THE BIRTH-RATE 143 



evidence in many cases, but 30 undoubted instances 

 of marriages between members of Roman Catholic 

 families from 1871 to 1890 were tabulated, chiefly from 

 Who's Who and the Landed Gentry^ and resulted in 

 a total of 197 children, or ^.^ children to each fertile 

 marriage. 



Another small section of the population was also 

 brought within the scope of this inquiry. It differed 

 from the previous sections in that women, not men 

 were the subject of the investigation. The Women's 

 Colleges have now been established at Oxford and 

 Cambridge for over thirty years. They attract women 

 who possess a very definite form of ability, correspond- 

 ing in many respects to that present in the men who, 

 having come to either University, often with entrance 

 scholarships, become masters in schools or remain in the 

 University as lecturers and professors, and, as such, have 

 been dealt with in the previous investigations. From the 

 reports issued by two of the Women's Colleges, we have 

 lists of all the students who have been in residence 

 for one year and upwards, the degrees they have taken, 

 and the names of those who have afterwards married. 

 Excluding those who have left college within three 

 years or less, we find that out of some three thousand 

 women who took advantage of a University education, 

 only about 22 per cent have subsequently married. 

 There is unfortunately no record of the number of 

 children born to each marriage, but it is undoubtedly 

 very small. It is interesting to observe that the pro- 

 portion of marriages is distinctly higher among those 

 students who do not take the final examinations, or, 

 taking the examination, fail to obtain honours. If the 



