“Women are admitted here because the board of trustees gave them the privilege some years ago. I know of no other reason than that. Not many avail themselves of the opportunity, especially as the State for some years past has had, at Columbus, an industrial institute and college solely for women. This year we have eleven in attendance here; in each of my previous three years the number was five, Their standing averages above that of the boys, I think. In ’85 and ’87 the first honor was taken by young ladies; and in our present sophomore class a slender girl is spoken of as the ‘first honor man.’ Their social standing is in no way impaired by their coming here, although the plan of mixed education is not greatly in favor, as the small number shows.” Professor Halsted, of the University of Texas, says, in his report to the Superintendent of Public Instruction: “Several young ladies have shown marked ability in the acquirement of the newer and more abstruse developments of mathematics, for example, quaternions.” The president of the H. Sophie Newcomb College, which is a department of the Tulane University of Louisiana, has a larger number of students upon which to base his conclusions. He writes: “When the college was inaugurated two years ago, it was discovered that very few of the applicants for admission were qualified to undertake a regular college course. The schools of this city (mostly private), which they had previously attended, had not hitherto arranged their courses of study with reference to advanced or college work, and had not therefore adopted any fixed standard of acquirement.... The grade of the present freshman class is fully a year and a half in advance of that which entered two years ago, and at the same time there has been a steady increase in numbers. The greatest gain has been shown in mathematics, science, and Latin. Our advanced classes are doing excellent work in calculus and analytical geometry, laboratory work in chemistry and biology, etc.... While I can testify from experience to the equal ability of the Louisiana young women with those in the East or elsewhere in mathematical, scientific, or other studies, yet on account of the social pressure, and long established customs which demand early graduations, we must be content to see our institution develop more slowly than it would otherwise do.”