The conditions of pioneer life are favorable to co-education. The exigencies incident to life in a new country destroy certain barriers between men and women which are fixed in old and settled communities. The women in a pioneer settlement not infrequently join in labors in which, under more settled conditions, they would never be called to participate. Many women in the West have assisted their husbands and fathers in the field, the office, and the shop, simply because hired male labor was unattainable. On the other hand, men in pioneer homes assist their wives in household labors, because domestic help cannot be found. In the organization of churches, schools, and Sunday-schools, the sparseness of the population compels men to divide the work with women. Thus, without intention on the part of either men or women, they become used to working together in many unaccustomed ways; and the idea of going to college together does not seem so unnatural as in older communities, where traditions of long standing have separated men and women in their occupations. The almost universal connection of preparatory departments with colleges in the West is properly deplored; but the “preparatory” has been a stepping-stone to co-education. In their origin the Western colleges found it necessary to maintain preparatory schools in order to obtain any college classes. This is illustrated by the experience of Antioch. Out of 150 students who applied for admission to that college in 1853, but 8 were able to pass the examinations for admission to the freshman class, meager as were the requirements. These 8 included men and women, married and single. The older colleges in this new country have a similar chapter in their history. There were few high schools, and the course of study of those was narrow. To have students, each college was compelled to prepare them. The preparatory department in a college town did the work of the present high school; it was very natural that the residents of those towns should desire to send both their sons and daughters to the “preparatory,” which was usually, perhaps always, the best school accessible to them. This desire, however, gave no forecast of a desire to send both to the college later on. Sometimes the “preparatory” was not provided with a separate building, but its work was done in some room or rooms of the college building proper. The preparatory course finished, some bright girl would wish to go forward with her class into college work; she could not enter the class formally, but “if the professor was willing” she could attend lectures in this or the other subject; in many college towns there are middle-aged and elderly women who, as young girls, with the tacit consent of parents and college instructors, thus obtained the larger part of a college education. They had no formal recognition from any one; their names appeared in no catalogues, but they acquired substantial benefits.