In studying the educational work of the churches, one cannot fail to discern the results of creeds and habits of worship. In a sketch of this character it would be unjust to with hold the fact that the colleges under Methodist control have been generally first and most generous in opening their opportunities to women; and that they are also conspicuous among the colleges that include women in their faculties and in their boards of trustees.

The progressiveness of Methodists in regard to the education of women is evinced not only in their co-educational colleges, but also in institutions founded by them for the exclusive education of women.

The latest report of the United States Commissioner of Education contains over two hundred institutions for the superior education of women. The list includes colleges and seminaries entitled to confer degrees, and a few seminaries, whose work is of equal merit, which do not give degrees. Of these more than two hundred institutions for the education of women exclusively, only 47 are situated within the territory here discussed. Of these 47, but 30 are chartered with authority to confer degrees. Of these 30, 7 are non-sectarian; the remainder are distributed among the denominations as follows:

Presbyterian, 7; Methodist Episcopal, 5; Baptist, 3; Christian, 2; Protestant Episcopal, 1; Congregational, 1.

The religious affiliations of the remaining four have not been ascertained.

The extent to which the higher education of women is in the West identified with co-education, can be seen by comparing the two statements above given. Of the total 212 higher institutions receiving women, and of the total 195 such institutions which conter the regular degrees in arts, science, and letters, upon their graduates, 165 are co-educational. most necessarily, therefore, the most important discussion in this article will be that of co-education.

Al

Before approaching it, however, some space must be devoted to women's colleges in the West. Almost without exception they include preparatory departments; very generally the attendance in the preparatory department exceeds that in the collegiate; frequently members of the faculty divide their attention between preparatory and collegiate classes; generally the courses of study offered are less numerous and less complete than those offered in colleges of liberal arts for men; most of these institutions have paltry or no endowments. With all these limitations, some of them do much creditable

work; but, at present, they occupy a rather vague, indefinite position between "the ladies' seminary" of thirty years ago and the modern college. Quoting from the United States Commissioner of Education (Report for 1887-88): "The adjustment of studies is evidence of a double purpose in these institutions. On the one hand they have endeavored to meet the general demand with respect to woman's education. On the other they have sought to maintain that higher ideal which ould appropriate for women as well as for men the advantages of the kind of instruction and training approved, by wise efort and long experience, as the best for mental discipline and culture."

A double purpose, when its parts are, as in this instance, to a degree contradictory, imposes impossible tasks. A process of sifting is now going on among these institutions. Some of the weaker will doubtless be absorbed by stronger ones having the same denominational support. Some, whose strength is chiefly in their preparatory departments, will find their ultimate place in the lists of secondary schools; and, ceasing to compete with colleges, will do an important and much needed work in preparing students to enter college. Others, already strongest in their collegiate departments, pledged by a noble past to achieve a corresponding future, will persist in emphasizing their real collegiate side until at last they secure an absolute separation between their preparatory and their collegiate work, and can take rank with genuine colleges of liberal arts.

In this sketch it is impossible to give the history of all these institutions; but among colleges characterized from birth by a liberal and progressive spirit may be mentioned "The Cincinnati Wesleyan Woman's College." This institution was chartered in 1842, and claims to be "the first liberal collegiate institution in the world for the exclusive education of women." This claim sounds somewhat boastful, but a perusal of the discussions which were called forth by the establishment of this college, will convince one that its undertaking was novel and quite foreign to the thought of its public, if not, indeed, quite unprecedented in the world's history. Dr. Charles Eliot, the editor of the Western Christian Advocate, heroically defended the project against the attacks of both the secular and the religious press. Rev. P. B. Wilber was elected president, and his wife, Mary Cole Wilber, was made principal.

The broad claim made by these enthusiastic educators was "that women need equal culture of mind and heart with men,

66

in their homes, in the church, and in the state." The enter
prise was accused of "being counter to delicacy and to cus-
tom, as it was to orthodoxy." Mrs. Wilber, who is still living
(in 1890), writes that those who had upheld the college
were convinced that a higher intellectual and moral educa
tion for women was indispensable to the continued prosperity
and existence of civilization, especially under our form of
government. They believed it would be a powerful influence
for good in the home, in social life, and in all benevolences
and philanthropies. They believed in the elevation of women
through education, which is development; through labor, which
is salvation; and through legal rights, which should give free-
dom to serve and to save." These sentiments do not seem
antiquated in 1890, and must have seemed not merely ad-
vanced but dangerous in 1842.

Violations of precedent continued to keep the watchful eye of the public on the college. The college professed to give to women the same instruction which secured for young men th degree of A.B., and it obtained from the Legislature authorit "to confer the degrees of A.B. and B.S." The college hel public commencement exercises, at which the graduates real their own productions, a performance that was the occasion much scandal.

September 25, 1844, "The Young Ladies' Lyceum" w organized in the college. This was a literary society, at t meetings of which debates upon current public questic were conducted and essays were read. Cuttings from c temporary newspapers show that this lyceum created small stir.

In 1852 the graduates of the college organized an alum association, which is claimed to be the first organization of kind in this country. The preamble to the constitu adopted by this body begins thus:

"The undersigned, graduates of the Wesleyan Female lege of Cincinnati, believing that as educated American wo society and the world at large have peculiar claims upon which they can neither gainsay nor resist," etc.

The association at once decided to publish an which should contain only original articles from the pens members; and Article VII. of the constitution says: immediate object of this publication shall be to afford portunity for continued mental effort and improven members; and its ultimate aim shall be the eleva Rachel L. Bodley, so long dean of the V

"

Medical College in Philadelphia, was one of the original members of this association.

The professions, claims, and efforts above indicated, probably show the high-water mark of educational aspiration of women in the West in and before the middle of this century.

The college drew students from all parts of the country, and from Canada; and, at one time, according to one of its historians, there were in attendance upon it "representatives from every State in the Union, excepting New Hampshire, Delaware, North Carolina, and Florida."

At one time this college enrolled nearly five hundred students; but, as seminaries and colleges for women have multiplied throughout the region from which it drew its patronage, and especially as more richly endowed colleges which were established for men have opened their doors to women, its numbers have diminished and its influence has waned. But such a past should compel its alumnæ and its friends to give it an endowment, a course of study, and a corps of instructors that shall make it the peer of its strongest young sisters.*

There is a function for the true woman's college which the co-educational college does not and as yet cannot perform.

As the Cincinnati Wesleyan College is an example of the best that Methodism has done for the separate education of women, so Albert Lea College in Minnesota, founded and controlled by the synod of that State, would appear to be the most ambitious attempt of the Presbyterian Church to aid the separate higher education of wo nen in the West. This college was founded in 1882, and opened to students in 1885. Its president makes for it, with relation to the country west of the Alleghanies, the same claim that the president of the Wesleyan made in its behalf with relation to the entire country, forty-eight years ago. Its president, Dr. R. B. Abbott, writes: "This is the only real college for women west of the Alleghany Mountains. There are female seminaries in abundance, some of which are named college, but are without a full college curriculum and without authority to confer the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts. Albert Lea is a college in fact as well as in name."

Albert Lea is now in only its fifth year. I have not been able to obtain its latest catalogue. The above quotation from its president's letter indicates its promise. Should it redeem this promise in its spirit and word, it would be a great blessing to the West; not so much young because women in this part of the country need another college within their easy reach, but because the entire community needs to have the difference between the nominal and the real college continually emphasized.

of

If Albert Lea draws sharp and visible lines between its standards and tests scholarship, between its quality and methods of instruction and those of the majority of institutions in the above list, its influence will be potent in securing greater harmony between names and things in matters pertaining to education

To get one's college education in an institution which admits only women, and to enjoy some years of post-graduate work in a co-educational university, is the ideal of opportunity now cherished by some most careful and intelligent parents and by some ambitious young women. It is possible that provision for satisfying the first half of this ideal is held in germ by some or all of the thirty colleges for women only, now existing in the West.

CO-EDUCATION IN THE WEST.

That in the Western States and Territories, the higher education of women is generally identical with co-education is indicated, as has been previously suggested, by the following facts:

1. Of 212 institutions in the West, exclusive of colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts, which afford the higher culture to women, 165 are co-educational.

2. Of the 5563 women reported to the Bureau of Education in 1887-88 as students in the collegiate courses of these institutions, 4392 were in the co-educational colleges.

3. In the twenty-one States and Territories which boast 165 co-educational colleges and 47 colleges for the separate education of women, 30 of which are authorized to confer regular degrees, there are but 25 colleges devoted to the exclusive education of men.

4. Of these 25 (devoted to the exclusive education of men,) not one is non-sectarian, and they are all supported by the Roman Catholic, the Protestant Episcopal, the Lutheran, or the Presbyterian denomination. In several of the States most conspicuous for zeal in the cause of the higher education, as in Michigan, Iowa, and Kansas, not one college for the exclusive education of men exists.

These facts support the statement that the West is committed to co-education, excepting only the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and the Protestant Episcopal sects,-which are not yet, as sects, committed to the collegiate education of women at all, and the Presbyterian sect, whose support, in the West, of 14 co-educational colleges against 4 for the separate education of young men, almost commits it to the co-educational idea.

How has this triumph of the higher co-education been achieved? How is the system regarded by the community in which it is established? What are its social effects and tendencies? What are its defects and limitations? These are the inquiries which next present themselves.