354 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



as the need of fertilizers was not so urgent then as it is 

 now, it was allowed to drop into oblivion, and the matter 

 was not again taken up until a half-century later, when 

 others secured the credit for an idea which was first con- 

 ceived by a woman who happened to have the misfortune 

 to live fifty years in advance of her time. 



It were easy to extend the list of important inventions 

 due to women and of patents which were issued in the 

 name of their husbands or other men ; to tell of inventions, 

 too, of whose fruits, because they happened to be helpless 

 or inexperienced women, the real patentees were often 

 robbed; but the foregoing instances are quite sufficient to 

 show what woman's keen inventive genius is capable of 

 achieving in spite of all the restrictions put on her sex, 

 and in spite of her lack of training in the mechanic arts. 



Had women, since the organization of our Patent Office, 

 enjoyed all the educational opportunities possessed by men ; 

 had they received the sam.e encouragement as the lordly 

 sex to develop their inventive faculties ; had the laws of the 

 country accorded them the rewards to which their labor 

 and genius entitled them, they would now have far more 

 inventions to their credit than those indicated in our gov- 

 ernment reports; and they would, furthermore, be able to 

 point to far more brilliant achievements than have hereto- 

 fore, under the unfavorable conditions under which they 

 were obliged to work, been possible. But when we recall 

 all the obstacles they have had to overcome and remember 

 also the fact that most of the patents referred to in the 

 preceding pages have been secured by women living in the 

 United States little being said of the modern inventions 

 of women in foreign countries we can see that their rec- 

 ord is indeed a splendid one, that their achievements are 

 not only worthy of all praise, but also a happy augury for 

 the future. When they shall have the same freedom of 

 action as men in all departments of activity in which they 

 exhibit special aptitude, when they shall have the same 



