Sometimes the two townships of land have been given en bloc, and some times they have been so given as to permit the location of university lands in different portions of the State; sometimes they have been kept as an endowment of the State University; sometimes they have been in part devoted to the founding of the university. But in every State and Territory in the above list, a university exists which owes its origin and its maintenance in part to the government of the United States.
A study of the history of the State Universities shows that in many States a strange hostility existed toward them. A feeling that by appropriating lands for their endowment, the general government was encouraging the growth of an aristocratic class of learned men, seems not to have been uncommon in the early days. This appears to be one valid explanation of the reluctance of State Legislatures to make generous or permanent appropriations for the support of such universities.
The truth is, however, that the State Universities are the most democratic of all the institutions of higher learning; this truth is now generally perceived, and the institutions are growing proportionally popular. It is due to their necessarily democratic nature that they are now without exception open to women. Their chief feeders are the public high schools, with which they must maintain direct and constant communication. Their chief financial support comes directly and equally from all property-holding citizens; either by appropriation from the public treasury, varying in amount with each Legislature, or by a fixed, special tax, of a certain percentum of all assessed property. Finding their students in the public high schools, which in the West are almost universally co-educational, and their support in the public treasury, into which flow taxes upon the property of women and girls as well as upon that of men and boys, the wonder is that the State Universities did not from their origin admit women as students.
The following table will show when each State University was chartered, opened, and opened to women. The list of States in this table is presented as above in the chronological order of their admission to the Union.
| CHARTERED. | OPENED. | ADMITTED WOMEN. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ohio | Athens | 1804 | 1809 | 1871 |
| Columbus | 1870 | 1873 | 1873 | |
| Indiana | 1820 | 1824 | 1867 | |
| Illinois | 1867 | 1868 | 1871 | |
| Missouri | 1839 | 1843 | 1870 | |
| Michigan | 1837 | 1841 | 1870 | |
| Iowa | 1847 | 1860 | 1860 | |
| Wisconsin | 1848 | 1849 | 1860, 1863, 1868, 1871, 1875 | |
| California | 1868 | 1869 | 1870 | |
| Minnesota | 1868 | 1869 | 1869 | |
| Oregon | 1876 | 1876 | 1876 | |
| Kansas | 1861 | 1866 | 1866 | |
| Nevada | 1864 | 1874 | 1874 | |
| Nebraska | 1869 | 1871 | 1871 | |
| Colorado | 1861 | 1877 | 1877 | |
| North Dakota | 1883 | 1884 | 1884 | |
| South Dakota | 1862 | 1885 | 1885 | |
| Montana | 1884 | 1883 | 1883 | |
| Washington | 1861 | 1862 | ||
| Utah, Deseret | 1850 | 1850 | 1850 | |
A glance at the table will show that the periods of time during which these universities received men only, vary from two to sixty-two years, that but one of those opened prior to 1861 has been from the outset co-educational; that all opened prior to 1861 became co-educational between 1861 and 1871: and that all organized since 1871 started as co-educational institutions.
National government made additional provision for higher education by an act usually referred to as “The Agricultural College Act of 1862.” By this act each State received 30,000 acres of land for each Senator and Representative to whom it was entitled in the United States Congress, “the proceeds to be applied to the maintenance of at least one college in each State,” “without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts.” Under this act there have been established in the territory discussed in this chapter, since 1862, fourteen colleges of the character indicated.
In Ohio, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Nevada, and Nebraska such institutions exist as Departments of the State University, and, like all its other departments, admit women.
In Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, and Colorado, such institutions, under various names, as “Agricultural College,” “Industrial and Mechanical College,” “College of Applied Science,” etc., enjoy an independent organization, in some States loosely connected with, in others entirely separate from, the State University.
These institutions are authorized to give degrees appropriate to the courses of study pursued in them, and they are likewise open to women. The act of 1862 gave a distinct impulse to the higher education of women in the West, for reasons to be hereafter mentioned.