Education Is the Key for Women

Since the nineteenth century, the expansion of women's education in the West has been marked by the inter action of personal development and contribution to the welfare of society. These tendencies are now apparent in small mea sure in emergent states also. Contemporary with much il literacy in many parts of the world is the high level of academic achievement in the developed countries. Contacts with the West have been a potent influence in the rise of women's education overseas, and this philosophy has brought women in developing countries straight into the modern stream. Every where this has led, in various degrees, to a growth of direct power and responsibility in government and a larger share in the learned professions, with an important growth in scientific studies. Illustrations and statistics are drawn from a repre sentative selection of places. The gain in economic indepen dence thus leads to opportunities for more far-reaching activi ties. Among the resulting imponderable benefits are an increase in the value of informed public opinion, more widely spread throughout the community, and evolvement toward a society more evenly balanced in all its parts.