“In reply to your interesting[[25]] letter of November 25, ’89, I would say that opinion is much divided both in our faculty and in our board of visitors on the question of opening this university to women.” There is at this moment no way in which any one who wished to benefit women could do so more effectively than by offering this university a handsome endowment on condition of its terminating this state of indecision in the right way. The Johns Hopkins University has lately accepted a gift of a hundred thousand dollars from a woman; it remains to be seen whether it will show its appreciation of this act of generosity on the part of the self-forgetful sex by opening its doors to women. Whatever the result of the next few years may be upon the history of the education of women in the South, there can be no doubt that the situation at the present moment is far more hopeful than it was ten or even five years ago, and far more hopeful than any one would have believed who has not recently looked into the matter.
For the present, the Woman’s College of Baltimore is the only representative in the South of separate education for women of a collegiate grade. This college was established by the Methodist Church (aided by liberal endowments from a number of enthusiastic advocates of the higher education,—first among them the Rev. John F. Goucher) for the purpose of providing women with the best attainable facilities for securing liberal culture. It is the intention to increase the endowment to two millions of dollars, exclusive of the value of the buildings,—this is stated to be necessary in order to meet the objects which the incorporators have in view. There are at present nine professors and associate professors, together with other instructors; there are laboratories and lecture-rooms, a spacious and carefully planned boarding-hall, and a gymnasium which contains a swimming pool and running track, and which is fitted with the best imported appliances for both general and special gymnastic movements. The wealth of the South is becoming so great that there is no reason why thoroughly equipped colleges like this should not spring up in various quarters.
I have received the most emphatic testimony as to the good standing of the women in the best of the men’s colleges to which they have been admitted. Professor Fristoe, of Columbian University, writes me:
“In 1884 women were admitted to the medical and scientific departments of this university, and in 1887 to the academic, except to the preparatory school. We have eleven ladies in the academic department, seven in the medical, and seven in the scientific. We admitted them simply because there seemed to be a demand for it, and because we could find no objection. The girls admitted have been, without exception, superior students. They have had no injurious effect, but the reverse, and we find no inconvenience from our course. We have had so far only two who finished the course in the Corcoran Scientific School, but they were very fine scholars. One of them excelled especially in mathematics, the other in mental philosophy and such subjects. I am rather proud of the girls.”
The italics are not mine. Professor Adison Hogue, of the University of Mississippi, writes me:
“Women are admitted here because the board of trustees gave them the privilege some years ago. I know of no other reason than that. Not many avail themselves of the opportunity, especially as the State for some years past has had, at Columbus, an industrial institute and college solely for women. This year we have eleven in attendance here; in each of my previous three years the number was five, Their standing averages above that of the boys, I think. In ’85 and ’87 the first honor was taken by young ladies; and in our present sophomore class a slender girl is spoken of as the ‘first honor man.’ Their social standing is in no way impaired by their coming here, although the plan of mixed education is not greatly in favor, as the small number shows.”
Professor Halsted, of the University of Texas, says, in his report to the Superintendent of Public Instruction: “Several young ladies have shown marked ability in the acquirement of the newer and more abstruse developments of mathematics, for example, quaternions.”
The president of the H. Sophie Newcomb College, which is a department of the Tulane University of Louisiana, has a larger number of students upon which to base his conclusions. He writes:
“When the college was inaugurated two years ago, it was discovered that very few of the applicants for admission were qualified to undertake a regular college course. The schools of this city (mostly private), which they had previously attended, had not hitherto arranged their courses of study with reference to advanced or college work, and had not therefore adopted any fixed standard of acquirement.... The grade of the present freshman class is fully a year and a half in advance of that which entered two years ago, and at the same time there has been a steady increase in numbers. The greatest gain has been shown in mathematics, science, and Latin. Our advanced classes are doing excellent work in calculus and analytical geometry, laboratory work in chemistry and biology, etc.... While I can testify from experience to the equal ability of the Louisiana young women with those in the East or elsewhere in mathematical, scientific, or other studies, yet on account of the social pressure, and long established customs which demand early graduations, we must be content to see our institution develop more slowly than it would otherwise do.”
I give in Appendix C, Table I., a list of the co-educational colleges in the Southern States, prepared for me by the Bureau of Education from the manuscript statistics for 1889–90. The following so-called colleges have in no sense a proper equipment nor a proper course of study for enabling them to deserve the name of college: Eminence, Classical and Business, South Kentucky, (Ky.); Keachie, (La.); Florida Conference and St. John’s River (Fla.); Western Maryland, (Md.); Kavanagh, (Miss.); Salado, Hope, (Tex.) That leaves the following number of students who are in the collegiate departments of real, white, co-educational colleges in the South: