138 THE TREND OF THE RACE 
In the classes graduating from Vassar College between 1860 
and 1892, 53 per cent had married, producing 1.91 children in 
each family, or an average of one per graduate. The average 
number of children per graduate up to the year 1900 was .8 of a 
child. The average for Wellesley graduates between 1875 and 
1899 was .83 of a child. 
The birth rates of four colleges are summarized in the fol- 
lowing table compiled by Miss Nearing: 
The Fecundity of Graduates of Colleges for Women 
College No. of Children per 100 Married Graduates 
1870-79 | 1880-89 | 1890-99 | Ig00-09 
VASSaT von ins ovine sa aes eos 207.8 167.3 147. 68.8 
Bryn Mawr............. “ee re 171.5 77.4 
Wellesley............... ste 166.1 IIO.1 ss 
Mt. Holyoke............ oe fae 182.3 QI.2 
Of graduates before 1901 Smith College had 59.4, Vassar, 83.9, 
Bryn Mawr, 82.3 and Mt. Holyoke, 73.0 children per hundred 
graduates. 
Women graduates were found to marry, on the average, two 
years later than the women who do not attend college. Notwith- 
standing this fact, the fecundity of graduates is not markedly 
lower than that of non-collegiate women of American birth 
belonging to the general class from which graduates are 
recruited. 
Professor Cattell has investigated the size of the families of 440 
American men of science, choosing only those cases in which 
the ages of the parents indicated that the family was completed. 
The data collected show a remarkable low birth rate. It is true 
that the death rate among the American men of science is unu- 
sually small, being “‘seventy-five per thousand to the age of five 
years and about one hundred and twenty to the age of marriage.” 
“The marriage rate for scientific men,” says Cattell, “is high, 895 
