The State Board of Charities and Corrections, which has general supervision over all the charitable and penal institutions, has had Mrs. Sarah Platt Decker for its president through this and previous administrations. Dr. Eleanor Lawney also is on this board. On the board of control of the State Industrial School for Girls, three out of five members are women; State Home for Dependent Children, four out of five; State School for Deaf and Blind, one out of five; State Normal School, two out of seven; State Board of Horticulture, one out of six. There have been women on the State Board of Pardons.
There are women physicians in the State Insane Asylum and connected with all institutions containing women and children.
The law for jurors is construed by the judges to apply equally to men and women, but thus far it has been so manipulated that no women have been drawn for service.
In 1897-98 two counties had women coroners.
There are eight women clerks in the Senate and seven in the House of the present Legislature. A number are employed in the court-house and in the county offices.
This partition of offices does not appear very liberal, considering that women have cast as high as 52 per cent. of the total vote; but there are in the State 30,000 more men than women, who could vote if they chose, and they are much more accustomed to holding offices and much more anxious to get them. The less the probabilities of election, the more liberal the parties have been in granting nominations to women.
Occupations: The only occupation legally forbidden to women is that of working in mines. Children under fourteen can not be employed, legally, in mines, factories, stores, etc.
Education: All the institutions of learning are open alike to both sexes. There are five women on the faculty of the State University, one on that of the School of Agriculture, nine in the State Normal School, and in the State Institute for Deaf Mutes seventeen of the thirty-three teachers are women. The Medical Department of the University of Denver has three women professors.
In the public schools there are 727 men and 2,557 women teachers. The average monthly salary of the men is $67; of the women, $48.42. Colorado spends a larger amount per capita for public school education than any other State.