Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/628

610 the importance of studying the entire environment, physical and social, of the young student at once appears. Here, in fact, the problem of her education centers.

Turning from the general conclusion to the consideration of certain specific problems, we educe the following data for discussion:

By all odds the most important fact regarding the higher education of woman is, that we are educating wives and mothers. Few probably will regret this, but those few must still admit the fact in a society constituted like ours. This, then, is the heart of the situation, and, in view of it, the following statistics are suggestive:

Omitting Oberlin College, for reasons already given, 26 per cent of the graduates who report are married, the other 74 per cent single. The average number of years since graduation is, however, over six, and average age over twenty-seven. Of the married, 37 per cent are without children, although the average number of years married is 6·2. The one hundred and nine having children report 205. Of these, 12 per cent have died, and, of these deaths, 25 per cent are due to causes connected with bearing. If we include all married couples, there is but 1·2 child to every five years of married life; and, even if we exclude those not having borne any, there are, among the remainder, two children to seven years of married life. We leave these figures, as the others, to speak for themselves.

That three hundred report their post-graduate occupations as teaching, and that one hundred and sixteen are following a professional life, shows a fact too easily lost sight of. Collegiate courses for woman have not solved the problem of her education, but, at most, of her technical training. It can hardly be thought desirable that 60 per cent of all the young women of our country, who ought to have collegiate training, should have it only as a preparation for one of the professions or for teaching. The question of women's education, in any worthy sense of the term education, has yet to be faced. The remarkable fact that the courses for female education, as well in purely female institutions as in co-educational, run parallel with and are modeled after the curriculum of male colleges, is to be accounted for only on the ground that upon the whole their training is designed for those who have to compete with men in the professional walks of life.

If we confine ourselves to the health of women, we shall find that the figures hardly justify us in assuming a purely optimistic attitude. The following figures speak for themselves: Of those who entered college one or two years after the commencement of the menstrual period, 20·5 per cent had poor health during college-life; of those who entered three to five years after, but 17·7 per cent; and more than five years, 15·4 per cent. If we compare the ages at entering college with the relative improvement or deterioration in health, we reach the same result. Of those who entered college at sixteen years or under, 28 per cent fell off in health, while 17 per cent gained. The