the case of young men, limited to those of the preparatory schools. The propriety and value of these requirements is, however, not the subject of discussion. They are referred to here only because they illustrate the difference between the methods of Oberlin and the methods of what is popularly understood by the term "co-educational college." Because, indeed, taken in connection with the preceding eight points, they show that while Oberlin is largely co-instructional, it is also largely not, in the current sense of the term, co-educational at all.

The history and method of co-education at Oberlin, as summed up above, proves the truth of what the presidents and professors of Oberlin have said in one and another form again and again: viz., that co-education there did not originate in any radically new idea of the sphere and work of women; nor in any conscious purpose to do justice to woman as an individual.

Oberlin originated in religious zeal. As a high school, it admitted women because of the great need of educated women who could serve their own country as teachers, or foreign countries as missionaries or missionaries' wives; women were, upon their own petition, suffered to enter the college course by men too just and too logical to deny a request grounded in justice and reason; but they were not welcomed by men who saw in this petition the realization of any theory of the mental equality of the sexes.

The present Oberlin system has been molded slowly by poverty and resulting economy, by local needs and, partially, too, though resistingly, by the progressive spirit of the times. It is curious and interesting that so conservative a college (independently of her own intention or desire) should have been appealed to as their inspiration, and cited as their model, by colleges between whom and Oberlin great dissimilarity exists; but it is true that Oberlin has done more for the cause of co-education than she could possibly have done had she taken the attitude of a propagandist. Probably no college for men has opened its doors to women in the last thirty years without first consulting Oberlin's experience. The Oberlin authorities have always unhesitatingly testified to the success of the Oberlin plan; almost always the testimony of these witnesses has indicated their conviction that the Oberlin plan, being the outgrowth of peculiar conditions, would not be certain to flourish if transplanted; and this moderation, this abatement of enthusiastic advocacy, has given the testimony of

Oberlin men incomparable weight during this controversy in the West.

In 1853, Antioch College was opened at Yellow Springs, O. It was the first endeavor in the West to found a college under Christian but non-sectarian auspices. Its president, Horace Mann, wrote of it: "Antioch is now the only first-class college in all the West that is really an unsectarian institution. There are, it is true, some State institutions which profess to be free from proselyting instrumentalities; but I believe without exception they are all under control of men who hold as truth something which they have prejudged to be true."

This fact has a distinct bearing on co-education, and it is curious to observe that even this most non-sectarian of colleges provided by charter that two thirds of the trustees and two thirds of the faculty should belong to the "Christian Connection"; a body of people who, by separating themselves from the sects, had really become a new sect.

The opening of this college under so distinguished an educator as Mr. Mann, gave a new impulse to higher education throughout the West. Antioch was from the first avowedly co-educational; this was demanded by the liberality of the Christian thought by which it was supported. But the best friends of the higher education of women, even Mr. Mann himself, regarded this feature of the new college with suspicion, if not with aversion. How serious the objection that marriages might grow out of the intimacies of college life was considered, may be inferred from the fact that Mr. Mann discussed it in his inaugural address; and from the passage of a by-law providing that marriages should not take place between students while retaining their connection with the college. At one time Mr. Mann advised against co-education on this ground.

The effect that his experience with a co-educational institution produced upon Mr. Mann's own opinion has been frequently urged as a strong argument in the behalf of coeducation.

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In view of the probable necessity of closing the college, Mr. Mann wrote: One of the most grievous of my regrets at this sad prospect is the apprehension that the experiment (as the world will still call it) of educating the sexes together will be suddenly interrupted, to be revived only in some indefinite future."

In his baccalaureate address of 1859, there occurs a passionate paragraph expressing Mr. Mann's longing to do more and better than he had done for the higher education of women,

which shows that he had found women at Antioch worthy of their opportunities.

Women were not only received as students at Antioch, but also, in the beginning, were included in the faculty. These facts, especially the latter, excited marked attention, and, notwithstanding the disasters which interrupted the work of Antioch, and the poverty which has kept it a small college, the fame of Horace Mann, inseparably connected with its history, has made its influence in behalf of co-education potent.

OPENING WEDGES.

The conditions of pioneer life are favorable to co-education. The exigencies incident to life in a new country destroy certain barriers between men and women which are fixed in old and settled communities. The women in a pioneer settlement not infrequently join in labors in which, under more settled conditions, they would never be called to participate. Many women in the West have assisted their husbands and fathers in the field, the office, and the shop, simply because hired male labor was unattainable. On the other hand, men in pioneer homes assist their wives in household labors, because domestic help cannot be found. In the organization of churches, schools, and Sunday-schools, the sparseness of the population compels men to divide the work with women. Thus, without intention on the part of either men or women, they become used to working together in many unaccustomed ways; and the idea of going to college together does not seem so unnatural as in older communities, where traditions of long standing have separated men and women in their occupations.

The almost universal connection of preparatory departments with colleges in the West is properly deplored; but the "preparatory" has been a stepping-stone to co-education. In their origin the Western colleges found it necessary to maintain preparatory schools in order to obtain any college classes. This is illustrated by the experience of Antioch. Out of 150 students who applied for admission to that college in 1853, but 8 were able to pass the examinations for admission to the freshman class, meager as were the requirements. These 8 included men and women, married and single. The older colleges in this new country have a similar chapter in their history. There were few high schools, and the course of study of those was narrow. To have students, each college was compelled to prepare them. The preparatory department in a college town did the work of the present high school; it was very natural

that the residents of those towns should desire to send both their sons and daughters to the "preparatory," which was usually, perhaps always, the best school accessible to them. This desire, however, gave no forecast of a desire to send both to the college later on. Sometimes the "preparatory was not provided with a separate building, but its work was done in some room or rooms of the college building proper. The preparatory course finished, some bright girl would wish to go forward with her class into college work; she could not enter the class formally, but "if the professor was willing" she could attend lectures in this or the other subject; in many college towns there are middle-aged and elderly women who, as young girls, with the tacit consent of parents and college instructors, thus obtained the larger part of a college education. They had no formal recognition from any one; their names appeared in no catalogues, but they acquired substantial benefits. The present permitted but unacknowledged presence of women at Leipzig and other universities on the Continent, was thus antedated in the West.

Occasionally one of these students, spurred by what she considered the demands of her self-respect, made formal application for regular admission to the college; and not a few of our Western colleges became co-educational by these natural, easy, and noiseless approaches.

The manner in which the desire of one woman for a college education has transformed a men's into a co-educational college, is illustrated in the history of the State University of Indiana. Miss Sarah P. Morrison wished to enter college, and began agitating the question of opening the State University to women. Mr. Isaac Jenkinson of Richmond, Ind., tells the whole pregnant story thus briefly. He writes me:

"I was a member of the board of trustees in 1866, when Miss Morrison's appeal was made to the trustees. (Miss Morrison had for several years been agitating the question among her friends.) I at once offered a resolution admitting young women on equal terms with young men, but I had no support whatever in the board at that time; at a following session the same year, my resolution was adopted by a vote of 4 in favor, to 3 against it."

Many colleges in the West had from the beginning a "female course much like the "ladies' course at Oberlin. This course was, like the preparatory department, a way of approach for the more ambitious. The story of one is, with a change of names, the story of many such colleges. The following from

"A Report on the Position of Women in Industries and Educacation in the State of Indiana, "* illustrates the function of the "ladies course" in facilitating co-education.

"Butler University at Irvington, Ind., founded in 1855, admitted women as students from the outset, but at first only into what was denominated its female course. In its laudable endeavor to adapt its requirements to an intermediate class of beings, the university, in its 'female course' substituted music for mathematics and French for Greek. Few young women availed themselves of this 'course' and it was utterly repudiated by Demia Butler, a daughter of Ovid Butler, the founder of the university, and a gentleman of most enlightened views concerning woman's place in life. Miss Butler, upon her own petition, indorsed by her father, entered the university in 1858, and graduated from what was then known as the 'male course' in 1862. From that time the 'female course became less popular, and in 1864 was formally discontinued."

The normal class was another of the steps toward co-education. In the middle of this century it was not uncommon for special short terms of instruction for teachers to be held during the fall or spring vacations of the common schools. To secure the advantage of good lecture rooms and appliances, and also to secure the aid of distinguished professors, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction would obtain permission to hold his normal class at the State university; or for similar reasons a county Superintendent would hold such a school for the teachers within his jurisdiction, in a college town. In these "normal schools," having no formal or permanent relation with the college at which they were held, one sees the origin in many colleges of their present "departments of the theory and practice of elementary instruction.'

From the earliest settlement of the West women taught the district schools in the summer, and the work of elementary instruction fell naturally more and more into their hands, until it was, during the war of 1861-5, almost monopolized by them. Necessarily, when the "normal classes" were organized, women entered and sometimes exclusively composed them. After the normal class had transcended its original limits of four or six weeks, and had developed into a "normal department," women still, in part or in whole, constituted it. Lec

* Prepared by May Wright Sewall at the request of the commissioners for Indiana, for the Indiana Department of the New Orleans Exposition.-ED,