Woman in Modern Society by Earl Barnes
page 44 of 155 (28%)
page 44 of 155 (28%)
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University they have every advantage open to men.
In Germany, the opportunities for higher education of women have changed from year to year; but in 1910, there were 1,856 women in the universities as compared with 1,108 in 1909, and this notwithstanding the Emperor's well known belief that woman's sphere should be limited to domestic activities. The claims advanced in opposition to the higher education of women have largely broken down to-day. It was long maintained that her mind was inferior to man's mind in kind and quality, and that she could not do the work required. In the presence of thousands of young women carrying all kinds of university work with credit and honor such charges become absurd. The belief that woman's health could not stand the strain fails for the same reason. The fear that she would be less likely to marry; or marrying, would be less likely to have children, has been seen to have some body of fact behind it; but we have seen also that university students are recruited from groups that are not the most fecund, and that the same danger applies to men students as to women.[25] Women in higher education are now accepted as a regular part of our modern life. [25] Eight hundred and eighty-one Harvard graduates, twenty-five years after graduation, had but 1,226 children. If half were boys, we have but 613 sons for 881 Harvard graduates. HUGO MÜNSTERBERG, _The Americans_, p. 582. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1901. And yet there is one objection that still remains unanswered in very many minds. It has always been feared that women would lower the standard of scholarship; and there is much in the quality of the present generation of women students that may strengthen this belief. In the |
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