 children and those 

 with wives of no college education 

 2.35 children? 



The very proj^er ]jrefcrenee in many 

 intelligent men for girls trained to be 

 efficient wives and mothers is one of the 

 causes of the low marriage rate and late 

 time of marriage of the graduates of 

 the women's colleges. The trained girl 

 can and will marry a man with an in- 

 come too restricted for the su])i)ort of 

 an inefficient wife. 



Rules in force at various women's 

 colleges, which lead to social limitations, 

 not to sav asceticism, throw ui> 



