common uses of life," The fear that she will not marry was less alarming than the thought "men will not marry her." The elective system meant freedom of choice, the inevitable result of which is freedom of life. Intelligent men saw clearly that an intelligent, highly-educated woman might possibly hesitate to sacrifice the pure delights of scientific learning for the pettiness of domestic routine and the satisfactions of burden-bearing motherhood. Therefore she must not be too highly educated, lest freedom turn her from her proper sphere.
In our day the cry of alarm has again been raised; more and more women are coming up to the doors of the colleges; if intelligent women do not marry, the future of this race is uncertain, and civilization itself is in danger. Some would even make this question the test of the varied systems of education for women, in the hope of finding one which may be labeled, "Warranted not to divert women from marriage!" But the problem is neither so imminent nor so serious as many suppose. Two thirds of all women graduates marry; the one third who do not are an infinitesimal part of the thirty million five hundred thousand women in the whole United States. The one third in our day have, on the whole, as good a chance to obtain a suitable training as men in the same lines. They specialize and find growth and contentment in the sense of power and usefulness. It is not their destiny which should concern us, but rather the destiny of the other two thirds who do marry. The question arises, Does their college training bear so definite and satisfactory a relation to their afterlives? I fear not. It is constantly impressed upon a boy during these four years that he must find out what he is good for; he must either be fit or ready to be fitted to do something which will have a definite market value. But the destiny of the girl who goes to college is carefully concealed from her. During these four years, who says to her: If you marry, you will need biology, the sciences of life and reproduction; hygiene, the wisdom to attain and preserve health; sociology, the laws which govern individuals in society; chemistry, physics, economics, all the sciences which may help to solve the problems which the housewife must meet; literature and language, the vehicles of poetry and inspiration? No one has the courage to suggest any of these as suitable—nay, absolutely essential—to the successful fulfillment of her probable vocation in life. Young women are turned blindly adrift among a mass of subjects, with no guide but a perverted instinct, and with many a hindrance in the shape of tradition and ridicule. In all ages men have united in adoration of the dignity of domesticity and the sacredness of motherhood, yet any loving, foolish, untrained, inefficient creature has been held good enough to be a wife and mother. We do not ex-
