GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

Comparative table of the progress of coeducation and increase of women students from 1890 to 1898 and 1899 in theology, law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, schools of technology and agriculture.

1890[38]1899[39]1890[38]1898[40]Number of colleges for men onlyNumber of coed. collegesPercentage of coed. collegesNumber of colleges for men onlyNumber of coed. collegesPercentage of coed. collegesNumber of women studentsPercentage women of all studentsNumber of women studentsPercentage women of all studentsTheologyNo women reported976841.2No women reported1982.4LawNo women reported226474.4No women reported1471.3Medicine (regular and irregular)[41]674640.7698053.78545.513976.0Dentistry141348.1124478.6532.0622.4Pharmacy131655.244892.3602.11744.7Schools of technology and agriculture endowed with national land grant[42]141246.2164875.77412.5228116.1

38.The numbers of coeducational and other professional schools are estimated from the U. S. ed. rep. for 1889–90.

39.Through the kindness of Mr. James Russell Parsons, Jr., author of the monograph on professional education in the United States, published as one of this series, I am able to insert the figures for 1899, see p.21. By personal inquiry I have been able to add four to his list of coeducational schools of theology.

40.The number of professional students for the year 1898 is taken from the U. S. ed. rep. for 1897–98.

41.For the sake of clearness I have omitted from the above table the 7 separate medical schools for women, although I have counted their students in the total number of women medical students, both in 1890 and 1898. In 1890 there were studying in the 6 regular medical women’s colleges 425 women, as against 648 women in coeducational regular medical colleges; in 1898 there were studying in them 411 women, as against 1045 in coeducational colleges, a decrease of 3.3 per cent, whereas women students in coeducational medical colleges have increased 16.3 per cent. I limit the comparison to regular medical schools because women have increased relatively more rapidly in irregular medical schools and there is only one separate irregular medical school for women. It is sometimes said that women prefer medical sects because the proportion of women studying in irregular schools is relatively greater than the proportion studying in regular schools; but in 1898, 85.7 per cent of the irregular schools were coeducational and only 46.6 per cent of regular schools, a fact which undoubtedly increases the proportion of students studying in irregular schools.

42.The statistics for the schools of technology and agriculture are taken from the U. S. education report for 1889–90, pp. 1053–1054, and from the report for 1897–98, pp. 1985–1988. I have excluded schools of technology not endowed with the national land grant. In 1890 there were 27 of such schools (5 of them coeducational); in 1898 their number had fallen to 17 (3 of them coeducational). Very few women are studying in these schools; in 1898 women formed only 0.2 per cent of all students studying in them.

Theology, law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, veterinary science, schools of technology and agriculture—Ten years ago there were very few women studying in any of these schools. The wonderful increase both in facilities for professional study and in the number of women students during the last eight years may be seen by referring to the comparative table on the opposite page.

It is evident to the impartial observer that coeducation is to be the method in professional schools. Except in medicine, where women were at first excluded from coeducational study by the strongest prejudice that has ever been conquered in any movement, no important separate professional schools, indeed none whatever, except one unimportant school of pharmacy have been founded for women only.[43]It is evident also that the number of women entering upon professional study is increasing rapidly. If we compare the relative increase of men and of women from 1890 to 1898 we obtain the following percentages: increase of students in medicine, men, 51.1 per cent, women, 64.2 per cent; in dentistry, men, 150.2 per cent, women, 205.7 per cent; in pharmacy, men, 25.9 per cent, women, 190 per cent; in technology and agriculture, men, 119.3 per cent, women, 194.7 per cent.

There are many questions connected with the college education of American women which possess great interest for the student of social science.

Number of college women—In the year 1897–98[44]there were studying in the undergraduate and graduate departments of coeducational colleges and universities 17,338 women, and in the undergraduate and graduate departments of independent and affiliated women’s colleges, division A, 4,959 women, women forming thus 27.4 per cent ofthe total number of graduate and undergraduate students. The 22 colleges belonging to the Association of collegiate alumnæ, which are, on the whole, the most important colleges in the United States admitting women, have conferred the bachelor’s degree on 12,804 women. If we add to these the graduates of the Women’s college of Brown university, 102 in number, and the graduates of the 14 additional coeducational colleges included in my list of the 58 most important colleges in the United States, we obtain, including those graduating in June, 1899, a total of 14,824 women holding the bachelor’s degree.[45]There is thus formed, even leaving out of account the graduates of the minor colleges, a larger body of educated women than is to be found in any other country in the world. These graduates have received the most strenuous college training obtainable by women in the United States, which does not differ materially from the best college training obtainable by American men (indeed, women graduates of coeducational colleges have received precisely the same training as men), and may fairly be compared with the women who have received college and university training abroad. In other countries women university graduates, or even women who have studied at universities, are very few;[46]in America, on the other hand,the higher education of women has assumed the proportions of a national movement still in progress. We may perhaps be able to guide in some degree its future development, but it has passed the experimental stage and can no longer be opposed with any hope of success. Its results are to be reckoned with as facts.

Health of college women[47]—Those who have come into contact with some of the many thousands of healthy normalwomen studying in college at the present time, or who have had an opportunity to know something of the after-lives of even a small number of college women, believe that experience has proved them to be, both in college, and after leaving college, on the whole, in better physical condition than other women of the same age and social condition. Since, however, people who have not the opportunity of knowledge at first hand continue to regard the health of college women as a subject open for discussion, a new health investigation, based on questions sent to the 12,804 graduates of the 22 colleges belonging to the Association of collegiate alumnæ, is now in progress. The statistical tables will be collated a second time by the Massachusetts bureau of statistics of labor and sent to the Paris exposition as part of the educational exhibit of the Association of collegiate alumnæ.[48]

Marriage rate of college women—Here again no positive conclusions can be reached until we know what is the usual marriage rate of women belonging to the social class of women graduates. Everything indicates that the time of marriage is becoming later in the professional classes and that the marriage rate as a whole is decreasing. An investigation undertaken simultaneously with the new health investigation by the Association of collegiate alumnæ will enable us to speak with certainty in regard to the marriage rate of a large number of college women and their sisters.[49]It must be borne in mind that the element of time is very important, and in the case of women the later and therefore younger classes are all larger than the earlier ones, see table on opposite page.

Marriage rate of college women

It will be seen that independent, affiliated and coeducational colleges fall into their proper place in the series, thus showing conclusively that the method of obtaining a college education exercises scarcely any appreciable influence on the marriage rate.

The marriage rate of Bryn Mawr college, calculated in January, 1900, will also serve as an illustration of the importance of time in every consideration of the marriage rate: graduates of the class of 1889, married, 40.7 per cent; graduates of the first two classes, 1889–1890, married, 40.0 per cent; graduates of the first three classes, 1889–1891, married, 33.3 per cent; graduates of the first four classes, 1889–1892, married, 32.9 per cent; graduates of the first five classes, 1889–1893, married, 31.0 per cent; graduates of the first six classes, 1889–1894, married, 30.0 per cent; graduates of the first seven classes, 1889–1895, married, 25.2 per cent; graduates of the first eight classes, 1889–1896, married, 22.8 per cent; graduates of the first nine classes, 1889–1897, married, 20.9 per cent; graduates of the first ten classes, 1889–1898, married, 17.2 per cent; graduates of the first eleven classes, 1889–1899, married, 15.2 per cent.

Occupations of college women—It is probable that about 50 per cent of women graduates teach for at least a certain number of years. Of the 705 women graduates whose occupations were reported in the Association of collegiate alumnæ investigation of 1883 50.2 percent were then teaching. In 1895 of 1,082 graduates of Vassar 37.7 per cent were teaching; 2.0 per cent were engaged in graduate study and 3.0 per cent were physicians or studying medicine. In 1898 of 171 graduates (all living) of Radcliffe college, including the class of 1898, 49.7 per cent were teaching; 8.7 per cent were engaged in graduate study; .6 per cent were studying medicine; 17.5 per cent were unmarried and without professional occupation. In 1899 of 316 living graduates of Bryn Mawr college, including the class of 1899, 39.0 percent were teaching; 11.4 were engaged in graduate study; 6 per cent were engaged in executive work (including 4 deans of colleges, 3 mistresses of college halls of residence); 1.6 per cent were studying or practising medicine, and 26.6 per cent were unmarried and without professional occupation.[50]

Coeducation vs. separate education—It is clear that coeducation is the prevailing method in the United States; it is the most economical method; indeed it is the only possiblemethod in most parts of the country. Now that it has been determined in America to send girls as well as boys to college, it becomes impossible to duplicate colleges for women in every part of this vast country. If, as is shown by the statistics given in the successive reports of the commissioner of education, men students in college are increasing faster far than the ratio of the population, and women college students are increasing faster still than men,[51]it will tax all our resources to make adequate provision for men and women in common. Only in thickly-settled parts of the country, where public sentiment is conservative enough to justify the initial outlay, have separate colleges for women been established, and these colleges, without exception, have been private foundations. Public opinion in the United States almost universally demands that universities supported by public taxation should provide for the college education of the women of the state in which they are situated. The separate colleges for women speaking generally are to be found almost exclusively in the narrow strip of colonial states lying along the Atlantic seaboard. The question is often asked, whether women prefer coeducation or separate education. It seems that in the east they as yet prefer separate education, and this preference is natural.[52]College life asit is organized in a woman’s college seems to conservative parents less exposed, more in accordance with inherited traditions. Consequently, girls who in their own homes lead guarded lives, are to be found rather in women’s colleges than in coeducational colleges. From the point of view of conservative parents, there is undoubtedly serious objection to intimate association at the most impressionable period of a girl’s life with many young men from all parts of the country and of every possible social class. From every point of view it is undesirable to have the problems of love and marriage presented for decision to a young girl during the four years when she ought to devote her energies to profiting by the only systematic intellectual training she is likely to receive during her life. Then, too, for the present, much of the culture and many of the priceless associations of college life are to be obtained, whether for men or women, only by residence in college halls, and no coeducational, or even affiliated, colleges have as yet organized for their students such a complete college life as the independent woman’s college. So long as this preference, and the grounds for it, exist, we must see to it that separate colleges for women are no less good than colleges for men. In professional schools, including the graduate school of the faculty of philosophy, coeducation is even at present almost the only method. There are in the United States only 4 true graduate schools for men closed to women, and only 1 independent graduate school maintained for women offering three years’ consecutive work leading to the degree of Ph. D. There is every reason to believe that as soon as large numbers of women wish to enter upon the study of theology, law and medicine, all the professional schools now existing will become coeducational.

A modified vs. an unmodified curriculum—The progress of women’s education, as we have traced it briefly from its beginning in the coeducational college of Oberlin in 1833, and the independent woman’s college of Vassar in 1865, has been a progress in accordance with the best academic traditions of men’s education. In 1870 we could not have predictedthe course to be taken by the higher education of women; the separate colleges for women might have developed into something wholly different from what we had been familiar with so long in the separate colleges for men. A female course in coeducational colleges in which music and art were substituted for mathematics and Greek might have met the needs of the women students. After thirty years of experience, however, we are prepared to say that whatever changes may be made in future in the college curriculum will be made for men and women alike. After all, women themselves must be permitted to be the judges of what kind of intellectual discipline they find most truly serviceable. They seem to have made up their minds, and hereafter may be trusted to see to it that an inferior education shall not be offered to them in women’s colleges, or elsewhere, under the name of a modified curriculum.

Department of Educationfor theUnited States Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900DirectorHOWARD J. ROGERS, Albany, N. Y.MONOGRAPHSONEDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATESEDITED BYNICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLERProfessor of Philosophy and Education in Columbia University, New York

Department of Education

for the

United States Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900

Director

HOWARD J. ROGERS, Albany, N. Y.

MONOGRAPHS

EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES

EDITED BY

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

Professor of Philosophy and Education in Columbia University, New York

1 EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION—Andrew Sloan Draper,President of the University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois

2 KINDERGARTEN EDUCATION—Susan E. Blow,Cazenovia, New York

3 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION—William T. Harris,United States Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C.

4 SECONDARY EDUCATION—Elmer Ellsworth Brown,Professor of Education 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

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.

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.

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.

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.)

5.Antioch college opened, however, with only 8 students in its college department, all the rest, 142, belonging to its secondary school.

6.In every case I give the date when full coeducation was introduced; West Virginia, for example, admitted women to limited privileges in 1889.

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.

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.

9.The Massachusetts institute of technology is classified by the U. S. ed. reps. among technical schools.

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.

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 page28) 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.

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.

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 recitetogether in all elective work.

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.”

14.For a discussion of coeducation in schools and colleges in 1892, see U. S. education report for 1891–92, pp. 783–862.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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