The first instance of government aid for the systematic education of women occurred in New York, in 1819. This was due to the influence of a remarkable woman. Mrs. Emma Willard had begun teaching in Connecticut and by extraordinary diligence mastered not only the usual subjects of the curriculum, but in addition botany, chemistry, mineralogy, astronomy, and the higher mathematics. She had, moreover, striven always to introduce new subjects and new methods into her school, and with such success that Governor Clinton, of New York, invited her to that State and procured her a government subsidy. Her school was established first at Watervliet, but soon moved to Troy. This seminary was the first girls' school in which the higher mathematics formed a part of the course; and the first public examination of a girl in geometry, in 1829, raised a storm of ridicule and indignation--the clergy, as usual, prophesying the speedy dissolution of all family bonds and therefore, as they continued with remorseless logic, of the state itself. But Mrs. Willard continued her ways in spite of clerical disapproval and by-and-by projected a system of normal schools for the higher education of teachers, and even suggested women as superintendents of public schools. New York survived and does not even remember the names of the patriots who fought a lonely woman so valiantly. The first female seminary to approach college rank was Mt. Holyoke, which was opened by Mary Lyon at South Hadley, Mass., in 1836. Vassar, the next, dates from 1865; and Radcliffe, the much-abused "Harvard Annex," was instituted in 1879. These were the first colleges exclusively for women. Oberlin College had from its foundation, in 1833, admitted men and women on equal terms; although it took pains to express its hearty disapproval of those women who, after graduation, had the temerity to advocate political rights for women--rights which that same Oberlin insisted should be given the negro at once. In 1858, when Sarah Burger and other women applied for admission to the University of Michigan, their request was refused. [Sidenote: First women in medicine.]