Washington, opened in 1862, Kansas, opened in 1866, Minnesota, opened in 1868, and Nebraska, opened in 1871, were coeducational from the outset. Indiana, opened as early as 1820, admitted women in 1868. The state University of Michigan was, at this time, the most important western university, and the only western university well known in the east before the war. When, in 1870, it opened its doors to women, they were for the first time in America admitted to instruction of true college grade. The step was taken in response to public sentiment, as shown by two requests of the state legislature, against the will of the faculty as a whole. The example of the University of Michigan was quickly followed by all the other state universities of the west. In the same year women were allowed to enter the state universities of Illinois and California; in 1873 the only remaining state university closed to women, that of Ohio, admitted them. Wisconsin which, since 1860, had given some instruction to women, became in 1874 unreservedly coeducational. All the state universities of the west, organized since 1871, have admitted women from the first. In the twenty states which, for convenience, I shall classify as western, there are now twenty state universities open to women, and, in four territories, Arizona, Oklahoma, Indiana and New Mexico, the one university of each territory is open to women. Of the eleven state universities of the southern states the two most western admitted women first, as was to be expected. Missouri became coeducational as early as 1870, and the University of Texas was opened in 1883 as a coeducational institution. Mississippi admitted women in 1882, Kentucky in 1889, Alabama in 1893, South Carolina in 1894, North Carolina in 1897, but only to women prepared to enter the junior and senior years, West Virginia in 1897.[6] The state universities of Virginia, Georgia and Louisiana are still closed. The one state university existing outside the west and south, that of Maine, admitted women in 1872.