II.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN THE EASTERN STATES.

BY

MARY F. EASTMAN.

The movement in behalf of the education of youth in America followed so closely upon the landing of the colonists on an unsettled and forbidding coast, and was continued so persistently and so successfully, under stress of poverty and peril, that it seizes upon the imagination, and justly stirs a profound sense of gratitude in succeeding generations.

That in its inception, and for a long period, it was but a partial, in fact, but a half movement, after all, appears only in the light of a later day; which, indeed, it had helped to kindle,—when the words, “children,” “youth,” and “people” began to take a wider significance.

The men who gathered in the cabin of the “Mayflower” in 1620, and framed a compact that every man in the colony should have an equal share in the government, soon assembled to promote the general welfare by encouraging industry in the young.

In 1642, the General Court of Mass. Bay Colony charged itself with “taking account, from time to time, of all parents and masters concerning the calling and employment of their children, especially of their ability to read and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of this country.”

In 1647, says the record, “It being one cheife piect of yt ould deluder Satan to keepe men from the knowledge of ye Scriptures ... by psuading them from ye use of tongues, that so at least ye true sense and meaning of ye originall might be clouded ... and that learning may not be buried in ye graves of our fathers.... It is therefore ordered tht evry township in this jurisdiction, after ye Lord hath increased ym to ye number of 50 householders, shall therforthwth appoint one to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid eithr by ye parents or mastr, or by ye inhabitants in generall.... It is ordered yt where any towns shall increase to ye number of 100 familis or householders, they shall set up a gramer schoole, ye mr thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for ye university.” A penalty of £5 was fixed for violation of this order.

As early as in 1636, the Court “agreed to give £400 toward a school or college,” to which, in 1638, John Harvard left, by will, half his property and his library. In 1642, the Court gave to the college “the revenue of the ferry from Charlestown to Boston.”

1644, “It is ordered vt ye deputies shall command it to ye severall towns (and ye elders are to be desired to give their furtherance hereto)” ... that “Evry family alow one peck of corne, or 12d. in money or other commodity to be sent in to ye Treasurer, for the colledge at Cambridge.”

1650, voted that, “Whereas, through the good hand of God, many have been stirred to give for the advancement of all good literature, arts, and sciences in Harvard Colledge—and for all other necessary pvsions that may conduce to the education of ye English and Indian youth of this country in knowledge and godlynes, ordered—tht a corporation be formed, consisting of seauen psons.”

Revenues of the college and of the president to the extent of 500 were exempt from taxation, while special exemptions from rates, and military and civil duties, were made to officers, fellows, scholars, and even the servants of the college.

This oldest college of the country was, as thus appears, the child of the State, and while it was the recipient of private benefactions, drew its sustenance, substantially, from the labors of the people.

1683, voted that, “Every towne consisting of more than five hundred families shall set up and maintayne two grammar schools, and two wrighting scholes to instruct youth as the law directs.”

So cordial was the interest felt in education among the colonists, that many towns had established free schools before it was required.

Within a year of the founding of Boston, in 1635, the citizens in town meeting assembled, voted to call a schoolmaster, and “Philemon Purmont was engaged to teach the children.” Dorchester, Naumkeag (now Salem), Cambridge, Roxbury, and other towns soon took the same course. Salem established a grammar school as early as 1637. Thus, within twenty years from the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, the foundation of the free-school system may be said to have been laid. It was frequently stipulated in the action of town meetings, that the poor should be provided for, and in Boston, at least, Indian children were freely taught. But in the provisions for “free schools,” “schools for the people,” and the “children,” it is not to be understood that girls were included. The broad terms used in the acts of the colonies and the votes of town meetings might mislead, in this respect, if history did not record the periods, long subsequent, when girls were admitted even to the “free schools” under restrictions, usually with great opposition.

This long hiatus, during which girls went, practically, without free-school opportunities, picking up what they might at home, or by aid of the parish minister, was about a century and a half long, though in 1771, Hartford, Conn., opened its common schools to every child, and taught even the girls reading, writing, spelling, and the catechism, and, rarely, how to add. The boys, meantime, studied the first four rules of arithmetic.

The hiatus between the foundation for the college for boys and even the seminary, or the academy, for girls, extended over a long century and a half; and that between colleges for males and those for females was, in Massachusetts, two hundred and thirty-two years long. A prime motive to the encouragement of education in America was that the Scriptures might be properly interpreted. This appears in the preamble to the vote of 1647 establishing schools, which were necessary as tributary to the college, and in the motive which led to the foundation of Harvard and of Yale, “the dread of having an illiterate ministry to the churches when our ministers shall lie in dust.”

It has been noted by Charles Francis Adams that “the records of Harvard University show that of all the presiding officers, during the century and a half of colonial days, but two were laymen, and not ministers of the prevailing denomination; and that of all who in the early times availed themselves of such advantages as this institution could offer, nearly half the number did so for the sake of devoting themselves to the service of the gospel. But,” he continues, “the prevailing notion of the purpose of education was attended with one remarkable consequence,—the cultivation of the female mind was regarded with utter indifference; as Mrs. Abigail Adams says in one of her letters, ‘it was fashionable to ridicule female learning.’”

This discrimination between the intellectual needs of the two sexes should not, perhaps, be matter of surprise, when we consider that the English system of public schools for boys, extending from the “Winchester School” to “Rugby,” had been in existence for two centuries, and that of the six hundred who first landed on the coast of Massachusetts, one in thirty was a graduate from the English University of Cambridge, while both the men and the women were heirs to the prevailing sentiment of disrespect for womanly intelligence and education, which marked the demoralization of the reign of the Stuarts in England.

The time of Queen Elizabeth has passed, in which the noble Lady Jane Grey, being asked by Sir Roger Ascham why she lingered to read Plato in Greek while the lords and ladies of the Court were pleasuring in the park, replied, “I wist all their sport in the park is but a shadow to the pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure meaneth.”

Lady Mary Wortley Montague truly portrayed the time, when she wrote, early in the eighteenth century: “We are permitted no books but such as tend to the weakening and effeminating our minds. We are taught to place all our art in adorning our persons, while our minds are entirely neglected.”

It might have been expected that the religious zeal which brought these earnest New England pilgrims to a strange, wild country, would hold in check any tendency to undue display, especially when supplemented by the severe restrictions of their domestic life, which were relieved only by compulsory attendance on protracted services, held in unwarmed churches, to listen to metaphysical sermons on foreordination, reprobation, and infant damnation, and to prayers an hour long.

Yet it appears that while no provision was made for their instruction, they were sometimes arraigned for wearing “wide sleeves, lace tiffany, and such things,” while “those given to scolding were condemned to sit publicly, with their tongues held in cleft sticks, or were thrice dipped from a ducking-stool.”

It would have been better, perhaps, that their tongues had been trained by instruction to becoming speech, or that they had been permitted to drink at the fountain of learning.

Sentiment in favor of the practical skill of women seems not to have been wanting. They cooked and washed, and the law required them to spin and gather flax, and on one notable occasion women exhibited their skill at the spinning wheel, publicly, on Boston Common. As soon as they could get around to it they no doubt matched the skill of their English kindred whom Hollingshed described a half century earlier. He says, “The females knit or net the nets for sportsmen:

“‘Fine ferne stitch, finny stitch, new stitch, and chain stitch, Brave broad stitch, fischer stitch, Irish stitch, and queen stitch, The Spanish stitch, rosemary stitch and mowse stitch; All these are good, and these we must allow, And these are everywhere in practice now.’”

Aside from their belief in the primary importance of religious training, it may be conceded that the men of colonial times did not lack the sagacity which led Charlemagne in the eighth century to require that the children of those who were to participate in the government should be educated, “in order that intelligence might rule the Empire.” The application of this principle in his limited empire opened education to the ruling class; in America it opened it to the ruling sex.

How small were the opportunities for instruction, outside the free schools, may be known from the fact that the committee for supervising them enjoined upon the selectmen to take care that no person should open a private school except upon their recommendation.

In 1656 a Mr. Jones having opened a private school was visited by the magistrates, who exacted a promise from him to give up the school at the close of the winter term. Apparently he was reluctant in so doing, for it is recorded that the next spring Mr. Jones was sent for by the selectmen “for keeping a Schoole, and required to perform his promise to the Towne in the Winter, to remove himselfe and familye in the Springe, and forbiden to keep Schoole any longer.”

The first opportunities for girls in the colonies were in the “Dame-School,” in which some woman was hired to gather the little children about her knee to teach them their letters from the New England Primer. They were required to commit to memory the shorter catechism, and sometimes were taught to read enough to decipher it for themselves, from the last pages of their only book, the famous Primer. Training in manners was made of prime importance.

In some cases, as is reported, old women who were a town charge were set to this useful employment. Sometimes these “dames” were housewives, in which case two frequently alternated in caring for the children. In this way, according to the town records of Woburn, in 1635, “Joseph Wright’s wife and Allen Converse’s wife were able to divide between them £0. 10s. 0d., for a year’s work.” It is to be inferred that the acquirements of these mistresses were limited, as the next year, October, 1674, the town “agreed with Jonathan Tomson to tech bigger children and Allen Converse’s wife to teach leser children.”

In the old graveyard in Cambridge, opposite Harvard College, it is recorded that Mrs. Murray died 1707, aged sixty-two years. The title “Mrs.” was honorary, as she was unmarried. This betokens the esteem in which she was held, as does the following inscription upon her tombstone:

“This good school dame No longer school must keep, Which gives us cause For children’s sake to weep.”

Later, especially in the old seaport towns, the children’s schools, for girls as well as for boys, were frequently in the hands of women of much refinement. Of such, Miss Hetty Higginson, of Salem, was famous as an instructor about 1782. The record says that, “being asked what she taught, she laughingly replied, ‘ethics,’ yet to a superficial observer it might seem that she taught nothing. Her manners were courtly, and her conversation was replete with dignity, kind feeling, and sound sense.”

Some improvement upon this state of education, or want of education rather, gradually crept in; whether because of the need of teachers for the boys, which had come to be felt, or because in the home there was much early association of the child with the mother, and so some education on her part might prove indirectly advantageous, or whether there was some dawning consideration of her own personal needs, it is impossible to determine. Perhaps there was difficulty in withholding other books from the girl after she could read the catechism, or, later, in drawing a sharp line between the acquisition of the first and the second rule in arithmetic.

Suffice it that by the close of the eighteenth century, most towns in New England had made some slight provisions for educating girls; how slight, almost any early town history will show.

The rate of progress in a thriving Massachusetts town, Newburyport, is given in Smith’s History, as follows: “... When speaking of schools we must be understood as referring to boys’ schools only.” So far as education of females by the town was concerned they were sadly deficient. As late as 1790, a proposition to provide schools for girls was put aside without action, by the town, and deferred for another year, and when they did set about the work it is curious to note of how little consequence they considered it as compared with the provision to be made for boys.

At first three or four schools were suggested for girls between five and nine years of age, which were “to be furnished with dames to learn them good manners and proper decency of behavior.” These were the essentials, but in addition they were to be taught “spelling and reading sufficient to read the Bible, and, if the parents desired it, needlework and knitting.”... The sessions of the school were to be from April to October.... But a later petition being presented to the town, that some arrangement might be made for the instruction of girls over nine years of age, the town graciously voted, March, 1792, that “during the summer months, when the boys in the school had diminished, the master shall receive girls for instruction in grammar and reading, after the dismission of the boys, for an hour and a half.”

Even to this poor privilege there were limitations. No person paying a tax of over three hundred pounds was permitted to send his daughters to these supplementary schools. But the scheme for the larger girls did not work well for the boys, so the masters were directed “not to teach females again.”

As late as 1804 we find the female children, over nine years of age, as great a burden on the hands of the school committee of the town as ever. In answer to another petition, of eleven persons, that this class of girls might be taught, by the town, arithmetic and writing, four girls’ “schools were established, to be kept six months in the year, from six to eight o’clock in the morning, and on Thursday afternoons.” So that, in addition to their other accomplishments, they were in a fair way of being taught early rising.

It was not until 1836 that the school committee decreed “that one female grammar school be kept through the year.” This is probably the time of which it is recorded “that, when a school was started for girls in Newburyport, a taxpayer objected to it, and applied for an injunction, bringing out Judge Shaw’s celebrated opinion on that point.” (Cushing _vs._ Newburyport.)

In 1788 the town of Northampton voted “not to be at any expense for schooling girls.” Upon an appeal to the courts the town was indicted and fined for its neglect. In 1792 it voted “to admit girls, between eight and fifteen, to the schools from May 1 to October 31.”

Within the memory of a recent resident of Hatfield, an influential citizen, whose children were girls, appealed in townmeeting for the privilege of sending them to the public school, which he helped by his taxes to support. An indignant fellow townsman sprang to his feet and exclaimed, “Hatfield school _shes_? Never!”

The gentleman who narrated this fact lived to witness, also, the foundation and endowment of a college for girls at Northampton by Miss Smith of Hatfield, one of the sex, and probably one of the girls contemptuously forbidden a common-school education.

For a long time after summer schools were provided for girls, in many of the New England towns they were not supported, by a general tax, as were the winter schools for boys, but by tuition fees.

Josiah Quincy, in his “Municipal History of Boston,” says “After the peace of 1783, a committee on schools ‘laments that so many children should be found in the streets, playing and gaming in school hours.’” There seems as yet to be no search for girls who are losing school advantages.

In 1789 great educational advance was made in Boston. A system was adopted which provided “a ‘Latin School’ for fitting boys of ten years old and over, by a four years’ course, including Greek and Latin, for the University; also three reading and writing schools.”

Boys had the right to attend these all the year round; girls from the twentieth of April to the twentieth of October. This was the first admission of girls to the “free schools.”

Provision was made this year that “arithmetic, orthography, and the English language shall be taught, in addition to reading and writing.” It is to be hoped that this applied to the summer sessions, open to girls, as well as to the all-the-year-round sessions for boys.

When, however, early in the nineteenth century, arithmetic and geography were generally added to the courses of studies in schools, it was only for the winter months, such knowledge being thought quite unnecessary for girls. “All a girl needs to know is enough to reckon how much she will have to spin to buy a peck of potatoes, in case she becomes a widow,” was the repulse of a too ambitious girl in the early part of this century.

An old lady, sitting beside the present writer, well remembers that in her youth, having outreached the prescribed limits of the girl’s class in arithmetic, she grappled alone with the mysteries of “interest.” Meeting some difficulty she appealed to her older brother, who had been duly instructed. His scornful reply was, “I am ashamed of a girl who wants to study ‘interest’!”

The need of more teachers led gradually to the employment of women in “those schools where, besides morals, the only requirements were reading, sewing, and writing if contracted for.”

In the law of 1789 the expression “master and mistress” makes recognition of women as teachers for the first time. Hitherto women so employed could not legally collect their wages; the receipt of their dues depended upon the honor of their employers.

This act of justice may have been the more appreciated as the wages of female teachers were evidently on a rising scale. Something less than a half century after Mistresses Wright and Converse had shared their year’s income of ten shillings, the following vote, passed in the town meeting of Lexington, shows an increased estimate of women’s services:

“At a meeting of the inhabitants, July 21, 1717, they agreed that Clerk Lawrence’s wife and Ephraim Winship’s wife keep school from ye day of ye date hereof until ye last day of October next following; and if they have not scholars sufficient as to numbers to amount to five shillings a week, at three pence a scholar a week, then ye towne to make up what is wanted of ye five shillings out of the treasury thereof; provided ye selectmen do not see cause to demolish sd schole before sd term be expired.”

Probably no deductions from the above specified wages were necessary for living expenses, which these mistresses of households may be supposed to have earned in their duties at home. When, in the course of the succeeding century, wages increased to seventy-five cents or even to a dollar a week, the teacher was expected to “board around,” though sometimes her board in one place was paid for from public funds. In the latter case, in many New England towns, the privilege of boarding the teacher, like that of boarding town paupers, was put up for public competition, and was struck off to the lowest bidder.

Up to 1828 girls did not go to the public schools in Rhode Island.

Antedating the earliest records here transcribed is the claim made that the first free school in America was made in Virginia in 1621. If so it struck no root, for, in 1671, Bishop Berkely, Governor of Virginia, wrote, “I thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years.” It was one hundred and seven years later, in 1778, that Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill in the Virginia legislature, designed to establish a system of public schools in that State, arguing that “the greatest sacrifice the people of the republic can make will fail to secure civil liberty to their posterity unless they provide for the education of youth.”

In the Dutch settlement of Manhattan a movement for schools was made which proved more successful than in Virginia, as befitted its source in the Netherlands, where, since the sixteenth century, “the fruitfulness of a wise and state-administered system of universal education” had been illustrated.

In 1630, the States-General of Holland issued orders to the Dutch East India Company in Manhattan to maintain a clergyman and a schoolmaster, and in 1633 arrived Adam Roelandsen, and the first school-tax ever levied in America was imposed on each householder and inhabitant. So Brooklyn had the first free public school in the United States. Until 1808, this school was in charge of the local congregation of the Dutch Reformed church; then a board of trustees was appointed. This school still continues.

In 1658, the Burgomasters petitioned for a fit person as Latin schoolmaster. This was granted, and so the first classical school was instituted.

Since it is time that the day of jubilation and self-gratulation should be over in America, and that the day of sober, earnest study of educational work should come in, it is not the part of wisdom to forget that the free school system did not originate in America. In an address to magistrates, in 1524, Luther urged that they should “at least provide the poor suffering youth with a schoolmaster”: and what “youth” meant to Luther appears in his plea that “solely with a view to the present, it would be sufficient reason for the best schools, both for boys and girls, that the world, merely to maintain outward prosperity, has need of shrewd and accomplished men and women.”

In Manhattan, the successor of Adam Roelandsen found time, outside his duties as teacher, to act as “gravedigger, bellringer, and precentor”; but if in place of these extra-official duties, the colonists had so profited by the wisdom of Luther as to cause him to take time for the instruction of girls, we may well believe that it would have changed the history of education in America.

Mr. Richard G. Boone reminds us, in his valuable work on “Education in the United States,” that “Charles and Gustavus Adolphus did for Sweden and their generations what America, with all her achievements, has failed to do since; they made education so common that in the year 1637, the year of the founding of Harvard, not a single peasant child was unable to read and write.”

There is pathetic contrast too, if it be fair to draw it, in the fact that while the colonial fathers were barricading the doors of the little schoolhouses against girls, so that a large part of the wills which women made in that period were signed with a cross, and even many wives of distinguished men could not sign their names, as appears by the registered deeds of the time, an Italian woman, Elena Lucrezia Coronaro, “poet, musician, astronomer, mathematician, and linguist,” received a Dr.’s degree at the university of Padua, and Novela d’Andrea, who was both learned and beautiful, occasionally lectured for her father, who was a law professor in the University of Bologna. To be sure, this was in line with a tradition in Italy for which England herself could furnish no parallel.

In that ancient seat of learning, Bologna University, which produced the most famous jurisconsults of the middle ages, women had been for centuries both students and professors.

Bettisia Gozzidina, LL.D., filled the juridical chair from 1239 till her death in 1249; Catalina and Novella Calderini lectured on law a century later; and in succeeding centuries other women became renowned in various departments, including mathematics and anatomical research.

To fill the pages of two centuries, blank, in America, as to female education beyond the merest rudiments of learning, let Abigail, wife of President John Adams, who was descended from the most illustrious colonial families, the Shepards, Nortons, and Quincys, sketch for us the intellectual opportunities for girls of her own rank in her time. Born in 1744, she wrote, in 1817, when past threescore and ten:

“The only chance for much intellectual improvement in the female sex was to be found in the families of the educated class, and in occasional intercourse with the learned of the day. Whatever of useful instruction was received in the practical conduct of life came from maternal lips: and what of farther mental development, depended more upon the eagerness with which the casual teachings of daily conversation were treasured up, than upon any labor expended purposely to promote it. Female education in the best families went no farther than writing and arithmetic, and, in some few and rare instances, music and dancing.”

Although at this time the number of post-offices in the country probably did not exceed half a hundred, Mrs. Adams notes a great letter-writing propensity in her circle. “These letters deserve notice,” says her biographer, “only as they furnish a general idea of the tastes and pursuits of the day, and show the evident influence upon the writers which study of “The Spectator” and of the poets had exerted.” This appears in the train of thought and structure of language, as in trifles of taste for quotation, and for fictitious signatures. “Calliope” and “Myra,” “Aspasia” and “Aurelia,” have effectually disguised their true names from the eyes of younger generations. Miss Smith’s signature appears to have been “Diana,” a name which she dropped after her marriage, without losing the fancy that prompted its selection.

Her letters written during the Revolution show clearly enough the tendency of her own thoughts and feelings in the substitute she then adopted of “Portia.”

The young ladies of Massachusetts, in the last century, were certainly readers even though only self-taught, and their taste was not for the feeble and nerveless sentiment or the frantic passion of our day, but was derived from the deepest wells of English literature. The superb flowering of native mental gifts in many women of the last part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries, under so slight stimulus of educational advantage, would almost force upon us the theory of Descartes, that “in order to improve the mind we ought less to learn than to contemplate”; and lead us to accept the dictum of Huxley, that “all the time we are using our plain common sense we are at once scientists and artists.”

Rev. William Woodbridge, a descendant of Rev. Jonathan Edwards, and for fifty years an honored educator, wrote, in the latter part of his life, to a correspondent: “You inquire how so many of the females of New England, during the latter part of the last century, acquired that firmness, and energy, and excellence of character for which they have been so justly distinguished, while the advantages of school education were so limited. The only answer is that it is not the amount of knowledge, but the nature of the knowledge, and, still more, the manner in which it is used to form character. Natural logic, the self-taught art of thinking, was the guard and guide of the female mind. The first of Watts’s five methods of internal improvement, ‘The attentive notice of every instructive fact and occurrence,’ was exemplified in practice. Newspapers were taken in a few families; books were scarce but freely lent; the Scriptures were much read; and, as for time, ‘where there is a will there is a way.’”

Since the women of that day left almost no record of their thought in print, the biography of Mrs. Adams, already quoted, may be called upon to illustrate the intellectual and moral characteristics attributed to them. Among the New England women of the early part of this century who are still remembered by the present generation, there was a noteworthy number who, in vigor of intellect and strength of character, might truly be called her peers.

While Mr. Adams was in Europe (from 1780) as Commissioner from the United States, Mrs. Adams was managing the family property, at a time of depreciation of paper money. Speaking of this period Mr. Charles Francis Adams says: “Her letters are remarkable because they display the readiness with which she could devote herself to the most opposite duties, and the cheerful manner in which she could accommodate herself to the difficulties of the times. She is a farmer, cultivating the land and discussing the weather and crops; a merchant, reporting prices current and the rates of exchange, and directing the making up of invoices; a politician, speculating upon the probabilities of peace or war, and a mother, writing the most exalted sentiments to her son. All of these pursuits she adopts together; some from choice, the rest from the necessity of the case; and in all she appears equally well.”

The complete sympathy of interest between Mrs. Adams and her distinguished husband in “seeking for political truth in its fundamental principles,” as Mr. Adams is said to have done, appears in her letters, and it may be questioned whether, barring the consideration of sex, the term “statesmanlike” might not apply to the views of both.

Just a month before the resolution declaring the independence of the colonies was offered in the Continental Congress by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia and seconded by John Adams of Massachusetts Mrs. Adams wrote to her husband, under date of May 7, 1776.

“I believe ’tis nearly ten days since I wrote you a line. I have not felt in a humor to entertain you. If I had taken up my pen, perhaps some unbecoming invective might have fallen from it. The eyes of our rulers have been closed and a lethargy has seized almost every member. I fear a fatal security has taken possession of them. While the building is in flames they tremble at the expense of water to quench it. In short, two months have elapsed since the evacuation of Boston, and very little has been done in that time to secure it, or the harbor, from future invasion. The people are all in a flame, and no one among us, that I have heard of, even mentions expense. They think, universally, that there has been an amazing neglect somewhere.

“’Tis a maxim of state that ‘power and liberty are like heat and moisture; where they are well mixed everything prospers; where they are single they are destructive!’

“A government of more stability is much wanted in this colony, and they are ready to receive it at the hands of Congress.

“And since I have begun with maxims of state, I will add another, namely, that a people may let a king fall yet still remain a people; but if a king let his people slip from him he is no longer a king. And as this is most certainly our case, why not proclaim to the world, in decisive terms, your own importance? Shall we not be despised by foreign powers for hesitating so long at a word?”

To this Mr. Adams replied:

“PHILADELPHIA, _May 27, 1776_.

“I think you shine as a statesman, of late, as well as a farmeress. Pray where do you get your maxims of state? They are very apropos.”

All history shows how long the conception of a plan, in some acute mind, precedes the popular impulse toward it. The fertile mind of Daniel De Foe, in an “Essay on Projects,” published in 1699, suggests the plan of an Academy of Music, with hints for cheap Sunday concerts, an Academy for Military Science and Practice, and an Academy for Women.

This is the earliest project for a school of this grade, for women, and remained the only one for more than a century in England. In America, from the middle of the eighteenth century, academies were established in many towns where the law requiring instruction to fit boys for the university did not apply. Some of these opened their doors to girls, and, in a few instances, seminaries and academies for young ladies were founded, and, once inaugurated, they multiplied with constantly accelerating speed. A contemporary of these events, writing as “Senex” in “The American Journal of Education,” says: “When at length academies were opened for female improvement in the higher branches, a general excitement appeared in parents, and an emulation in daughters to attend them. The love of reading and habits of application became fashionable.”

There appear, from the first, to have been no discouragements from lack of mental capacity on the part of girls, even in the academies where they were instructed with boys.

The “Moravian Brethren” have the honor of founding the first private institution in America designed to give girls better advantages than the common schools. A female seminary was opened by them in Bethlehem, Pa., in 1749. Its service went beyond its own work, for Rev. Mr. Woodbridge records that “after the success of the Moravians in female education, the attention of gentlemen of reputation and influence was turned to the subject. Dr. Morgan, Dr. Rush,—the great advocate of education,—with others, instituted an academy for females in Philadelphia. Their attention and influence and care were successful, and from them sprang all the subsequent and celebrated schools in that city.”

It is presumed that it was of the “Philadelphia Female Academy,” which held commencement exercises from as early as 1794, that Mr. Woodbridge says, “In 1780, in Philadelphia, for the first time in my life, I heard a class of young ladies parse English.”

The “Penn Charter School” has a long and honorable record and has admitted girls for more than a century.

The Penn Charter School was founded in Philadelphia in 1697 as a public school, and has been carried on down to the present day under three charters granted by William Penn in the years 1701, 1708, 1711. These make provision, at the cost of the people called Quakers, for “all Children and Servants, Male and Female ... the rich to be instructed at reasonable rates, the poor to be maintained and schooled for nothing.” Provision is made in the charters for instruction of both sexes in “reading, writing, work, languages, arts, and sciences.”

The foundation laid is broad enough for a university for the people. As a matter of fact the girls and boys have always been educated separately, and the curriculum of the girls’ school has always been less advanced than that of the boys. The Latin school has not been opened to them, nor, it is believed, have the ancient languages been taught them.

In 1795, “Poor’s Academy for Young Ladies” became “a place of proud distinction to finished females.”

The earliest academy for girls in New England was founded in 1763, at Byfield, Mass., by bequest of William Dummer, whose name it took. In 1784, Leicester Academy, open to both sexes, was incorporated.

In the same year the “Friends” established a school which offered the higher education to girls at Providence, R. I. This has been of high repute down to the present day.

In the same city we find, in 1797, the advertisement of a gentleman who “will conduct a morning school for young ladies in reading, writing, and arithmetic,” and in 1808 Miss Brenton, at South Kingston, R. I., offers instruction which will include “epistolary style, as well as temple work, paper work, fringing, and netting.”

In 1785 Dr. Dwight founded a Young Ladies’ Seminary at Greenfield, Conn.

About 1787, Mr. Caleb Brigham, a noted teacher, opened a school for girls in Boston. This has been spoken of as “the most vigorous and systematic experiment hitherto made, and the most systematically antagonized.” Upon opening, however, the school was immediately filled. The supply created a demand. More sought admission than could be accommodated. With the selectmen’s daughters in school female education was becoming popular.

In 1789 a female academy was opened in Medford, the first establishment of the kind in New England. This was the resort of scholars from all the Eastern States.

We get here and there, proof of the espionage exercised over young women in those days.

Mrs. Rawson was a distinguished teacher who established a boarding-school for girls. The town voted, May 12, 1800, that the second and third seats in the women’s side of the gallery of the meeting-house be allowed for Mrs. Rawson, for herself and scholars; and that she be allowed to put doors and locks on them.

In 1791–92 the Maine Legislature incorporated academies at Berwick, Hallowell, Fryeburg, Westminster, and East Machias.

In 1792 Westford (Mass.) Academy was organized. It offered a very extensive programme. The body of rules and laws for governance provides that “the English, Latin, and Greek languages, together with writing, arithmetic, and the art of speaking shall be taught, and, if desired, practical geometry, logic, geography, and music; that the said school shall be free to any nation, age, or sex, provided that no one shall be admitted unless able to read in the Bible readily without spelling.”

The impulse which single individuals often give to progress had its exemplification in this awakening period.

Two students of Yale College, during a long vacation after the British troops invaded New Haven, had each a class of young ladies for the term of one quarter. One of these students, well known later as the Rev. William Woodbridge, and before quoted here, during his senior year in college, in 1779, kept a young ladies’ school in New Haven, consisting of about twenty-five scholars, in which he taught grammar, geography, composition, and the elements of rhetoric, and the success of this school led to the establishment of others elsewhere.

Mr. Woodbridge, on graduating, took for the subject of his thesis, “Improvement in Female Education.” It would be interesting to know whether the school of Mr. Woodbridge led, as seems probable, to the following curious bit of history.

From Yale College, or from as near to it as a girl could get, issued, in 1783, the following attested certificate:

“BE IT KNOWN to you that I have examined Miss Lucinda Foote, twelve years old, and have found that in the learned languages, the Latin and the Greek, she has made commendable progress, giving the true meaning of passages in the Æneid of Virgil, the select orations of Cicero, and in the Greek testament, and that she is fully qualified, except in regard to sex, to be received as a pupil of the Freshman Class of Yale University.

“Given in the College Library, the 22d of December, 1783.

“EZRA STILES, _President_.”

Miss Foote afterwards pursued a full course of college studies and Hebrew, under President Stiles. She then married and had ten children.

Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College, traveled in 1803 through New England and New York, and made careful observation of educational conditions. He reports that “of the higher class of schools, generally styled academies, where pupils are qualified for college, there are twenty in Connecticut and forty-eight in Massachusetts.” He adds: “Two of those in Connecticut and three in Massachusetts are exclusively female seminaries. Some others admit children of both sexes.” He does not say that any one of the thirteen in New Hampshire or of the twelve in Vermont was open to girls. A third of a century afterwards Massachusetts had 854 academies and private schools. Later, the advance in grade of the public school system so reduced the number of personally supported schools, that in 1886 there were but 74 academies and 348 private schools, about one-half the number of a century before. The rapid growth and as rapid decline of the academy system was due to the fact that, while personal and associated effort had taken up a work for which the people were not prepared, its success proved a rapid educator, especially as to the capacity of girls, and the free school system was steadily pressed to higher levels.

Salem established an English high school for boys in 1827; one for girls eighteen years later, in 1845.

It was in 1836, as has been stated, when the school committee of Newburyport decreed “that one female grammar school be kept though the year”; it was only six years afterwards, in 1842, that the town voted to establish a female high school. This was encouraging, but when, later, the valuable “Putnam Fund” came into use for advanced education, there was much discussion between the special committee, appointed by the town, in conference with the trustees of the fund, as to whether Mr. Putnam designed, by his bequest, to include the instruction of females, and it required a decision of the Supreme Court to sustain the position of the trustees that _“youth” might include both sexes_.

The city of Lowell, Mass., which held its first town meeting in 1826, and was not incorporated until 1836, established a high school in 1831, midway between these events, and, to its lasting credit, on a co-educational basis. The first class which it graduated gave to Lowell its first woman principal of a grammar school, and to the country General B. F. Butler. This was one of the earliest high schools, and, so far as the writer can learn, the first that was co-educational.

In connection with the first and ephemeral high school for girls, in Boston, we have unusual opportunities in the “Municipal History of Boston,” by Josiah Quincy, to learn the public sentiment of the time among the most intelligent and worthy, and to observe the struggle which it cost the more progressive to persuade those in power that girls had as great need of instruction, and as real claim on the public funds, as their brothers.

In 1825 the school committee of Boston asked an appropriation from the city council for a high school for girls. A few years previous the monitorial, or mutual, system of instruction had been tried in a town school. Some claimed that it had been successful; its cost was certainly less than one-third that of the old system.

Speaking of the formation of the plan for a high school for girls, Mr. Quincy says: “There being at that time a very general desire in the school committee to test the usefulness of monitorial instruction, it was proposed that the school should be conducted on that system; and in respect of expense the report supposed that one large room would be sufficient, at least for one year.”

It was objected to the foundation of the school that the best scholars would be drawn away from the grammar schools, to the loss of their influence and of their services as monitors; in spite of this the city council voted an appropriation of $2000 to carry out the plan. “The anticipations of difficulty were, however, so strong and so plausible, that the project was adopted expressly as an experiment, if favorable, to be continued, if adverse, to be dropped, of course.”

Difficulties appeared immediately. “Before the examination of candidates occurred, it becomes apparent that the result of a high school for girls would be very different from that of the high school for boys; and that, if continued upon the scale of time and studies which the original project embraced, the expense would be insupportable, and the effect upon the common schools positively injurious.

“Instead of 90 candidates, the highest number that had ever offered in one year for the school for boys, it was ascertained that nearly three hundred would be presented for the high school for girls ... and it was evident that either two high schools for girls must be established the first year, or that more than one-half of the candidates must be rejected.”

Two hundred and eighty-six candidates presented themselves, and an arbitrary system was adopted to keep all but 130 out. “The girls admitted were the _élite_ of the grammar schools, and were among the most ambitious and highly educated of them, and of private schools, from which a majority of those admitted were derived.

“It was impossible that such a school should not be highly advantageous to the few who enjoyed its benefits.”

After six months’ existence of the school, an alarming report was sent to the school committee to the effect that according to the best calculations, the number of candidates for admission at the next examination would be 427.

Mr. Quincy notes that “the school was chiefly for the advantage of the few and not for the many, and those, also, the prosperous few,” and he regards with evident apprehension this large number of girls “to whom a high classical education (though Greek and Latin were excluded) was extremely attractive.”

“Again this experiment showed that in the school for boys the number of scholars diminished every year, whereas of all those who entered this high school for girls, not one, during the eighteen months that it was in operation, voluntarily quitted it; and there was no reason for believing that any one admitted to the school would voluntarily quit it for the whole three years, except in case of marriage.

“It was apparent to all who contemplated the subject disinterestedly, that the continuance of this school would involve an amount of expense unprecedented and unnecessary, since the same course of study could be introduced into the grammar schools.

“To meet the exigency many schemes were proposed, the principal being that the age of admission should be fourteen instead of eleven, and no female to be admitted after the age of sixteen; that the requisitions for admission should be raised; and that the school should be only for one year instead of three.

“These modifications, in which the school committee and city council generally concurred, so greatly diminished the advantages which the original plan proposed, that much of the interest which its creation excited was also diminished. The school, however, was permitted to continue, subject to this modification, until November 27, when a committee was raised to consider the expediency of continuing it, which, on December 11, following, reported ‘that it was expedient to continue it.’”

Much debate followed, in course of which “the Mayor declared that his opinion was so decidedly adverse to the continuance of the school, that he could not vote in its favor.” Largely, no doubt, through the influential opposition of Mr. Quincy, who was then Mayor of the city, and on motion of a Mr. Savage, who said that, though, “as a member of the city council he had voted for the appropriation for the high school for girls, it was merely to make a public experiment of the system of mutual instruction as regards females”; it was voted on June 3, 1826, “that the girls be permitted to remain in the English common school throughout the year.” Precisely what was meant by this vote, beyond the abolition of the high school, appears, if we recall that girls were not yet admitted to the grammar school except for half the year.

As Mr. Quincy states it, “The project of the high school was thus abandoned and the scale of instruction in the common schools of the city was gradually elevated and enlarged.” As in 1834, eight years later, it was voted “that the school committee be directed so to arrange the town schools that the girls enjoy equal privileges with the boys throughout the year,” it is to be presumed that the permission voted in 1826 was inoperative until this date. But the end was gained. The school was abolished, of which Mayor Quincy said in an address to the board of aldermen in 1829: “It may be truly said that its impracticability was proved before it went into operation”; and he again refers to “this high, classical school” with the remark that “no funds of any city could endure the expense.”

It may have been that those who were parents of daughters as truly as of sons, saw this action in relation to the fact that the English High School, “for boys only,” had been supported for four years, and the Latin School, “for boys only,” for almost two centuries, both from the public funds; for, when Mr. Quincy wrote the account from which the above quotations and summary have been made, he recalled the intense opposition to his views of “a body of citizens of great activity and of no inconsiderable influence.”

In 1851, speaking of his former opinions with regard to the high school, he wrote: “The soundness of these views and their coincidence with the permanent interests of the city, seem to be sanctioned by the fact that twenty-three years have elapsed, and no effectual attempt during that period has been made for its revival, in the school committee, or in either branch of the city council.”

He did not consider that ideas of which the germ is sound have, nevertheless, their periods of incubation; but, if shades are permitted to “revisit the glimpses of the moon,” we can imagine the venerable ex-Mayor, ex-President of Harvard, and most worthy man, reflectively regarding the “Girls’ High School,” established in connection with the Normal School in 1852, almost before his words of self-gratulation had ceased to echo; and, with still more astonishment, contemplating the Girls’ Latin School, established in 1878 _to fit girls for college_.

In Massachusetts in 1888, 198 cities and towns supported high schools, most of them co-educational. The population of the cities and towns in which these schools are maintained is over ninety-five per cent. of the whole population of the State.

It is not to be understood that this marvelous progress had come without resistance at every step, or had been achieved except in the way that a plant with the growing power in it struggles to light from under the pavement.

We have seen that in the lower schools when girls, in process of time, came to be taught at all, it was out of fitting season, sometimes out of due hours, without the best instructors, with limited range of study, and always with deference to the superior claim of boys. In the endeavor of girls toward the higher education, one is too sadly reminded of the struggles of the plebeians against the patricians in Rome, when positions wrung from usurping hands, were yielded, only to be, to the uttermost, shorn of advantage.

As girls have gained successive opportunities for advanced study, the aim of the opponents has always been to keep those only analogous to, not identical with, those of boys. They have, therefore, been steadily weighted with limiting conditions, as the educational history of Boston serves to illustrate.

We have seen that the experimental high school of 1825 was, in its feebleness, hampered by, if, indeed, it was not founded for the trial of the monitorial system, and was moribund from its inception.

When, a quarter of a century later, the demand for better education for girls again took form, those most active thought it discreet to avoid the controversy of the past, and, as a more feasible measure, a Normal School for teachers was projected, and was established in 1852.

It was soon found that girls fresh from the grammar schools were not fit candidates for normal training. To remedy this difficulty a few additional branches of study were introduced, a slight alteration made in the arrangement of the course, and the name changed to the Girls’ High and Normal School. Under this name it continued until 1872, when it was found that the normal element had been absorbed by the high school, and had almost lost its independent, distinctive, and professional character. The two courses were then separated and the normal department was restored to its original condition, for the instruction of young women who intended to become teachers in Boston.

Boston had now, at length, a school for girls, devoted, like that for boys, to general culture, though still without opportunity for full classical training, such as had been freely offered Boston boys for almost two and a half centuries. But to taste intellectually, as well as physically, is to stimulate appetite.

In 1877 a society of 200 thoughtful and influential women, incorporated as the “Massachusetts Society for the University Education of Women,” supported by men of equal dignity, and prominently associated with educational and kindred movements, petitioned the school committee “that a course of classical instruction may be offered to girls in the Boston Latin School, as is now offered to boys.”

This petition was reinforced by a similar one from the “Woman’s Educational Association,” which, later, instigated and supported the Harvard examination for women. The trustees of “Boston University” officially memorialized the school board in the same interest.

The claim was urged by distinguished divines, physicians, educators, presidents of colleges, a founder of a college, statesmen, and by mothers of girls. They argued a public advantage, a public demand, and a public right. They showed that almost every prominent city and town in the State gave to girls in its public high school,—which was usually co-educational,—a chance to fit for college; while the towns that had been annexed to Boston,—Charlestown, Dorchester, Brighton, and West Roxbury, had thereby lost such advantage, which their girls had previously enjoyed. The presidents of co-educational and female colleges testified that while no Boston high school girl was prepared to enter their institutions, they were receiving well-prepared young women from the more liberal West.

The ladies petitioning, called attention to the fact that the colonial law of 1647 required every township of 100 families “to provide for the instruction of youth so far as to fit them for the University,” and that in Massachusetts, from that time, there never has been a law passed concerning any public school which has authorized instruction to one sex not equally open to the other; that nowhere does the word “male” or “boy” occur, but always “children” or “youth.”

It appeared that one young woman, daughter of a master, had pursued a three years’ course of study in the Latin School, sitting and reciting with the other pupils, and winning the highest esteem for modesty and ability. From this course she had graduated with so solid a foundation of scholarship that at the age of twenty-two she had received the title of “Doctor of Philosophy” from “Boston University,” and was the first woman in this country to take such a degree.

The opposition to the granting of the petition was most strongly presented by six distinguished presidents of male colleges and by two Harvard graduates.

President Eliot of Harvard College opposed the admittance of girls to the Latin School, saying, “I resist the proposition for the sake of the boys, the girls, and the schools, and in the general interest of American education.”

Hon. Charles F. Adams wrote, “I suppose the experiment of uniting the two sexes in education, at a mature age, is likely to be fully tried. It will go on until some shocking scandals develop the danger.”

President Porter of Yale College thought “boys and girls from the ages of fourteen to eighteen should not recite in the same class-room, nor meet in the same study hall. The natural feelings of rightly trained boys and girls are offended by social intercourse of the sort, so frequent, so free, and so unceremonious. The classical culture of boys and girls, even when it takes both through the same curriculum, should not be imparted by precisely the same methods nor with the same controlling aims. I hold that these should differ in some important respects for each.”

President Bartlett of Dartmouth College said: “Girls cannot endure the hard, unintermitting, and long-continued strain to which boys are subjected.... Were girls admitted to the Latin School I should have no fear that they would not for the time hold their own with the boys, spurred on as they would be by their own native excitableness, their ambition, and the stimulus of public comparison. I should rather fear their success with its penalty of shortened lives or permanently deranged constitutions. You must, in the long run, overtask and injure the girls, or you must sacrifice the present and legitimate standard of a school for boys.... It should be added that almost every department of study, including classical studies, inevitably touches upon certain regions of discussion and allusion which must be encountered and which cannot be treated as they ought to be in the presence of both boys and girls.”

An eminent classicist, Prof. William Everett, said: “To introduce girls into the Latin School would be a legal and moral wrong to the graduates”; and declared that “Greek literature is not fit for girls”; and, substantially, that what was a mental tonic for boys would be dangerous for girls.

The outcome of the effort was the founding of a “Latin School for Girls,” which opened February, 1878, with thirty-one pupils, which number steadily increased to about two hundred.

Its graduates are in all the colleges of the State, at present, to the number of about forty, and they are among the best prepared who enter.

Not only the graduates of the school, but the whole community, must ever hold in grateful memory the names of those who, as representatives of the “Society for the University Education of Women,” worked wisely and indefatigably for Boston girls: Mrs. I. Tisdale Talbot, Mrs. James T. Fields, Miss Florence Cushing.

By following the history of high schools down to the present day in one section of the North Atlantic States, taken as a type of progress, we have not paused to note the few helpful agencies which were gradually developed.

Returning to the beginning of the nineteenth century it is easier to discover what women lacked than what they enjoyed in the way of intellectual stimulus. Books and newspapers were few enough to be highly valued by all.

In Boston there was a public library as early as 1637, but women were not considered as patrons. The bold venture, on the part of the sex, of invading the quiet precincts of the reading room of the library of the Boston Athenæum, was made, after a decade or two of the nineteenth century had passed, by a shy woman, grown courageous only through her eagerness for knowledge. This was Hannah Adams, who had learned Greek and Latin from some theological students boarding in her father’s house, and who had written books. The innovation shocked Boston people, who declared her out of her sphere. They could not foresee that half a century later there would be more women than men readers in the great public library of the city.

Nor was it considered proper for ladies to attend public lectures, nor to appear in public assemblies except those of a religious character. Either as cause or consequence of this the Lyceum audiences were so rude that it would not have been agreeable for ladies to be present.

In 1828 the Boston Lyceum was started, and after considerable discussion women were allowed to attend lectures. This so quickened the interest and improved the manners that lectures became so popular that the largest halls were required to hold the audiences.

There is something pathetic, as showing how small were the pecuniary resources of women, in the fact that it was customary, at least in the smaller cities, to admit them to lectures at about two-thirds the price of men. “The Lowell Institute,” Boston, secured the utmost service to its great benefaction by making no discrimination against women in its free courses of lectures.

Among the English authors who were the resource of this country in way of literature, there began to be known a few women, in whom strong natural impulse had been fostered by exceptional educational opportunity until they ventured to use the pen and even to publish. This was usually done timidly, often protestingly, and one woman, afterwards distinguished, screened her talent behind her father’s name.

Lady Anne Barnard, who wrote “Auld Robin Gray,” for some reason or other kept the secret of her authorship for fifty years.

Mr. Edgeworth suppressed a translation which his daughter Maria had made, from the French, of a work on education “because his friend, Mr. Day, the author of ‘Sanford and Merton,’ had such a horror of female authors and their writings,” and it was published only after Mr. Day’s death.

It is curious to note how large a ratio of the female writers of this time involve, in their essays or novels, some reference to the need of education for their sex. On the contrary, however, Mrs. Barbauld, herself a classical scholar and thinker, and both happy and useful through her acquirements, opposed the establishment of an academy for young ladies. She “approved a college and every motive of emulation for young men,” but thought that “young ladies ought only to have _such a general tincture of knowledge_ as to make them agreeable companions to a man of sense, and ought to gain these accomplishments in a more quiet and unobserved manner, from intercourse and conversation at home, with a father, brother, or friend. She regarded herself as peculiar, and not a rule for others.”

Late in the eighteenth century, Mary Wollstonecraft issued a strong and direct appeal for a recognition of the intellectual needs and capacities of women. She shocked the world into antagonism by her opinions, and by her use of the word “rights,” as applied to her sex.

Much interest was felt in the graceful letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and society found entertainment in the small talk of the heroines of Frances Burney, “Evelina,” “Cecilia,” and “Rosa Matilda.”

Twenty years after the eloquent appeal had been made for “The Rights of Women,” Hannah More, in “Cœlebs in Search of a Wife,” introduced to the novel-reading world the subject of female education, with a tact and moderation which the stronger cravings of Mary Wollstonecraft did not permit. Without offensive presumption, and with deference to the superior claim of the other sex to the whole loaves, she meekly, but plainly, suggested the relish of the female mind for intellectual crumbs. The more favorable reception of her milder views, which was said “to have caused more than one dignified clergyman to take down his Eton grammar from the shelf, to initiate his daughters into the hitherto forbidden mysteries of ‘hic-hæc-hoc,’” goes to prove, by analogy, the theory of the high potency school of homœopathists, for the smaller the dose administered the greater appear to have been the results.

The tender sentiment and graceful verse of Mrs. Hemans, and the sad domestic experience of Hon. Mrs. Norton, from whose unmasked sorrows her husband could gather pecuniary return, and the sturdy, intellectual vigor of Harriet Martineau, who grappled with the problems of political economy and social ethics, and was the friend and counselor of the first statesmen of her time, could not fail to appeal, on their several lines, to women of corresponding type, if not of equal gifts of expression, on both sides of the Atlantic. So education was going on for women in other ways than in schools, which still furnished them limited supplies, both in quantity and quality.

Among the voices which directly or indirectly were calling women to higher levels of intelligence and of thought, was that of the celebrated wit and divine, Sidney Smith, who proved by his claims for them, what he said of himself, “I have a passionate love for common justice and for common sense.” In the _Edinburgh Review_, of which he was one of the founders, he had a way of asking such pointed inquiries as whether the world had hitherto found any advantage in keeping half the people in ignorance, and whether, if women were better educated, men might not become better educated too; and he adds, “Just as though the care and solicitude which a mother feels for her children, depended on her ignorance of Greek and mathematics, and that she would desert her infant for a quadratic equation!”

But so strong are the bonds of prejudice, that, although this was as early as 1810, abundant cause has been found down to the present day to iterate and reiterate the same arguments, and still to pierce the bubble of conceit of superior right with the arrows of wit and sarcasm.

To show what the best schools open to girls were offering meantime, we quote what “one who had as good advantages in 1808 as New England then afforded,” gives as her course of study: “Music, geography, Murray’s Grammar, with Pope’s Essay on Man for a parsing book, Blair’s Rhetoric, Composition, and embroidery on satin. These were my studies and my accomplishments.”

“Twenty-five years later than that,” says the aged lady once before quoted, “a considerable part of the gain I brought from a private school in Charlestown, Mass., was a knowledge of sixty lace stitches.”[3]

Looking back to this period from the vantage ground of less than a century, most women of nowadays would echo the sentiment of the small boy, one of four brothers, who heard a visitor say to his mother: “What a pity one of your boys had not been a girl!” Dropping his game to take in the full significance of her words, he called out: “I’d like to know who’d ’a benn ’er! I wouldn’t ’a benn ’er; Ed wouldn’t ’a benn ’er; Joe wouldn’t ’a benn ’er, and I’d like to know who would ’a benn ’er!”

The third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century marked an epoch in education through the service done by a few teachers, who seemed to have fresh inspirations as to the capabilities of women, and practical ability to embody them. They helped to verify the forecast of Rev. Joseph Emerson, principal of the Academy at Byfield, Mass.

Mr. Emerson was deeply interested in the theme of the millennium, and regarded woman, in the capacity of educator, as the hope of the world’s salvation. Unlike his cotemporaries, he believed in educating young women as thoroughly as young men, and in 1822 predicted “a time when higher institutions for the education of young women would be as needful as colleges for young men.” Among his pupils was Mary Lyon.

The pioneer in the new departure was Mrs. Emma Hart Willard, born in 1787, in Connecticut, into a home of liberal thought and tender affection. The clearness of intellect and keen sense of justice which characterized her life, were all indicated, when, as a young woman, on settling her father’s straightened estate, she insisted that children have no claim as compared with the mother’s superior right to what she has helped to earn. From a child she was noted for interesting herself in the politics of the day. To relieve her husband from financial difficulties, and, as she says, “with the further motive of keeping a better school than those about me,” she established a boarding school at Middlebury. This was the beginning of thirty years’ service as a teacher, during which she taught 5000 pupils, one in ten of whom became teachers. She aimed to make her pupils comprehend the subject taught, and to give them power to communicate what they knew. Says her biographer, Dr. John Lord, “Her profession was an art. She loved it as Palestrina loved music and as Michael Angelo loved painting, and it was its own reward.” There was no flattery to her pupils nor to their parents. Her regular duties, and her never-ending struggle for self-improvement and for better methods of instruction, kept her at her work from ten and sometimes for fifteen hours per day. She keenly felt the disadvantages under which she labored. She wrote: “The Professors of the college attended my examinations, although I was advised by the President that it would not be becoming in me, nor a safe precedent, if I should attend theirs; so, as I had no teacher in learning my new studies, I had no model in teaching or examining them. But I had faith in the clear conclusions of my own mind. I knew that nothing could be truer than truth, and hence I fearlessly brought to examination before the learned the classes to which had been taught the studies I had just acquired.... My neighborhood to Middlebury College made me feel bitterly the disparity in educational facilities between the two sexes, and I hoped if the matter was once set before the men as legislators they would be ready to correct the error.”

To this end Mrs. Willard prepared an address to the public, which in 1819, when she resided in New York, she presented to the New York Legislature. As the views set forth mark a distinct departure in educational demands for women, however familiar or antiquated they may now seem, they are quoted and summarized here. She published them only after long and thoughtful deliberation, and said, “I knew that I should be regarded as visionary, almost to insanity, should I utter the expectations that I secretly entertain.” She asks that as the State has endowed institutions for its sons it shall do the same for its daughters, and “no longer leave them to become the prey of private adventurers, the result of which has been to make the daughters of the rich frivolous and those of the poor drudges.” She laments that “the end of education of one sex has been to please the other ... until we have come to be considered the pampered and wayward babies of society, who must have some rattle put into our hands to keep us from doing mischief to ourselves or to others. But reason and religion teach that we, too, are primary existences; that it is for us to move in the orbit of our duty around the Holy Center of Perfection, the companions, not the satellites of men.”

Mrs. Willard fears that “should the conclusion be almost admitted that our sex, too, are the legitimate children of the Legislature, and that it is their duty to afford us a share of their paternal bounty, the phantom of a college-learned lady would be ready to rise up and destroy every good resolution in our favor.”

To show that it is not a masculine education that is here recommended, Mrs. Willard sketches her ideal of a female seminary. She desires it “to be adapted to the female character and duties, and her first plea is that to which the softer sex should be formed.” “To raise the female character will be to raise that of men.... It would be desirable that the young ladies should spend part of their Sabbaths in hearing discussions relative to the peculiar duties of their sex. The difficulty is not that we are at a loss what sciences we ought to learn, but that we have not proper advantages for learning any.... Many writers have given us excellent advice in regard to what we should be taught, but no Legislature has provided us the means of instruction.... In some of the sciences proper to our sex the books written for the other would need alteration, because in some they presuppose more knowledge than female pupils would possess, in others they have parts not particularly interesting to our sex, and omit subjects immediately relating to their pursuits. Domestic instructions should be considered important. Why may not housewifery be reduced to a system as well as other arts?

“If women were properly fitted for instruction they would be likely to teach children better than the other sex; they could afford to do it cheaper; and men might be at liberty to add to the wealth of the nation by any of those thousand occupations from which women are necessarily debarred.”

While “coarse men laughed at this proposition to endow a seminary for girls,” the plan was so well received by the Legislature that Mrs. Willard’s Seminary at Waterford was incorporated, and placed on the list of institutions which received a share of the literary fund. Though this was a small recognition of a large need, to New York belongs the honor of making the first appropriation of public funds for the higher education of women.

The character of the support given to Mrs. Willard is more encouraging than the legislative action. Governor Clinton, a man of great educational foresight, recommended Mrs. Willard’s plan in these words, which incidentally indicate common sentiment at the time: “As this is the only attempt ever made to promote the education of the female sex by the patronage of government.... I trust you will not be deterred by commonplace ridicule from extending your munificence to this meritorious work.” Distinguished men advocated the plan before the New York Legislature, and John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and others wrote letters favoring it, all with little success.

A bill passed the Senate granting $2000 to the seminary of Mrs. Willard at Waterford, but failed in the Lower House.

It was at this seminary that in 1820 a young lady was publicly examined in geometry, and “it called forth a storm of ridicule.”

The corporation of Troy, N. Y., came to the rescue of Mrs. Willard’s project, and raised $4000 by tax, and another fund by subscription, and erected a building of brick, to which Mrs. Willard came in 1821. She was convinced that “young women are capable of applying themselves to the higher branches of knowledge as well as young men,” and that the study of domestic economy could be pursued at the same time. Developing these theories she made for the “Troy Female Seminary” and its pupils a distinguished reputation, and gave a decided uplift to the standard of female education.

More than two hundred institutions of the grade of Troy Seminary are now reckoned, extending to South America and to Athens, Greece. Half the number are in the Southern United States, and two-thirds of them confer degrees.

Associated with Mrs. Willard at Troy, in the department of science, was her distinguished sister, Mrs. Almira Lincoln Phelps. Later she was the head of “Patapsco Institute,” a female diocesan school of high reputation. She was the second woman elected a member of the “American Association for Advancement of Science,” and in 1866 read before that body a paper on “The Religious and Scientific Character and Writings of Edward Hitchcock,” and in 1878, one on “The Infidel Tendencies of Modern Science.” Her educational works on botany, chemistry, geology, and natural philosophy had a large circulation.

Names which soon rose to high distinction in educational work were those of Miss Grant and Miss Lyon, of Massachusetts, Miss Catherine Fiske of Keene, N. H., Miss Catherine Beecher of Connecticut, and the Misses Longstreth of Philadelphia, Pa.

The work of Miss Fiske was nearly cotemporary with that of Mrs. Willard. For twenty-three years, up to her death in 1836, she carried on a school which received some 2500 pupils to a course of study which embraced botany, chemistry, astronomy, and “Watts on the Mind.”

Miss Catherine Beecher, who was endowed with the marked individuality of her family, conducted a seminary at Hartford, Conn., from 1822 to 1832, and later one at Cincinnati, O. Her course of study included Latin, and calisthenic training was a conspicuous feature. She gave prominence in her instruction to the worth of domestic skill.

She wrote text-books on mental and moral philosophy and upon theology, and did not forget to prove by publishing “a domestic receipt book,” that, though learned, she had not soared above the true sphere of woman.

To the schools already mentioned came pupils from every State in the Union, either from families of means or to receive the generosity of the principals.

Mary Lyon was born among the Massachusetts hills in 1797, and graduated from the position of teacher in the little schoolhouses, and again as a student from Byfield Academy; then from the charge of Adams Academy at Derry, N. H., and from a like position in Ipswich Academy, Mass., in both which she was associated with Miss Grant. To her was due the conception of “a school which shall put within reach of students of moderate means such opportunities that the wealthy cannot find better ones.”

To the execution of her plan the gathering of a few thousand dollars was necessary. The labor involved may be inferred from the fact that in the list of contributions the sum of fifty cents repeatedly appears. The most serious obstacles were found in the antagonism to what seemed to many a needless project. Said Dr. Hitchcock: “Respectable periodicals were charged with sarcasm and enmity to Miss Lyon’s plans. She remained unruffled.”

When, in 1834, the Massachusetts General Association declined to indorse the enterprise, a Doctor of Divinity made haste to say, “You see that the measure has utterly failed. Let this page of Divine Providence be attentively considered in relation to this matter!”

But in face of all disheartenments, in 1837 Mount Holyoke Seminary was opened in the beautiful Connecticut valley. The mode of living was for a time almost ascetic. The work of the house was mainly done by the pupils, but the cost, lights and fuel excepted, was only sixty dollars per school year of forty weeks, and so continued for sixteen years.

Bible study held a leading place in the curriculum.

It was Miss Lyon’s ambition to make the course equal to that required for admission to college, and she planned for steady growth from the small beginnings. Nobly have her expectations been fulfilled!

The hindrances encountered again indicate the slow growth of public sentiment. It was desired that the ancient and some of the modern languages should be studied, but it was necessary to wait ten years before Latin could appear in the course, because “the views of the community would not allow it.” As an optional study it was pursued in classes every year after the first. So French, which was taught from the very first year, became a part of the course only in 1877, after the lapse of forty years.

As time has passed, the thorough work done, and the steadily expanding course of study have won to the institution devoted friends, who have added generously to its grounds, its buildings, and its funds. Once the State has been asked for aid, mainly for payment for a gymnasium, and a grant of $40,000 was obtained in 1867.

The triple strain of study, labor, and economy, under the stimulus of lofty aims, might well have given cause, in those early days, for anxiety on the score of health, but statistics were tabulated in 1867 which showed the comparative longevity of graduates of eight institutions, covering a period of thirty years. The colleges noted were “Amherst,” “Bowdoin,” “Brown,” “Dartmouth,” “Harvard,” “Williams,” and “Yale.”

Exclusive of mortality in war, the record of “Mount Holyoke Seminary” was more favorable than any other except that of “Williams College,” which fell two and one-half per cent. below it in mortality, while “Dartmouth” exceeded it by more than thirty-eight per cent.

It has been the theory of “Mount Holyoke Seminary” that she must have every advantage that the state of education will allow. She must be a college _in fact_, whether or not she take the name.

In this she reversed the theory of many of the 400 institutions in the United States, which easily take the name of college first. Recently her advanced course of study, pursued by 200 pupils, seemed to justify her adding to her powers and to her dignities, and in 1888 the Massachusetts Legislature granted a charter “authorizing Mount Holyoke Seminary and College to confer such degrees and diplomas as are conferred by any university, college or seminary of learning in this Commonwealth.”

Educational institutions, which have taken form and gathered impetus from Mount Holyoke Seminary, are to be found not only from ocean to ocean in the United States, including the “Cherokee Seminary,” founded by John Ross in the Indian Territory in 1851, but in Turkey, in Spain, in Persia, in Japan, and in Cape Colony, South Africa.

After display of so great administrative ability as appeared in Miss Lyon and her successors, it strikes one as still another mark of the traditional reluctance to recognize true values, that close upon half a century from the founding of the institution had passed before the name of a woman appeared in the list of trustees. Meantime every principal of the seminary had been a woman, every resident physician had been a woman, and every anniversary address had been made by a man.

The debt which the public owes to a few individuals who have used lavishly, for its benefit, their own great endowments, whether of brains or of money, before this same public was conscious of its own highest needs, is distinctly traceable in the kindergarten, kitchen-garden, industrial school, college, and university movements of the present day. Truly, many of these to whom much has been given have read their duty in the light of the scripture, “Of him much shall be required.” When values are once demonstrated to the people, they are ever ready to carry on important work with liberality.

While recognizing the importance of the many lines of educational effort, if we sought to learn which has done most to give a solid basis of thoroughness to woman’s education, and, secondarily, to general education, during the middle part of the present century, we should find the answer in the Normal Schools. While other institutions have contributed greatly to increase the scope of woman’s study, these have added thereto the important consideration of methods.

As a part of the thrifty policy which the States have shown when dealing with the education of girls, they have furnished Normal School instruction with the especial view to getting skilled labor in return.

Perhaps there is nothing which would insure so great care in instilling first principles. The result has certainly been to make their invaluable influence felt from the cities to the remotest school districts.

The story of the establishment of these schools is another story of personal struggle against more than indifference, and indifference itself may justly be regarded as a solid substance.

The interest in Normal Schools in America, which was aroused by Prof. Denison Ormstead in 1816, and was advocated by De Witt Clinton, by Gallaudet, and by Horace Mann, grew to fervor in the Rev. Charles Brooks of Medford, Mass., who caught his inspiration from Dr. Julius, of Hamburg, who was sent to the United States by the King of Prussia to study our public institutions. In 1865 Mr. Brooks rode in his chaise over two thousand miles to present the subject, at his own cost, to the people. He held conventions and presented the topic in pulpits as “Christian Culture.” He says, “My discouragements were legion.”

The leading paper in Boston and in New England expressed its sense of the absurdity of the movement by admitting a caustic communication, which ended by representing Rev. Mr. Brooks with a fool’s cap on his head, marching up State Street at the head of a crowd of ragamuffin young men and women, who bore a banner, inscribed, “To a Normal School in the clouds.” Mr. Brooks was, however, invited to speak on the subject before the House of Representatives, and “some members of the Legislature called the new movement by funny names.”

But educators like George B. Emerson, and thinkers like Rev. William Ellery Channing, and statesmen like Horace Mann lent their aid, and, stirred by Mr. Brooks, support was given in public speech by Hon. John Q. Adams and Daniel Webster.

Mr. Mann was Secretary of the Board of Education upon its organization in 1837, and, in his first report, recommended that the Legislature establish Normal Schools. A donation of $10,000 being made by Mr. Dwight to stimulate this interest, a State appropriation was made, and a Normal School for girls was opened at Lexington, Mass., in 1838. Later, others were opened, some of which admitted boys also, but for the first twenty years, eighty-seven per cent. of the graduates were girls. These schools are now widely scattered through the United States. The history of that at Oswego, N. Y., is of especial interest.

The first systematic effort for the physical development of women was made in 1861 in Boston. A “Normal Institute for Physical Culture,” was established by Dr. Dio Lewis, aided by the president and some of the professors of Harvard College. At the outset the young women pupils were found lamentably deficient in respect of physical development. Later, Dr. Lewis stated that “in every one of the thirteen classes which were graduated, the best gymnast was a woman. In each class there were from two to six women superior to any of the men.” Dr. Walter Channing, one of the professors, often spoke with enthusiasm of the physical superiority of the women to the men. From the graduates of these classes instruction in light gymnastics was widely introduced into schools throughout the country. Now the well-appointed gymnasium is a prominent feature of the leading colleges to which women are admitted, and the erection and endowment of this department is a favorite form of benefaction from the alumnæ.

Prof. Huxley says, “No system of education is worthy the name, unless it creates a great educational ladder, with one end in the gutter and the other in the university.” Such was the intuitive feeling of our ancestors, even in the Colonial days, with regard to boys. When, however, in the course of centuries, conviction came to a few that what had been for one sex only was, in fairness, due to the other as well, the atmosphere of the older States did not prove bracing enough to sustain so utopian a theory, and the ambitious daughters of New England were obliged to follow those who, transplanted to the virgin soil of Ohio, had opened Oberlin College, offering such opportunities as it could furnish without distinction of race, and with but limited discrimination against sex.

Something more remarkable than the hungry young mind seeking mental food at disadvantage, was witnessed in 1853, when the full mind and earnest spirit of the leading New England educator, Hon. Horace Mann, eager to inaugurate the best methods of the higher education in a co-educational college, found his only chance by leaving his native New England, to build an institution from its very foundation, in a section remote from literary association. The pathos is deepened that his life was sacrificed in the contest with obstacles.

Following this magnetic leader; again a few New England girls turned westward, and gained, at Antioch College, Ohio, what the East still denied them. Twelve years later, and two hundred and forty years after Harvard was established for boys, private beneficence endowed “Boston University” on a co-educational basis, and in 1869 a college in Massachusetts was opened to girls for the first time.

In place of the reply which Harvard College made to girls who asked admission to its vacant seats, “We have no such custom,” was heard the cheering, “Welcome to all we have to offer!” and the old habit of keeping something of the best in reserve for the male sex, which has been so persistent in State, and municipal, and institutional economy, and which made the restricted sex feel an unwelcome pensioner on somebody’s bounty, has never characterized Boston University. As a result, the report of the University for the year 1879–80, shows that already over thirty-seven per cent. of the regular classes in the College of Liberal Arts were women, and, in encouraging contrast to many colleges from which women are excluded, it adds, “no rowdyism or scandal has brought discredit on the institution.”

In a few cases institutions for the higher education of women have been established in university towns or cities, and have availed themselves of the opportunity afforded for instruction by professors of the neighboring university, and have been granted, under restrictions, use of the libraries, museums, etc., connected with it. Each of these differs from the other in respect of its relationship to the university. The first established was that at Cambridge, Mass., in 1879, under the direction of “The Society for the Collegiate Instruction for Women,” which has, unfortunately, come to be known by the misleading title of “The Harvard Annex.” Applicants for admission to the most advanced work of the institution are required to pass the same examinations which admit young men to Harvard College, and these examinations are conducted in different parts of the country by local committees, under the auspices of The Society for the Collegiate Instruction for Women. Certificates of proficiency thus gained admit the student to classical and scientific courses at the collegiate institution, corresponding to those given to young men at Harvard College.[4]

EVELYN COLLEGE.

Evelyn College, Princeton, N. J., founded under similar circumstances in 1888, differs from the institution at Cambridge, having been formally authorized to confer degrees and to exercise all the functions of a college for the higher education of women.[5]

It offers classical and scientific courses corresponding to those of the neighboring university; also elective and post graduate courses.

By resolution of the Board of Trustees of Princeton College any help may be given to Evelyn College by the Princeton Faculty which does not interfere with their duties in the University, and the use of the libraries, museums, etc., is granted.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE IN RELATION TO THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.

The first college for women to confer degrees upon graduates of an affiliated college is Columbia College, New York City. As the aim of this paper is rather to trace the growth of educational opportunity than to tabulate results, the various steps which led to the opening of Barnard College, New York City, in 1889 are given, as typical of the progressive nature of movements for opening the doors of established colleges to women. While many still regard it as wise to discriminate between the sexes in respect of opportunities, while others would instruct them equally but separately, there is apparently an increasing number of these who would apply to colleges, in general, what the late far-sighted President Barnard of Columbia said of that under his charge. “I regard the establishment of an annex as desirable only considered as a step toward what I think must, sooner or later, come to pass, and that is the opening of the College proper to both sexes equally.”[6]

Efforts to gain for young women the advantages of Columbia College, New York City, have been made at intervals since 1873, when several qualified young women applied for admission to the college, and one, a graduate of Michigan University, for admission to the medical school. A plea in their behalf was made before the faculty by Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake, on the ground that the charter of the College declared that it was “founded for the education of the youth of the city,” and “youth” includes both sexes. President Barnard and several of the faculty favored the admission of women as students, but the committee on education decided that any action was inexpedient.

In December, 1876, a memorial was presented to the Board of Trustees of Columbia College by “Sorosis,” a well-known woman’s club, of the city, asking that young women should be admitted to the college classes. The memorial was laid on the table by a unanimous vote.

Up to 1879 women were informally admitted to the lectures of certain professors, during regular class hours. This was forbidden in 1879, not from any harm resulting, but because it was discovered that the statutes forbade any but regularly matriculated students to attend lectures. This law had no reference to women, but the trustees declined to change the letter of the law and women were banished. Three years later a motion made in the board that the statutes should be so changed as not to prohibit the attendance of women, conditionally, on certain courses of lectures was lost. But from 1886 women have been admitted to lectures given on Saturday mornings, and two hundred ladies have listened weekly, and many more have desired admittance.

In 1883 an association was formed in New York to promote the higher education of women. A petition signed by 1400 persons, many of them of highest distinction in public and private life, and indorsed by President Barnard of Columbia, asked that the benefits of education at Columbia College be extended to qualified women with as little delay as possible, by admitting them to lectures and examinations. In June of that year, 1883, the trustees of Columbia College resolved that a course of collegiate study, equivalent to the course given to young men, should be offered to such women as may desire it, to be pursued under the general direction of the faculty of the College.

This resolve was, however, restricted by regulations which seemed to contradict both its spirit and its letter, since it narrowed the opportunity of women to that of getting the required instruction where they might, except at Columbia, which would, however, admit them to examinations to prove whether or not they had done so. As these examinations were not limited to the subjects as treated in the courses of lectures, as were the corresponding examinations of matriculated students of the University, they were more difficult. In spite of the great difficulties to be encountered, and the very limited advantage to result, many young women were attracted by the offer. In 1888 twenty-eight girls were availing themselves of this opportunity for examination tests of proficiency. In 1885 the trustees of Columbia resolved to grant the degree of Bachelor of Arts to women who had pursued for four years a course of study fully equivalent to that for which the same degree is conferred in the school of arts. Those who had secured this degree, or its equivalent (elsewhere), might study for higher degrees under the direction of the faculty of the College.[7]

BARNARD COLLEGE.

So manifest became the public demand for collegiate and post collegiate instruction,—from graduates of the city Normal School (which had 1600 pupils), from the pupils of the best class of private schools, where, sometimes, not less than one fourth were preparing for admission to some college,[8] and from graduates of other colleges,—that a movement was made, in which the efforts of leading men and women in New York City were conspicuous both for their unflagging zeal and for their judicious methods, to secure necessary funds to found and, at the outset, to maintain a college for women whose professors and instructors should be those of Columbia, and upon whose graduates Columbia College should confer the same degrees as upon her own. The woman who first approached the Trustees of Columbia College with a plan to found an affiliated college for women was Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer, who had been one of the first young women to take advantage of the course of examinations offered by Columbia College. After the appeal for an affiliated college was made it was discovered that had such a plan, supported by the proper persons, and bearing likelihood of success, been brought before the Board, it would have met with approval some years before. The former petitions had, however, asked for co-education, and at first there was considerable opposition to the “annex movement,” as it was called, on the part of those whose battle-cry might have been almost said to have been “Co-education or no education.”

But the wiser policy prevailed, and it was acknowledged by the majority that “those co-educationalists who ignore the annex project are butting their heads against a stone wall when a nicely swarded path lies before them.”[9] Barnard College received official sanction from the Trustees of Columbia College, March, 1889, was chartered by the Regents of New York State, July, 1889, and formally opened October, 1889. Barnard College was appropriately named in grateful tribute to the late President Barnard of Columbia College.

The great void that it was to fill appeared in many ways,—among others in the fact that the botanical and chemical laboratories which it established were the only ones in the city open to women.

The trustees of Barnard, one half of whom are women, hope to find much of its usefulness in the encouragement and provision for graduate work which it will offer to the hundreds of women who are gathered in New York, in the pursuance of some profession.

VASSAR COLLEGE.

The late Matthew Vassar, “recognizing in woman the same intellectual constitution as in man,” resolved to give a fair chance to girls for a liberal education, under conditions in every way favorable to health. To this end he erected college and dormitory buildings in the midst of a lawn of two hundred acres, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., with careful provision for pure air, good water, abundant sunshine, and good sewerage. He provided a gymnasium and provided for out of door sports. He instituted a professorship of physiology and hygiene, and made its incumbent “resident physician” and supervisor of sanitary arrangements.

In September, 1865, the institution received, upon examination, about 350 young women as students to a course of study and mode of life determined by the trustees, who believed that “the larger the stock of knowledge, and the more thorough the mental discipline a woman attains, the better she is fitted for any womanly position, and to perform any womanly duty of home and in society,” a position which the subsequent experience of this and kindred institutions has abundantly illustrated.

Up to 1890, Vassar College has conferred the degree of A.B. upon between 800 and 900 graduates.

It has included in its corps of professors several women of distinguished ability—of whom we may name the late Prof. Braislin of the department of mathematics, and the late Prof. Maria Mitchell, who had not only a national, but a European reputation, as an astronomer. From the opening of the institution till near the time of her death, in 1889, she was the head of the department of astronomy and in charge of the excellent observatory. Three women are serving on the Vassar board of trustees, and three on standing committees.

SMITH COLLEGE.

Smith College was founded in Northampton, Mass., by Miss Sophia Smith, of the neighboring town of Hatfield. Finding herself in possession of a large fortune to dispose of she took counsel with her pastor, Dr. John M. Green, as to the best use to make of it. He conferred, in her behalf, with the leading representatives of education, and the general opinion of the time was voiced by Dr. Edward Hitchcock. When Dr. Green asked him, in 1861, “Would you dare to endow a college for women?” he said, “No! The matter of woman’s higher education is still an experiment.” Prudence seemed to compel further deliberation. Strong efforts were made to secure the fund for established colleges, and other schemes of beneficence were considered, but by 1868 Miss Smith and Dr. Green, to whom she had continuously turned for counsel, had come to the conviction that in no other way could the money be so well invested for the benefit of human kind, as in founding a college which should give young women opportunities for education equal to those which established colleges offered to young men. The plan was at once developed, and the college at Northampton is to-day Miss Smith’s noble monument.

Its high aim has been well sustained, and more than five hundred students are named in the Annual Report of 1889.

Two thirds of the faculty are women, to whom, however, the title of professor is not accorded. This is not thought to imply lack of competency to fill the positions usually so designated. Neither can the current report be credited, that the President does not consider it altogether womanly to bear such title, since Smith College conferred upon Dr. Amelia B. Edwards, the English Egyptologist, the honorary degree of LL.D., and only the highest courtesy could be intended.

WELLESLEY COLLEGE.

Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass., fifteen miles from Boston, was founded in 1875 by the benefaction of Henry F. Durant. The purpose of the trustees was “the establishment of a college in which girls should have as good opportunities for higher education as the best institutions afforded to young men, and to do so with due regard to health.” They held that “it is not hard study but violation of law that injures health.”

The college is beautiful for situation, with extensive grounds, like an English park, varied by oak woods and elm-shaded avenues, and including Lake Waban, which furnishes ample facilities for rowing and skating. Thousands of rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs have been set to brighten the grounds, and the spring turf blossoms in crocuses and snowdrops.

Amid all this seductive beauty, suggestive of dreaming, rise noble structures, of solid and elegant proportions, dedicated to successful work. Within them the practical and the æsthetic are charmingly combined. Music has its temple, art has its ministry, science its every facility, and the air of a happy home life broods over all.

Thoroughness and system are manifest everywhere. This is not a college of yesterday. Nowhere are the latest methods and the best facilities more promptly welcomed. One wanders charmed and glad through its fine library, its extensive laboratories, its dining-room, where a special grace of living comes with the refined service of the students themselves, its dainty parlors and reception-rooms, and, seeking some flaw to prove it real, finds it, at last, in the fact that only half the youth of the land—only girls are admitted to it.

From the opening of the college it has been under the presidency of women. Miss Ada Howard, a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary, was succeeded by Miss Alice Freeman, who received the degree of “Doctor of Philosophy,” from her alma mater, the University of Michigan, and that of Doctor of Literature from Columbia College. In 1887 Miss Palmer resigned the presidency of Wellesley College, but as Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer continues to serve it as a member of the board of trustees, which out of twenty-five members has one third women members. Miss Freeman was succeeded by the present President, Miss Helen A. Schafer, a graduate of Oberlin College.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

Cornell University is one of the national colleges founded upon the land-grant of 1862. The share of New York was nearly a million acres, and, by act of the Legislature of New York, passed in 1865, the university was incorporated, and the income from the sale of this land was given it for its maintenance. There were certain conditions, the principal one being the donation of $500,000 to the university by Ezra Cornell. This was made, together with 200 acres of land. In simple and comprehensive phrase, Mr. Cornell said: “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.”

The act of incorporation provides for instruction “in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.” Thus thrice bound to the general service, by employment of the people’s resources, by acceptance at once of the gift and of the intent of the broad-minded donor, and again by provision of its own act, it would seem to go without saying that the State should see to it that there should be no discrimination against any class.

The university was opened, October, 1868, and, happily, it goes with saying, that by act of the trustees, passed in April, 1872, “Women are admitted to the university on the same terms as men, except that they must be at least seventeen years old.”

On the authority of the Dean of the faculty, Mr. H. S. White, August, 1890: “As to the status of young women at Cornell, they enjoy all the advantages which are open to young men, including the university scholarship and fellowships. We have eight fellowships which are open to graduate students, awarded by vote of the faculty, not only to our own graduates, but to graduates of other institutions. In 1888–89, three of these fellowships were secured by young women: one in botany; one in architecture; and one in mathematics. The present year the Fellows happen to be all young men; but this is a mere accident, and the question of sex cannot be said to be considered in the award. There were established, a few years ago, three Sage scholarships, set apart exclusively for the young women who attended the university; they were also eligible for the six university scholarships; so that at times four or five out of the nine scholarships might be held by young women. These Sage scholarships have recently been converted into university scholarships, open to all applicants without distinction of sex. Sage College was built and endowed by Hon. Henry W. Sage, in 1875, at a cost of $250,000, and was given to Cornell University as a place of residence for young women students. The gift had but one condition, that “instruction shall be afforded to young women by Cornell University, as broad and thorough as that afforded to young men.””

Up to the present time no professorship or offices of instruction in this university have been held by women.

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY.

Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y., embraces a college of liberal arts, a college of medicine, and a college of fine arts. Said the Chancellor, Dr. Sims, “Syracuse throws open the doors of all its colleges for the admission of women on the same terms as men. No especial rules are made because of the presence of both sexes in the university, the young women having every right that is accorded to young men. We have never had difficulty growing out of the presence of both sexes in the institution. The young ladies are as scholarly in every department as the young men.”

It is not strange that women’s benefactions set to such an institution. In addition to its general library of about 35,000 volumes, and a valuable professional library in connection with the college of medicine, in 1887, Mrs. Dr. G. M. Reid made a gift to the college of the great historical library of Leopold von Ranke. In 1889, Mrs. Harriet Leavenworth, of Syracuse, presented to the college of fine arts the Wolff collection of engravings, containing 12,000 sheets of rare and costly etchings of engravings from the great masters of art in all ages. The “John Crouse Memorial College for Women” was presented to Syracuse University in 1889. It is said to be the finest college building in the world.

BRYN MAWR COLLEGE.

Bryn Mawr College, situated at Bryn Mawr, ten miles from Philadelphia, Pa., was endowed by Dr. Joseph W. Taylor of Burlington, N. J., of the society of Friends, to afford to women opportunities for study equal to those given in the best men’s colleges. It was opened in 1885, and admits to lectures and class work three grades of students,—viz., graduates, undergraduates, and hearers. The entrance examinations are strict, and graduate students have from the first formed a large proportion of the students,—from one sixth to one fifth of the whole number. The time of graduation is determined only by the completion of the prescribed course.

The students at Bryn Mawr College enjoy exceptional opportunity for development of character through the important habit of self-direction. Notably wanting here are the customary restrictions on freedom of movement. For example, the student may choose her rising, retiring, and study hours; she may go in and out of Philadelphia at her discretion. This recognition of the student as personally responsible has been attended, it is said, with the happiest results.

Five fellowships are annually awarded: one in Greek, one in English, one in mathematics, one in history, and one in biology. The Bryn Mawr European fellowship is awarded annually to a member of the graduating class for excellence in scholarship. The holder receives $500, applicable to the expenses of one year’s residence at some foreign university.

The whole number of students enrolled during the year 1888–89 was 116. At the close of the scholastic year the degree of B.A. was conferred upon twenty-four candidates. All but two had been for four years in attendance at the college, and the president’s report says: “All of them left the college in their best state of health.”

No person is appointed a member of the faculty who is not, in every way, qualified to direct graduate as well as undergraduate study. There is absolutely no difference made in the salaries paid to the men and women employed in instruction; there is no difference made in academic rank.

The present Board of Trustees, twelve in number, are all men, appointed by the founder of the college. Should a vacancy occur it might be filled by a woman.

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE.

Swarthmore College, ten miles from Philadelphia, Pa., was founded in 1864 by members of the religious society of Friends, for the higher education of both sexes. The two sexes are about equally represented, not only among the pupils, but in the officers of the corporation and in the officers and committees of the board; in this latter respect differing from the record of any other college.

The number of female students in the collegiate department for the scholastic year 1888–89, was 80.

The college confers the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, of Letters, and of Science, on completion of the corresponding courses, and, conditionally, the Masters’ degrees, A.M., M.L., M.S., and also the degree of C.E., in the engineering department.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

The first admission of women to special courses in the University of Pennsylvania was in 1876 when, on application, two young women of Philadelphia were granted, after examination and payment of a fee, the full privileges of the analytical laboratory, and during that year were regular students, passing the final examinations with the junior class. The next year, 1877–78, they were admitted to lectures, laboratory work, recitations, and final examinations by the department of organic chemistry. In the years directly following, the physical laboratory received two young women, and upon lectures on modern history, opened to all fitted by previous study to appreciate them, from twenty-four to thirty ladies were regular attendants. In all departments the ladies received the highest courtesy and appreciation. One of the number writing of it says: “You have _carte blanche_ to say all you will in this respect,—you could not say too much.”

Through the favor of the dean of the college department the following very complete statement is presented of the progress toward giving to women the advantages of this venerable university, which has been gathering its rich resources since its foundation in 1746.

In 1876 a department of music was established, in which advanced instruction in the theory of music was given, and from the beginning women were admitted to the classes. While a degree was attainable, under certain conditions of post graduate work, none have been awarded.

In 1878 Mrs. Bloomfield Moore presented $10,000, the income of which was to pay the tuition fees of women who sought to qualify themselves for teaching, in any of the courses open to them. Certain special courses of lectures and laboratory work, e. g., English history, chemistry, mineralogy, were open to the public on a fee, and of course women were included, a few availing themselves of the opportunity; but these were not matriculated, nor entered upon the roll of students.

In 1880 Miss Alice Bennett, M.D., received the degree Ph.D. in the Auxiliary Faculty of Medicine,—a two years’ course in certain sciences open to graduates in medicine.

In 1888 Mrs. Carrie B. Kilgore received the degree LL.B., on completing the full two years’ course in the law department.

In neither of these cases was there any formal action opening the courses specified to women. They were simply accepted as students by the several deans, and when they had complied with the terms were, without demur, admitted to their degrees.

The School of Biology, organized in 1884,—a two years’ course, no degree,—has from the first been freely open to women, has always had a fair proportion among its students, and some of them have proved to be of superior ability. Its force and material are used in the new four years’ course in natural history, one of the college courses, but to this women are not yet admitted.

Applications were often made for the admission of women to the medical department, but trustees and faculty concurred in always refusing it. This was the more unanimously done since the establishment of the admirable Women’s Medical College, which would have been fatally injured by the opening of our doors to women.

Requests to open the college department to women have been periodically made for many years. At first the faculty positively declined to recommend this, but gradually opposition to the proposal weakened, until last year(1889–90) a bare majority voted the other way.

Before the trustees had taken action upon the matter, Col. Joseph M. Bennett came forward and presented two valuable houses, adjacent to the university, and a sum of $10,000 for establishing a college for women as a department of the university. The trustees accepted the offer, and after careful consideration and consultation with prominent women educators, decided, with Col. Bennett’s full approval, to make this a post graduate department of the highest grade.

Its organization and government are entrusted to a board of managers, one half women. By the autumn of 1891 the department will be open; ranking with the Faculty of Philosophy, giving the degree Ph.D. (which is no longer given by the Auxiliary Faculty of Medicine), and having special courses not leading to a degree. It is hoped that an ample number of free scholarships will be provided. The Faculty of Philosophy is freely open to women, and prepared to give Ph.D. degrees. Of course, when the department for women is opened it will practically be in this faculty.

In 1889–90 there were the following women students: College, Department of Music, 11, not candidates for a degree; Biology, 12, not candidates for a degree; Auxiliary Department of Medicine, 1, candidate for Sc.B. Total, 24.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was chartered in 1861. By a special vote of the Corporation in December, 1870, a graduate of Vassar College was admitted as a special student in chemistry. In June, 1873, the lady took the final examinations, covering two years of professional work. As no tuition fee was charged no precedent was established by this action. In 1873, at the request of the Woman’s Educational Association, and with its co-operation, the woman’s laboratory for chemistry and botany was established, to which women came as special students. Although they had not been recognized during their course as regular students, two women received the Institute Degree in 1881–82.

In 1883 final action was taken, opening all the courses to women on precisely the same terms as to men. Women now go into the laboratories with the regular classes.

The foregoing sketch of woman’s educational progress, while extended beyond due limit, leaves out the most encouraging record,—as it is the latest,—the story of what women are doing for themselves, and, no less, for humanity. No one can fairly estimate the educational forces of the coming decades who does not take into consideration the varied means of growth outside of both school and college; means which do not displace the need of these, but rather emphasize it. We may not even touch upon these here, but from a moment’s comprehensive glance backward we may dimly conceive the forward outlook.

It is not yet a century from the time when New England towns were voting “not to be at any expense to school girls,” and lo! as a type of to-day, Wellesley College, with a million and a half dollars wisely invested to entice girls from the remotest islands of the sea, to love and to get learning. For the unlettered housekeeper, filching time from her heavy labors to gather the children about her knee in the “Dame school,” we have the young but learned president of the college of nearly 700 students; or the woman directing, as its head, the orderly movement of a thousand or more pupils in the great city grammar school, which may represent a half score of nationalities. For the girl accustomed to denial, and deprecatingly asking for a little instruction when the boys shall have had their fill, we have the bright-faced, trustful young woman who expects and will get ere long the best the world has to offer.

In a country which finds its safety in the intelligence of its people and its peril in their ignorance, it behooves its thinkers to consider whether it is not too great a risk to leave four fifths of the instruction of youth in the hands of a sex of inferior education. The distinguished president of Harvard College, called attention some two years since, in an article in _The Atlantic Monthly_, to the condition of inferiority of our secondary schools, and he proposed remedying it by displacing a part of the female teachers. It would seem more in accordance with the spirit of the time, and certainly more practicable, to open to them the closed doors of opportunity and fit them to meet the demand made upon them.

The terror of the learned woman which, in one form or another, has had its many victims, has well nigh passed. Even the more timid and conservative are learning that it is the ignorant, not the instructed woman, that confuses affairs and works disaster. “A little knowledge is,” beyond doubt, “a dangerous thing”; but only because it is little.

It is told of Saint Avila that she gained her renown by this marvel. At one time, when frying fish in the convent, she was seized with a religious ecstacy, yet so great were her powers of self control that she did not drop the gridiron, nor let the fish burn!

So the educated woman of the nineteenth century has quieted many grave apprehensions as to the consequences of much learning to her sex. After the manner of Saint Avila, she does not permit her intellectual ecstacy to blind her to her simple duties. She has abundantly proved that she can carry the triple responsibility of loving and serving and knowing.