0 5.0
[Illustration: Wellesley Graduates and Non-graduates
FIG. 36.--Graph showing at a glance the record of the student
body in regard to marriage and birth rates, during the years indicated.
Statistics for the latest years have not been compiled, because it is
obvious that girls who graduated during the last fifteen years still
have a chance to marry and become mothers.]
If these differences did not bring about any change in the birth-rate,
they could be neglected. A slight sacrifice might even be made, for the
sake of having mothers better prepared. But taken in connection with the
birth-rate figures which we shall present in the next chapter, they form
a serious indictment against the women's colleges of the United States.
Such conditions are not wholly confined to women's colleges, or to any
one geographical area. Miss Helen D. Murphey has compiled the statistics
for Washington Seminary, in Washington, Pennsylvania, a secondary school
for women, founded in 1837. The marriage rate among the graduates of
this institution has steadily declined, as is shown in the following
table where the records are considered by decades:
'45 '55 '65 '75 '85 '95 '00
Per cent.
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