a certain tone of seriousness to college life. Today, when thousands of women have been educated and the achievements of many of them have won general recognition, the intellectual equality of the sexes has ceased to be a burning issue and animates relatively fewer girls who come to college.

Finally, within a lifetime, the higher education of women was an innovation, and public sentiment was in large part either opposed or skeptical as to the result. This limited the attendance to those courageous enough to brave an adverse public opinion. The woman who was unconventional enough to blaze the way to college under these circumstances may have been somewhat indifferent to marriage and may have appealed little to men. Innovators are usually conspicuous for their individuality and aggressiveness. After the way to college had been opened, the movement proved contagious, and, aided by the newspapers and magazines, it increased in accordance with the laws of suggestion and imitation. In this way the early type of college woman gradually gave way to another, and college training not only ceased to be regarded with misgivings or disfavor but even became a prerequisite with some to social advancement. Owing to the diffusion of well-being and aspiration in the United States, very few classes were immune; and the expectations of even the most sanguine sponsors of the movement were far exceeded. The increased attendance of recent years has so overtaxed the facilities of some institutions as to necessitate limiting the number of students. Few undergraduates today realize the debt they owe to the pioneers who cleared the way. "It is heresy in our time," says Helen Keller, "to intimate that a young woman may do better than go to college."

For these reasons the ranks of students are recruited from a wider constituency than formerly, there is greater diversity in the personnel of the students, and the college woman is less sharply differentiated, socially and intellectually, from the rest of the community. This is almost a necessary consequence of the increased enrollment of students. The chances are, therefore, that any disparity between the marriage and birth rates of

1" An Apology for Going to College," McClure's, vol. xxv, 1905, p. 190.

college women and of their non-college associates has partially disappeared. This view is in keeping with the fact that the few gainful pursuits originally open to college women were in such places as boarding schools, which are seldom frequented by men and where the opportunities for marriage are relatively poor, while the careers opened in recent years often afford a less sequestered life. What is more, intelligent men recognize that college women are not abnormal creatures, and a growing number prefer them as wives. Man's position in the home, also, has grown less masterful, and marriage has become more consistent with an educated woman's self-assertion and independence of mind. In any event, a woman's scruples on this point usually vanish the moment she meets the man she lovesand not without reason, for the sequel often proves that women are fully as tactful and resourceful as men in maintaining their rights.

Thirty years ago, moreover, the tendency was to test the education of women by their contributions to scholarship or their professional success. This made the earlier classes feel that they were pioneers in a great experiment, the results of which could best be justified in careers outside the home. To settle down into the quiet of the domestic circle seemed like hiding one's light under a bushel. The demands of the public in this respect have become less exacting. The range of human knowledge has widened and deepened, and the importance attached to learning has increased, until a college education signifies little more than a high-school course a generation ago. Instead of its being held remarkable that a girl should attend college, it is now held, in many circles, to be remarkable if she does not. As a result, the college woman is more generally regarded as a normal individual of whom it is easy to expect too much. Alumnæ have increased until the position of the graduate seems far less elevated. Scholarly ability is as rare among women as among men, and the professional ambitions of women are more frequently interfered with by marriage, by the claims of parents or by the competition of other interests than is the case with men. With many, graduation ushers in opportunities for travel and social enjoyment

unrestrained by academic work, and with the majority it marks the end of systematic study. Very little technical knowledge is acquired at college, and one is fitted little better for one pursuit than for another. The aim is to place a woman in command of her various latent powers. Nevertheless, the majority of college women, irrespective often of their capacity for independent careers, marry sooner or later. In lieu of the test of scholarship, therefore, the one more commonly applied today is the contribution to the efficiency of woman in the home. If a college education fails to prove helpful in situations generally regarded as commonplace, its utility to most graduates is likely to be small. The influence of this point of view will probably be as favorable to marriage as the former point of view was unfavorable.

Of

A fourth difficulty emphasizes those already considered. The higher education of women is too young for satisfactory statistical investigation. It is only about fifty years since an American college first conferred a degree upon a woman. the colleges for women, Vassar was opened in 1865; Smith and Wellesley in 1875; and Bryn Mawr as recently as 1885. Many of the co-educational colleges and universities were either established or opened to women about the same time. Boston University was incorporated in 1869. Women were admitted to the University of Michigan in 1870, and two years later to Cornell University. Again, some institutions did not rank as colleges until some years after they were founded. Mt. Holyoke was chartered as a seminary in 1836, but it did not become a college until 1888. While Oberlin admitted women in 1837, and Antioch from her organization in 1853,3 the total enrollment of women in our colleges and universities remained small in 1880. Of the institutions open to women, moreover, only a minority did work of collegiate grade. By 1890, the number of women enrolled in collegiate departments had risen to 10,054, and in the following fourteen years the number tripled. With1 Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1903, vol. i, p. 1058. "Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia.

3 Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1903, vol. i, p. 1055, and 1904, vol. ii, p. 1484.

out a single exception, each year witnessed the enrollment of a larger number than the preceding. In the three academic years ending in 1892, 21.8 per cent of all college and university students were women; in the three years ending in 1904, 30 per cent. The great majority of alumnæ have been out of college less than fifteen years. Of 3552 Smith graduates, including the class of 1907, five-sevenths have graduated since 1894. It is manifestly premature to collect satisfactory statistics of marriages and births among college women. This point in itself is sufficient to render any statistical investigation of the effect of college training upon marriage and maternity not only inconclusive but well nigh valueless.

The conclusion of this study is chiefly negative. It is apparent that the statistical tables which we have examined fail to establish any causal nexus between higher education on the one hand and the frequency of marriage and maternity on the other. The first kind of table is entirely in the air, the second institutes comparisons between women who are clearly not comparable, and the third leads to a lame and impotent conclusion. The problem does not admit of statistical determination. The phenomena are so involved that they can not be isolated for measurement. "Sterility is not a specific disease, but is the intricate product of causes as complex as civilization."3 The results at which some writers arrive can be reached only by reading into the statistical data the conclusions which they wish to show, by closing their eyes to certain quite evident facts and by losing the proper sense of proportion. The effect is to mar their own reputations as thinkers and writers, and to bring statistical methods into disrepute. Any business man who conducted his affairs on no better established grounds could only by chance escape insolvency. In a future article it is my purpose to study the causes responsible for the decline in marriage and birth rates, and to ascertain their relation to the higher education of women.

SMITH COLLEGE.

1 Op. cit., 1904, vol. ii, p. 1422.

CHARLES FRANKLIN EMERICK.

'Compiled from Catalog of Officers, Graduates and Non-graduates of Smith Col

lege, and from official circulars.

3 Hall, op. cit. p. 597.

A RECENT DEVELOPMENT IN POLITICAL THEORY

HE theory of the state," writes Le Fur, "and that of

"TH sovereignty which has been its basis for so many

8

centuries, are at present overturned." By this somewhat startling statement the savant of Caen characterizes the result of the energetic attack which has recently been directed against some of the most fundamental tenets of the orthodox school of political theorists. The leading propagandist of the disturbing doctrines is M. Léon Duguit, the brilliant though sometimes erratic Professor of Law at the University of Bordeaux." In the controversy engendered by this fresh development we find Esmein 3, Mérignhac and Haurious rejecting the new theory, and Le Fur, Berthélemy 7, and Jéze 3 accepting it in whole or in part. The conclusions reached by Duguit form, in many respects, a striking contrast to those arrived at in the system of analytical jurisprudence. Whether or not his theory can be accepted by those schooled in the latter system, it deserves fuller consideration than it has yet received at their hands. According to the standpoint from which one views it, the new theory may serve either to correct some of the deficiencies of analytical jurisprudence, or to emphasize some of its excellences.

The fundamental postulate upon which the Duguitian theory proceeds is the solidarity of men living in a given social group. This interdependency arises, first, from the common needs

1 Zeitschrift für Völkerrecht und Bundesstaatsrecht, I, p. 13.

See his principal works: L'état, le droit objectif et la loi positive (1901); L'état, les gouvernants et les agents (1903); Manuel de droit constitutionnel (1907); Le droit social, le droit individuel, et la transformation de l'état (1908).

3 Droit constitutionnel, preface to third edition.

Traité de droit public international, B. II, ch. i.

Revue du droit public et de la science politique, vol. xvii, p. 346 et seq.

• Zeitschrift für Völkerrecht und Bundesstaatsrecht, I, pp. 13-23, 218–36.

"Droit administratif, pp. 42-45.

Principes généraux du droit administratif, p. 8.