Part 8

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.”

The regulations here cited may be admirable, and highly advantageous to those whom they affect. It may be matter of regret that the young men are not given similar supervision, and that the “practical lectures on general habits,” etc., to which women in all departments are required to listen, are, in the case of young men, limited to those of the preparatory schools. The propriety and value of these requirements is, however, not the subject of discussion. They are referred to here only because they illustrate the difference between the methods of Oberlin and the methods of what is popularly understood by the term “co-educational college.” Because, indeed, taken in connection with the preceding eight points, they show that while Oberlin is largely co-instructional, it is also largely not, in the current sense of the term, co-educational at all.

The history and method of co-education at Oberlin, as summed up above, proves the truth of what the presidents and professors of Oberlin have said in one and another form again and again: viz., that co-education there did not originate in any radically new idea of the sphere and work of women; nor in any conscious purpose to do justice to woman as an individual.

Oberlin originated in religious zeal. As a high school, it admitted women because of the great need of educated women who could serve their own country as teachers, or foreign countries as missionaries or missionaries’ wives; women were, upon their own petition, suffered to enter the college course by men too just and too logical to deny a request grounded in justice and reason; but they were not welcomed by men who saw in this petition the realization of any theory of the mental equality of the sexes.

The present Oberlin system has been molded slowly by poverty and resulting economy, by local needs and, partially, too, though resistingly, by the progressive spirit of the times. It is curious and interesting that so conservative a college (independently of her own intention or desire) should have been appealed to as their inspiration, and cited as their model, by colleges between whom and Oberlin great dissimilarity exists; but it is true that Oberlin has done more for the cause of co-education than she could possibly have done had she taken the attitude of a propagandist. Probably no college for men has opened its doors to women in the last thirty years without first consulting Oberlin’s experience. The Oberlin authorities have always unhesitatingly testified to the success of the Oberlin plan; almost always the testimony of these witnesses has indicated their conviction that the Oberlin plan, being the outgrowth of peculiar conditions, would not be certain to flourish if transplanted; and this moderation, this abatement of enthusiastic advocacy, has given the testimony of Oberlin men incomparable weight during this controversy in the West.

In 1853, Antioch College was opened at Yellow Springs, O. It was the first endeavor in the West to found a college under Christian but non-sectarian auspices. Its president, Horace Mann, wrote of it: “Antioch is now the only first-class college in all the West that is really an unsectarian institution. There are, it is true, some State institutions which profess to be free from proselyting instrumentalities; but I believe without exception they are all under control of men who hold as truth something which they have prejudged to be true.”

This fact has a distinct bearing on co-education, and it is curious to observe that even this most non-sectarian of colleges provided by charter that two thirds of the trustees and two thirds of the faculty should belong to the “Christian Connection”; a body of people who, by separating themselves from the sects, had really become a new sect.

The opening of this college under so distinguished an educator as Mr. Mann, gave a new _impulse_ to higher education throughout the West. Antioch was from the first avowedly co-educational; this was demanded by the liberality of the Christian thought by which it was supported. But the best friends of the higher education of women, even Mr. Mann himself, regarded this feature of the new college with suspicion, if not with aversion. How serious the objection that marriages might grow out of the intimacies of college life was considered, may be inferred from the fact that Mr. Mann discussed it in his inaugural address; and from the passage of a by-law providing that marriages should not take place between students while retaining their connection with the college. At one time Mr. Mann advised against co-education on this ground.

The effect that his experience with a co-educational institution produced upon Mr. Mann’s own opinion has been frequently urged as a strong argument in the behalf of co-education.

In view of the probable necessity of closing the college, Mr. Mann wrote: “One of the most grievous of my regrets at this sad prospect is the apprehension that the experiment (as the world will still call it) of educating the sexes together will be suddenly interrupted, to be revived only in some indefinite future.”

In his baccalaureate address of 1859, there occurs a passionate paragraph expressing Mr. Mann’s longing to do more and better than he had done for the higher education of women, which shows that he had found women at Antioch worthy of their opportunities.

Women were not only received as students at Antioch, but also, in the beginning, were included in the faculty. These facts, especially the latter, excited marked attention, and, notwithstanding the disasters which interrupted the work of Antioch, and the poverty which has kept it a small college, the fame of Horace Mann, inseparably connected with its history, has made its influence in behalf of co-education potent.

OPENING WEDGES.

The conditions of pioneer life are favorable to co-education. The exigencies incident to life in a new country destroy certain barriers between men and women which are fixed in old and settled communities. The women in a pioneer settlement not infrequently join in labors in which, under more settled conditions, they would never be called to participate. Many women in the West have assisted their husbands and fathers in the field, the office, and the shop, simply because hired male labor was unattainable. On the other hand, men in pioneer homes assist their wives in household labors, because domestic help cannot be found. In the organization of churches, schools, and Sunday-schools, the sparseness of the population compels men to divide the work with women. Thus, without intention on the part of either men or women, they become used to working together in many unaccustomed ways; and the idea of going to college together does not seem so unnatural as in older communities, where traditions of long standing have separated men and women in their occupations.

The almost universal connection of preparatory departments with colleges in the West is properly deplored; but the “preparatory” has been a stepping-stone to co-education. In their origin the Western colleges found it necessary to maintain preparatory schools in order to obtain any college classes. This is illustrated by the experience of Antioch. Out of 150 students who applied for admission to that college in 1853, but 8 were able to pass the examinations for admission to the freshman class, meager as were the requirements. These 8 included men and women, married and single. The older colleges in this new country have a similar chapter in their history. There were few high schools, and the course of study of those was narrow. To have students, each college was compelled to prepare them. The preparatory department in a college town did the work of the present high school; it was very natural that the residents of those towns should desire to send both their sons and daughters to the “preparatory,” which was usually, perhaps always, the best school accessible to them. This desire, however, gave no forecast of a desire to send both to the college later on. Sometimes the “preparatory” was not provided with a separate building, but its work was done in some room or rooms of the college building proper. The preparatory course finished, some bright girl would wish to go forward with her class into college work; she could not enter the class formally, but “if the professor was willing” she could attend lectures in this or the other subject; in many college towns there are middle-aged and elderly women who, as young girls, with the tacit consent of parents and college instructors, thus obtained the larger part of a college education. They had no formal recognition from any one; their names appeared in no catalogues, but they acquired substantial benefits. The present permitted but unacknowledged presence of women at Leipzig and other universities on the Continent, was thus antedated in the West.

Occasionally one of these students, spurred by what she considered the demands of her self-respect, made formal application for regular admission to the college; and not a few of our Western colleges became co-educational by these natural, easy, and noiseless approaches.

The manner in which the desire of one woman for a college education has transformed a men’s into a co-educational college, is illustrated in the history of the State University of Indiana. Miss Sarah P. Morrison wished to enter college, and began agitating the question of opening the State University to women. Mr. Isaac Jenkinson of Richmond, Ind., tells the whole pregnant story thus briefly. He writes me:

“I was a member of the board of trustees in 1866, when Miss Morrison’s appeal was made to the trustees. (Miss Morrison had for several years been agitating the question among her friends.) I at once offered a resolution admitting young women on equal terms with young men, but I had no support whatever in the board at that time; at a following session the same year, my resolution was adopted by a vote of 4 in favor, to 3 against it.”

Many colleges in the West had from the beginning a “female course” much like the “ladies’ course” at Oberlin. This course was, like the preparatory department, a way of approach for the more ambitious. The story of one is, with a change of names, the story of many such colleges. The following from “A Report on the Position of Women in Industries and Education in the State of Indiana,”[12] illustrates the function of the “ladies course” in facilitating co-education.

“Butler University at Irvington, Ind., founded in 1855, admitted women as students from the outset, but at first only into what was denominated its female course. In its laudable endeavor to adapt its requirements to an intermediate class of beings, the university, in its ‘female course’ substituted music for mathematics and French for Greek. Few young women availed themselves of this ‘course’ and it was utterly repudiated by Demia Butler, a daughter of Ovid Butler, the founder of the university, and a gentleman of most enlightened views concerning woman’s place in life. Miss Butler, upon her own petition, indorsed by her father, entered the university in 1858, and graduated from what was then known as the ‘male course’ in 1862. From that time the ‘female course’ became less popular, and in 1864 was formally discontinued.”

The normal class was another of the steps toward co-education. In the middle of this century it was not uncommon for special short terms of instruction for teachers to be held during the fall or spring vacations of the common schools. To secure the advantage of good lecture rooms and appliances, and also to secure the aid of distinguished professors, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction would obtain permission to hold his normal class at the State university; or for similar reasons a county Superintendent would hold such a school for the teachers within his jurisdiction, in a college town. In these “normal schools,” having no formal or permanent relation with the college at which they were held, one sees the origin in many colleges of their present “departments of the theory and practice of elementary instruction.”

From the earliest settlement of the West women taught the district schools in the summer, and the work of elementary instruction fell naturally more and more into their hands, until it was, during the war of 1861–5, almost monopolized by them. Necessarily, when the “normal classes” were organized, women entered and sometimes exclusively composed them. After the normal class had transcended its original limits of four or six weeks, and had developed into a “normal department,” women still, in part or in whole, constituted it. Lectures were always being delivered in other departments of the college which would be beneficial to the students in the normal department, whose members were, therefore, gradually admitted to one privilege after another, until at last the college awakened to a consciousness that it had no reserves.

More State universities than denominational colleges have been entered by women _viâ_ the “normal class,” though many of the latter have been opened by the same insidious influence. So far as the State university was concerned, the end must have been seen from the beginning by all clear-sighted people.

The State university, like the common school, is supported at public expense, and free to the children of the State, who pass into it from the common school. What more natural indeed, more necessary, than that the teachers who are to prepare the boys for the university shall know, by their own experience in it as students, what the requirements of the university are? In illustration of this view, the steps by which co-education was attained in the universities of Wisconsin and Missouri are briefly indicated.

In the spring of 1860 a ten weeks’ course of lectures was given at the University of Wisconsin, to a “normal class” of fifty-nine, of whom thirty were ladies. In the spring of 1863 a “normal department” was opened, which was at once entered by seventy-six ladies. At this time the Regents announced that the lectures in the university proper upon chemistry, geology, botany, mechanical philosophy, and English literature would be free to the “normal” students.

Conditions at the close of the war demanded a reorganization of the university. This was effected in 1866, and Section Fourth of the Act under which the university was reconstructed, says: “The university in all its departments and colleges shall be open alike to male and female students.”

However, the Regents were obliged to ask the State to recede from this broad statement of co-education, and the next year the Legislature amended the charter upon this point as follows: “The university shall be open to female as well as to male students under such regulations and restrictions as the Board of Regents may deem proper.” The charter was thus amended because Dr. Chadbourne, to whom the presidency had been offered, had refused it on the ground that he feared that this innovation would lose to the university the confidence and support of the public.

Up to 1868 the ladies pursued the course which had been laid down for the “normal department.” This course, limited to three years, was now enlarged to four.

Until 1871 the recitations of the young women were separate from those of the young men. In that year, the number of professors and instructors being insufficient to carry on separate classes, the young women were permitted at their option to enter the regular college classes. In 1875 the president reported that “for the first time women have been put, in all respects, on precisely the same footing, in the university, with young men.”

The year 1875 does not date the end of the contest in Wisconsin, but it dates the last incident pertinent to this part of the discussion, the object of which is to show the relation between the “normal class” and co-education.

In Missouri, State university co-education was reached by similar steps. A “normal class” was organized for women, who were next invited into the “normal department,” which was originally open to men only. Then the women were admitted to such lectures in the university proper as were thought to have a special value for them as teachers. They were next invited to attend chapel, but at first only as silent witnesses to the worship of the male students; later they were solicited to join in the services of song and prayer; and finally, in 1870, they were admitted to the university on the same conditions with young men.

In the early years, denominational effort was on double lines; wherever it founded a college for men, soon, in its nearer or more remote vicinity, it established a “female seminary” or “ladies’ institute.” Generally the ladies’ school was unsupplied with books, apparatus, or cabinets; it often happened that an ambitious instructor sought and obtained occasional permission to use the laboratory and the museum of the college for the benefit of her pupils, and to draw books for them from the college library. Sometimes, when a college professor was about to perform experiments of especial interest before his classes, the young ladies of the neighboring “seminary” would be invited, under escort of their instructors, to witness them.

Usually the college maintained a lecture course, the benefits of which were open to the seminary students. Unless the frivolous conduct of some college youth and seminary maiden excited a scandal which terminated such neighborly offices (a calamity that alone still withholds two or three colleges from becoming co-educational), these friendly relations were strengthened from year to year, and in many instances have resulted in a reorganization by which the seminary has become a woman’s college and an equal component part of the university which has been formed by its union with the college for men.

This process of building up a co-educational institution is illustrated in the history of the Northwestern University, at Evanston, Ill.