[29]. In one instance only—that of Evelyn college in New Jersey—has an affiliated college, once established, been compelled to close its doors. Evelyn, however, partook of the nature of a private enterprise school, and was begun on an unacademic basis in 1887. A certain number of Princeton professors consented to serve on the board of trustees and give instruction there, but it was, in reality, a young ladies’ finishing school with a few students (in 1891, 22; in 1894, 18; in 1897, 14) pursuing collegiate courses. Music and accomplishments were made much of, and in 1897 the college came to a well-merited end.
[30]. Radcliffe and Barnard are the only two of the affiliated colleges that appear in the U. S. education reports in division A of women’s colleges. The students of the other three are reported under Brown, Western reserve and Tulane respectively, thus giving these colleges a false air of being coeducational in their undergraduate departments. The endowment and equipment of these three affiliated colleges, although entirely independent of the colleges to which they are affiliated, are given nowhere separately.
[31]. It is difficult for those interested in women’s education in England to understand the existence in America of independent colleges for women, and if American education were organized like English education they would, indeed, have no reason to exist. In an English university, consisting, as it does, of many separate colleges whose students live in their separate halls of residence, are taught by their own teachers, hear in common with the students of other colleges the lectures offered by the central university organization, and compete against each other in honor examinations conducted by a common board of university examiners, the colleges for women—at Cambridge, Girton and Newnham, and at Oxford, Somerville hall, Lady Margaret hall and St. Hugh’s hall—are organized in precisely the same way as colleges for men. They may, or may not, be as well equipped as the best men’s colleges, but the difference is a matter of endowment, not of university organization; there are differences also between the various colleges for men. Examinations, again, play a far more important part in English than in American education. There are in Great Britain only a few examining and degree-giving bodies, for whose examinations all the various colleges prepare their students. The degrees mean that certain examinations have been passed, and have a definite and universally acknowledged value. A degree given by an American college means that the person receiving it has lived for some time in a community of a certain kind, enjoying certain opportunities of which he has conscientiously availed himself. For this reason no one of the 491 colleges of the United States enumerated in the U. S. education report for 1897–98 bestows its degree in recognition of examinations passed in any other college. For this reason Harvard college has had logic on its side in declining to confer upon the students completing their undergraduate course in Radcliffe college the Harvard B. A. They have not lived in the same community, nor yet had all the opportunities of the Harvard student. The certificate received by the student of Girton or Newnham represents exactly the same thing as the Cambridge degree; the B. A. of Radcliffe does not represent the same thing as the Harvard B. A. What is represented by the degrees of different colleges in the United States may, or may not, be equal, but never is the same. Nevertheless Columbia, Brown, Tulane and Western reserve confer their degrees upon the women graduates of their affiliated colleges for women.
[32]. The first American affiliated college was the so-called Harvard annex, which was brought into existence by the devoted efforts of a small number of influential professors of Harvard college, who voluntarily formed themselves into a “Society for the collegiate instruction of women,” and repeated each week to classes of women the lectures and class work they gave to men in Harvard college. The idea first occurred to Mr. Arthur Gilman in 1878. Girton college, Cambridge, England, after which the annex was modeled, had then been in successful operation for nine years. Mrs. Louis Agassiz, the widow of the famous naturalist, agreed to become the official head of the undertaking, and she associated with herself other influential Boston and Cambridge women. Mr. Arthur Gilman became the secretary of the society. The president of Harvard college declared that, so far as the university was concerned, the professors were free to teach women in their leisure hours if they chose. The annex was opened for students in 1879 in a rented house near the Harvard campus with 25 students.
[33]. The medical school of the Johns Hopkins university is a true university school, admitting only holders of the bachelor’s degree; the law school of Harvard university is practically a university school, although seniors in Harvard college are received as students.
[34]. Out of the 58 most important American colleges enumerated on page [12] only 23, it will be remembered, appear in the lists of the Federation of graduate clubs. Unfortunately it must not be inferred that all these 23 colleges are doing true professional work and offering graduate students a three years’ course leading to the degree of Ph. D. In some of them there are provided only courses leading to the degree of A. M., which, like the degree of A. B., indicating general culture. The affiliated college of Radcliffe appears in the list of graduate clubs, although it can scarcely be said to exist independently as a separate graduate school, being virtually the portal by which women are admitted to a limited amount of graduate work at Harvard. In 1899–1900 only 12 graduate lecture courses and 3 research courses were repeated at Radcliffe.
[35]. The graduate courses of Clark (which has no undergraduate department) are few in number and attended by only 48 men; the exclusion of women is, therefore, very surprising especially as the principal subjects of instruction, pedagogy, experimental psychology and the like, are of peculiar interest to women. The exclusion of women from all but the medical department of the Johns Hopkins university is really of serious import, because the Johns Hopkins university, judged not by numbers but by scholarly research and publication, the number of Ph. D. degrees conferred, and the important college and university positions filled by its graduates, has long been, and perhaps is still, the most important graduate school in the United States. Its attitude toward women is to be accounted for in part by its location, and in part by the fact that its management is in the hands of a self-perpetuating board of twelve trustees appointed originally by the founder, and without exception Baltimoreans, so that no pressure can be brought to bear upon the corporation from more progressive sections of the country.
[36]. These figures are taken from the Graduate handbook for 1899, published by the Federation of graduate clubs. Of these the greatest number studying in any one institution in the west was to be found in the University of Chicago, and the next greatest in the University of California; the greatest number studying in any one institution in the east was to be found at Barnard-Columbia, and the next greatest at Bryn Mawr. There were studying in the graduate departments of the University of Chicago (including summer students) 276 women; in the University of California, 90; in Barnard-Columbia, 82; in Bryn Mawr, 61; in Radcliffe-Harvard, 58; in Yale, 42; in Cornell, 36; in the University of Pennsylvania, 34. The position of Bryn Mawr in this series seems to show conclusively that an independent woman’s college maintaining a sufficiently high standard of instruction may compete successfully for students with much larger and older coeducational foundations.
[37]. See Fellowships and graduate scholarships, published by the Association of collegiate alumnæ, Richmond Hill, N. Y., III Series, No. 2, July, 1899.
[43]. A private law school for women existed for some years in the city of New York, founded by Madame Kempin, a graduate of the University of Zurich. At the request of the Women’s legal education society it was incorporated with the New York University law school.