To the present time only a small number of women have sought state legislative offices; women members of city councils are rather numerous. At the present time there is a woman representative in the legislature of Colorado. The former governor, Mr. Alva Adams, alluded to her as “a bright, efficient woman,” who has introduced many bills and secured their passage. For, says the governor, “it must be a pretty miserable law which a tactful woman cannot have enacted, since the male legislators are usually courteous and kindly disposed, and disregard party interests in order to accept the measure of their female colleague.” From which we conclude that the women legislators strive especially for measures which are for the general good.[17]
In the United States there is also an “Association Opposed to Woman’s Suffrage.” Its chief supporters are found among the saloon-keepers, the habitual drunkards, and the women of the upper classes. But the American women believe “that if every prayer, every tear can be supported by the power of the ballot, mothers will no longer shed powerless tears over the misfortunes of their children.”[18]
The American women had to struggle not only for their rights as citizens, but they encountered great difficulty in securing an education. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the education of girls in the United States was entirely neglected; the secondary as well as the higher institutions of learning were as good as closed to them. Woman’s “physical and intellectual inferiority” was referred to, just as with us [in Germany]; woman’s “loss of her feminine nature” was feared, and it was declared “that within a short time the country would be full of the wrecks of women who had overtaxed themselves with studies.” To all these fears the American women gave this answer: Women, you say, are foolish? God created them so they would harmonize with man. As for the rest they awaited developments. As early as 1821 the first institution for the higher education of women, Troy Seminary, was founded with hopes for state aid. In 1833, Oberlin College, the first coeducational college, was opened with the express purpose “of giving all the privileges of higher education to the unjustly condemned and neglected sex.” Among the first women students was the youthful woman’s rights advocate, Lucy Stone. She wished to learn Greek and Hebrew, for she was convinced that the Biblical passage, “and he shall rule over thee,” had not been correctly translated by the men. In 1865 with the founding of Vassar College, the first woman’s college was established. To-day both sexes have the same educational opportunities in the United States. The four oldest universities (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins), established on the English model, still exclude women, and do not grant them academic degrees. However, the latter point is of comparatively minor importance in its relation to the educational opportunities of women. Most of the western universities are coeducational; in the East there are special woman’s colleges. In the colleges and universities the number of women students is a little over one-third of the number of men students, but in the high schools the girl students outnumber the boys. The removal of all restrictions to woman’s instruction in the secondary and higher institutions of learning is furthering the activity of the American women in the professions. As teachers, they are employed chiefly in the public schools, in which they constitute 70 per cent of the total staff. So the majority of the “freest citizens” in the world are educated by women. The number of women teachers in the public schools is 327,151. In the higher institutions of learning there is nothing to prevent their appointment. Among university teachers (professors and those of lower rank) there are about 1000 women. Their salaries are equal to those of the men, which is not always the case in the elementary schools, since the tendency is to restrict women to the subordinate positions.[19]
The women who teach in the woman’s colleges must, in every case, possess a superior individuality. Thus a woman president of a college must possess academic training in order to control her teaching force; she must possess a deep insight into human nature in order that her educational relations with the public may be successful; she must have a knowledge of business in order to administer the property of her institution satisfactorily and command the respect of the financiers of her governing board.
Fifteen thousand American women are students in woman’s colleges, and twenty thousand in coeducational colleges and universities. In the latter, the women have distinguished themselves through application and ability so that frequently they have taken all the academic honors and prizes to the exclusion of the men. Since they can no longer be excluded on the ground of their inferiority, their superiority is now the pretext for their exclusion. But a suspension of coeducation in the United States is not to be considered. The state universities, supported with public funds, are all coeducational. The existence of non-coeducational colleges and universities in addition to state institutions is regarded as a guarantee of personal freedom in matters pertaining to higher education.
Since the public school system in the United States is in great part coeducational, the exclusion of women from conferences pertaining to school affairs and their administration would indicate that an especially great injustice were being committed. This was indeed recognized, and women were given the right to vote on school affairs not only in the five woman’s suffrage states [Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, and Kansas], but also in twenty-three other states, in which women are without political rights in other respects. The famous deaf-blind woman, Helen Keller, was appointed to serve on the state committee on the education of the blind. In Boston trained nurses are employed to make visits to the homes of the school children. An agitation is on foot to have women inspectors of schools.
In all woman’s suffrage states special attention is devoted to educational matters. Thus the State of Idaho appropriated $2500 for the establishment of a lectureship in domestic science. From 1872 to 1900 the number of women students has increased 148.7 per cent (while the number of men students increased 60.6 per cent). Among women there are also fewer illiterates, drunkards, and criminals; in other words, women are the more moral and better educated part of the American population; and it is these who are excluded from active participation in political affairs.
The number of women lawyers is estimated at one thousand; in twenty-three states they may plead in the Supreme Court. Women lawyers have their own professional organizations.
In Ohio, women are employed in the police service; in Pennsylvania they are appointed as tax-collectors; in the city of Portland a woman was appointed as inspector of markets with police power. Women justices of the peace are as numerous as women mayors. In Oregon a woman is secretary to the governor, for whom she acts with full authority.
In all woman’s suffrage states women act as jurors. Besides these states only Illinois permits women to serve as jurors—and then only in a juvenile court.