FUTURE OF WOMEN IN SCIENCE 4ot 



service where, as professors or experts in every branch 

 of science, their talents have full liberty of action and 

 where they have the same opportunity of achieving dis- 

 tinction in their chosen life-work as have their male col- 

 leagues. 



In Germany there are to-day a million more women 

 than men. It is the same in England. In France the 

 number of women who are widows or unmarried or di- 

 vorcees or mothers with full-grown children aggregates no 

 less than four and a half millions. A similar condition 

 obtains in other parts of Europe. A large percentage of 

 this number is without home ties and, as the old fields of 

 labor are no longer open to women, they are forced to 

 find new ones. They naturally demand the privilege of 

 exercising their talents in occupations which are most 

 congenial to them. Many have no inclination for any of 

 the avocations in the industrial or commercial world, but 

 have a very decided inclination as well as talent for scien- 

 tific pursuits. Hence the ever-increasing number of women 

 who seek employment in chemical and biological labora- 

 tories, in museums and astronomical observatories, as well 

 as aspire to professorships of science in schools and col- 

 leges. From this large number of votaries of science some 

 are sure to achieve distinction in their calling and to con- 

 tribute materially to the advancement of knowledge. In 

 the course of time the number of those, like Mme. Curie, 

 Mme. Coudreau, Mary Kingsley, Sonya Kovalevsky, Elea- 

 nor Ormerod, Caroline Herschel, Zelia Nuttall, Harriet 

 Boyd Hawes, Donna Eersilia Bovatillo, Sophie Pereyas- 

 lawewa to name only a few who will become prominent 

 as chemists, explorers, naturalists, mathematicians, ento- 

 mologists, astronomers, archaeologists, biologists will be 

 vastly increased, for women will find a greater stimulus 

 for such work and more numerous demands for their 

 service in the constantly expanding sphere of scientific 

 research. 



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