Part 5

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:

To any one familiar with the circumstances it does not admit of discussion that in Vassar we have the legitimate parent of all future colleges for women which were to be founded in such rapid succession in the next period. It is true that in 1855 the Presbyterian synod opened Elmira college in Elmira, New York, but it had practically no endowment and scarcely any college students. Even before 1855 two famous female seminaries were founded which did much to create a standard for the education of girls. In 1821 Mrs. Emma Willard opened at Troy a seminary for girls, known as the Troy female seminary, still existing under the name of the Emma Willard school. In 1837 Mary Lyon opened in the beautiful valley of the Connecticut Mt. Holyoke seminary, where girls were educated so cheaply that it was almost a free school. This institution has had a great influence in the higher education of women; it became in 1893 Mt. Holyoke college. These seminaries are often claimed as the first women’s colleges, but their curriculum of study proves conclusively that they had no thought whatever of giving women a collegiate education, whereas, the deliberations of the board of trustees whom Mr. Vassar associated with himself show clearly that it was expressly realized that here for the first time was being created a woman’s college as distinct from the seminary or academy. In 1861 the movement for the higher education of women had scarcely begun. It was not until eight years later that the first of the women’s colleges at Cambridge, England, opened.

Footnote 23:

The founder of Wellesley expected to leave the college a large endowment, but his fortune was dissipated in unfortunate investments. The splendid grounds and many halls of residence of the college constitute a form of endowment, otherwise its lack of productive funds would have excluded it from class I.

Footnote 24:

The numbers of students are for the year 1899–1900.

Footnote 25:

To the women’s colleges of group III they are admitted still in large numbers, and they still form 35.1 per cent of all the undergraduate students in the affiliated college of Radcliffe, and 35.7 per cent of all the undergraduate students in the affiliated college of Barnard; in part, perhaps, because these colleges are largely dependent upon their tuition fees, and in part too, no doubt, because the presence of special students is less disadvantageous where there is no dormitory life.

Footnote 26:

Colleges for women draw their students from private schools to a much greater extent than do coeducational colleges; and it was the very great inefficiency of these schools that induced the earlier colleges for women to organize preparatory departments of their own. The entrance examinations of the women’s colleges are the only influence for good that has ever been brought to bear upon the feeble teaching of these schools. In 1874, before the numbers of women wishing to prepare for college were great enough to influence the private schools, a plan for raising their standard was devised by the Woman’s education association of Boston, at whose request Harvard university for 7 years conducted a series of examinations modeled on the Oxford and Cambridge higher local examinations which have been such an efficient agency in England. Committees of women were organized in different cities, and an attempt was made to induce girls’ schools to send up candidates for these examinations. In 7 years, however, only 106 candidates offered themselves for the preliminary examination, and only 36 received a complete certificate. In 1881 the entrance examinations of Harvard college were substituted for these special women’s examinations, in the hope that the interest in reaching the standard set by Harvard for its entering class of men might add to the number of candidates; but even after this change was made comparatively few candidates took the examinations, and in 1896 the effort was discontinued; the Harvard examinations have been used from that time onward simply as the ordinary entrance examinations of Radcliffe college. In Great Britain the Cambridge higher local examinations are taken annually by about 900 women. There was needed some such pressure as is brought to bear by pupils determined to go to college to induce private schools to add college graduates to their staff of teachers. The requirements for admission to Bryn Mawr college have to my personal knowledge been a most important factor in introducing college-bred women as teachers into all the more important private girls’ schools of Philadelphia and in many private schools elsewhere; and every college for women drawing students from private schools has the same experience. On the other hand, every relaxation in the requirements for admission, such as the practice of admitting on certificate adopted by Vassar, Wellesley and Smith, tends to deprive girls’ schools of a much needed stimulus. Radcliffe and Barnard, like Bryn Mawr, insist upon examination for admission and decline to accept certificates.

Footnote 27:

Until Bryn Mawr opened in 1885 with a large staff of young unmarried men, it had been regarded as almost out of the question to appoint unmarried men in a women’s college; now they are teaching in all colleges for women. The same instructors pass from colleges for men to colleges for women and from colleges for women to colleges for men, employing in each the same methods of instruction. Some years since one of the professors at Smith college received at the same time offers of a post at the Johns Hopkins, at Columbia, and at Bryn Mawr; and among the professors the most successful in their teaching at Princeton, Chicago and Columbia are men whose whole experience had been gained in teaching women at Bryn Mawr.

Footnote 28:

The following data have been furnished me by the courtesy of the presidents or deans of the colleges concerned, except the data of the H. Sophie Newcomb memorial college, for which I am indebted to Professor Evelyn Ordway. These data are for the year 1900; the numbers of instructors and students have been obtained from the catalogues for 1898–99.

Footnote 29:

In one instance only—that of Evelyn college in New Jersey—has an affiliated college, once established, been compelled to close its doors. Evelyn, however, partook of the nature of a private enterprise school, and was begun on an unacademic basis in 1887. A certain number of Princeton professors consented to serve on the board of trustees and give instruction there, but it was, in reality, a young ladies’ finishing school with a few students (in 1891, 22; in 1894, 18; in 1897, 14) pursuing collegiate courses. Music and accomplishments were made much of, and in 1897 the college came to a well-merited end.

Footnote 30:

Radcliffe and Barnard are the only two of the affiliated colleges that appear in the U. S. education reports in division A of women’s colleges. The students of the other three are reported under Brown, Western reserve and Tulane respectively, thus giving these colleges a false air of being coeducational in their undergraduate departments. The endowment and equipment of these three affiliated colleges, although entirely independent of the colleges to which they are affiliated, are given nowhere separately.

Footnote 31:

It is difficult for those interested in women’s education in England to understand the existence in America of independent colleges for women, and if American education were organized like English education they would, indeed, have no reason to exist. In an English university, consisting, as it does, of many separate colleges whose students live in their separate halls of residence, are taught by their own teachers, hear in common with the students of other colleges the lectures offered by the central university organization, and compete against each other in honor examinations conducted by a common board of university examiners, the colleges for women—at Cambridge, Girton and Newnham, and at Oxford, Somerville hall, Lady Margaret hall and St. Hugh’s hall—are organized in precisely the same way as colleges for men. They may, or may not, be as well equipped as the best men’s colleges, but the difference is a matter of endowment, not of university organization; there are differences also between the various colleges for men. Examinations, again, play a far more important part in English than in American education. There are in Great Britain only a few examining and degree-giving bodies, for whose examinations all the various colleges prepare their students. The degrees mean that certain examinations have been passed, and have a definite and universally acknowledged value. A degree given by an American college means that the person receiving it has lived for some time in a community of a certain kind, enjoying certain opportunities of which he has conscientiously availed himself. For this reason no one of the 491 colleges of the United States enumerated in the U. S. education report for 1897–98 bestows its degree in recognition of examinations passed in any other college. For this reason Harvard college has had logic on its side in declining to confer upon the students completing their undergraduate course in Radcliffe college the Harvard B. A. They have not lived in the same community, nor yet had all the opportunities of the Harvard student. The certificate received by the student of Girton or Newnham represents exactly the same thing as the Cambridge degree; the B. A. of Radcliffe does not represent the same thing as the Harvard B. A. What is represented by the degrees of different colleges in the United States may, or may not, be equal, but never is the same. Nevertheless Columbia, Brown, Tulane and Western reserve confer their degrees upon the women graduates of their affiliated colleges for women.

Footnote 32:

The first American affiliated college was the so-called Harvard annex, which was brought into existence by the devoted efforts of a small number of influential professors of Harvard college, who voluntarily formed themselves into a “Society for the collegiate instruction of women,” and repeated each week to classes of women the lectures and class work they gave to men in Harvard college. The idea first occurred to Mr. Arthur Gilman in 1878. Girton college, Cambridge, England, after which the annex was modeled, had then been in successful operation for nine years. Mrs. Louis Agassiz, the widow of the famous naturalist, agreed to become the official head of the undertaking, and she associated with herself other influential Boston and Cambridge women. Mr. Arthur Gilman became the secretary of the society. The president of Harvard college declared that, so far as the university was concerned, the professors were free to teach women in their leisure hours if they chose. The annex was opened for students in 1879 in a rented house near the Harvard campus with 25 students.

Footnote 33:

The medical school of the Johns Hopkins university is a true university school, admitting only holders of the bachelor’s degree; the law school of Harvard university is practically a university school, although seniors in Harvard college are received as students.

Footnote 34:

Out of the 58 most important American colleges enumerated on page 12 only 23, it will be remembered, appear in the lists of the Federation of graduate clubs. Unfortunately it must not be inferred that all these 23 colleges are doing true professional work and offering graduate students a three years’ course leading to the degree of Ph. D. In some of them there are provided only courses leading to the degree of A. M., which, like the degree of A. B., indicating general culture. The affiliated college of Radcliffe appears in the list of graduate clubs, although it can scarcely be said to exist independently as a separate graduate school, being virtually the portal by which women are admitted to a limited amount of graduate work at Harvard. In 1899–1900 only 12 graduate lecture courses and 3 research courses were repeated at Radcliffe.

Footnote 35:

The graduate courses of Clark (which has no undergraduate department) are few in number and attended by only 48 men; the exclusion of women is, therefore, very surprising especially as the principal subjects of instruction, pedagogy, experimental psychology and the like, are of peculiar interest to women. The exclusion of women from all but the medical department of the Johns Hopkins university is really of serious import, because the Johns Hopkins university, judged not by numbers but by scholarly research and publication, the number of Ph. D. degrees conferred, and the important college and university positions filled by its graduates, has long been, and perhaps is still, the most important graduate school in the United States. Its attitude toward women is to be accounted for in part by its location, and in part by the fact that its management is in the hands of a self-perpetuating board of twelve trustees appointed originally by the founder, and without exception Baltimoreans, so that no pressure can be brought to bear upon the corporation from more progressive sections of the country.

Footnote 36:

These figures are taken from the Graduate handbook for 1899, published by the Federation of graduate clubs. Of these the greatest number studying in any one institution in the west was to be found in the University of Chicago, and the next greatest in the University of California; the greatest number studying in any one institution in the east was to be found at Barnard-Columbia, and the next greatest at Bryn Mawr. There were studying in the graduate departments of the University of Chicago (including summer students) 276 women; in the University of California, 90; in Barnard-Columbia, 82; in Bryn Mawr, 61; in Radcliffe-Harvard, 58; in Yale, 42; in Cornell, 36; in the University of Pennsylvania, 34. The position of Bryn Mawr in this series seems to show conclusively that an independent woman’s college maintaining a sufficiently high standard of instruction may compete successfully for students with much larger and older coeducational foundations.

Footnote 37:

See Fellowships and graduate scholarships, published by the Association of collegiate alumnæ, Richmond Hill, N. Y., III Series, No. 2, July, 1899.

Footnote 43:

A private law school for women existed for some years in the city of New York, founded by Madame Kempin, a graduate of the University of Zurich. At the request of the Women’s legal education society it was incorporated with the New York University law school.

Footnote 44:

See U. S. ed. rep. 1897–98, p. 1825, corrected according to note 1, page 15 of this monograph.

Footnote 45:

The number of women graduates has been obtained in every case through the courtesy of the presidents of the colleges concerned. In some cases the women graduates have had to be selected from the total number of graduates and counted separately for the purpose. As the figures have never been printed before, I give them below: _22 colleges belonging to the Association of collegiate alumnæ_:—coeducational colleges: Boston, 522 graduates; California, 440; Chicago, 267; Cornell, 517; Kansas, 259; Leland Stanford, Jr., 289, Massachusetts institute technology, 45; Michigan, 940; Minnesota, 458; Nebraska, 263; Northwestern, 317; Oberlin, 1,486; Syracuse, 508; Wesleyan, 118; Wisconsin, 620. Independent colleges: Vassar, 1,509; Wellesley, 1,727; Smith, 1,679; Bryn Mawr, 321. Affiliated colleges: Radcliffe, 278; Barnard, 106; College for women of Western reserve, 135. _Additional colleges_, 15 in number: Women’s college of Brown, 102; Cincinnati, 99; Columbian, 60; Colorado, about 70; Illinois, 131; Indiana, 282; Iowa, 340; Maine, 28; Missouri, no record; Ohio State university, 150; Ohio Wesleyan, 615; Texas, 60 Vanderbilt, 11; Washington (St. Louis), 55; West Virginia, 17. Total, 14,824 women graduates.

Footnote 46:

The number of women studying in universities in Germany in 1898–99 was approximately 471, probably mainly foreigners (statistics given in the Hochschul Nachrichten, Minerva, etc.); in France in 1896–97, approximately 410, of whom 83 were foreigners (Les Universités françaises, by M. Louis Liard; vol. 2 of Special Reports on Educational Subjects, Education department, London, 1898); in England and Wales in 1897–98, approximately 2,348. (See catalogues of different colleges.) The total number of women graduates in England and Wales who have received degrees, or their equivalent, from English and Welsh universities is about 2,180.

Footnote 47: