Education

The question, What provision has actually been made for “ the liberal education of women ” ? is so often asked that it seems worth while to seek an answer of some definiteness and accuracy. The question adopts as an accepted and well understood term the phrase “liberal education.” The answer therefore concerns itself in no way with what such an education should or even does consist of, but employs the term in the same general sense in which it is employed with regard to men and to colleges for men. And since a liberal education is neither a professional nor a technical one, it is not to our present purpose to review the various special schools, medical schools, schools of design, etc., to which women now have access.

The narrower inquiry, How and where may women now obtain college education ? will be more practicable and more interesting.

It would be of little use, even if it were possible, to pass in review the two hundred and nine institutions reported by the National Bureau of Education as devoted to “the superior instruction of women.” A mere glance at the tables shows them to be, with nor more than three or four exceptions, academies or seminaries of the “ private adventure” type, dependent on patronage because wholly without endowment, and ranging from the poorest to the best of schools, according to the personal force and ability of the head.

Our end will be best attained by examining carefully those institutions which may be said to mark the height of the tide at this moment. It will be found not only that they mark the tide, but that each has been strongly influenced by some one of the various currents along which the speculations of the last fifteen years about social questions have been moving. From co-education in the strict interpretation of identical work, through all the varieties of elective courses, to that application of the “separate” idea that even the college faculty shall all be women, each theory finds ardent supporters. Quite as wide, also, is the difference between these institutions in their own essential plan or life, as in the theories they have embodied in regard to the education of women.

Some of them, like Colby University (Waterville, Maine) or the University of Vermont, are foundations of the old type, maintaining an independent community life of their own. To these two, young women are admitted on equal terms with young men, but of course find their homes outside the college domain.

The University of Michigan, on the other hand, has nothing of the “ dormitory system,” and bears to its members much the same relation that a day school does to its pupils. It forms a part of the public-school system of the State, according to the theory — always more numerously supported out of New England than in it — that it is the duty of the State to provide education of all grades at the public expense. That women should be admitted to the state university on equal terms with men would seem to be a logical outcome of the theory.

Oberlin College, through the shifting of centres in the development of life farther West, has long since lost its relative importance. According to the testimony of competent visitors it has materially changed its character. It no longer fairly represents co-education, but rather the working of two departments side by side. It would have no place in our list but for the fact of its having been the pioneer of the movement, and because it has presented a perfectly unique phase of college life. So far from being an independent and perhaps somewhat alien community within the town, the whole town itself was the creation of the college. They have been as intimately one as soul and body.

It is no unfair assumption in regard to all these institutions to infer that the desire to increase their number largely influenced their determination to admit women. The case stands somewhat differently with Cornell. This university was founded by private benefaction, but upon receiving the agricultural college funds it became in a sense a state institution. In 1872 a large sum was offered upon condition of the admission of women to all departments. But one answer was to be expected, and accordingly the Sage College for Women has been built and equipped. This name, it should be distinctly understood, means simply and solely a building, perhaps two, but nothing else. The authorities explicitly disavow any special provisions for women as to study or life. It has been no little disappointment that so large a sum (at least three hundred thousand dollars) should be buried in stone and mortar, but situated as the university grounds are, upon a lofty plateau above the town of Ithaca, some such arrangement for a home for young women was perhaps imperative. The only difference between young men and young women as to admission is that the latter must be at least eighteen years old.

Vassar College, from its age, the number of its students, and the amount of its funds (in buildings and all), must rank as the most considerable experiment yet made in the higher education of young women. Yet it is hardly a just exponent of the theory of separate colleges for women, for the reason that it is encumbered and hindered by the burden of a large preparatory department. No one, we believe, more fully admits the disadvantages of the present state of things than the authorities of Vassar. They frankly say, “ We have this immense establishment on our hands, with no income to meet running expenses. Unless these great buildings can be kept full, we cannot maintain ourselves. Collegiate students we want, but failing these, we must take school-girls.” Eleven years of strenuous effort have failed to free Vassar from this encumbrance. In the last catalogue there were one hundred and fifty-nine preparatory students out of a total of three hundred and eighty-four. The proportion means more than the mere numbers indicate, as to its effects upon the tone and standard of the institution. The general life of any community must be framed to meet the wants of those who will suffer most from any misfit. At Vassar the girls of fifteen and sixteen must be considered rather than the seniors of twenty-one or twentytwo. To adjust these extremes, to guard and control the younger without too much restraint and annoyance to the elder, is a problem which must absorb far too much time and care.

Three other institutions should be named, though the oldest of them has not yet graduated its first class, and the remaining two are yet in their Freshman year: —

The Boston University, as to its domestic economy, is like the University of Michigan, without the dormitory system, but otherwise is a private corporation holding trustfunds. It represents co-education fully, and it is the first instance on a large scale where the theory found a place in the original plan.

Wellesley College, at Wellesley, Massachusetts, is planned to carry the theory of separate education to the furthest limit. As it is at present organized, all instructors are to be women. Thus to double-weight the experiment would seem to be hazardous. In other respects, the plan closely resembles that of Vassar: large and costly buildings without an income from invested funds, and a large preparatory department (two hundred and thirty -five out of three hundred). “ A college in education, but a family in government,” is a pleasing compromise to meet the difficulty. No argument can so fully show how grave is that difficulty as the simple question, “ What would be the effect upon the standing of even our oldest and best colleges, if it were announced that a large preparatory department would be opened next year within the college grounds ? ”

Smith College, at Northampton, Massachusetts, is also devoted to the separate education of women. Its position in regard to Amherst makes it also practically, if not formally, the representative of one other proposition for college education, that of a hall affiliated with one of the old colleges. It has profited by the experience at Vassar. Only so much building has been done as was indispensable. The trustees have the income of half a million to devote to the college work, and they have pledged themselves to make it veritably college work. They have the good fortune to be able to wait, and to maintain their standard whether ten students or a hundred come to them. They have now a Freshman class of fifteen. It is intended to give to the life there the freedom which is impossible among school-girls. It would not be true to say that the young women live like young men, nor would it be right that they should. They do not live alike at home. What is expected is that the college life of young women shall bear the same relation to home life as that of young men.

Boston University, and Wellesley and Smith Colleges are, it must be admitted, as yet but promises, but they are not the less to be ranked among the opportunities for women. More than that, the requirements for admission to them will aid us materially in the questions as to the existing standard of liberal education for women. So far we have spoken only of place and plan. We have now to make, if possible some estimate of the kind and quality of work, through simple comparative statements. Requirements for admission are not an absolute test of the quality of work done in a college, but they have long been accepted as a means of comparison. They are used here in the same sense and within the same limits as they would be to compare Harvard and Trinity, or Yale and Amherst.

For the convenience of using a wellknown standard, we may take that known as Course I. at Harvard. It serves our purpose better than Course II., because, with the rarest exceptions, women do not choose the severer mathematical courses. It may be said in one word that Harvard requires somewhat more in general elementary subjects than any of the institutions on our list. Harvard, Michigan, Cornell, Vassar, and Wellesley require a knowledge of algebra through quadratic equations; Boston and Smith to quadratics only. In geometry, Michigan stands between the two courses of Harvard. Course I. requires “elementary plain geometry” The others follow thus: Wellesley and Cornell, about the same as Harvard ; Boston four books, Vassar three, Smith two. For Latin and Greek we submit the following table, which presupposes, for all, the necessary study of grammar. Of Vassar it should be added that Greek is on the list as an elective with French or German.

LATIN.

GREEK.

A complete estimate of the college work would require this comparison to be carried on through the studies of each year of the course. This is impossible for two reasons: first, that the system of electives now adopted in all colleges makes very wide differences in kind of study after the Freshman year; and second, that under that system individual preference and individual power and force will so largely alter the result as to make all averages fallacious. The common conclusion is no doubt correct, that, considering the work of ordinary students (not the genius nor the dullard), those colleges must stand first which unwaveringly and sincerely insist upon the largest requirements for admission.

Our readers will be no doubt as reluctant as ourselves to admit the moderateness of these demands for preparation. It must be confessed that the young women now pursuing college education are not by any means up to what we in New England have learned to call the highest. It should, however, be carefully noticed that these conclusions are only general ones, and they should be used only as general arguments. It does not prove that a woman graduating from Cornell or Smith may not have a mind of greater power than any man graduating after the most difficult and arduous study, but it does show what is now expected of young women going to college. And two things prove that it is for the present the best that can be expected. First, no one of the colleges is full, or anything like it; and second, all of them say more or less explicitly that the standard will be raised as soon and as far as possible.

There is also, in regard to numbers, or so far as numbers go, something of disappointment— a disappointment deepened perhaps by the contrast with the anticipations of fifteen or even ten years ago. In the first agitation of the question, the demand was simply, “ Do justice to women; open the colleges, and you shall see them crowded.” To cooler heads there were certain a priori arguments against the conclusion, but in the clamor of the debate they stood no chance of a hearing.

Unquestionably, when Matthew Vassar endowed the college at Poughkeepsie, in the hope of being “ the instrument in the hands of Providence of founding and perpetuating an institution which shall accomplish for young women what our colleges are accomplishing for young men,” he believed that the largest provision that could be made for students would be none too much. The men of two generations ago would not have been more incredulous of the possibility of colleges for women than the trustees of Vassar would have been incredulous had they been told, in 1861, that at the end of fifteen years the college would still be unable to sustain itself without the aid (or the encumbrance) of a preparatory department numbering nearly forty-two per cent. of all the students within the college.

No question of like importance and interest has ever changed its ground so completely in so short a time. The “ Wanted, a liberal education for women ” of ten years ago becomes to-day “ Wanted, young women upon whom to bestow a liberal education.”

It is idle to say that if the highest standard were offered, young women would come forward. In the Strong rivalries now existing between the colleges, that would have been done long ago, if it had been worth while. Michigan and Cornell and Smith would do it to-morrow if it were of any use. At Cornell, the great Sage College is ready for one hundred and forty students, but there are in all departments of the university but forty-three young women. Smith could muster but fifteen for its Freshman class. Wellesley, without Greek, found but sixty-five for college students. At Michigan, in the whole undergraduate department there are but fifty-seven, and only twenty-five of these take the classical course. At Cornell there are but ten, and in the course requiring no Greek, only twelve. (These numbers are taken from the last catalogue.) For 1875, there were, in the College of Liberal Arts of Boston University, sixteen.

We need hardly count in a review of “liberal education” those medical schools, etc., which only demand “ a good English education” for admission.

Such a résumé may be discouraging to the enthusiasts of ten years ago, who resolutely closed their eyes to all but their own hopeful visions. That there are to-day but a hundred students where a thousand would be welcome by no means proves that the attempt for the liberal education of women is a failure. He who interprets it thus reads the Story only in the light of his own disappointment, or chafes in his impatience at finding that what he deemed only a sudden leap to a higher plane is a long and toilsome upward march. Still less will he render a just verdict who, mistaking the first stage of the movement for its last result, insists that because only the hundred come to-day, the thousand never will. The oversanguine hope and the too-persistent doubt are alike wide of the truth.

It is almost a truism that all social progress is on parallel lines. There can be no great development in the education of women without corresponding opportunities for using it. To answer the question, “ What shall we do with our girls ? ” at eighteen, by the reply, “ Send them to college,” only postpones it to return at twenty-two in the more emphatic form, “ What shall these young women do ? ” The answer to the question can be inferred by putting another: “What would be the effect upon the colleges generally, if there were no greater number of special uses for college education by men than there now are for women ? ”

We have not space to follow out the argument, but whoever does will soon see plainly that until the future possibilities of life set the same premium upon college education for women which they now do for men, it is vain to expect that women in great numbers will have the firmness and the patience to overcome the hindrances, far greater than for men, which he in their way.

There is another phase of the matter which merits attention. So long as the young women in college are pioneers in the work, there is a certain isolation which repels. There is a necessity, too, for a kind of mental armor against various contingencies, and though it is as likely to take the form of shyness and self-depreciation as of bravado, natures of finer grain are apt to shrink from it, unless impelled by an absorbing enthusiasm. Extreme theorists on the subject will scout the suggestion, but it is not to be lightly regarded.

The inability to meet expenses is of course a potent reason why so few women are yet in college. This is, however, only another form of the difficulty which we have stated as want of future opportunity. Whether this generation or the next will see the solution of the questions about occupation and remuneration may be doubted, but it is clearly the duty to-day of all friends of the higher education of women to unite their efforts to bring about two results. First, that we enter on no new experiments. Each theory is sufficiently on trial: let there be no further division of interests. Let it be said clearly enough and emphatically enough to reach the ear of every man or woman with a dollar to spare or to bequeath. Found no more new colleges. Choose the best, or the nearest to you, of those we now have, and help that. The second is only the closer application of the first. Spend no more in walls and roofs. Give life, the living soul, to the colleges in professors and in students. Scholarships for women in any of the colleges we have named will be filled as fast as they are founded. The expense varies from about three hundred and fifty dollars at Michigan or Boston to five hundred and fifty at Vassar. Tuition at Michigan is of course free to students from that State. The large number of state scholarships at Cornell pays for the tuition there, but they are of course limited to New York students. Tuition at Boston or Smith is remitted to all needing such help, so that the amount of help required by a student at any one of these places need not be much above half the cost of living. We place it thus low, for it is agreed by all who have had experience in the matter that better material is obtained by offering less than the whole expense. Really promising students are sure enough to obtain something from their own exertions or from friends. It is the second hundred that they need, not the first.

We specify scholarships because it is allimportant that the aid be permanent. It ought to be in view of the student for years before she reaches it. If we may reason from the experience of Harvard as to the perennial good of this form of charity (witness the Pennoyer Scholarships), three thousand dollars entrusted to any one of these colleges will make possible the college education of one woman every four years for the next century. Nor are we thinking only of the personal gain of these students. No power so strong could be brought to bear upon the standard of the colleges, as the gift of a large number of scholarships, for nothing will so soon bring to the colleges themselves the ablest young women. We can think of no form of benevolence more attractive to ladies of wealth than this, for if but the half that is said of the power of an educated woman be true, nothing can so surely elevate the whole sex as the pursuit of liberal studies.