WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



The honor, however, which gave her the most pleasure 

 was the degree of Doctor of Laws, which was conferred on 

 her by the University of Edinburgh. It was the first time 

 this old and conservative institution thus honored a woman, 

 but in honoring Miss Ormerod it honored itself as well. 1 



But when one considers the magnitude of Miss Ormerod 's 

 services to her country and to the world, when one reflects 

 on the tens of millions of pounds sterling which she saved 

 to the British Empire by her researches and writings, these 

 honors seem trivial and unworthy of the great nation which 

 she so signally benefited. If any of her countrymen had 

 labored so long and so successfully and made so many 

 sacrifices for the welfare of the nation as she had, he would 

 have been knighted or ennobled. But age-long prejudices 

 and traditions will not yet permit England to bestow the 

 same honors on women as on men, no matter how brilliant 

 their attainments or how distinguished their services to the 

 crown and to humanity. Recognition of this kind may pos- 

 sibly come as one of the desirable innovations of the twen- 

 tieth century. No lover of fair play can deny ' ' 'tis a con- 

 summation devoutly to be wished. ' ' 2 



i The dean of the law faculty in presenting Miss Ormerod to 

 the vice-chancellor on this occasion and speaking before an audi- 

 ence of three thousand people said, among other things: "The pre- 

 eminent position which Miss Ormerod holds in the world of science is 

 the reward of patient study and unwearying observation. Her in- 

 vestigations have been chiefly directed towards the discovery of 

 methods for the prevention of the ravages of those insects which are 

 injurious to orchard, field and forest. Her labors have been crowned 

 with such success, that she is entitled to be hailed as the protectress 

 of agriculture and the fruits of the earth a beneficent Demeter of 

 the nineteenth century." Eleanor Ormerod, Economic Entomologist, 

 Autobiography and Correspondence, Edited by Kobert Wallace, p. 96, 

 London, 1904. 



2 The Canadian Entomologist, September, 1901, in an obituary 

 notice of Miss Ormerod, well voiced the high appreciation in which 

 she was held throughout the civilized world in the following para- 

 graph: "Miss Ormerod was one of the most remarkable women of 



