h. Colleges were originally intended for men only, and the wills of their founders and benefactors will be violated by the admission of women.
i. Whatever the real mental capacity or physical ability of women, so fixed is the world’s conviction of their inferiority, that colleges admitting them will inevitably forfeit the world’s confidence and respect.
This chapter affords no space for the à priori arguments which answer these objections; and indeed the best answer to all objections against co-education is found in its result. Let the following letters testify to the fruits of experience. Extract from a letter from James B. Angell, president of the University of Michigan, dated September 2, 1884:
“Women were admitted here (Michigan University) under the pressure of public sentiment, against the wishes of most of the professors; but I think no professor now regrets it, or would favor their exclusion. The way had been well prepared. Denominational colleges had for years admitted women; and in the high schools, which are our preparatory schools, it was the universal custom to teach both sexes. Most of the evils feared by those who opposed the admission of women have not been encountered.
“We made no solitary modification of our rules or requirements. The women did not become hoydenish; they did not fail in their studies; they did not break down in health; they have graduated in all departments; they have not been inferior in scholarship to the men; the careers of our women graduates have been, on the whole, very satisfactory. They are teachers in many of our best high schools; six or seven are in the Wellesley College faculty.”[[13]]
Extract from a letter from Moses Coit Tyler, dated at Cornell University, September 30, 1884:
“I was connected with the University of Michigan before the advent of women there; was present during the process of their introduction; for several years afterward watched the results; and am now entering on my fourth year here at a co-educational university. And now, after all these years, upon my word, I cannot recall a fact which furnishes a single valid objection to the system; while the real utility, convenience, and wholesomeness of it have so long been before my eyes, that I am startled by your letter as implying that anybody still has any doubt about it.... I do not know a member of the faculty either at Michigan or here who would favor a return to the old plan, although, before the adoption of the new one, many were anxiously opposed to it. My observation has been that under the joint system the tone of college life has grown more earnest, more courteous and refined, less flippant and cynical. The women are usually among the very best scholars, and lead instead of drag; and their lapses from good health are rather (yes, decidedly) less numerous than those alleged by men. There is a sort of young man who thinks it is not quite the thing, you know, to be in college where women are, and he goes away, if he can, and I am glad to have him do so. The vacuum he causes by his departure is not a large one, and is more than made up by the arrival, in his stead, of a more robust and a manlier sort.”
Extracts from two letters written by the Hon. Andrew D. White while president of Cornell University, and bearing dates respectively of August 5, 1884, and October 25, 1884:
“My own opinion is that all the good results we anticipated, and some we did not anticipate, have followed the admission of young women; on the other hand, not one of the prophesied evils, unless possibly some young men may have imbibed a prejudice against the university from the presence of young women, and so have gone elsewhere. This, of course, we can hardly determine. I have never thought the admission of women injured us to any appreciable extent, even in this matter. Scholarship has certainly not been injured in the slightest degree, while order has been improved.... There have been no scandals. Hardly any attachments have ever grown up between the students of the two sexes.... The best scholars are, almost without exception, men; but there is a far larger proportion of young women than of young men who become good scholars. Having now gone through one more year, making twelve in all since women were admitted, I do not hesitate to say that I believe their presence here good for us in every respect. There has not been a particle of scandal of any sort. As to the relations between the sexes, they give us no uneasiness.”
Extract from a letter written by John Bascom, then president of the University of Wisconsin, dated August 20, 1884: