Women -- Employment -- United States; Women -- Social and moral questions
3. In the twenty-one States and Territories which boast 165
co-educational colleges and 47 colleges for the separate education of
women, 30 of which are authorized to confer regular degrees, there are
but 25 colleges devoted to the exclusive education of men.
4. Of these 25 (devoted to the exclusive education of men,) not one is
non-sectarian, and they are all supported by the Roman Catholic, the
Protestant Episcopal, the Lutheran, or the Presbyterian denomination. In
several of the States most conspicuous for zeal in the cause of the
higher education, as in Michigan, Iowa, and Kansas, not one college for
the exclusive education of men exists.
These facts support the statement that the West is committed to
co-education, excepting only the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and the
Protestant Episcopal sects,—which are not yet, as sects, committed to
the collegiate education of women at all,—and the Presbyterian sect,
whose support, in the West, of 14 co-educational colleges against 4 for
the separate education of young men, almost commits it to the
co-educational idea.
How has this triumph of the higher co-education been achieved? How is
the system regarded by the community in which it is established? What
are its social effects and tendencies? What are its defects and
limitations? These are the inquiries which next present themselves.
Of the 165 co-educational colleges under consideration, a few, like
Ripon College, Wisconsin, were founded for women and subsequently
admitted young men; a larger number have admitted both men and women
from the date of their opening; these, with a few notable exceptions,
like Oberlin College in Ohio, and Lawrence University in Wisconsin, are
of recent origin, with charters dating from periods since 1860. The
great proportion of the entire number were founded for the exclusive
education of men, and have, one after another, yielded a participation
in their benefits to women since 1860.[11]
To tell in detail the story of the struggles which have ended in the
admission of women into each of these institutions would be quite
impossible; if possible, it would, for general purposes, be quite
unprofitable, since the principles involved have in all cases been the
same. The same arguments, pro and con, have been advanced in every
contest, the illustrations and modes of application being modified in
each by local conditions and circumstances. Local history should
preserve a record of such modifications of the argument and its
application, together with the names of those persons who were
conspicuous in the contest; but the purposes of general history do not
require this, and the discrepancy between the extent of territory and
the number of pages assigned to this chapter does not permit it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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