in the University of California, Berkeley, California_
5 THE AMERICAN COLLEGE—ANDREW FLEMING WEST, _Professor of Latin in
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey_
6 THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY—EDWARD DELAVAN PERRY, _Jay Professor of
Greek in Columbia University, New York_
7 EDUCATION OF WOMEN—M. CAREY THOMAS, _President of Bryn Mawr
College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania_
8 TRAINING OF TEACHERS—B. A. HINSDALE, _Professor of the Science and
Art of Teaching in the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
Michigan_
9 SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE AND HYGIENE—GILBERT B. MORRISON, _Principal of
the Manual Training High School, Kansas City, Missouri_
10 PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION—JAMES RUSSELL PARSONS, _Director of the
College and High School Departments, University of the State of
New York, Albany, New York_
11 SCIENTIFIC, TECHNICAL AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION—T. C. MENDENHALL,
_President of the Technological Institute, Worcester,
Massachusetts_
12 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION—CHARLES W. DABNEY, _President of the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee_
13 COMMERCIAL EDUCATION—EDMUND J. JAMES, _Professor of Public
Administration in the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois_
14 ART AND INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION—ISAAC EDWARDS CLARKE, _Bureau of
Education, Washington, D. C._
15 EDUCATION OF DEFECTIVES—EDWARD ELLIS ALLEN, _Principal of the
Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind,
Overbrook, Pennsylvania_
16 SUMMER SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITY EXTENSION—HERBERT B. ADAMS,
_Professor of American and Institutional History in the Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland_
17 SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES AND ASSOCIATIONS—JAMES MCKEEN CATTELL,
_Professor of Psychology in Columbia University, New York_
18 EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO—BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, _Principal of the
Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama_
19 EDUCATION OF THE INDIAN—WILLIAM N. HAILMANN, _Superintendent of
Schools, Dayton, Ohio_
-----
Footnote 1:
That their admission was due in large part to the stress of
circumstances is shown by the fact that in the very states in which
these coeducational schools had been established there was manifested
on other occasions a most illiberal attitude toward girls’ education.
In the few cities of the Atlantic seaboard, where European
conservatism was too strong to allow girls to be taught with boys in
the new high schools, and where there were boys enough to fill the
schools, girls had to wait much longer before their needs were
provided for at all, and then most inadequately. In Boston, where the
boys’ and girls’ high schools were separated, it was impossible until
1878 for a Boston girl to be prepared for college in a city high
school, whereas, in the country towns of Massachusetts, where boys and
girls were taught together in the high schools, the girl had had the
same opportunities as the boy for twenty-five or thirty years. Indeed,
it was not until 1852 that Boston girls obtained, and then only in
connection with the normal school, a public high-school education of
any kind whatsoever. In Philadelphia, where boys and girls are taught
separately in the high schools, no girl could be prepared for college
before 1893, neither Latin, French, nor German being taught in the
girls’ high school, whereas, for many years the boys’ high school had
prepared boys for college. In Baltimore the two girls’ high schools
are still, in 1900, unable to prepare girls for college, whereas the
boys’ high school has for years prepared boys to enter the Johns
Hopkins university. The impossibility of preparing girls for college
is only another way of stating that the instruction given is very
imperfect.
Footnote 2:
The magnitude of this fact will be apparent if we reflect that here
for the first time the girls of a great nation, especially of the
poorer classes, have from their earliest infancy to the age of
eighteen or nineteen received the same education as the boys, and that
the ladder leading, in Huxley’s words, from the gutter to the
university may be climbed as easily by a girl as by a boy. Although
college education has affected as yet only a very few out of the great
number of adult women in the United States, the free opportunities for
secondary education have influenced the whole American people for
nearly two-thirds of a century. The men of the poorer classes have
had, as a rule, mothers as well educated as their fathers, indeed,
better educated; to this, more than to any other single cause, I
think, may be attributed what by other nations is regarded as the
phenomenal industrial progress of the United States. Our commercial
rivals could probably take no one step that would so tend to place
them on a level with American competition as to open to girls without
distinction all their elementary and secondary schools for boys. In
1892, girls formed 55.9 per cent, and in 1898, 56.5 per cent of all
pupils in the public and private secondary schools of the United
States.
Footnote 3:
In 1870 women formed 59.0 per cent; in 1880, 57.2 per cent; in 1890,
65.5 per cent; and in 1898, 67.8 per cent (in the North Atlantic
Division 80.8 per cent) of all teachers in the public elementary and
secondary schools of the United States (U. S. ed. rep. for 1897–98,
pp. xiii, lxxv). It has been frequently remarked that the feminine
pronouns “she” and “her” are instinctively used in America in common
speech with reference to a teacher. Moreover more women than men are
teaching in the public and private secondary schools of the United
States (in 1898, women formed 53.8 per cent of the total number of
secondary teachers, see U. S. ed. rep. for 1897–98, pp. 2053, 2069);
whereas in all other countries the secondary teaching of boys is
wholly in the hands of men.
Footnote 4:
In many cases in the west women made their way into the universities
through the normal department of the university, being admitted to
that first of all. The summer schools of western colleges, chiefly
attended by teachers, among whom women were in the majority, served
also as an entering wedge. (See Woman’s work in America, Holt & Co.,
1891, pp. 71–75.)
Footnote 5:
Antioch college opened, however, with only 8 students in its college
department, all the rest, 142, belonging to its secondary school.
Footnote 6:
In every case I give the date when full coeducation was introduced;
West Virginia, for example, admitted women to limited privileges in
1889.
Footnote 7:
In discussing coeducation I shall, therefore, disregard the divisions
into north Atlantic, south Atlantic, north central, south central and
western, employed by the U. S. census and the U. S. bureau of
education. The New England, middle and southern states are all, of
course, eastern, and, with the exception of Vermont, West Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, are all seaboard states,
Pennsylvania being counted as a seaboard state on account of its close
river connection with the sea. It will be noted that the inland
southern states are rather western than eastern in their
characteristics. The northern middle states belong on the whole by
their sympathies to New England, the southern middle to the southern
states. Missouri, having been a slave state and settled largely by
southerners, is still southern in feeling. The District of Columbia
also may conveniently be counted with the southern states.
Footnote 8:
Two of the three next largest colleges in Virginia—Richmond and
Roanoke—admit women, but the advance in women’s education in that
state has been very recent. Until the establishment of the State
normal school in 1883 there was not a scientific laboratory in the
state accessible to women; in 1893 the Randolph-Macon Woman’s college
opened with several laboratories, see Prof. Celestia Parrish,
Proceedings 2d Capon Springs conference for education in the south,
1899, p. 68. I am much indebted to the author of this paper for
valuable data in regard to coeducation in the south.
Footnote 9:
The Massachusetts institute of technology is classified by the U. S.
ed. reps. among technical schools.
Footnote 10:
The commissioner of education does not feel himself at liberty to
discriminate among the colleges chartered by the different states, but
it is well known that in most states the name of college, or
preferably that of university, and the power to confer degrees are
granted to any institution whatsoever without regard to endowment,
scientific equipment, scholarly qualifications of the faculty or
adequate preparation of the students. The majority of the so-called
colleges and universities of the south and west are really secondary
schools. In most of them not only are the greater part of the students
really pupils in the preparatory or high school department, but most
of the students in the collegiate departments are at graduation barely
able to enter upon the sophomore or second year work of the best
eastern colleges. Throughout this monograph I have used the word
college in speaking of institutions for undergraduate education,
except when quoting their official titles, and this whether the
college in question is, or is not, included in a larger institution
providing also three years of graduate instruction. The terms college
and university are used in America without any definite understanding,
even among colleges and universities themselves, as to how they shall
be differentiated. Probably the most commonly accepted usage is to
call an institution a university if it has attached to it various
departments, or schools, without regard to the standing of these
departments, the preparation of the students entering them, or the
work done in them. In this sense all the state universities of the
west are called universities because, although many of them are really
high schools, they have attached to them schools of pharmacy,
veterinary science, agriculture, and sometimes medicine or law. It is
in this sense that many institutions for negroes are called
universities, because they include various departments of industrial
art as well as a high school department. Until very recently the
requirements for admission to the departments of law, medicine,
dentistry, etc., have been so low that it has been a positive
disadvantage to have such schools attached to the college department,
and when lately the graduates of Harvard college decided not to allow
the graduates of its affiliated schools to vote with them for
representatives on the board of trustees, they claimed with justice
that the illiberal education of the majority of these graduates would
tend to lower the standard of Harvard college. The use of the word
university should be strictly limited to institutions offering at
least three years of graduate instruction in one or more schools.
Footnote 11:
In this list of fifty-eight colleges I have included: first, the
twenty-four colleges (indicated in the list by “a”) whose graduates
are admitted to the Association of collegiate alumnæ; second, the
twenty-three colleges (24 are included in the Federation, but Barnard
has ceased to be a graduate school, see page 28) included in the
Federation of graduate clubs (indicated by “b”); third, the fifty-two
colleges (indicated by “c”) included in the 1899–1900 edition of
Minerva, the well-known handbook of colleges and universities of the
world published each year by Truebner & Co.; and fourth, the colleges
which, according to the U. S. education report for 1897–98, have at
least $500,000 worth of productive funds (indicated by “d”), and also
three hundred or more students (indicated by “e”). In the case of
state universities the money they receive annually from national and
state appropriations may reasonably be regarded as a sort of
supplementary endowment; I have, therefore, included the state
universities of Maine, Iowa and West Virginia, whose productive funds
do not amount to $500,000. This list of fifty-eight colleges, arranged
according to the different sections of the country, and as far as
possible in the order of the numbers in their undergraduate
departments, is as follows: _New England and 3 northern middle
states_: Harvard (bcde), Yale (bcde), Cornell (abcde-coed.),
Massachusetts institute of technology (acde-coed.), Smith
(acde-woman’s college), Princeton (bcde), Pennsylvania (bcde),
Columbia (bcde), Brown (bcde), Wellesley (abce-woman’s college),
Vassar (acde-woman’s college), Syracuse (acde-coed.), Dartmouth (cde),
Boston (acde-coed.), Amherst (cde), Radcliffe (abce-affiliated),
Williams (cde), Lehigh (cde), Maine (e-coed.), Wesleyan (acde-coed.),
Vermont (c-coed.), Lafayette (c), Bryn Mawr (abed-woman’s college),
New York University (cd), Barnard (a-affiliated), Hamilton (c),
Colgate (cd), Clark (bcd-no undergrad. department). _Southern and 2
southern middle states_: Missouri (bcde-coed.), Texas (cde-coed.),
Columbian (bce-coed.), West Virginia (e-coed.), Tulane (cd),
Vanderbilt (bcd-coed.), Virginia (c), Johns Hopkins (bcd), Washington
(St. Louis) (cd-coed.), Georgetown (c-Catholic), Catholic university
(cd-no undergrad. department). _Western states_: Minnesota
(abcde-coed.), Michigan (abcde-coed.), California (abcde-coed.),
Wisconsin (abcde-coed.), Chicago (abcde-coed.), Leland Stanford
(abcde-coed.), Nebraska (ace-coed.), Ohio state university (de-coed.),
Indiana (cde-coed.), Illinois (ce-coed.), Kansas (ace-coed.), Ohio
Wesleyan (cde-coed.), Iowa (e-coed.), Northwestern (acde-coed.),
Oberlin (acde-coed.), Cincinnati (cd-coed.), Colorado (c-coed.),
Western reserve (bcd), College for Women of western reserve
(a-affiliated).
The only attempt hitherto made in America to discriminate between
colleges of true college grade and others has been made by the
Association of collegiate alumnæ. This association was organized in
1882 for the purpose of uniting women graduates of the foremost
coeducational colleges and colleges for women only into an association
for work connected with the higher education of women. In the early
years of the association there was appointed a committee on
admissions, and the admission of each successive college in the
association has been carefully considered, both with regard to its
entrance requirements, the training of its faculty and its curriculum.
The Association of collegiate alumnæ concerns itself, of course, only
with colleges admitting women, but there is no doubt that the fifteen
coeducational colleges and seven colleges for women only admitted to
the association would, in the estimation of every one familiar with
the subject, rank among the first fifty-eight colleges of the United
States.
The Federation of graduate clubs is an association of graduate
students of those colleges whose graduate schools are important enough
to entitle them to admission to the federation. The colleges in the
Federation of graduate clubs are the only colleges in the United
States that do true university work.
Footnote 12:
In only two instances, so far as I know, has coeducation once
introduced been abandoned or restricted in any way. The private
college of Adelbert of Western reserve, coeducational from 1873,
opened a separate woman’s college and excluded women in 1888. As the
college department was very small and the state of Ohio in which the
college was situated the most eastern in feeling of all western
states, the change was seemingly to be attributed to a bid for
students through undergraduate novelty. The Baptist college of Colby,
in Maine, coeducational from 1871, has taught women in separate
classes in required work since 1890. Women are not allowed to compete
with men for college prizes or for membership in the students’
society, which elects its members on account of scholarship. Complete
separation, which was at first planned, has proved impracticable and
from the beginning of the sophomore year women and men recite together
in all elective work.
Footnote 13:
In an investigation made several years ago in the University of
Wisconsin, which has been open to women since 1874, it was found that
the women ranked in scholarship very considerably beyond the men. In
the University of Michigan, where women have been educated with men
since 1870, President Angell has repeatedly laid stress on their
excellent scholarship. When in 1893–94 a committee of the faculty of
the University of Virginia asked the officers of a large number of
coeducational colleges especially in regard to this point the
testimony received was very remarkable. In England it should be noted
that the question of the success of women in collegiate studies has
been put beyond a doubt by the published class lists of the
competitive honor examinations of Oxford and Cambridge. In the
discussions in regard to granting women degrees at Cambridge, it was
freely admitted that women’s minds were “splendid for examination
purposes.”
Footnote 14:
For a discussion of coeducation in schools and colleges in 1892, see
U. S. education report for 1891–92, pp. 783–862.
Footnote 15:
U. S. education report 1889–90, pp. 761, 1582–1599, and 1897–98, p.
1823; account is taken of students of true college grade only in the
college proper. Throughout this monograph I have corrected the figures
of the U. S. ed. reps. which are affected by the erroneous assumption
that the undergraduate departments of Brown, Yale, Rochester, New York
Univ., Pennsylvania, Tulane and Western Reserve are coeducational. In
the University of Chicago women formed, in 1898, 54.5 per cent of all
regular, and 70 per cent of all unclassified, students; in Boston
university in the regular college course there were, in 1899, 299
women as against 192 men.
Footnote 16:
In 1889–90 there were 19,245 men studying in 146 colleges for men
only; in 1898–99 there were 25,915 men studying in 143 colleges for
men only, an increase of only 34.7 per cent. (In enumerating students
I have regarded the limited coeducational college of Colby as
coeducational.) Women, however, have increased in women’s colleges
138.4 per cent.
Footnote 17:
The objection of men students in the east to coeducation seems to be
mainly in the apprehension that the presence of women may interfere
with the free social life which has become so prominent a feature of
private colleges for men in the east. These colleges are, for the most
part, situated either in small country towns, or in the suburbs of a
city, in communities which have grown up about the college, and their
students live largely in college dormitories; the conditions,
therefore, are exceedingly unlike those prevailing in non-residential
colleges and also unlike those prevailing in the world at large. These
exceptional conditions are a source of pleasure and, in many respects,
of advantage to the student. Undoubtedly there is in coeducational
colleges less unrestraint; young men undoubtedly care much for the
impression that they make on young women of the same age, and there is
more decorum and perhaps more diligence in classrooms where women are
present. The objection to coeducation on the part of women students
is, to some extent, the same; separate colleges for women in like
manner are, as a rule, academic communities living according to
regulations and customs all their own; women also feel themselves more
unrestrained when they are studying in women’s colleges. Then, too,
coeducation in the east is still regarded as in some measure an
experiment, to the success of which the conduct of each individual
woman may, or may not, contribute, and the knowledge of this tends to
increase the self-consciousness of student life.
Footnote 18:
In the case of the colleges in groups I and II these statistics have
been obtained through the kindness of the presidents of the colleges
concerned; they are for the year 1900, except the numbers of
instructors and students which are obtained from the catalogues for
the year 1898–99; in enumerating the instructors, presidents, teachers
of gymnastics, elocution, music and art have been omitted. Instructors
away on leave of absence are not counted among instructors for the
current year.
Footnote 19:
Women’s colleges were first classified in division A and division B in
1887. In these reports there appeared sporadically in division A
Ingham university, at Leroy, New York, and Rutgers female college in
New York city. Neither of these had any adequate endowment and neither
ever obtained more than 35 students. Ingham university closed in 1893,
Rutgers female college in 1895.
Footnote 20:
The women’s colleges, so called, included in division B of these
reports, are in reality church and private enterprise schools, as a
rule of the most superficial character, without endowment, or fixed
curriculum, or any standard whatsoever of scholarship in teachers or
pupils. What money there is to spend is for the most part used to
provide teachers of music, drawing and other accomplishments, and the
school instruction proper is shamefully inadequate. Few if any of
these schools are able to teach the subjects required for entrance to
a college properly so called; the really good girls’ schools are, as a
rule, excluded from this list by their honesty in not assuming the
name of college. The U. S. education report for 1886–87 gives 152 of
these colleges in division B, the report for 1897–98, 135. When it is
said that separate colleges for women are decreasing, the statement is
based on this list of colleges in division B, which are not really
colleges at all; and when it is said that women students are not
increasing so rapidly in separate colleges for women as in
coeducational colleges, it is the students in these miscalled colleges
who are referred to; for precisely the reverse is true of students in
genuine colleges for women. It is happily true that since better
college education has been obtainable, women have been refusing to
attend the institutions included in class B. Between 1890 and 1898
women have increased only 4.9 per cent in the college departments of
such institutions, whereas, in these same eight years, they have
increased 138.4 per cent in women’s colleges in division A. The value
of statistics of women college students is often vitiated by the fact
that women studying in institutions included in division B are counted
among college students. Many of the colleges for men only and of the
coeducational colleges included in the lists of the commissioner of
education are very low in grade, but few of them are so scandalously
inefficient as the majority of the girls’ schools included in division
B. I have, therefore, in my statistics taken no account whatever of
women studying in institutions classified in division B.
Footnote 21:
See pp. 1821, 1822, 1888, 1889. Bryn Mawr had not 300 undergraduate
students in 1897–98, but the next year, 1898–99, passed the limit. I
have excluded Western reserve as it is not coeducational in its
undergraduate department, and, in 1899, had only 182 men in its men’s
college and 183 women in its women’s college.
Footnote 22: