institutions, within my prescribed territory, open to women, which are
of sufficient importance to be included in the tables of “Colleges of
Liberal Arts,” published by the United States Commissioner of Education,
in his Report for 1888–89 (taken from the advance sheets). Of these, 45
are non-sectarian. The remaining 120 are distributed among the various
denominations as follows:
Methodist Episcopal, 31; Baptist, 16; Presbyterian, 14; Congregational,
13; Christian, 10; United Brethren, 7; Lutheran, 6; United Presbyterian,
4; Reformed, 3; Friends, 3; Cumberland Presbyterian, 2; M. E. South, 2;
Universalist, 2; Seventh Day Baptist, 1; Methodist Protestant, 1;
Evangelical Association, 1; Brethren, 1; Church of God, 1; New Church,
1; Protestant Episcopal, 1.
At the present time one frequently hears people deprecate the effort to
maintain so large a number of colleges. It is asserted truly that the
distribution of patronage among so many, necessarily prevents any from
attaining commanding influence. Especially do the advocates of
non-sectarian education recommend that the weaker institutions be
closed, that their properties be sold, and that effort be concentrated
upon the few stronger ones. The arguments by which this recommendation
is sustained are sound.
If the financial support, the love, the loyalty, the ambition, and the
students that are distributed among the thirty-one colleges of Liberal
Arts in the State of Ohio, could be united in the support of any one of
the number, the fortunate recipient might soon rank with the great
universities of our country, nay, of the world. But however desirable
such a concentration of patronage ultimately may be, one cannot read the
history of the educational work of the churches, without feeling that
“Wisdom is justified of her children.”
It is true that many of these colleges were founded in the interests of
sectarian theology, rather than of liberal culture; that they were all
in some degree, some of them in very large degree, regarded and used by
their supporters as the most available instruments in the labor of
securing proselytes to the particular school of Christian faith in whose
name they were planted. In the degree to which these institutions have
nurtured sectarian zeal, emphasized distinctions in minor points of
doctrine, and strengthened the barriers between denominations, it must
be conceded that their influence has been benumbing and narrowing; and
in this degree they have tended from instead of toward culture, whose
mission is to broaden and quicken instead of to narrow and benumb.
In spite of this limitation upon the work of denominational colleges,
they merit the profoundest respect and gratitude of the public. A large
proportion of these institutions were established when the wilderness
was being cleared and settled.
It is related by its historian that the site of Ripon College was chosen
by two enthusiasts in the cause of higher education, in the year 1850,
when the State of Wisconsin was but two years old, when “there were but
fourteen rude buildings in the village of Ripon,” and when but a single
year had elapsed since the first clearing on the village site had been
made. At once these brave men applied for a charter for a college; and
the purpose of the corporation was declared to be, “To found, establish,
and maintain at Ripon, in the county of Fond du Lac, an institution of
learning of the highest order, embracing also a department for
preparatory instruction.”
This is hardly an exceptional, but a typical instance.
The people were few, scattered, and poor. Communication between places
remote from each other was slow and uncertain. Means of travel and
transportation were limited to the pack horse, the private wagon, the
stage coach, and the flat-boat. If poverty had not rendered it
impossible for the pioneers to incur the expense of sending their
children on long and slow journeys, to distant colleges, the time
consumed in such journeys, and the anxiety incident to separation, in
the absence of any means of frequent and speedy communication, would
have prohibited it.
Forty years ago, in all of the territory covered by the twenty-one
States and Territories under consideration, twenty-five years ago in
most of it, and so lately as ten years ago in much of it, the time,
fatigue, and expense which a dweller in a remote corner of a county
incurred in traveling to its county seat, was more than he will now
expend to reach the State capital. Under such conditions the question
with the pioneer was not whether he should send his children to a near
or to a distant college, but whether he should send them to the near
college or to none.
The influence of these 165 colleges upon the life of the Western States
cannot be measured by the number of their graduates, nor by adding to
this number those who have attended the colleges one or more terms.
The presence of a college, with its educated faculty, in any community,
modifies the tone of its intellectual and social life. The colleges have
been centers of leavening influence in the new States. While recognizing
this with gratitude, one can also see that the conditions which
justified and demanded the multiplication of these small colleges have
ceased to exist, and that the different conditions which now prevail
counsel denominations to consolidate their weak institutions, and to
concentrate their dissipated forces upon a few strong ones. The present
means of speedy and certain communication and transit enable a strong
college, with high standards and an able faculty, to bring its influence
to bear upon all parts of a State and to command the patronage of its
remotest corner.
That the tendency is toward concentration of effort is indicated by the
Year Books of the denominations for 1888–89.
In studying the educational work of the churches, one cannot fail to
discern the results of creeds and habits of worship.
In a sketch of this character it would be unjust to withhold the fact
that the colleges under Methodist control have been generally first and
most generous in opening their opportunities to women; and that they are
also conspicuous among the colleges that include women in their
faculties and in their boards of trustees.
The progressiveness of Methodists in regard to the education of women is
evinced not only in their co-educational colleges, but also in
institutions founded by them for the exclusive education of women.
The latest report of the United States Commissioner of Education
contains over two hundred institutions for the superior education of
women. The list includes colleges and seminaries entitled to confer
degrees, and a few seminaries, whose work is of equal merit, which do
not give degrees. Of these more than two hundred institutions for the
education of women exclusively, only 47 are situated within the
territory here discussed. Of these 47, but 30 are chartered with
authority to confer degrees. Of these 30, 7 are non-sectarian; the
remainder are distributed among the denominations as follows:
Presbyterian, 7; Methodist Episcopal, 5; Baptist, 3; Christian, 2;
Protestant Episcopal, 1; Congregational, 1.
The religious affiliations of the remaining four have not been
ascertained.
The extent to which the higher education of women is in the West
identified with co-education, can be seen by comparing the two
statements above given. Of the total 212 higher institutions receiving
women, and of the total 195 such institutions which confer the regular
degrees in arts, science, and letters, upon their graduates, 165 are
co-educational. Almost necessarily, therefore, the most important
discussion in this article will be that of co-education.
Before approaching it, however, some space must be devoted to women’s
colleges in the West. Almost without exception they include preparatory
departments; very generally the attendance in the preparatory department
exceeds that in the collegiate; frequently members of the faculty divide
their attention between preparatory and collegiate classes; generally
the courses of study offered are less numerous and less complete than
those offered in colleges of liberal arts for men; most of these
institutions have paltry or no endowments.
With all these limitations, some of them do much creditable work; but,
at present, they occupy a rather vague, indefinite position between “the
ladies’ seminary” of thirty years ago and the modern college. Quoting
from the United States Commissioner of Education (Report for 1887–88):
“The adjustment of studies is evidence of a double purpose in these
institutions. On the one hand they have endeavored to meet the general
demand with respect to woman’s education. On the other they have sought
to maintain that higher ideal which would appropriate for women as well
as for men the advantages of the kind of instruction and training
approved, by wise effort and long experience, as the best for mental
discipline and culture.”
A double purpose, when its parts are, as in this instance, to a degree
contradictory, imposes impossible tasks. A process of sifting is now
going on among these institutions. Some of the weaker will doubtless be
absorbed by stronger ones having the same denominational support. Some,
whose strength is chiefly in their preparatory departments, will find
their ultimate place in the lists of secondary schools; and, ceasing to
compete with colleges, will do an important and much needed work in
preparing students to enter college. Others, already strongest in their
collegiate departments, pledged by a noble past to achieve a
corresponding future, will persist in emphasizing their real collegiate
side until at last they secure an absolute separation between their
preparatory and their collegiate work, and can take rank with genuine
colleges of liberal arts.
In this sketch it is impossible to give the history of all these
institutions; but among colleges characterized from birth by a liberal
and progressive spirit may be mentioned “The Cincinnati Wesleyan Woman’s
College.” This institution was chartered in 1842, and claims to be “the
first liberal collegiate institution in the world for the exclusive
education of women.” This claim sounds somewhat boastful, but a perusal
of the discussions which were called forth by the establishment of this
college, will convince one that its undertaking was novel and quite
foreign to the thought of its public, if not, indeed, quite
unprecedented in the world’s history. Dr. Charles Eliot, the editor of
the _Western Christian Advocate_, heroically defended the project
against the attacks of both the secular and the religious press. Rev. P.
B. Wilber was elected president, and his wife, Mary Cole Wilber, was
made principal.
The broad claim made by these enthusiastic educators was “that women
need equal culture of mind and heart with men, in their homes, in the
church, and in the state.” The enterprise was accused of “being counter
to delicacy and to custom, as it was to orthodoxy.” Mrs. Wilber, who is
still living (in 1890), writes that those who had upheld the college
“were convinced that a higher intellectual and moral education for women
was indispensable to the continued prosperity and existence of
civilization, especially under our form of government. They believed it
would be a powerful influence for good in the home, in social life, and
in all benevolences and philanthropies. They believed in the elevation
of women through education, which is development; through labor, which
is salvation; and through legal rights, which should give freedom to
serve and to save.” These sentiments do not seem antiquated in 1890, and
must have seemed not merely advanced but dangerous in 1842.
Violations of precedent continued to keep the watchful eye of the public
on the college. The college professed to give to women the same
instruction which secured for young men the degree of A.B., and it
obtained from the Legislature authority “to confer the degrees of A.B.
and B.S.” The college held public commencement exercises, at which the
graduates read their own productions, a performance that was the
occasion of much scandal.
September 25, 1844, “The Young Ladies’ Lyceum” was organized in the
college. This was a literary society, at the meetings of which debates
upon current public questions were conducted and essays were read.
Cuttings from contemporary newspapers show that this lyceum created no
small stir.
In 1852 the graduates of the college organized an alumnæ association,
which is claimed to be the first organization of the kind in this
country. The preamble to the constitution adopted by this body begins
thus:
“The undersigned, graduates of the Wesleyan Female College of
Cincinnati, believing that as educated American women, society and the
world at large have peculiar claims upon them, which they can neither
gainsay nor resist,” etc.
The association at once decided to publish an annual which should
contain only original articles from the pens of its members; and Article
VII. of the constitution says: “The immediate object of this publication
shall be to afford an opportunity for continued mental effort and
improvement to members; and its ultimate aim shall be the elevation of
woman,” Rachel L. Bodley, so long dean of the Woman’s Medical College in
Philadelphia, was one of the original members of this association.
The professions, claims, and efforts above indicated, probably show the
high-water mark of educational aspiration of women in the West in and
before the middle of this century.
The college drew students from all parts of the country, and from
Canada; and, at one time, according to one of its historians, there were
in attendance upon it “representatives from every State in the Union,
excepting New Hampshire, Delaware, North Carolina, and Florida.”
At one time this college enrolled nearly five hundred students; but, as
seminaries and colleges for women have multiplied throughout the region
from which it drew its patronage, and especially as more richly endowed
colleges which were established for men have opened their doors to
women, its numbers have diminished and its influence has waned. But such
a past should compel its alumnæ and its friends to give it an endowment,
a course of study, and a corps of instructors that shall make it the
peer of its strongest young sisters.[10]
There is a function for the true woman’s college which the
co-educational college does not and as yet cannot perform. To get one’s
college education in an institution which admits only women, and to
enjoy some years of post-graduate work in a co-educational university,
is the ideal of opportunity now cherished by some most careful and
intelligent parents and by some ambitious young women. It is possible
that provision for satisfying the first half of this ideal is held in
germ by some or all of the thirty colleges for women only, now existing
in the West.
CO-EDUCATION IN THE WEST.
That in the Western States and Territories, the higher education of
women is generally identical with co-education is indicated, as has been
previously suggested, by the following facts:
1. Of 212 institutions in the West, exclusive of colleges of agriculture
and the mechanic arts, which afford the higher culture to women, 165 are
co-educational.
2. Of the 5563 women reported to the Bureau of Education in 1887–88 as
students in the collegiate courses of these institutions, 4392 were in
the co-educational colleges.
3. In the twenty-one States and Territories which boast 165
co-educational colleges and 47 colleges for the separate education of
women, 30 of which are authorized to confer regular degrees, there are
but 25 colleges devoted to the exclusive education of men.
4. Of these 25 (devoted to the exclusive education of men,) not one is
non-sectarian, and they are all supported by the Roman Catholic, the
Protestant Episcopal, the Lutheran, or the Presbyterian denomination. In
several of the States most conspicuous for zeal in the cause of the
higher education, as in Michigan, Iowa, and Kansas, not one college for
the exclusive education of men exists.
These facts support the statement that the West is committed to
co-education, excepting only the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and the
Protestant Episcopal sects,—which are not yet, as sects, committed to
the collegiate education of women at all,—and the Presbyterian sect,
whose support, in the West, of 14 co-educational colleges against 4 for
the separate education of young men, almost commits it to the
co-educational idea.
How has this triumph of the higher co-education been achieved? How is
the system regarded by the community in which it is established? What
are its social effects and tendencies? What are its defects and
limitations? These are the inquiries which next present themselves.
Of the 165 co-educational colleges under consideration, a few, like
Ripon College, Wisconsin, were founded for women and subsequently
admitted young men; a larger number have admitted both men and women
from the date of their opening; these, with a few notable exceptions,
like Oberlin College in Ohio, and Lawrence University in Wisconsin, are
of recent origin, with charters dating from periods since 1860. The
great proportion of the entire number were founded for the exclusive
education of men, and have, one after another, yielded a participation
in their benefits to women since 1860.[11]
To tell in detail the story of the struggles which have ended in the
admission of women into each of these institutions would be quite
impossible; if possible, it would, for general purposes, be quite
unprofitable, since the principles involved have in all cases been the
same. The same arguments, pro and con, have been advanced in every
contest, the illustrations and modes of application being modified in
each by local conditions and circumstances. Local history should
preserve a record of such modifications of the argument and its
application, together with the names of those persons who were
conspicuous in the contest; but the purposes of general history do not
require this, and the discrepancy between the extent of territory and
the number of pages assigned to this chapter does not permit it.
In Ohio, the oldest of the Western States, the higher education of women
first became a question; and in connection with its various institutions
every aspect of the question has been exhibited. Moreover, as the oldest
of the group, the example of Ohio has exerted a marked influence upon
the other Western States. These facts justify the discussion of
co-education in connection with Ohio colleges.
No institution has been more frequently cited in discussions of
co-education than Oberlin; and perhaps the attitude of no other has been
so persistently misunderstood. In reading numerous discussions incident
to opening men’s colleges in other States to women, one finds it implied
and asserted that “Oberlin was founded to give to women the same
educational advantages enjoyed by men.”
Sketches and histories of Oberlin College, sermons, addresses, and
letters, explanatory of its aims and policy, are numerous and
accessible; and if these authoritative documents agree upon any one
point it is in showing that Oberlin was not “founded to give to women
the same educational advantages enjoyed by men”; that at the outset the
intention to do this was not entertained by her founders; that such form
of collegiate co-education as Oberlin now offers has been developed
gradually; and, finally, that co-education at Oberlin to-day differs in
many essential respects from the co-education to be found in our State
Universities.
Let the following facts sustain these statements:
1. It was as “Oberlin Collegiate Institute” that Oberlin began its work
in 1833, and the name of “Oberlin College” was not taken until 1850.
2. The original plan included a “female department,” under the
supervision of a lady, where “instruction in the useful branches taught
in the best female seminaries” could be obtained; the circular setting
forth the plan also says: “The higher classes of the female department
will also be permitted to enjoy the privileges of such professorships in
the teachers’, collegiate and theological departments as shall best suit
their sex and prospective employment.”
3. This “female department” contemplated a separate building, and
separate classes in which women should pursue merely academic studies.
But this department was never formed, according to the original plan,
because at first poverty prevented the erection of a separate school
building; and because, in the beginning, there were only high school
classes, into which, for economy and convenience, young men and women
were together admitted with no thought whatever of their ultimately
entering collegiate classes together.
4. In lieu of the anticipated “female department,” a “ladies’ course,”
was provided and maintained until 1875. This course demanded no Greek
and but two years of Latin, and, according to its present president,
required only “a year more time than is devoted to study in the best
female seminaries.”
5. Separate classes were organized for ladies in essay-writing until the
commencement of the junior year, when they were admitted to the regular
college class; their work was still limited to writing and reading, none
of the ladies having any practice in speaking.
6. At the present time the “literary course,” under the department of
philosophy and arts, takes the place of the former “ladies’ course.”
7. In 1837, four ladies, having prepared themselves to enter the
freshman class of the collegiate department, were admitted on their own
petition; since then ladies have been received into all the college
classes excepting those of the theological department, which has never
been open to ladies as regular members, though at one time two ladies
“attended all the exercises of this department through a three years’
course, and were entered upon the annual catalogue as resident graduates
pursuing the ‘theological course.’” So long as the “ladies’ course”
continued, the apparent expectation of the college was that a majority
of ladies would take that course. The influence of the college was
apparently exerted in that direction, and with such effect that the
number of ladies graduating from the “ladies’ course” was, to the number
graduating from the “college course,” nearly as five to one.
8. That the present “literary course” in the department of philosophy
and arts is practically the same as the original “ladies’ course,” will
be seen by comparing the lists of subjects upon which candidates for
entrance into each must be examined, and also by considering the scheme
of study followed in the “literary course,” as presented in the
catalogue, for 1888–89. This view is further sustained by the fact that
in 1888–89, 175 ladies and 3 gentlemen were registered in this course.
9. The latest catalogue states that: “Young women in all the departments
of study are under the supervision of the principal of the ladies’
department and the care of the ladies’ board. They are required to be in
their rooms after eight o’clock in the evening during the spring and
summer months, and after half past seven during the fall and winter
months.
“Every young woman is required to present, once in two weeks, a written
report of her observance and her failure in the observance of the
regulations of the department, signed by the matron of the family in
which she boards.”
The catalogue in another connection says: “In addition to lectures
announced in the course of study, practical lectures on general habits,
methods of study, and other important subjects, are delivered once in
two weeks to the young women by the principal of the ladies’ department,
and _to the young men of the preparatory schools_ (the italics are my
own), by the principals of these schools.”