220 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



Another chemist of a less altruistic nature than Mrs. 

 Richards would not have resisted the temptation to achieve 

 distinction in the domain of original research. But where 

 there was so much suffering to be relieved and so much 

 ignorance to be removed regarding the most fundamental 

 principles of sanitation, this philanthropic woman pre- 

 ferred to put to practical use what she called ''the con- 

 siderable body of useful knowledge now lying on our 

 shelves. ' ' 



Her duty, as she conceived it, is well indicated in the 

 following paragraph, taken from a thoughtful discussion 

 by her of the subject of home economics a short time before 

 her death in 1911. "The sanitary research worker in 

 laboratory and field, ' ' she declares, ' ' has gone nearly to the 

 limit of his value. He will soon be smothered in his own 

 work, if no one takes it. Meanwhile children die by the 

 thousands; contagious diseases take toll of hundreds; back 

 alleys remain foul and the streets are unswept; school- 

 houses are unwashed and danger lurks in the drinking 

 cups and about the towels. Dust is stirred up each morn- 

 ing with the feather duster to greet the warm, moist noses 

 and throats of the children. To the watchful expert it 

 seems like the old cities dancing and making merry on the 

 eve of a volcanic outbreak. ' n 



From the day in 1873 when Mrs. Richards received from 

 the Institute of Technology the degree of Bachelor of Sci- 

 ence a degree which made her not only the first woman 

 graduate of this institution, but also the first graduate in 

 the United States of a strictly scientific seat of learning 

 the number of women who have devoted themselves to 

 chemical pursuits is legion. They are now found in every 

 civilized country in both hemispheres and their number is 

 daily increasing. They are everywhere doing excellent 

 work as teachers in classrooms and laboratories and hold- 



i The Life of Ellen H. Bichards, p. 273 et seq., by Caroline L. 

 Hunt, Boston, 1912. 



