Woman's work in America

by Unknown

Although the germ of a State University was secured by the national government to each of the twenty-one States and Territories in our list at or prior to the time of its admission, in many instances the State action relative to these institutions, upon which the government aid had been conditioned, was postponed for a long series of years. In the mean time the desire for the higher education was stimulated, and opportunities for obtaining it were provided by the churches.

Appendix B, Table II., to this article, gives a list of 165 institutions, within my prescribed territory, open to women, which are of sufficient importance to be included in the tables of “Colleges of Liberal Arts,” published by the United States Commissioner of Education, in his Report for 1888–89 (taken from the advance sheets). Of these, 45 are non-sectarian. The remaining 120 are distributed among the various denominations as follows:

Methodist Episcopal, 31; Baptist, 16; Presbyterian, 14; Congregational, 13; Christian, 10; United Brethren, 7; Lutheran, 6; United Presbyterian, 4; Reformed, 3; Friends, 3; Cumberland Presbyterian, 2; M. E. South, 2; Universalist, 2; Seventh Day Baptist, 1; Methodist Protestant, 1; Evangelical Association, 1; Brethren, 1; Church of God, 1; New Church, 1; Protestant Episcopal, 1.

At the present time one frequently hears people deprecate the effort to maintain so large a number of colleges. It is asserted truly that the distribution of patronage among so many, necessarily prevents any from attaining commanding influence. Especially do the advocates of non-sectarian education recommend that the weaker institutions be closed, that their properties be sold, and that effort be concentrated upon the few stronger ones. The arguments by which this recommendation is sustained are sound.

If the financial support, the love, the loyalty, the ambition, and the students that are distributed among the thirty-one colleges of Liberal Arts in the State of Ohio, could be united in the support of any one of the number, the fortunate recipient might soon rank with the great universities of our country, nay, of the world. But however desirable such a concentration of patronage ultimately may be, one cannot read the history of the educational work of the churches, without feeling that “Wisdom is justified of her children.”

It is true that many of these colleges were founded in the interests of sectarian theology, rather than of liberal culture; that they were all in some degree, some of them in very large degree, regarded and used by their supporters as the most available instruments in the labor of securing proselytes to the particular school of Christian faith in whose name they were planted. In the degree to which these institutions have nurtured sectarian zeal, emphasized distinctions in minor points of doctrine, and strengthened the barriers between denominations, it must be conceded that their influence has been benumbing and narrowing; and in this degree they have tended from instead of toward culture, whose mission is to broaden and quicken instead of to narrow and benumb.

In spite of this limitation upon the work of denominational colleges, they merit the profoundest respect and gratitude of the public. A large proportion of these institutions were established when the wilderness was being cleared and settled.

It is related by its historian that the site of Ripon College was chosen by two enthusiasts in the cause of higher education, in the year 1850, when the State of Wisconsin was but two years old, when “there were but fourteen rude buildings in the village of Ripon,” and when but a single year had elapsed since the first clearing on the village site had been made. At once these brave men applied for a charter for a college; and the purpose of the corporation was declared to be, “To found, establish, and maintain at Ripon, in the county of Fond du Lac, an institution of learning of the highest order, embracing also a department for preparatory instruction.”

This is hardly an exceptional, but a typical instance.

The people were few, scattered, and poor. Communication between places remote from each other was slow and uncertain. Means of travel and transportation were limited to the pack horse, the private wagon, the stage coach, and the flat-boat. If poverty had not rendered it impossible for the pioneers to incur the expense of sending their children on long and slow journeys, to distant colleges, the time consumed in such journeys, and the anxiety incident to separation, in the absence of any means of frequent and speedy communication, would have prohibited it.