WE HEREBY CERTIFY _that under the supervision of this Society,
has pursued a course of study equivalent in amount and quality to that
for which the_ DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS _is conferred in Harvard
College, and has passed in a satisfactory manner examinations on that
course, corresponding to the College examinations_.
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF _we have caused these presents to be signed by
our President and Secretary and by the Chairman of the Academic Board,
this day of in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight
hundred and_
_President._
_Secretary._
_Chairman of the Academic Board._
It may be added as a commentary that the Sargent prize for 1890–91 was
won by a student of the “Annex.” This prize is offered to
“Undergraduates of Harvard College and students pursuing courses of
instruction in Cambridge, under the direction of The Society for the
Collegiate Instruction of Women,” and was awarded for, “The best
metrical version of the ninth ode of the fourth Book of Horace.”—ED.
Footnote 5:
The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, being duly
incorporated, could also be authorized to confer degrees. But it
wisely prefers to await the time when Harvard College will bestow the
University degree; meanwhile doing what lies in its power to establish
the identity of the work done in the two colleges. In the same way as
Evelyn, Barnard College is duly incorporated and is authorized by the
Regents of New York State to confer upon its graduates a degree of its
own. But Barnard prefers to waive its right and to accept the degree
from the parent University, Columbia College.
There is too much pluming of one’s self in this country, on the right
to confer a college degree, a right granted by State Legislatures in a
lamentably superficial manner. I have received many communications
gravely announcing that the degrees conferred by certain colleges are
every way equal to those of the greatest and oldest institutions of
learning in the country—as the State Legislature—by a special act—“has
made them so”(!) I have always failed to see the connection between
acts of legislative bodies, and the true greatness of universities.
The trustees of Evelyn College decided to give a separate degree not
because Princeton College refused to officially recognize the work of
the students of Evelyn, but because thus far (December, 1890) no
candidate has been received for a college course answering in every
way to that for which the Princeton degree is given. The trustees of
Evelyn College gives its graduates a degree which is granted for less
work than is demanded by Princeton: (Music and Art are made regular
electives, and Greek is not demanded even for entrance examinations).
Even at the risk of repetition, I will here state the relative
standing of the three American affiliated colleges. I include the
following colleges in the term Affiliated College, because each seeks
in some way to extend to women the advantages that are offered to men
by another (neighboring) college. Some one has given the _raison
d’être_ of the affiliated college to be “the economy which applies to
a new purpose resources already organized and tested.”
Harvard Annex, founded in 1879, instruction received from Faculty of
Harvard College, admits special students in all departments, gives no
degree to its own graduates, prefers to await official recognition
from Harvard College.
Evelyn College, founded in 1888, instructions received from Faculty of
Princeton College, admits special students, gives its own degree, has
never asked for the Princeton degree.
Barnard College, founded in 1889, instruction received from Faculty of
Columbia College, no special students admitted except in Laboratory
work and Graduate department, degrees conferred by Columbia College.
The only affiliated college in the world, so far as I can learn, that
has received _full official sanction_ and recognition from the
University with which it is affiliated.—ED.
Footnote 6:
Although this remark was made by the late President Barnard, it did
not voice the sentiment of those who inaugurated the movement to
establish Barnard College. The affiliated college is not always a mere
“step toward co-education”; there are many that believe that
institutions such as the affiliated colleges, Girton and Newnham (were
their graduates entitled to the University degree), best solve the
problem of the collegiate education of women to-day. Instruction in
undergraduate work is given at the women’s colleges, and is obtained
not only from university professors, but also from some able women
instructors. But in graduate work, which is the real work of the
University, men and women are most properly allowed to attend the
lectures together at the University. The vexed problem of co-education
becomes a different question as it deals with the undergraduate work
of young men and women, or with the university and professional
studies of men and women of mature age.—ED.
Footnote 7:
These courses of examinations were offered by Columbia College for the
laudable purpose of “raising the standard of female education.”
[Extract from the minutes of the Board of Trustees; Report of the
Select Committee, March 5, 1883.] Notwithstanding the criticism and
eloquent expostulation of some women aimed at the “conservative” Board
of Trustees of Columbia College, we must not forget that Columbia has
never refused _equal recognition for equal work_. It saw no logical
pause between the acknowledgement that women could follow the
collegiate course and the conferring of official sanction upon such a
course.
The same Report goes on to say: “and offering suitable academic honors
and distinctions to any who, on examination, shall be found to have
pursued such courses of study with success.—ED.
Footnote 8:
See article by Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer in _The Nation_, January 21,
1888. The petition to the Columbia Board for official sanction to open
Barnard College was largely based on this article.
Footnote 9:
See article by Annie Nathan Meyer, in _University_, February 22, 1888.
Footnote 10:
As the Cincinnati Wesleyan College is an example of the best that
Methodism has done for the separate education of women, so Albert Lea
College in Minnesota, founded and controlled by the synod of that
State, would appear to be the most ambitious attempt of the
Presbyterian Church to aid the separate higher education of women in
the West. This college was founded in 1882, and opened to students in
1885. Its president makes for it, with relation to the country west of
the Alleghanies, the same claim that the president of the Wesleyan
made in its behalf with relation to the entire country, forty-eight
years ago. Its president, Dr. R. B. Abbott, writes: “This is the only
real college for women west of the Alleghany Mountains. There are
female seminaries in abundance, some of which are named college, but
are without a full college curriculum and without authority to confer
the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts. Albert Lea is a college in
fact as well as in name.”
Albert Lea is now in only its fifth year. I have not been able to
obtain its latest catalogue. The above quotation from its president’s
letter indicates its promise. Should it redeem this promise in its
spirit and word, it would be a great blessing to the West; not so much
young because women in this part of the country need another college
within their easy reach, but because the entire community needs to
have the difference between the nominal and the real college
continually emphasized.
If Albert Lea draws sharp and visible lines between its standards and
tests of scholarship, between its quality and methods of instruction
and those of the majority of institutions in the above list, its
influence will be potent in securing greater harmony between names and
things in matters pertaining to education.
Footnote 11:
Appendix B, Table II., gives a table by which is shown when each of
these colleges was founded, when opened, and when opened to women.
Footnote 12:
Prepared by May Wright Sewall at the request of the commissioners for
Indiana, for the Indiana Department of the New Orleans Exposition.—ED.
Footnote 13:
It is only fair to add that one of its graduates became a college
president—Miss Alice Freeman, president of Wellesley College during
six years, now Mrs. Alice F. Palmer, member of the Massachusetts State
Board of Education.—ED.
Footnote 14:
Read before the Historical Society of South Carolina, August 6, 1883,
and reprinted by the Bureau of Education, Circular of Information No.
3, 1888.
Footnote 15:
Mention is made of a charitable school for girls, which they were not
allowed to attend after the age of twelve, and of a school, apparently
for boys, kept open by Mrs. Gaston, the wife of Justice John Gaston,
at Fishing Creek.
Footnote 16:
See chapter “Education in the East.”—ED.
Footnote 17:
See chapter “Education in the East.”—ED.
Footnote 18:
Quoted in the _Am. Jour. of Education_, September, 1868, p. 622.
Footnote 19:
Mrs. Phelps, Mrs. Willard, and Maria Mitchell were the first three
women members of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
Footnote 20:
The first college to grant real degrees to women was Oberlin. See
chapter “Education in the West.”—ED.
Footnote 21:
Bureau of Education, 1888.
Footnote 22:
Historical Sketch in the catalogue for 1888–9.
Footnote 23:
The Bureau of Education has been extremely kind in placing its
collections at my disposal, and in making extracts for me from its
manuscript statistics for 1889–90, which will not be published for two
years to come.
Footnote 24:
An equivalent amount of French or German may be substituted for Greek.
Footnote 25:
Interesting on account of an extract from a letter from a Virginia
girl.
Footnote 26:
Catalogue.
Footnote 27:
Vassar was not opened until 1865. See chapter on Education in
East.—ED.
Footnote 28:
A Kentucky mother who had taken the trouble to send her daughter to
Helmuth College in Canada, found that she was carrying on sixteen
studies at the same time, and that she gave one half hour a week to
geometry, during which the teacher gave the demonstrations and did not
permit the class to ask any questions.
Footnote 29:
The tuition is $150 a year.
Footnote 30:
Report of the Peabody Education Fund, 1889.
Footnote 31:
Bureau of Education Report, 1887–88.
Footnote 32:
See the arguments interchanged in open letters,—learned essays,
between Prof. Bischoff attacking, and Prof. Hermann defending, the
admission of women to the University of Zurich. See also the address
made last year by Prof. Waldeyer, before the Society of German
Physicians and Naturalists.
Footnote 33:
“It is scarcely more than half a century, since among us, females were
almost the only accoucheurs.”—“Remarks on the employment of Females as
Practitioners in Midwifery,” by a Physician. Boston, 1820. See also
collections Maine Historical Society; Proceedings General Court held
at Wells, July 6, 1646, to “present” Frances Rayns for presuming to
act the part of midwife. Also, Blake’s Annals of the town of
Dorchester. Record of death, in 1705, of Mrs. Wiat, aged 94 years,
having as midwife assisted at the births of 1100 and odd children.
Also Thomson’s History of Vermont, sketching the career of Mrs. Thomas
Whitmore in town of Marlboro, 1765. In the town records of Rehoboth is
mentioned the arrival, on July 3, 1663, of Dr. Sam Fuller and his
mother, he to practice medicine,—she as midwife, “to answer to the
town’s necessity, which was great.” So also Mrs. Elizabeth Phillips
settled in Charleston in 1718. Anne Hutchinson began her career as a
midwife. It will be remembered that the mother of William Lloyd
Garrison practiced midwifery in Baltimore, and thereby supported
herself and two children, after she had been mysteriously deserted by
her husband.
Footnote 34:
This sturdy woman lived to be eighty-seven years of age; an ironical
comment on the theory of necessarily deficiency of endurance in the
female sex.
Footnote 35:
“More than 150 years elapsed after the first settlement, before a
single effort was made either by public authority or by the enterprise
of individuals, for the education of physicians, or for improving the
practice of medicine.... No medical journal was published in America,
until toward the close of the 18th century.... The first anatomical
dissection was made in New York, in 1750.—Thacher, _Am. Med. Biog._
1828, p. 16.
Footnote 36:
“It would be shocking to humanity to relate the history of our general
hospital in the years 1777 and 1778, when it swallowed up at least one
half our army, ... by crowding and consequent infection.”... “At
Bethlehem, out of 40 men who came sick from one regiment,—not three
returned alive.”—Tilton on Military Hospitals (quoted by Tower,
“Medical Men of the Revolution.” Address 1876, p. 77.)
Footnote 37:
“It was one of the first and happiest fruits of improved medical
education in America, that females were excluded from practice; and
this has only been effected by the united and persevering efforts of
some of the most distinguished individuals of the profession.”—Remarks
of a Boston physician, cited _ut supra_.
Footnote 38:
The suppression of midwives was more immediately due to the
development of obstetrical science in England, whither the more
ambitious among the colonial physicians were beginning to travel for
instruction, and where their intellects were quickened by direct
contact with the minds of men of genius. In 1752 Dr. James Lloyd,
returning after two years’ study in England, began to practice
obstetrics in Boston: In 1762, Dr. Shippen, similarly prepared, began
to lecture on obstetrics in Philadelphia. (“Hist. of Art of
Midwifery,” Lecture by Dr. Augustus Gardner, 1851). These actions
sounded the professional death-knell of the poor midwives. Organized
knowledge must invariably triumph over unorganized ignorance, even
though tradition, decorum, and religion be all on the losing side.
Footnote 39:
“Man-midwifery Espoused and Corrected; or, The Employment of Men to
attend Women in Childbirth, shown to be a modern innovation,
unnecessary, unnatural, and injurious to the physical welfare of the
Community, and pernicious in its influence on Professional and public
Morality.” By Samuel Gregory, A.M., Lecturer on Physiology. Boston,
1848.
Footnote 40:
Is it possible not to seem to hear, from some quiet corner of
dispassionate observation, the echo of the immortal “Fudge!” which so
disturbed the complacency of the innocent Vicar of Wakefield?
Footnote 41:
“To Massachusetts is due the credit of establishing the first medical
school for women in the world.”—Chadwick, “The Study and Practice of
Medicine by Women,” _International Review_, October, 1879.
Footnote 42:
On two other occasions did these fortunes become associated with those
of homœopaths. When in 1869 the State University of Michigan opened
its medical department to women, the Legislature simultaneously ruled
that two professors of homœopathic medicine must be appointed in the
school. And when in 1886 the trustees of the Boston City Hospital
inquired into the propriety of admitting female medical students, they
reported at the same time upon the application of homœopathic
physicians, to be appointed in the medical service of the wards. At
this point, however, the fortunes of the two classes of applicants
diverged: the first request was granted; the second refused.
The class of 1890 of the Boston University School only contains nine
women.
Footnote 43:
Thus in France,—docteur en médecine, officier de santé, sage femme; in
England,—physician, surgeon, apothecary. The midwife in England, was,
until recently, assumed not to exist; but as she existed nevertheless,
she became all the more dangerous because uncontrolled. “At present
date, 60 per cent. of poor women are attended in their confinements by
midwives, uninstructed and uncultivated,—probably 10,000 in number.
The fatal results to both mothers and children arising from the
ignorance of these midwives is notorious. They must either be
annihilated or instructed.”—Dr. Aveling, writing to Gen. Med. Council,
1873.
The Obstetrical Society of London now undertakes to instruct and
examine midwives.
Footnote 44:
Drs. Jacob Bigelow and James Jackson voted in the negative. The latter
had been the physician to introduce into Boston the midwife, Mrs.
Janet Alexander. So it would seem that his objection was not to women,
but to _educated_ women, who might aspire to rank among regularly
educated men physicians.
Footnote 45:
The details of Miss Hunt’s application to Harvard are dispassionately
related by Dr. Chadwick, _loc. cit._ When, in 1872, the London
University, after a two years’ bitter controversy, declared women
eligible to its degrees, the journals were flooded with letters from
indignant physicians, who declared that by this action their own
diplomas, previously obtained, had been lowered in value, their
contracts violated, and their most sacred property rights invaded.
Footnote 46:
Address at Chickering Hall, New York, March 18, 1888, by Dr. Emily
Blackwell.
Footnote 47:
Mt. Holyoke was founded by Mary Lyon in 1837.
Footnote 48:
Address of Emily Blackwell, _cit. ut supra._
Footnote 49:
Elizabeth Blackwell, like Tennyson’s Princess,
“Shuddered but to dream that maids should ape
Those monstrous males that carve the living hound.”
And also like the Princess, it was
“through many a weary moon
She learned the craft of healing.”
Footnote 50:
“Medicine as a Profession for Women.” Address by Elizabeth and Emily
Blackwell, delivered Dec. 2, 1859.
Footnote 51:
Miss Blackwell was of English birth and family, but had come to
Cincinnati at the age of twelve.
Footnote 52:
Dr. Robert Weir.
Footnote 53:
Miss Blackwell earned money by several years’ work at school teaching,
the great resource of American girls.
Footnote 54:
“It was the first time that a unanimous vote was ever cast in the
board.”—_Personal letter from Dr. Blackwell._
Footnote 55:
Especially St. Bartholomew, through the influence of Dr., afterwards
Sir James, Paget.
Footnote 56:
The “ancient and modern languages,” comprised Latin, Greek, French,
German, and Italian,—an unusual list of accomplishments for a
self-taught, Western bred girl of those days. Miss Blackwell
particularly charmed Dr. Simpson by translating for him into English
(or Scotch) some Latin versions of old Arabic medical treatises.
Footnote 57:
For modern obstetrics is almost as new a sphere as gynæcology.
Footnote 58:
“Story of My Life,” by Marion Sims, p. 299.
It must be said that Dr. Sims was subsequently president of the
American Medical Association, at the meeting which received its first
woman delegate; and doubtless his influence contributed toward her
favorable reception.
Footnote 59:
It will be remembered what were the conditions of graduation in New
York in 1855.
Footnote 60:
“This was the thirtieth operation performed on Anarcha.” (1849.—Sims,
_loc. cit._ p. 246.) 1849, foundation date of American gynæcology, was
the date of the year when Elizabeth Blackwell received her diploma.
Footnote 61:
Dr. Sims, in his autobiography, complains that he was denounced as a
quack by the “conservative” surgeons of New York, some of whom did not
hesitate to secretly try to dissuade the ladies from doing anything
about the Woman’s Hospital, and urging that the New York Hospital
already accomplished every purpose.
Thus whatever _is_, invariably seeks to strangle in the birth that
which is about to be!
Footnote 62:
Dr. Zakzrewska’s life has been sketched in outline down to the above
date, in a little volume entitled “Practical Illustration of Woman’s
Right to Labor,” by Caroline Dall.
Footnote 63:
A petition for the emancipation of negro slaves was presented to
Congress by a group of Quaker gentlemen, within a few years after the
framing of the Constitution.—Van Holst, _Constitutional History of
America_.
Footnote 64:
Hannah Richardson and Rebecca White.
Footnote 65:
See _ut supra_, p. 13, note.
Footnote 66:
_Galaxy_, 1868. The innocent young Quaker girl did not find this “a
disgusting preliminary!”
Footnote 67:
Personal letter.
Footnote 68:
To them were born two children, a son who died in early childhood; a
daughter who lived to grow up and became educated as a physician.
Footnote 69:
Out of 189 graduates of the Philadelphia College whose status was
reported in 1881, 56 were married women. The total number of graduates
at that time was 276. (Rachel Bodley, “The College Story,”
Commencement address, 1881.)
Footnote 70:
There were eight graduates. The first medical class that ever
graduated in Philadelphia about a century before consisted of a single
number.
Footnote 71:
Quite a group of bystanders collected to hear the discussion, which
was animated by opposing cheers and hisses.
Footnote 72:
“To be addressed in public as doctor,” writes Dr. Zakzrewrka, “was
painful, for all heads would turn to look at the woman thus
stigmatized.” (Personal letter.) “Women,” said Dr. Blackwell at this
time, “occupy an anomalous position, standing alone in medicine,—often
opposed or ignored by the profession, not acknowledged by society, and
separated from the usual pursuits and interests of women.”—(“An Appeal
in behalf of the Medical Education of Women.” New York: 1856).
Footnote 73:
Personal letter of niece.—_R. L. Fussell._
Footnote 74:
Annual Catalogue, 1854.
Footnote 75:
“Every woman will be narrowly watched and severely criticised because
she is a woman. If she bear not herself wisely and well, many will
suffer for her sake. Gentleness of manner, the adornment of a quiet
spirit, are as important to the physician as the woman.... I too have
felt the hopes and the aspirations after a fuller and more satisfying
life, which have arisen in the souls of some of you.... The office of
healing is Christlike.... Your business is, not to war with words, but
to make good your position by deeds of healing.... Probity,
simplicity, modesty, hope, patience, benevolence, prudence,—are needed
alike by the woman and the physician. All the brave, struggling women,
who, in various walks of life, are laboring for small compensations,
will be benefited by a movement which opens to women another
department of remunerative and honorable activity.”
Contrast with these modest statements of the gentle Philadelphia
Quakeress the aggressive self-consciousness of the emancipated French
woman, who rushes into the arena, with a little red flag waving in
every sentence: “À nos lectrices, à nos lecteurs, à nos
collaborateurs, à nos amis connus et inconnus, à tous ceux qui
s’interessent à notre entreprise. Salut!... Nous voyons tous les jours
des professeurs qui ont étudié dans leurs moindres détails, tous les
êtres organises qui forment la série zoologique, et qui semblent
ignorer absolument ce qu’est cet être qui tient tant de place dans
l’humanité, la femme. Faisons-nous connaître, et quand ils sauront ce
que nous valons, ils nous apprecieront comme nous le meritons.”—Mme.
C. Renooz, _Revue Scientifique des femmes_. Paris, Mai, 1888.
The _Revue_ is already extinguished after a year’s existence. The
college survives and prospers after forty years of struggle.
Footnote 76:
The celebrated Dr. Camman, who for many years held a clinic for heart
and lung diseases at the Demilt, gave valuable instruction to the
women students.
Footnote 77:
This innovation (for it was one) was effected during the residentship
of Dr. Elizabeth Cushier, who has contributed immensely to the
building up of the hospital.
Footnote 78:
This is an increase of 100 patients over the preceding year.
Footnote 79:
In the chapter on “Women in Hospitals,” in this volume, Mrs. Ednah
Cheney gives the details of the early formation of the New England
Hospital.—ED.
Footnote 80: