The extent to which the higher education of women is in the West identified with co-education, can be seen by comparing the two statements above given. Of the total 212 higher institutions receiving women, and of the total 195 such institutions which confer the regular degrees in arts, science, and letters, upon their graduates, 165 are co-educational. Almost necessarily, therefore, the most important discussion in this article will be that of co-education. Before approaching it, however, some space must be devoted to women’s colleges in the West. Almost without exception they include preparatory departments; very generally the attendance in the preparatory department exceeds that in the collegiate; frequently members of the faculty divide their attention between preparatory and collegiate classes; generally the courses of study offered are less numerous and less complete than those offered in colleges of liberal arts for men; most of these institutions have paltry or no endowments. With all these limitations, some of them do much creditable work; but, at present, they occupy a rather vague, indefinite position between “the ladies’ seminary” of thirty years ago and the modern college. Quoting from the United States Commissioner of Education (Report for 1887–88): “The adjustment of studies is evidence of a double purpose in these institutions. On the one hand they have endeavored to meet the general demand with respect to woman’s education. On the other they have sought to maintain that higher ideal which would appropriate for women as well as for men the advantages of the kind of instruction and training approved, by wise effort and long experience, as the best for mental discipline and culture.” A double purpose, when its parts are, as in this instance, to a degree contradictory, imposes impossible tasks. A process of sifting is now going on among these institutions. Some of the weaker will doubtless be absorbed by stronger ones having the same denominational support. Some, whose strength is chiefly in their preparatory departments, will find their ultimate place in the lists of secondary schools; and, ceasing to compete with colleges, will do an important and much needed work in preparing students to enter college. Others, already strongest in their collegiate departments, pledged by a noble past to achieve a corresponding future, will persist in emphasizing their real collegiate side until at last they secure an absolute separation between their preparatory and their collegiate work, and can take rank with genuine colleges of liberal arts.