III.
THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN THE WESTERN STATES.
BY
MAY WRIGHT SEWALL.
No formal history of the movement in the West on behalf of the higher education of women has been published. The materials for this paper have been derived from the reports issued under the auspices of the Bureau of Education; from the catalogues of institutions open to women; from various monographs, some of which recite the history of a single college (like “Oberlin, its Origin, Progress, and Results,” by Pres. J. H. Fairchild), others of which present the educational history of a State (like “Higher Education in Wisconsin,” by Professors Allen and Spencer); from a miscellaneous collection of baccalaureate sermons and congratulatory addresses delivered before the graduating classes and the alumnæ associations of many colleges; from old files of newspapers, and from scrap books which for a series of years have been collecting the records of contemporary effort along the lines of higher education; from the biographies of distinguished educators in our country; and from scores of letters, many of which have been written by college presidents and professors in response to my own inquiries, while others have been placed at my disposal by Dr. Carroll Cutler, formerly President of Adelbert College. No stronger evidence of the interest felt in the higher education of women could be found than the cordial, generous answers to my inquiries, which have come from the officials of scores of institutions extending from the Ohio to the Pacific. I am withheld from naming gentlemen to whom I am so deeply indebted only by the fact that a list of those who have courteously replied to my appeals for information would occupy more space than I can afford to give out of the limited number of pages allotted me in this volume.
The Western States and Territories in the order of their admission into the Union under their present names, include Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington—eighteen States; and Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming—three Territories. The changes undergone and the relations sustained by each of the above in its progress toward its present independent condition are exhibited in Table I. given in Appendix B. In this vast territorial expanse, embracing communities just being born into statehood, together with others which have enjoyed that dignity for periods varying from ten to eighty-seven years, one has an opportunity to witness almost every phase of the struggle for the higher education of women.
Conditions that ceased to exist in one State so long ago that they had almost passed from the memories of their victims, arose at a later period to vex other States. Questions long settled in one community became living issues in another; and such is the reluctance of the human being to learn from the experience of others, that these questions are still discussed with as much vivacity, not to say acrimony, as if they had never been settled.
Higher education in the West has been fostered by the national government, by the governments of the separate States, by many different denominations of the Christian church, and by individual enterprise and devotion.
As a large number of the strongest institutions in the West, open to women, owe their origin to provisions made by the general government, it is fitting to direct our first inquiry to the relations of that government to education in the West. On May 25, 1785, the Continental Congress passed an ordinance disposing of lands in the Northwestern Territory, by which it was decreed that: “There shall be reserved Lot No. 16 of every township for the maintenance of public schools within said township.” On July 13, 1787, the famous Ordinance relating to the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio River was passed; in it occurs the passage which is so frequently cited in proof that the United States government stands pledged to aid the higher as well as the lower education: viz.,” Religion, Morality, and Knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Ten days later, Congress passed another ordinance fixing the terms of sale for the tract of land purchased by the Ohio Company. This ordinance stipulated not only that section 16 of every township should be reserved for the maintenance of schools, but also “that two complete townships shall be given perpetually for the purposes of an university, to be laid off by the purchaser or purchasers as near the center as may be, so that the same shall be good land, to be applied to the intended object by the Legislature of the State.”
In these ordinances of 1787, we find the germ of all our State Universities in the West.
Owing to the grant secured by Congress in its contract with the Ohio Company, the Ohio University at Athens, O., was founded. It was first chartered as the “American Western University.” The name implies that its friends expected it to supply the educational needs of the then vague “West”; but only a year after the admission of Ohio as a State, i.e., in 1804, the University received a new charter from the State Legislature, under its present name. This precedent of Congressional grants for the endowment of institutions of higher education has been followed by the government to the present time.