404 JVOMAN IN SCIENCE 



Immaculate Conception* We know that Athens, which 

 during the most brilliant period of its history counted only 

 fifty-four hundred free-born citizens less than the popula- 

 tion of a small modern town was able to produce within 

 a very brief epoch more men of supreme distinction than 

 all the rest of Europe from the Age of Pericles until the 

 dawn of the Renaissance. Hers is still the art of the world, 

 the literature of the world, the philosophy of the world, 

 the culture of the world. For twenty-five centuries her 

 canons of taste and beauty have guided poets, orators, 

 artists; and her matchless productions have been the in- 

 spiration, as they have been the despair, of the greatest 

 geniuses of our modern world. 



Had the women of Greece not been put under constraint 

 just as they were beginning to exhibit the splendid results 

 of their intellectual activities ; had they been encouraged to 

 develop to the utmost their richly-dowered minds, as were 

 the men, a far larger number of them, no doubt, would 

 have been as successful in carrying off coveted prizes in 

 the intellectual arena as was Corinna in her contests with 

 Pindar. And they would, likewise, as we may easily con- 

 ceive, have greatly added to the number of masterpieces 

 of Greek intellect in science as well as in art and letters. 



But the opportunity for women to test their powers, 

 which was so wantonly snatched from their sisters in the 

 Hellenic world, seems again to be offered to their sex. This 

 opportunity, as has been stated, is due chiefly to their 

 persistence in claiming the same right as men to intel- 

 lectual development as well as to the countless proofs 

 they have given that their demands are founded on reason 

 and justice. What shall be the outcome of the new oppor- 

 tunity for woman to prove her capacity as compared with 

 man's in things of the intellect remains to be seen, but, 

 from indications she has during recent years given of her 

 powers in every branch of scientific inquiry, there can be 

 little doubt that it will be of such character as to place 



