[39]. Through the kindness of Mr. James Russell Parsons, Jr., author of the monograph on professional education in the United States, published as one of this series, I am able to insert the figures for 1899, see p. [21]. By personal inquiry I have been able to add four to his list of coeducational schools of theology.
[40]. The number of professional students for the year 1898 is taken from the U. S. ed. rep. for 1897–98.
[41]. For the sake of clearness I have omitted from the above table the 7 separate medical schools for women, although I have counted their students in the total number of women medical students, both in 1890 and 1898. In 1890 there were studying in the 6 regular medical women’s colleges 425 women, as against 648 women in coeducational regular medical colleges; in 1898 there were studying in them 411 women, as against 1045 in coeducational colleges, a decrease of 3.3 per cent, whereas women students in coeducational medical colleges have increased 16.3 per cent. I limit the comparison to regular medical schools because women have increased relatively more rapidly in irregular medical schools and there is only one separate irregular medical school for women. It is sometimes said that women prefer medical sects because the proportion of women studying in irregular schools is relatively greater than the proportion studying in regular schools; but in 1898, 85.7 per cent of the irregular schools were coeducational and only 46.6 per cent of regular schools, a fact which undoubtedly increases the proportion of students studying in irregular schools.
[42]. The statistics for the schools of technology and agriculture are taken from the U. S. education report for 1889–90, pp. 1053–1054, and from the report for 1897–98, pp. 1985–1988. I have excluded schools of technology not endowed with the national land grant. In 1890 there were 27 of such schools (5 of them coeducational); in 1898 their number had fallen to 17 (3 of them coeducational). Very few women are studying in these schools; in 1898 women formed only 0.2 per cent of all students studying in them.
Theology, law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, veterinary science, schools of technology and agriculture—Ten years ago there were very few women studying in any of these schools. The wonderful increase both in facilities for professional study and in the number of women students during the last eight years may be seen by referring to the comparative table on the opposite page.
It is evident to the impartial observer that coeducation is to be the method in professional schools. Except in medicine, where women were at first excluded from coeducational study by the strongest prejudice that has ever been conquered in any movement, no important separate professional schools, indeed none whatever, except one unimportant school of pharmacy have been founded for women only.[[43]] It is evident also that the number of women entering upon professional study is increasing rapidly. If we compare the relative increase of men and of women from 1890 to 1898 we obtain the following percentages: increase of students in medicine, men, 51.1 per cent, women, 64.2 per cent; in dentistry, men, 150.2 per cent, women, 205.7 per cent; in pharmacy, men, 25.9 per cent, women, 190 per cent; in technology and agriculture, men, 119.3 per cent, women, 194.7 per cent.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
There are many questions connected with the college education of American women which possess great interest for the student of social science.
Number of college women—In the year 1897–98[[44]] there were studying in the undergraduate and graduate departments of coeducational colleges and universities 17,338 women, and in the undergraduate and graduate departments of independent and affiliated women’s colleges, division A, 4,959 women, women forming thus 27.4 per cent of the total number of graduate and undergraduate students. The 22 colleges belonging to the Association of collegiate alumnæ, which are, on the whole, the most important colleges in the United States admitting women, have conferred the bachelor’s degree on 12,804 women. If we add to these the graduates of the Women’s college of Brown university, 102 in number, and the graduates of the 14 additional coeducational colleges included in my list of the 58 most important colleges in the United States, we obtain, including those graduating in June, 1899, a total of 14,824 women holding the bachelor’s degree.[[45]] There is thus formed, even leaving out of account the graduates of the minor colleges, a larger body of educated women than is to be found in any other country in the world. These graduates have received the most strenuous college training obtainable by women in the United States, which does not differ materially from the best college training obtainable by American men (indeed, women graduates of coeducational colleges have received precisely the same training as men), and may fairly be compared with the women who have received college and university training abroad. In other countries women university graduates, or even women who have studied at universities, are very few;[[46]] in America, on the other hand, the higher education of women has assumed the proportions of a national movement still in progress. We may perhaps be able to guide in some degree its future development, but it has passed the experimental stage and can no longer be opposed with any hope of success. Its results are to be reckoned with as facts.
Health of college women[[47]]—Those who have come into contact with some of the many thousands of healthy normal women studying in college at the present time, or who have had an opportunity to know something of the after-lives of even a small number of college women, believe that experience has proved them to be, both in college, and after leaving college, on the whole, in better physical condition than other women of the same age and social condition. Since, however, people who have not the opportunity of knowledge at first hand continue to regard the health of college women as a subject open for discussion, a new health investigation, based on questions sent to the 12,804 graduates of the 22 colleges belonging to the Association of collegiate alumnæ, is now in progress. The statistical tables will be collated a second time by the Massachusetts bureau of statistics of labor and sent to the Paris exposition as part of the educational exhibit of the Association of collegiate alumnæ.[[48]]