Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/257

Rh abroad in connection with the home training, though this fact is not shown in the figure, nor is another fact of interest, namely, that they have made the most rapid improvements in their intellectual equipment as shown by a study by decades for the last sixty years. We have, however, no data upon which to base a comparison of the 'rank' with the 'file.'

For the physicians we can only rely once more upon the Commissioner of Education. He states that 7.5 per cent, of the medical students of the country have taken the academic degree. Yet we find—mirabilé dictu—that 42 per cent, of the 'Who's Who' physicians have been recipients of that degree. Nearly six times as many of the 'rank' as of the 'file' (see Fig. 6). It seems hardly probable that the college training can be at such a premium in the actual practice of the medical man, so it seems to me we must conclude that it is as a scientist and a producer that such a training counts for most. The scientific societies of the physician undoubtedly stimulate more of their members to original research and investigation, and consequently to a greater productiveness, than do similar organizations among clergymen and lawyers, and it is here that the broader training would count for most. We must, in any event, from the facts disclosed by our study, conclude that of the three generally recognized learned professions, the medical leads in the breadth and perfection of its educational preparation.

A study of the education of women, based upon Fig. 5, is disappointing, and from it we are forced to one of two conclusions: either (1) that women can attain an eminence equal to that of men, with less dependence upon educational machinery, or (2) that the compilers of the book upon which our study is based have made use of a different and lower criterion in judging them. In the case of no one of the vocations shown upon the figure was her training so complete as was that of her male competitor for honors, and the same w r as true for the limited number of doctors, lawyers and ministers mentioned for the sex. In no one of the vocations, except that of the stage, was the difference so slight as to leave any doubt on the question. The most discouraging thing about it too, as disclosed by a study by decades but not shown upon any of the figures, is that for recent years, when institutions of nearly all classes have been as freely open to woman as to man, there seems to be no change for the better. Her educational inertia, due very naturally to centuries lacking in opportunity, is not easily thrown off, and, until it is—a time which seems not yet to have arrived—she can not take her place with man in the professional world, even should she consider it as properly her sphere.