Woman's work in America

by Unknown

GENERAL ARGUMENT.

On the appearance of Dr. Clarke’s book, “Sex in Education,” in 1873, the controversy, which up to that time had been limited to the localities where co-education was being introduced, at once became general. For the next ten years this subject was discussed in the press, in the pulpit, in meetings of medical societies, and on the platform. In a large collection of old programs there is proof that every phase of the question was considered by all kinds of organizations of teachers, from national conventions to township institutes. Young teachers advanced their opinions, old teachers recited their experience, and the press everywhere gave the widest publicity to these discussions. At the end of a decade the public mind had fully expressed, and, through expressing, had gradually formed its opinion, which was in general favorable to co-education. In 1883 the whole question was opened in a new form by the attempt to exclude women from Adelbert College of Western Reserve University, which had already been open to them for twelve years.

Every reason which had formerly been urged against the admission of women was now offered for their exclusion. The peculiar origin of the discussion and the able and gallant defense of the rights of the women already enrolled in its classes which was made by Dr. Carroll Cutler, the president of Adelbert, attracted wide notice, and the arguments, pro and con, were reviewed by the press of the country.

Dr. Cutler wrote to the authorities of all the principal co-educational colleges, for the results of their experience. The courtesy of Dr. Cutler makes this voluminous correspondence available for this chapter.

Stated briefly and in the chronological order of their development, the arguments against co-education are as follows:

a. Women are mentally inferior to men, and therefore their presence in a college will inevitably lower the standard of its scholarship.

b. The physical constitution of women makes it impossible for them to endure the strain of severe mental effort. If admitted to college they will maintain their position and keep pace with men only at the sacrifice of their health.

c. The presence of women in college will result in vitiating the manners, if not the morals, of both men and women; the men will become effeminate and weak, the women coarse and masculine.

d. If women are admitted to college, their presence will arouse the emotional natures of the men, will distract the minds of the latter from college work, and will give opportunity for scandal.

e. The intimacies of college life will result in premature marriages.

f. Young men do not approve of the collegiate education of women; they dislike to enter into competition with women, and if the latter are admitted to our colleges it will result in the loss of male students, who will seek in colleges limited to their own sex, the social life which cannot be furnished by a co-educational institution.

g. A collegiate education not only does not prepare a woman for the domestic relations and duties for which she is designed, but actually unfits her for them.

h. Colleges were originally intended for men only, and the wills of their founders and benefactors will be violated by the admission of women.

i. Whatever the real mental capacity or physical ability of women, so fixed is the world’s conviction of their inferiority, that colleges admitting them will inevitably forfeit the world’s confidence and respect.

This chapter affords no space for the à priori arguments which answer these objections; and indeed the best answer to all objections against co-education is found in its result. Let the following letters testify to the fruits of experience. Extract from a letter from James B. Angell, president of the University of Michigan, dated September 2, 1884:

“Women were admitted here (Michigan University) under the pressure of public sentiment, against the wishes of most of the professors; but I think no professor now regrets it, or would favor their exclusion. The way had been well prepared. Denominational colleges had for years admitted women; and in the high schools, which are our preparatory schools, it was the universal custom to teach both sexes. Most of the evils feared by those who opposed the admission of women have not been encountered.

“We made no solitary modification of our rules or requirements. The women did not become hoydenish; they did not fail in their studies; they did not break down in health; they have graduated in all departments; they have not been inferior in scholarship to the men; the careers of our women graduates have been, on the whole, very satisfactory. They are teachers in many of our best high schools; six or seven are in the Wellesley College faculty.”[^[13]]

Extract from a letter from Moses Coit Tyler, dated at Cornell University, September 30, 1884:

“I was connected with the University of Michigan before the advent of women there; was present during the process of their introduction; for several years afterward watched the results; and am now entering on my fourth year here at a co-educational university. And now, after all these years, upon my word, I cannot recall a fact which furnishes a single valid objection to the system; while the real utility, convenience, and wholesomeness of it have so long been before my eyes, that I am startled by your letter as implying that anybody still has any doubt about it.... I do not know a member of the faculty either at Michigan or here who would favor a return to the old plan, although, before the adoption of the new one, many were anxiously opposed to it. My observation has been that under the joint system the tone of college life has grown more earnest, more courteous and refined, less flippant and cynical. The women are usually among the very best scholars, and lead instead of drag; and their lapses from good health are rather (yes, decidedly) less numerous than those alleged by men. There is a sort of young man who thinks it is not quite the thing, you know, to be in college where women are, and he goes away, if he can, and I am glad to have him do so. The vacuum he causes by his departure is not a large one, and is more than made up by the arrival, in his stead, of a more robust and a manlier sort.”

Extracts from two letters written by the Hon. Andrew D. White while president of Cornell University, and bearing dates respectively of August 5, 1884, and October 25, 1884:

“My own opinion is that all the good results we anticipated, and some we did not anticipate, have followed the admission of young women; on the other hand, not one of the prophesied evils, unless possibly some young men may have imbibed a prejudice against the university from the presence of young women, and so have gone elsewhere. This, of course, we can hardly determine. I have never thought the admission of women injured us to any appreciable extent, even in this matter. Scholarship has certainly not been injured in the slightest degree, while order has been improved.... There have been no scandals. Hardly any attachments have ever grown up between the students of the two sexes.... The best scholars are, almost without exception, men; but there is a far larger proportion of young women than of young men who become good scholars. Having now gone through one more year, making twelve in all since women were admitted, I do not hesitate to say that I believe their presence here good for us in every respect. There has not been a particle of scandal of any sort. As to the relations between the sexes, they give us no uneasiness.”

Extract from a letter written by John Bascom, then president of the University of Wisconsin, dated August 20, 1884:

“Co-education is with us wholly successful. There is no difference of opinion concerning it, either in our faculty or our board. We find no additional difficulty in discipline; our young women do good work, and the progress of our young men is in no way impeded. It does not seem to us to be any longer an open question.

“I believe the character of both young men and women is helped, though the results in this particular are difficult of proof. The advantages of the system are manifold; the evils are none. We have ceased to think about its fitness save as questions from abroad redirect our attention to it.”

Extract from a letter by Joseph Cummings, president of Northwestern University:

“The effect of co-education in this institution, upon the manners and morals of both men and women, is only good. The history of co-education shows that men and women trained under its influence are less open to temptations of the passions than are those trained in separate institutions.

“Women are less inclined to pursue long courses of study, but the average scholarship of those who do persevere and graduate is higher than that of the men; and women here do not retard the progress of men.”

In more than 200 letters from presidents and professors in co-educational colleges, a part of which were written during the Adelbert College controversy, and a larger part of which have been received by the writer of this chapter within the last three months, there is not one which does not give testimony to the value of the system, similar to that above quoted.

I have chosen to quote from letters written in 1884 because the controversy then pending impelled the writers to a fuller and more specific statement of their experience than would be elicited by a series of questions propounded at this date. It is only necessary to add that in every instance letters dated in 1889 or 1890 fully accord with those written in 1883 and 1884.

Presidents Angell, White, Bascom, and Cummings, and Professor Tyler are quoted because of their distinguished reputation as educators, because their experience has been in institutions universally acknowledged to rank among the highest in our country, and because, as no one of them has ever taken the position of an apostle of co-education, their words will be received as the testimony of witnesses, and not as the pleadings of advocates.