388 
is providential but not to the point. 
What happens is that a host of them, 
and probably this is true of those un- 
married ones of whom the Johnson and 
Sprague statistics speak, fail to carry 
away with their diplomas that obvious, 
though subtle and intangible something 
that makes a young man say to himself: 
“There is a girl I can chum with. I can 
talk with her freely about almost anything 
without an irritating feeling that I ought 
to be discussing woman’s rights, or that 
she suspects me of ulterior and far-sighted 
plans against her self-sufficient solitude.” 
The Johnson and Sprague figures 
talk of that unconscious encrustation of 
intellectual primness, that palpable and 
reserving something that is almost 
bound to appear on the surface of a girl 
who has spent four of her very best 
years in nunnish isolation from young 
men of her own caliber, and from the 
world-old influences that stir and keep 
alive the root affections of womankind. 
This carapacing may be only partial, or 
it may be almost complete, and it 
is undoubtedly far below the girl’s own 
consciousness as one’s more character- 
istic mannerisms are apt to be, but the 
fact remains that in many cases at 
least it is enough to account for that 
‘not being asked’’ that is attributed to 
to economic and other causes. 
It may be that the very fact of hav- 
ing been through college casts a fine 
net of difference about a woman, 
holding some young men aloof. It 
may be that a college course connotes 
some degree of wealth and, by impli- 
cation, ideals of material living higher 
than most young men can immediately 
obtain. It may be that choosing a 
career is taken to imply that a young 
woman prefers that course to marriage. 
It is probably true that all these causes, 
together with the fact that some of our 
young women suffer at least an outward 
The Journal of Heredity 
dessication of essentially feminine qual- 
ities, help roll up the damaging statis- 
tics. The story they tell, however, 
remains the same. The marriage rate 
of graduates from women’s colleges is 
strikingly below par.’ 
WHERE ARE THE BABIES? 
And as for the drive at the spirit 
of the curriculum, a glance at even those 
of our colleges for ‘‘domestic science”’ 
will amply prove the contention that 
they are pretentiously superficial and 
dustily intellectual. There are rows of 
little gas stoves over which prospective 
wives conduct culinary chemical experi- 
ments. There are courses in biology, 
something of physiology and hygiene, 
the art of interior decoration and the 
science of washing clothes. There is 
text-book sociology and sometimes lec- 
tures on heredity or eugenics. But the 
smile of incredulity as to my seriousness 
when I asked the principal of the 
Margaret Morrison Carnegie School of 
Domestic Science, ‘‘Where are the 
babies?” is typical. Babies were im- 
possible. They would interfere with 
the curriculum, there was no time for 
practice with babies, and besides, where 
could they be got, and how could they 
be taken care of? The students were 
altogether too busy with calories, bal- 
anced rations, and the history of 
medieval art. 
But when I asked where the babies 
were, I did not have in mind the necessity 
for learning how to feed an infant or 
how to strap it in a perambulator. I 
was thinking of what a baby could mean 
in the life of a young woman who looked 
forward to home-making, of the rdle 
it would play in the education of her 
true self, not merely of her memory for 
facts. 5 
It was astounding to think that there 
was actually no place in America where 
’ Briefly, less than half of the graduates of the principal women’s colleges marry, and they 
bear not more than two children apiece—a number so small as to ensure a rapid disappearance of 
their section of the race. 
particularly select lot of families, is even worse than that of the graduates as a whole. 
The record of honor graduates, who may be presumed to represent a 
The non- 
collegiate sisters, cousins and friends of these graduates have a better record, although they come 
from the same social class and are subject to the same influences, except for the college course. 
This indicates that it is actually the college course which keeps girls from marriage and from 
making an adequate contribution to the next generation. 
tional colleges is also better. 
The record of the girls in the coeduca- 
