NO PLACE FOR SCIENCE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1413, 13 April 1912, Page 11

NO PLACE FOR SCIENCE.

What are women's favourite subjects of situd.v? Probably the wisest answer lo that _ question is that there aren't, any. Not' willi any cynical intention. Everybody who knows anything of human nature knows.that women mako students of a zeal, devotion, and minute accuracy far beyond most men. But, a; it would be futile to say that men as a class have any favourite subjects so it is with women. . We.know, all the same, that of men who go to the universities more study the classics than Arabic. You may answer that the reason is merely fashion. But what is in fashion with women? The answer we have comes from Germany. But it is an, answer rather ."surprising. There are in Germany 2795 women students enrolled in the registers of the universities. The number seems small, but apparently seme 2000 other not officially counted are receiving some kind of a university education. As to these supernumeraries there is no information, but of the 2795 no fewer than 1653 are taking what we may call a purely literary course. Philosophy, history, and philology claim them,. It :s as if we heard that more than* half the women at English universities were read : ng "Greats," the Final Classical School at Oxford. Surely you would have expected science to make a better show than this. But the sciences do not seem to appeal to German women. Medicine, to be sure, takes the second place, but it is a very poor second-smly 582. The remnant, is "distributed fairly evenly among the law, the natural 'sciences, tho'iogy, and political economy." .