The most important educational movement of the last two years has been the formation of an American Association for the Promotion of Social Science, with four departments, and two women on its Board of Directors. Subsequently, the Boston Association was organized, with seven departments, and seven women on its Board of Directors; one woman being assigned to each department, including that of law. Any woman in the United States can become a member of the American association. If the opportunities it offers are not seized, it will be the fault of women themselves.
During the past winter, the Lowell Institute in Boston, in connection with the government of the Massachusetts Technological Institute, took a step which deserves public mention. They advertised classes for both sexes, under the most eligible professors, for instruction in French, mathematics, and natural science. As the training was to be thorough, the number of pupils was limited, and the women who applied would have filled the seats many times over. These classes have been wholly free, and have added to the obligation which the free Art School for women had already conferred.
On the 25th of June, 1865, the Ripley College, at Poultney, Vt., celebrated its Commencement. Seventeen young ladies were graduated. Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the literary address, and two days were devoted to the examination of incoming pupils. Feeling very little satisfaction in the success of colleges intended for the separate sexes, I take more pleasure in speaking of the Baker University, in Kansas, which was chartered by the Legislature of that State in 1857, as a university for both sexes. It has now been in active operation for seven years. A little more than a year ago, Miss Martha Baldwin, a graduate of the Baldwin University at Berea, Ohio, was appointed to the chair of Greek and Latin. She is but twenty-one years of age, but was elected by the government to make the address for the faculty at the opening of the Commencement exercises, and seems to have given entire satisfaction during the year.
Howard University was chartered at the last session of Congress, for the education of all classes of students, without distinction of sex, race, or color. It has purchased three acres of land in a pleasant part of Washington, and is now ready to receive about twenty-five students. Rev. Dr. Boynton, chaplain of the House of Representatives, is President of the Board of Trustees.
St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y., a university still very young, graduates both men and women, on precisely the same conditions. Civil engineering and political economy are the only optional studies with the women. It reports one theological student. Lombard University, Galesburg, Ill., does the same; but I know nothing of its standard of scholarship. It is only within the last year that I have been able to visit the most conspicuous colleges in this country in which women are taught with men. I consider the system of mixed classes an immense advantage, as it secures the standard of scholarship, prevents all foolish hazing, and places personal character and moral deportment in their right relations to classic study. It prevents also such instruction in the classics as must necessarily deprave the estimate of woman.
OBERLIN.
About all that I knew of Antioch, before I went West, was this,—that it was a college for the instruction of both sexes. I would like to have my readers know more of Antioch than I did, and to feel, without seeing it, the same intense interest that warms me now. They have heard of Oberlin, I suppose,—heard of it as a sort of fanatical way-station between the district school and Harvard University, where men, women, and "colored people" are all taught together. If I should show them what Oberlin has actually done, I think they may see more plainly what it is possible for Antioch to do: so I shall begin with some account of this college, which has "saved the North-west."
It is no idle boast: and, when I had stayed a week at Antioch, and was thoroughly roused to a sense of its immense importance; when I had seen how admirably fitted was Dr. Hosmer for the work given him to do,—I decided this in my own mind; namely, that if any one thing had stood in the way of Antioch hitherto, if any thing had prevented her complete work, it was the Eastern prejudice, the idea that men and women could not be educated together. And, as they had been trying this experiment at Oberlin for thirty-two years, I thought I would go there, and see how it had worked. If I had known then, what I know now, that out of the bosom of Oberlin twenty-two colleges had sprung, and that, of the twenty-two, ten are at this moment officered by her own graduates, I think I might have spared myself the trouble. Here are their names; for you will care more for Oberlin, if you get some glimpse of the work she has done, before I tell you the details of her story. I have put an asterisk against the names of the colleges whose presidents are graduates of Oberlin. All of those named receive pupils of both sexes.
Ohio.—Baldwin University, Berea, three colleges and one university, 326 pupils, 1846; Heidelberg College, Tiffin; Antioch College, Yellow Springs; Mount Union College, Alliance; Otterbein College, Westerville, a Gallery of Fine Arts forming, 360 students.
Michigan.—*Olivet College, 308 pupils; *Hillsdale College, 609 pupils; *Albion College; *Adrian College, with an endowment of $300,000.
Wisconsin.—Madison University; *Ripon College, 87 pupils.