arts, a college of medicine, and a college of fine arts. Said the
Chancellor, Dr. Sims, “Syracuse throws open the doors of all its
colleges for the admission of women on the same terms as men. No
especial rules are made because of the presence of both sexes in the
university, the young women having every right that is accorded to young
men. We have never had difficulty growing out of the presence of both
sexes in the institution. The young ladies are as scholarly in every
department as the young men.”
It is not strange that women’s benefactions set to such an institution.
In addition to its general library of about 35,000 volumes, and a
valuable professional library in connection with the college of
medicine, in 1887, Mrs. Dr. G. M. Reid made a gift to the college of the
great historical library of Leopold von Ranke. In 1889, Mrs. Harriet
Leavenworth, of Syracuse, presented to the college of fine arts the
Wolff collection of engravings, containing 12,000 sheets of rare and
costly etchings of engravings from the great masters of art in all ages.
The “John Crouse Memorial College for Women” was presented to Syracuse
University in 1889. It is said to be the finest college building in the
world.
BRYN MAWR COLLEGE.
Bryn Mawr College, situated at Bryn Mawr, ten miles from Philadelphia,
Pa., was endowed by Dr. Joseph W. Taylor of Burlington, N. J., of the
society of Friends, to afford to women opportunities for study equal to
those given in the best men’s colleges. It was opened in 1885, and
admits to lectures and class work three grades of students,—viz.,
graduates, undergraduates, and hearers. The entrance examinations are
strict, and graduate students have from the first formed a large
proportion of the students,—from one sixth to one fifth of the whole
number. The time of graduation is determined only by the completion of
the prescribed course.
The students at Bryn Mawr College enjoy exceptional opportunity for
development of character through the important habit of self-direction.
Notably wanting here are the customary restrictions on freedom of
movement. For example, the student may choose her rising, retiring, and
study hours; she may go in and out of Philadelphia at her discretion.
This recognition of the student as personally responsible has been
attended, it is said, with the happiest results.
Five fellowships are annually awarded: one in Greek, one in English, one
in mathematics, one in history, and one in biology. The Bryn Mawr
European fellowship is awarded annually to a member of the graduating
class for excellence in scholarship. The holder receives $500,
applicable to the expenses of one year’s residence at some foreign
university.
The whole number of students enrolled during the year 1888–89 was 116.
At the close of the scholastic year the degree of B.A. was conferred
upon twenty-four candidates. All but two had been for four years in
attendance at the college, and the president’s report says: “All of them
left the college in their best state of health.”
No person is appointed a member of the faculty who is not, in every way,
qualified to direct graduate as well as undergraduate study. There is
absolutely no difference made in the salaries paid to the men and women
employed in instruction; there is no difference made in academic rank.
The present Board of Trustees, twelve in number, are all men, appointed
by the founder of the college. Should a vacancy occur it might be filled
by a woman.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE.
Swarthmore College, ten miles from Philadelphia, Pa., was founded in
1864 by members of the religious society of Friends, for the higher
education of both sexes. The two sexes are about equally represented,
not only among the pupils, but in the officers of the corporation and in
the officers and committees of the board; in this latter respect
differing from the record of any other college.
The number of female students in the collegiate department for the
scholastic year 1888–89, was 80.
The college confers the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, of Letters, and of
Science, on completion of the corresponding courses, and, conditionally,
the Masters’ degrees, A.M., M.L., M.S., and also the degree of C.E., in
the engineering department.
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
The first admission of women to special courses in the University of
Pennsylvania was in 1876 when, on application, two young women of
Philadelphia were granted, after examination and payment of a fee, the
full privileges of the analytical laboratory, and during that year were
regular students, passing the final examinations with the junior class.
The next year, 1877–78, they were admitted to lectures, laboratory work,
recitations, and final examinations by the department of organic
chemistry. In the years directly following, the physical laboratory
received two young women, and upon lectures on modern history, opened to
all fitted by previous study to appreciate them, from twenty-four to
thirty ladies were regular attendants. In all departments the ladies
received the highest courtesy and appreciation. One of the number
writing of it says: “You have _carte blanche_ to say all you will in
this respect,—you could not say too much.”
Through the favor of the dean of the college department the following
very complete statement is presented of the progress toward giving to
women the advantages of this venerable university, which has been
gathering its rich resources since its foundation in 1746.
In 1876 a department of music was established, in which advanced
instruction in the theory of music was given, and from the beginning
women were admitted to the classes. While a degree was attainable,
under certain conditions of post graduate work, none have been
awarded.
In 1878 Mrs. Bloomfield Moore presented $10,000, the income of which
was to pay the tuition fees of women who sought to qualify themselves
for teaching, in any of the courses open to them. Certain special
courses of lectures and laboratory work, e. g., English history,
chemistry, mineralogy, were open to the public on a fee, and of course
women were included, a few availing themselves of the opportunity; but
these were not matriculated, nor entered upon the roll of students.
In 1880 Miss Alice Bennett, M.D., received the degree Ph.D. in the
Auxiliary Faculty of Medicine,—a two years’ course in certain sciences
open to graduates in medicine.
In 1888 Mrs. Carrie B. Kilgore received the degree LL.B., on
completing the full two years’ course in the law department.
In neither of these cases was there any formal action opening the
courses specified to women. They were simply accepted as students by
the several deans, and when they had complied with the terms were,
without demur, admitted to their degrees.
The School of Biology, organized in 1884,—a two years’ course, no
degree,—has from the first been freely open to women, has always had a
fair proportion among its students, and some of them have proved to be
of superior ability. Its force and material are used in the new four
years’ course in natural history, one of the college courses, but to
this women are not yet admitted.
Applications were often made for the admission of women to the medical
department, but trustees and faculty concurred in always refusing it.
This was the more unanimously done since the establishment of the
admirable Women’s Medical College, which would have been fatally
injured by the opening of our doors to women.
Requests to open the college department to women have been
periodically made for many years. At first the faculty positively
declined to recommend this, but gradually opposition to the proposal
weakened, until last year(1889–90) a bare majority voted the other
way.
Before the trustees had taken action upon the matter, Col. Joseph M.
Bennett came forward and presented two valuable houses, adjacent to
the university, and a sum of $10,000 for establishing a college for
women as a department of the university. The trustees accepted the
offer, and after careful consideration and consultation with prominent
women educators, decided, with Col. Bennett’s full approval, to make
this a post graduate department of the highest grade.
Its organization and government are entrusted to a board of managers,
one half women. By the autumn of 1891 the department will be open;
ranking with the Faculty of Philosophy, giving the degree Ph.D. (which
is no longer given by the Auxiliary Faculty of Medicine), and having
special courses not leading to a degree. It is hoped that an ample
number of free scholarships will be provided. The Faculty of
Philosophy is freely open to women, and prepared to give Ph.D.
degrees. Of course, when the department for women is opened it will
practically be in this faculty.
In 1889–90 there were the following women students: College,
Department of Music, 11, not candidates for a degree; Biology, 12, not
candidates for a degree; Auxiliary Department of Medicine, 1,
candidate for Sc.B. Total, 24.
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was chartered in 1861. By a
special vote of the Corporation in December, 1870, a graduate of Vassar
College was admitted as a special student in chemistry. In June, 1873,
the lady took the final examinations, covering two years of professional
work. As no tuition fee was charged no precedent was established by this
action. In 1873, at the request of the Woman’s Educational Association,
and with its co-operation, the woman’s laboratory for chemistry and
botany was established, to which women came as special students.
Although they had not been recognized during their course as regular
students, two women received the Institute Degree in 1881–82.
In 1883 final action was taken, opening all the courses to women on
precisely the same terms as to men. Women now go into the laboratories
with the regular classes.
The foregoing sketch of woman’s educational progress, while extended
beyond due limit, leaves out the most encouraging record,—as it is the
latest,—the story of what women are doing for themselves, and, no less,
for humanity. No one can fairly estimate the educational forces of the
coming decades who does not take into consideration the varied means of
growth outside of both school and college; means which do not displace
the need of these, but rather emphasize it. We may not even touch upon
these here, but from a moment’s comprehensive glance backward we may
dimly conceive the forward outlook.
It is not yet a century from the time when New England towns were voting
“not to be at any expense to school girls,” and lo! as a type of to-day,
Wellesley College, with a million and a half dollars wisely invested to
entice girls from the remotest islands of the sea, to love and to get
learning. For the unlettered housekeeper, filching time from her heavy
labors to gather the children about her knee in the “Dame school,” we
have the young but learned president of the college of nearly 700
students; or the woman directing, as its head, the orderly movement of a
thousand or more pupils in the great city grammar school, which may
represent a half score of nationalities. For the girl accustomed to
denial, and deprecatingly asking for a little instruction when the boys
shall have had their fill, we have the bright-faced, trustful young
woman who expects and will get ere long the best the world has to offer.
In a country which finds its safety in the intelligence of its people
and its peril in their ignorance, it behooves its thinkers to consider
whether it is not too great a risk to leave four fifths of the
instruction of youth in the hands of a sex of inferior education. The
distinguished president of Harvard College, called attention some two
years since, in an article in _The Atlantic Monthly_, to the condition
of inferiority of our secondary schools, and he proposed remedying it by
displacing a part of the female teachers. It would seem more in
accordance with the spirit of the time, and certainly more practicable,
to open to them the closed doors of opportunity and fit them to meet the
demand made upon them.
The terror of the learned woman which, in one form or another, has had
its many victims, has well nigh passed. Even the more timid and
conservative are learning that it is the ignorant, not the instructed
woman, that confuses affairs and works disaster. “A little knowledge
is,” beyond doubt, “a dangerous thing”; but only because it is little.
It is told of Saint Avila that she gained her renown by this marvel. At
one time, when frying fish in the convent, she was seized with a
religious ecstacy, yet so great were her powers of self control that she
did not drop the gridiron, nor let the fish burn!
So the educated woman of the nineteenth century has quieted many grave
apprehensions as to the consequences of much learning to her sex. After
the manner of Saint Avila, she does not permit her intellectual ecstacy
to blind her to her simple duties. She has abundantly proved that she
can carry the triple responsibility of loving and serving and knowing.
III.
THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN THE WESTERN STATES.
BY
MAY WRIGHT SEWALL.
No formal history of the movement in the West on behalf of the higher
education of women has been published. The materials for this paper have
been derived from the reports issued under the auspices of the Bureau of
Education; from the catalogues of institutions open to women; from
various monographs, some of which recite the history of a single college
(like “Oberlin, its Origin, Progress, and Results,” by Pres. J. H.
Fairchild), others of which present the educational history of a State
(like “Higher Education in Wisconsin,” by Professors Allen and Spencer);
from a miscellaneous collection of baccalaureate sermons and
congratulatory addresses delivered before the graduating classes and the
alumnæ associations of many colleges; from old files of newspapers, and
from scrap books which for a series of years have been collecting the
records of contemporary effort along the lines of higher education; from
the biographies of distinguished educators in our country; and from
scores of letters, many of which have been written by college presidents
and professors in response to my own inquiries, while others have been
placed at my disposal by Dr. Carroll Cutler, formerly President of
Adelbert College. No stronger evidence of the interest felt in the
higher education of women could be found than the cordial, generous
answers to my inquiries, which have come from the officials of scores of
institutions extending from the Ohio to the Pacific. I am withheld from
naming gentlemen to whom I am so deeply indebted only by the fact that a
list of those who have courteously replied to my appeals for information
would occupy more space than I can afford to give out of the limited
number of pages allotted me in this volume.
The Western States and Territories in the order of their admission into
the Union under their present names, include Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Missouri, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon,
Kansas, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana,
and Washington—eighteen States; and Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming—three
Territories. The changes undergone and the relations sustained by each
of the above in its progress toward its present independent condition
are exhibited in Table I. given in Appendix B. In this vast territorial
expanse, embracing communities just being born into statehood, together
with others which have enjoyed that dignity for periods varying from ten
to eighty-seven years, one has an opportunity to witness almost every
phase of the struggle for the higher education of women.
Conditions that ceased to exist in one State so long ago that they had
almost passed from the memories of their victims, arose at a later
period to vex other States. Questions long settled in one community
became living issues in another; and such is the reluctance of the human
being to learn from the experience of others, that these questions are
still discussed with as much vivacity, not to say acrimony, as if they
had never been settled.
Higher education in the West has been fostered by the national
government, by the governments of the separate States, by many different
denominations of the Christian church, and by individual enterprise and
devotion.
As a large number of the strongest institutions in the West, open to
women, owe their origin to provisions made by the general government, it
is fitting to direct our first inquiry to the relations of that
government to education in the West. On May 25, 1785, the Continental
Congress passed an ordinance disposing of lands in the Northwestern
Territory, by which it was decreed that: “There shall be reserved Lot
No. 16 of every township for the maintenance of public schools within
said township.” On July 13, 1787, the famous Ordinance relating to the
government of the territory northwest of the Ohio River was passed; in
it occurs the passage which is so frequently cited in proof that the
United States government stands pledged to aid the higher as well as the
lower education: viz.,” Religion, Morality, and Knowledge being
necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and
the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Ten days later,
Congress passed another ordinance fixing the terms of sale for the tract
of land purchased by the Ohio Company. This ordinance stipulated not
only that section 16 of every township should be reserved for the
maintenance of schools, but also “that two complete townships shall be
given perpetually for the purposes of an university, to be laid off by
the purchaser or purchasers as near the center as may be, so that the
same shall be good land, to be applied to the intended object by the
Legislature of the State.”
In these ordinances of 1787, we find the germ of all our State
Universities in the West.
Owing to the grant secured by Congress in its contract with the Ohio
Company, the Ohio University at Athens, O., was founded. It was first
chartered as the “American Western University.” The name implies that
its friends expected it to supply the educational needs of the then
vague “West”; but only a year after the admission of Ohio as a State,
i.e., in 1804, the University received a new charter from the State
Legislature, under its present name. This precedent of Congressional
grants for the endowment of institutions of higher education has been
followed by the government to the present time.
Sometimes the two townships of land have been given _en bloc_, and some
times they have been so given as to permit the location of university
lands in different portions of the State; sometimes they have been kept
as an endowment of the State University; sometimes they have been in
part devoted to the founding of the university. But in every State and
Territory in the above list, a university exists which owes its origin
and its maintenance in part to the government of the United States.
A study of the history of the State Universities shows that in many
States a strange hostility existed toward them. A feeling that by
appropriating lands for their endowment, the general government was
encouraging the growth of an aristocratic class of learned men, seems
not to have been uncommon in the early days. This appears to be one
valid explanation of the reluctance of State Legislatures to make
generous or permanent appropriations for the support of such
universities.
The truth is, however, that the State Universities are the most
democratic of all the institutions of higher learning; this truth is now
generally perceived, and the institutions are growing proportionally
popular. It is due to their necessarily democratic nature that they are
now without exception open to women. Their chief feeders are the public
high schools, with which they must maintain direct and constant
communication. Their chief financial support comes directly and equally
from all property-holding citizens; either by appropriation from the
public treasury, varying in amount with each Legislature, or by a fixed,
special tax, of a certain percentum of all assessed property. Finding
their students in the public high schools, which in the West are almost
universally co-educational, and their support in the public treasury,
into which flow taxes upon the property of women and girls as well as
upon that of men and boys, the wonder is that the State Universities did
not from their origin admit women as students.
The following table will show when each State University was chartered,
opened, and opened to women. The list of States in this table is
presented as above in the chronological order of their admission to the
Union.
CHARTERED. OPENED. ADMITTED WOMEN.
Ohio Athens 1804 1809 1871
„ Columbus 1870 1873 1873
Indiana 1820 1824 1867
Illinois 1867 1868 1871
Missouri 1839 1843 1870
Michigan 1837 1841 1870
Iowa 1847 1860 1860
Wisconsin 1848 1849 1860, 1863,
1868, 1871,
1875
California 1868 1869 1870
Minnesota 1868 1869 1869
Oregon 1876 1876 1876
Kansas 1861 1866 1866
Nevada 1864 1874 1874
Nebraska 1869 1871 1871
Colorado 1861 1877 1877
North Dakota 1883 1884 1884
South Dakota 1862 1885 1885
Montana 1884 1883 1883
Washington 1861 1862
Utah, Deseret 1850 1850 1850
A glance at the table will show that the periods of time during which
these universities received men only, vary from two to sixty-two years,
that but one of those opened prior to 1861 has been from the outset
co-educational; that all opened prior to 1861 became co-educational
between 1861 and 1871: and that all organized since 1871 started as
co-educational institutions.
National government made additional provision for higher education by an
act usually referred to as “The Agricultural College Act of 1862.” By
this act each State received 30,000 acres of land for each Senator and
Representative to whom it was entitled in the United States Congress,
“the proceeds to be applied to the maintenance of at least one college
in each State,” “without excluding other scientific and classical
studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches as are
related to agriculture and the mechanic arts.” Under this act there have
been established in the territory discussed in this chapter, since 1862,
fourteen colleges of the character indicated.
In Ohio, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Nevada, and Nebraska
such institutions exist as Departments of the State University, and,
like all its other departments, admit women.
In Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, and Colorado,
such institutions, under various names, as “Agricultural College,”
“Industrial and Mechanical College,” “College of Applied Science,” etc.,
enjoy an independent organization, in some States loosely connected
with, in others entirely separate from, the State University.
These institutions are authorized to give degrees appropriate to the
courses of study pursued in them, and they are likewise open to women.
The act of 1862 gave a distinct impulse to the higher education of women
in the West, for reasons to be hereafter mentioned.
Although the germ of a State University was secured by the national
government to each of the twenty-one States and Territories in our list
at or prior to the time of its admission, in many instances the State
action relative to these institutions, upon which the government aid had
been conditioned, was postponed for a long series of years. In the mean
time the desire for the higher education was stimulated, and
opportunities for obtaining it were provided by the churches.