Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1914-08-02
The First Attempt to Standardize the
Abilities and Value to Society of
Distinguished Women of All Periods
By DR.. Hans Huldricksen
The Famous Swedish SocioIogist

T1VERY woman, in this day of woman's in
creasing and admitted force in the
worlds affairs. will welcome faithful
analysis Of the claims of the women of history
to the title of eminent" Who are the emf
nent women of history, and how did they ac'
quire or achieve that eminence? Were they
born to it. as in the case Of certain expresses
and queens? Was eminence reflected upon
them by their eminent husbands. as in the
case Of the beheaded wives of Henry VIII. OF
England? Or did they achieve eminence by
the exercise of their own genius, did Har
riet Beecher Stowe, Lola Montez or Rosa Bon
heur?
OF still greater interest is the answer to the
question: How are cheese eminent women OF
history to be graded in respect to their indi-
vidual degree of eminence?
1t is matter of much satisfaction to be
able to state that such a faithful analysis has
at last been made, and all these questions an
swered in a most convincing manner in the
latest publication of the Science Press, New
York. by Cora Sutton Castle Phi. D., in a vol.
ume called, "A Statistical Study of Eminent
Women"
Quite appropriately, Mrs Castle first estab-
fishes her standard of emnence In the case OF
women. She writes:
'Dr. Francis Cation, who made the first sta.
tistical study of distinguished men, defined his
use Of eminent thus: When l speak Of emil.
nent man, / mean one who has acnieveda
position that is attained by only $50 persons in
each million of men, or by one person in each
1000
while my selection is closer, mathematical.
ly than Cations among the S6S women whom
] have designated eminent, in
cluded because of circumstances over which
they had no control, such as great beauty, or
congenital misfortune. Many were born to
u cir positions; to others is due but little
c. edit for the fact that they married men
sufficiently eminent to accord themsa place in
history. Some led spectacular lives and were
notorious rather than meritorious. Many OF
them were women of unusual intellectual abil.
tty and were eminent in the ordinary connota'
ton of the term"
The list is selected and the names tabulated
according to degrees OF eminent by a system
that leaves nothing to be desired. The author
tiles are six standard encyclopedias and bio.
graphical dictionaries recognized by scholars
IN America France, Germany and England.
Il retained writes Mrs. Castle, for my list
the name of every woman noted in any three
out of the six encyclopedias or dictionaries.
My original intention was to eliminate from
the lower end of the group until I had 1000,
a convenient and sufficiently large number with
which to work. But when l had discarded the
twenty-three Biblical characters the entire
number only 86S. 1t is a sad commentary
on the sex that from the dawn Of history to
the present day less than 1000 women have
accomplished anything that history has record
ed as worth while, One cannot evade the
question: is woman innately so inferior to man
or has the attitude of civilization been to close
the avenues of emirence against her?