It is often assumed by the adversaries of coeducation that independent colleges for women may be trusted to introduce a course of study modified especially for women, but the experience, both of coeducational colleges that have devised women’s courses and of women’s colleges, demonstrates conclusively that women themselves refuse to regard as satisfactory any modification whatsoever of the usual academic course. At the opening of Vassar college itself it is clear that the trustees and faculty made an honest attempt to discover and introduce certain modifications in the system of intellectual training then in operation in the best colleges for men. They planned from the start to give much more time to accomplishments—music, drawing and painting—than was given in men’s colleges, and the example of Vassar in this respect was followed ten years later by Wellesley and Smith. These accomplishments have gradually fallen out of the course of women’s colleges; neither Vassar nor Wellesley allows time spent in them to be counted toward the bachelor’s degree. Smith alone of the colleges of group I still permits nearly one-sixth of the whole college course to be devoted to them. Bryn Mawr, which opened ten years later than Smith or Wellesley, from the beginning found it possible to exclude them from its course.
In like manner Vassar, Smith and Wellesley in the beginning found it necessary to admit special students—students, that is to say, interested in special subjects, but without sufficient general training to be able to matriculate as college students; but their admission has been recognized as disadvantageous, and has gradually been restricted. In 1870 special students, as distinguished from preparatory students, formed 19.6 per cent of the whole number of the students of Vassar; in 1899 they formed only 3.9 per cent, and only 3.3 per cent of the whole number of Wellesley students. Smith since 1891 has declined to admit them at all, and Bryn Mawr never admitted them.[[25]]
Again, Wellesley and Vassar in the beginning organized preparatory departments with pupils living in the same halls as the college students and taught in great part by the same teachers. The presence of these pupils tended to turn the colleges into boarding schools, and the steady and rapid development of Vassar as a true college began only after the closing of its preparatory department in 1888; until this time the number of students in the college proper had been almost stationary; Wellesley closed its preparatory department in 1880; Smith never organized one; Bryn Mawr never organized one; Mt. Holyoke, the Woman’s college of Baltimore, and Wells college have all closed their preparatory departments within the last seven years.[[26]]
It seems to have been at first supposed that the same standards of scholarship need not be applied in the choice of instructors to teach women as in that of instructors to teach men, that women were fittest to teach women, and that the personal character and influence of the woman instructor in some mysterious way supplied the deficiency on her part of academic training. For a long time not even an ordinary undergraduate education was required of her, and there are still teaching in women’s colleges too many women without even a first degree. But it has been found on the whole that systematic mental training is best imparted by those who have themselves received it; the numbers of well-trained women are increasing; and the prejudice against the appointment of men where men are better qualified has almost disappeared.[[27]]
It has been recognized that the work done in women’s colleges is most satisfactory to women when it is the same in quality and quantity as the work done in colleges for men, and it has been recognized also that they need the same time for its performance. Domestic work, therefore, which by the founder of Wellesley was regarded as a necessary part of women’s education, is at present, I believe, required nowhere except on the perfectly plain ground of economy. The hour of domestic service originally required of every student in Wellesley was abandoned in 1896; a half-hour is still required at Mt. Holyoke, but tuition, board and residence are less expensive there. The time given to domestic work is obviously so much time taken from academic work.
In the matter of discipline the tendency has been toward ever-diminishing supervision by the college authorities. Vassar and Wellesley began with the strict regulations of a boarding school; it was regarded as impossible that young women living away from home should be in any measure trusted with the control of their own actions. Smith from the first allowed more liberty, in part because many of her students lived in boarding houses outside the college. In all three colleges the restrictions laid upon the students have been gradually lessened, and at Vassar there is at present a well-developed system of what is known as “limited self-government,” according to which many matters of discipline are intrusted to the whole body of students. Bryn Mawr was organized with a system of self-government by the students perhaps more far-reaching than was then in operation in any of the colleges for men; the necessary rules are made by the Students’ association, which includes all undergraduate and graduate students, and enforced by an executive committee of students who in the case of a serious offense may recommend the suspension or expulsion of the offender, and whose recommendation, when sustained by the whole association, is always accepted by the college. The perfect success of the system has shown that there is no risk in relying to the fullest extent on the discretion of a body of women students.
Affiliated colleges[[28]]—There are five[[29]] affiliated colleges in the United States—Radcliffe college, Barnard college, the Women’s college of Brown university, the College for Women of Western reserve university, and the H. Sophie Newcomb memorial college for women of Tulane university.[[30]] The affiliated college in America is modeled on the English women’s colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, with such modifications as are made necessary by the wholly different constitution of English and American universities. These modifications, however, it must in fairness be explained, are so essential as to make of it a wholly different institution.[[31]]
Radcliffe college, Cambridge, Massachusetts[[32]]—Affiliated to Harvard university, union dissoluble after due notice; opened by the Society for the collegiate instruction of women in 1879; incorporated as Radcliffe college with power to confer degrees in 1894; board of trustees and financial management separate from Harvard; B. A. and M. A. degrees conferred by Radcliffe; Ph. D. degree as yet conferred neither by Radcliffe nor Harvard; degrees, instructors, and academic board of control, subject to approval of Harvard; no instructors not instructors at Harvard also; undergraduate instruction at Harvard repeated at Radcliffe at discretion of instructors; since 1893 women admitted to graduate and semi-graduate courses given in Harvard, at discretion of instructor, subject to approval of the Harvard faculty; in 1899, 64 such courses open to Radcliffe students; 238 undergrad. s.; 54 grad. s.; 129 special s.; productive funds about $430,000; a lecture and library building; a gymnasium; 4 temporary buildings used for lectures and laboratories; a students’ club house; no residence hall, but one about to be built; total cost of buildings about $110,000; vols. in library, 14,138; access to Harvard library and collections; scientific laboratories of Harvard not available; cost of laboratory equipment not ascertainable, inadequate; acres (in city) about 3; tuition fee, $200.
Barnard college, New York city—Affiliated to Columbia university, union dissoluble by either party after year’s notice; opened in 1889; status very much that of Radcliffe until January, 1900, when women graduates were admitted without restriction to the graduate school of Columbia, registering in Columbia, not as heretofore in Barnard, and Barnard was incorporated as an undergraduate women’s college of the university, its dean voting in the university council, and the president of Columbia becoming its president and a member of its board of trustees; Barnard’s faculty consists of the president of the university, the dean of Barnard, and instructors, either men or women, nominated by the dean, approved by Barnard trustees and president of Columbia and appointed by Columbia; courses for A. B. degree and all examinations determined and conducted by Barnard faculty, subject to provisions of university council for maintaining integrity of degree; all degrees conferred by Columbia; after July 1, 1904, no undergraduate courses in Columbia, except in the Teachers’ college, will be open to Barnard seniors as heretofore, complete undergraduate work will be given separately at Barnard, not necessarily by same instructors; 131 undergrad. s.; 76 grad. s.; 73 special s.; productive funds, $150,000; one large building containing lecture rooms, laboratories and accommodation for 65 students, cost, $525,000; vols. in reading room, 1,000; access to Columbia, library; scientific laboratories of Columbia not available; cost of laboratory equipment $9,250; land (in city), 200 × 160 feet; tuition fee, $150.
Women’s college of Brown university, Providence, Rhode Island—Affiliated to Brown university; university degrees and examinations opened to women, and their undergraduate instruction informally begun in 1892; women’s college established by Brown university as a regular department of the university in 1897 under control of the university trustees; advisory council of five women appointed by trustees to advise with president of university and dean of women’s college; funds of the women’s college held and administered separately by trustees; all degrees conferred by Brown; women and men examined together; required courses given in Brown repeated to women by same instructors; all instruction given by Brown instructors; all graduate work in Brown open to graduate women without restriction since 1892; women recite with men in many of the smaller elective undergraduate courses; 140 undergrad. s.; 38 grad. s.; 25 special s.; a lecture hall costing $38,000; no residence hall; access to Brown library; scientific laboratories of Brown not available; very inadequate laboratory equipment; no productive funds; tuition fee, $105.