effort, if we sought to learn which has done most to give a solid basis
of thoroughness to woman’s education, and, secondarily, to general
education, during the middle part of the present century, we should find
the answer in the Normal Schools. While other institutions have
contributed greatly to increase the scope of woman’s study, these have
added thereto the important consideration of methods.
As a part of the thrifty policy which the States have shown when dealing
with the education of girls, they have furnished Normal School
instruction with the especial view to getting skilled labor in return.
Perhaps there is nothing which would insure so great care in instilling
first principles. The result has certainly been to make their invaluable
influence felt from the cities to the remotest school districts.
The story of the establishment of these schools is another story of
personal struggle against more than indifference, and indifference
itself may justly be regarded as a solid substance.
The interest in Normal Schools in America, which was aroused by Prof.
Denison Ormstead in 1816, and was advocated by De Witt Clinton, by
Gallaudet, and by Horace Mann, grew to fervor in the Rev. Charles Brooks
of Medford, Mass., who caught his inspiration from Dr. Julius, of
Hamburg, who was sent to the United States by the King of Prussia to
study our public institutions. In 1865 Mr. Brooks rode in his chaise
over two thousand miles to present the subject, at his own cost, to the
people. He held conventions and presented the topic in pulpits as
“Christian Culture.” He says, “My discouragements were legion.”
The leading paper in Boston and in New England expressed its sense of
the absurdity of the movement by admitting a caustic communication,
which ended by representing Rev. Mr. Brooks with a fool’s cap on his
head, marching up State Street at the head of a crowd of ragamuffin
young men and women, who bore a banner, inscribed, “To a Normal School
in the clouds.” Mr. Brooks was, however, invited to speak on the subject
before the House of Representatives, and “some members of the
Legislature called the new movement by funny names.”
But educators like George B. Emerson, and thinkers like Rev. William
Ellery Channing, and statesmen like Horace Mann lent their aid, and,
stirred by Mr. Brooks, support was given in public speech by Hon. John
Q. Adams and Daniel Webster.
Mr. Mann was Secretary of the Board of Education upon its organization
in 1837, and, in his first report, recommended that the Legislature
establish Normal Schools. A donation of $10,000 being made by Mr. Dwight
to stimulate this interest, a State appropriation was made, and a Normal
School for girls was opened at Lexington, Mass., in 1838. Later, others
were opened, some of which admitted boys also, but for the first twenty
years, eighty-seven per cent. of the graduates were girls. These schools
are now widely scattered through the United States. The history of that
at Oswego, N. Y., is of especial interest.
The first systematic effort for the physical development of women was
made in 1861 in Boston. A “Normal Institute for Physical Culture,” was
established by Dr. Dio Lewis, aided by the president and some of the
professors of Harvard College. At the outset the young women pupils were
found lamentably deficient in respect of physical development. Later,
Dr. Lewis stated that “in every one of the thirteen classes which were
graduated, the best gymnast was a woman. In each class there were from
two to six women superior to any of the men.” Dr. Walter Channing, one
of the professors, often spoke with enthusiasm of the physical
superiority of the women to the men. From the graduates of these classes
instruction in light gymnastics was widely introduced into schools
throughout the country. Now the well-appointed gymnasium is a prominent
feature of the leading colleges to which women are admitted, and the
erection and endowment of this department is a favorite form of
benefaction from the alumnæ.
Prof. Huxley says, “No system of education is worthy the name, unless it
creates a great educational ladder, with one end in the gutter and the
other in the university.” Such was the intuitive feeling of our
ancestors, even in the Colonial days, with regard to boys. When,
however, in the course of centuries, conviction came to a few that what
had been for one sex only was, in fairness, due to the other as well,
the atmosphere of the older States did not prove bracing enough to
sustain so utopian a theory, and the ambitious daughters of New England
were obliged to follow those who, transplanted to the virgin soil of
Ohio, had opened Oberlin College, offering such opportunities as it
could furnish without distinction of race, and with but limited
discrimination against sex.
Something more remarkable than the hungry young mind seeking mental food
at disadvantage, was witnessed in 1853, when the full mind and earnest
spirit of the leading New England educator, Hon. Horace Mann, eager to
inaugurate the best methods of the higher education in a co-educational
college, found his only chance by leaving his native New England, to
build an institution from its very foundation, in a section remote from
literary association. The pathos is deepened that his life was
sacrificed in the contest with obstacles.
Following this magnetic leader; again a few New England girls turned
westward, and gained, at Antioch College, Ohio, what the East still
denied them. Twelve years later, and two hundred and forty years after
Harvard was established for boys, private beneficence endowed “Boston
University” on a co-educational basis, and in 1869 a college in
Massachusetts was opened to girls for the first time.
In place of the reply which Harvard College made to girls who asked
admission to its vacant seats, “We have no such custom,” was heard the
cheering, “Welcome to all we have to offer!” and the old habit of
keeping something of the best in reserve for the male sex, which has
been so persistent in State, and municipal, and institutional economy,
and which made the restricted sex feel an unwelcome pensioner on
somebody’s bounty, has never characterized Boston University. As a
result, the report of the University for the year 1879–80, shows that
already over thirty-seven per cent. of the regular classes in the
College of Liberal Arts were women, and, in encouraging contrast to many
colleges from which women are excluded, it adds, “no rowdyism or scandal
has brought discredit on the institution.”
In a few cases institutions for the higher education of women have been
established in university towns or cities, and have availed themselves
of the opportunity afforded for instruction by professors of the
neighboring university, and have been granted, under restrictions, use
of the libraries, museums, etc., connected with it. Each of these
differs from the other in respect of its relationship to the university.
The first established was that at Cambridge, Mass., in 1879, under the
direction of “The Society for the Collegiate Instruction for Women,”
which has, unfortunately, come to be known by the misleading title of
“The Harvard Annex.” Applicants for admission to the most advanced work
of the institution are required to pass the same examinations which
admit young men to Harvard College, and these examinations are conducted
in different parts of the country by local committees, under the
auspices of The Society for the Collegiate Instruction for Women.
Certificates of proficiency thus gained admit the student to classical
and scientific courses at the collegiate institution, corresponding to
those given to young men at Harvard College.[4]
EVELYN COLLEGE.
Evelyn College, Princeton, N. J., founded under similar circumstances in
1888, differs from the institution at Cambridge, having been formally
authorized to confer degrees and to exercise all the functions of a
college for the higher education of women.[5]
It offers classical and scientific courses corresponding to those of the
neighboring university; also elective and post graduate courses.
By resolution of the Board of Trustees of Princeton College any help may
be given to Evelyn College by the Princeton Faculty which does not
interfere with their duties in the University, and the use of the
libraries, museums, etc., is granted.
COLUMBIA COLLEGE IN RELATION TO THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
The first college for women to confer degrees upon graduates of an
affiliated college is Columbia College, New York City. As the aim of
this paper is rather to trace the growth of educational opportunity than
to tabulate results, the various steps which led to the opening of
Barnard College, New York City, in 1889 are given, as typical of the
progressive nature of movements for opening the doors of established
colleges to women. While many still regard it as wise to discriminate
between the sexes in respect of opportunities, while others would
instruct them equally but separately, there is apparently an increasing
number of these who would apply to colleges, in general, what the late
far-sighted President Barnard of Columbia said of that under his charge.
“I regard the establishment of an annex as desirable only considered as
a step toward what I think must, sooner or later, come to pass, and that
is the opening of the College proper to both sexes equally.”[6]
Efforts to gain for young women the advantages of Columbia College, New
York City, have been made at intervals since 1873, when several
qualified young women applied for admission to the college, and one, a
graduate of Michigan University, for admission to the medical school. A
plea in their behalf was made before the faculty by Mrs. Lillie Devereux
Blake, on the ground that the charter of the College declared that it
was “founded for the education of the youth of the city,” and “youth”
includes both sexes. President Barnard and several of the faculty
favored the admission of women as students, but the committee on
education decided that any action was inexpedient.
In December, 1876, a memorial was presented to the Board of Trustees of
Columbia College by “Sorosis,” a well-known woman’s club, of the city,
asking that young women should be admitted to the college classes. The
memorial was laid on the table by a unanimous vote.
Up to 1879 women were informally admitted to the lectures of certain
professors, during regular class hours. This was forbidden in 1879, not
from any harm resulting, but because it was discovered that the statutes
forbade any but regularly matriculated students to attend lectures. This
law had no reference to women, but the trustees declined to change the
letter of the law and women were banished. Three years later a motion
made in the board that the statutes should be so changed as not to
prohibit the attendance of women, conditionally, on certain courses of
lectures was lost. But from 1886 women have been admitted to lectures
given on Saturday mornings, and two hundred ladies have listened weekly,
and many more have desired admittance.
In 1883 an association was formed in New York to promote the higher
education of women. A petition signed by 1400 persons, many of them of
highest distinction in public and private life, and indorsed by
President Barnard of Columbia, asked that the benefits of education at
Columbia College be extended to qualified women with as little delay as
possible, by admitting them to lectures and examinations. In June of
that year, 1883, the trustees of Columbia College resolved that a course
of collegiate study, equivalent to the course given to young men, should
be offered to such women as may desire it, to be pursued under the
general direction of the faculty of the College.
This resolve was, however, restricted by regulations which seemed to
contradict both its spirit and its letter, since it narrowed the
opportunity of women to that of getting the required instruction where
they might, except at Columbia, which would, however, admit them to
examinations to prove whether or not they had done so. As these
examinations were not limited to the subjects as treated in the courses
of lectures, as were the corresponding examinations of matriculated
students of the University, they were more difficult. In spite of the
great difficulties to be encountered, and the very limited advantage to
result, many young women were attracted by the offer. In 1888
twenty-eight girls were availing themselves of this opportunity for
examination tests of proficiency. In 1885 the trustees of Columbia
resolved to grant the degree of Bachelor of Arts to women who had
pursued for four years a course of study fully equivalent to that for
which the same degree is conferred in the school of arts. Those who had
secured this degree, or its equivalent (elsewhere), might study for
higher degrees under the direction of the faculty of the College.[7]
BARNARD COLLEGE.
So manifest became the public demand for collegiate and post collegiate
instruction,—from graduates of the city Normal School (which had 1600
pupils), from the pupils of the best class of private schools, where,
sometimes, not less than one fourth were preparing for admission to some
college,[8] and from graduates of other colleges,—that a movement was
made, in which the efforts of leading men and women in New York City
were conspicuous both for their unflagging zeal and for their judicious
methods, to secure necessary funds to found and, at the outset, to
maintain a college for women whose professors and instructors should be
those of Columbia, and upon whose graduates Columbia College should
confer the same degrees as upon her own. The woman who first approached
the Trustees of Columbia College with a plan to found an affiliated
college for women was Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer, who had been one of the
first young women to take advantage of the course of examinations
offered by Columbia College. After the appeal for an affiliated college
was made it was discovered that had such a plan, supported by the proper
persons, and bearing likelihood of success, been brought before the
Board, it would have met with approval some years before. The former
petitions had, however, asked for co-education, and at first there was
considerable opposition to the “annex movement,” as it was called, on
the part of those whose battle-cry might have been almost said to have
been “Co-education or no education.”
But the wiser policy prevailed, and it was acknowledged by the majority
that “those co-educationalists who ignore the annex project are butting
their heads against a stone wall when a nicely swarded path lies before
them.”[9] Barnard College received official sanction from the Trustees
of Columbia College, March, 1889, was chartered by the Regents of New
York State, July, 1889, and formally opened October, 1889. Barnard
College was appropriately named in grateful tribute to the late
President Barnard of Columbia College.
The great void that it was to fill appeared in many ways,—among others
in the fact that the botanical and chemical laboratories which it
established were the only ones in the city open to women.
The trustees of Barnard, one half of whom are women, hope to find much
of its usefulness in the encouragement and provision for graduate work
which it will offer to the hundreds of women who are gathered in New
York, in the pursuance of some profession.
VASSAR COLLEGE.
The late Matthew Vassar, “recognizing in woman the same intellectual
constitution as in man,” resolved to give a fair chance to girls for a
liberal education, under conditions in every way favorable to health. To
this end he erected college and dormitory buildings in the midst of a
lawn of two hundred acres, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., with careful
provision for pure air, good water, abundant sunshine, and good
sewerage. He provided a gymnasium and provided for out of door sports.
He instituted a professorship of physiology and hygiene, and made its
incumbent “resident physician” and supervisor of sanitary arrangements.
In September, 1865, the institution received, upon examination, about
350 young women as students to a course of study and mode of life
determined by the trustees, who believed that “the larger the stock of
knowledge, and the more thorough the mental discipline a woman attains,
the better she is fitted for any womanly position, and to perform any
womanly duty of home and in society,” a position which the subsequent
experience of this and kindred institutions has abundantly illustrated.
Up to 1890, Vassar College has conferred the degree of A.B. upon between
800 and 900 graduates.
It has included in its corps of professors several women of
distinguished ability—of whom we may name the late Prof. Braislin of the
department of mathematics, and the late Prof. Maria Mitchell, who had
not only a national, but a European reputation, as an astronomer. From
the opening of the institution till near the time of her death, in 1889,
she was the head of the department of astronomy and in charge of the
excellent observatory. Three women are serving on the Vassar board of
trustees, and three on standing committees.
SMITH COLLEGE.
Smith College was founded in Northampton, Mass., by Miss Sophia Smith,
of the neighboring town of Hatfield. Finding herself in possession of a
large fortune to dispose of she took counsel with her pastor, Dr. John
M. Green, as to the best use to make of it. He conferred, in her behalf,
with the leading representatives of education, and the general opinion
of the time was voiced by Dr. Edward Hitchcock. When Dr. Green asked
him, in 1861, “Would you dare to endow a college for women?” he said,
“No! The matter of woman’s higher education is still an experiment.”
Prudence seemed to compel further deliberation. Strong efforts were made
to secure the fund for established colleges, and other schemes of
beneficence were considered, but by 1868 Miss Smith and Dr. Green, to
whom she had continuously turned for counsel, had come to the conviction
that in no other way could the money be so well invested for the benefit
of human kind, as in founding a college which should give young women
opportunities for education equal to those which established colleges
offered to young men. The plan was at once developed, and the college at
Northampton is to-day Miss Smith’s noble monument.
Its high aim has been well sustained, and more than five hundred
students are named in the Annual Report of 1889.
Two thirds of the faculty are women, to whom, however, the title of
professor is not accorded. This is not thought to imply lack of
competency to fill the positions usually so designated. Neither can the
current report be credited, that the President does not consider it
altogether womanly to bear such title, since Smith College conferred
upon Dr. Amelia B. Edwards, the English Egyptologist, the honorary
degree of LL.D., and only the highest courtesy could be intended.
WELLESLEY COLLEGE.
Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass., fifteen miles from Boston, was
founded in 1875 by the benefaction of Henry F. Durant. The purpose of
the trustees was “the establishment of a college in which girls should
have as good opportunities for higher education as the best institutions
afforded to young men, and to do so with due regard to health.” They
held that “it is not hard study but violation of law that injures
health.”
The college is beautiful for situation, with extensive grounds, like an
English park, varied by oak woods and elm-shaded avenues, and including
Lake Waban, which furnishes ample facilities for rowing and skating.
Thousands of rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs have been set to
brighten the grounds, and the spring turf blossoms in crocuses and
snowdrops.
Amid all this seductive beauty, suggestive of dreaming, rise noble
structures, of solid and elegant proportions, dedicated to successful
work. Within them the practical and the æsthetic are charmingly
combined. Music has its temple, art has its ministry, science its every
facility, and the air of a happy home life broods over all.
Thoroughness and system are manifest everywhere. This is not a college
of yesterday. Nowhere are the latest methods and the best facilities
more promptly welcomed. One wanders charmed and glad through its fine
library, its extensive laboratories, its dining-room, where a special
grace of living comes with the refined service of the students
themselves, its dainty parlors and reception-rooms, and, seeking some
flaw to prove it real, finds it, at last, in the fact that only half the
youth of the land—only girls are admitted to it.
From the opening of the college it has been under the presidency of
women. Miss Ada Howard, a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary, was
succeeded by Miss Alice Freeman, who received the degree of “Doctor of
Philosophy,” from her alma mater, the University of Michigan, and that
of Doctor of Literature from Columbia College. In 1887 Miss Palmer
resigned the presidency of Wellesley College, but as Mrs. Alice Freeman
Palmer continues to serve it as a member of the board of trustees, which
out of twenty-five members has one third women members. Miss Freeman was
succeeded by the present President, Miss Helen A. Schafer, a graduate of
Oberlin College.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY.
Cornell University is one of the national colleges founded upon the
land-grant of 1862. The share of New York was nearly a million acres,
and, by act of the Legislature of New York, passed in 1865, the
university was incorporated, and the income from the sale of this land
was given it for its maintenance. There were certain conditions, the
principal one being the donation of $500,000 to the university by Ezra
Cornell. This was made, together with 200 acres of land. In simple and
comprehensive phrase, Mr. Cornell said: “I would found an institution
where any person can find instruction in any study.”
The act of incorporation provides for instruction “in order to promote
the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the
several pursuits and professions of life.” Thus thrice bound to the
general service, by employment of the people’s resources, by acceptance
at once of the gift and of the intent of the broad-minded donor, and
again by provision of its own act, it would seem to go without saying
that the State should see to it that there should be no discrimination
against any class.
The university was opened, October, 1868, and, happily, it goes with
saying, that by act of the trustees, passed in April, 1872, “Women are
admitted to the university on the same terms as men, except that they
must be at least seventeen years old.”
On the authority of the Dean of the faculty, Mr. H. S. White, August,
1890: “As to the status of young women at Cornell, they enjoy all the
advantages which are open to young men, including the university
scholarship and fellowships. We have eight fellowships which are open to
graduate students, awarded by vote of the faculty, not only to our own
graduates, but to graduates of other institutions. In 1888–89, three of
these fellowships were secured by young women: one in botany; one in
architecture; and one in mathematics. The present year the Fellows
happen to be all young men; but this is a mere accident, and the
question of sex cannot be said to be considered in the award. There were
established, a few years ago, three Sage scholarships, set apart
exclusively for the young women who attended the university; they were
also eligible for the six university scholarships; so that at times four
or five out of the nine scholarships might be held by young women. These
Sage scholarships have recently been converted into university
scholarships, open to all applicants without distinction of sex. Sage
College was built and endowed by Hon. Henry W. Sage, in 1875, at a cost
of $250,000, and was given to Cornell University as a place of residence
for young women students. The gift had but one condition, that
“instruction shall be afforded to young women by Cornell University, as
broad and thorough as that afforded to young men.””
Up to the present time no professorship or offices of instruction in
this university have been held by women.
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY.