The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1880-10-06
Equal EDUCATION OF THE SEXES.
Should Women be Admitted to the Uni
YerSitieS.

lr- Should Women be Admitted to the I'm
ey YersitieS.
or VIEWS OF PRESIDENT BARNARD OF Ct
or LUMBIA COLLEGE.
n President Barnard, in his recent report I
70 the trustees of Columbia College, repeat
to the question presented in his report for tn
a preceding year, whether, since the condi
IN tions no longer forbid, and growing publ
ID opinion approves, the college would not d
,e wisely and well to offer its edueationa
in advantages to young women as well as I
\ young men ~ In the former report DIR
e Barnard, after disposing of the current
e objections to the admission of women to oul
% colleges, pointed out how especially favor
e able the conditions were at Columbia fol
Il the adoption of this course. Tn the present
q report, in recalling the attention of the
v board of trustees to his proposition of last
= year. he submits the interesting review
!, which we here append of the present move
b ment for the university education OF women,
o especially the rapid progress it is making
i in England
THE MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND
f Is more interesting than in our own coun-
try, not only because of the regency of its
origin there and the rapidity with which it
+ has gathered strength, but because of the
extent TO which it has enlisted the sy Dpa-
thies of the enlightened classes, and the
slight resistance which it has seemed to
encounter in quarters where traditional
preudices are commonly presumed to be
strongest. The agitation in favor of the
! higher education of women in England was
one Of the concommitants and conseq uences
of the remarkable quickening of the public
conscience in regard to education in general
which commenced about quarter of CEN
turv ago, and has been among the most
tef- y,f nl
mena of recent times in that country. 1t
did not at first take the direction, and it is
only now beginning to take the direction,
of distinct demand for the admission of
| women to the university equal terms
with men; it commenced nearly IN an OUT
spoken revolt against the superficial and |
purely ornamental education given to girls
in The so-called FINISHED Schools and
| which was at the time the best education |
! they could get. 1t was, therefore, a demand |
| for the creation of schools colleges for |
women in which the subjects of instruction |
| should be as substantially valuable and as |
| educationally profitable as those taught to
men. The demand was resisted on several |
| grounds | That the average female mind |
is not capable of grasping the more difficult
| subjects of the university course ,. That
| the average female constitution is not equal |
to the strain to which the severity of such
a course subjects the physical powers. 3.
That learning converts women into pedants
-vulgarly called ''blue stockngs'-so that
its general prevalence among the sex would
destroy the charm of social life. And 4,
that woman is not a man, and, therefore,
&c VI teamini, she should not have a mans
education.
THE ADVOCATES OF REFORM
Did not neglect to reply to these arguments,
but they correctly judged that the best ref
utation which could be given of them would {
be refutation taking a practical shape. | ,
They, therefore, established in London,
about twenty-five years ago, q school for :
girls called Queens Co llege, having, like !
many of the American collegiate schools,
preparatory department and a collegiate =
department, in both of which, in intention !
from the beginning and ultimately in fact,
the course of study was made identIcally =
the same as that provided in Kings College,
an institution established more than twenty :
years before, also in London, tOr the Toys:
The practical test of the success of this ex- y
pertinent was TO be the ability of the young y
women trained In 1t TO pass the difficult .
examinations required for graduation in the y
London university and 1t was the ambi-
ton and hope of the founders to obtain for d
its profcients the same degrees which o
awarded by that university, on similar evil e
denees OF proficiency, 10 young men. 4hat
ambition has at length been gratified, the a
London University having since 1878 made II
no distinction in sex in bestowing degrees. a
Oxford was nearly ten years later than p
Cambridge in yielding to the steady :;
growing demand for the university educa- "
ton of women. An association for the "
promotion of this object formed on the II
plan OF that of Cambridge, was organized
in 1875 or 1874. Its scheme of lectures has
been as yet in operation only for a single
year. Two halls have been opened for
al
THE RECEPTION OF WOMEN STUDENTS,
The Lady Margaret hall, of which Miss f. CO
Wordsworth is principal, and Somerville
lall under Miss Madelein Shaw Lefevre. &C
The first is governed by a supervisory
BOARD, of which the Rev. Edward Stuart | til
Talbot, warden of Keble College, is the
chairman and the other by similar board, -
lnder the Craftsmanship of Samuel William a,
Waite, B. D., President of Trinity College :.
The success of Girton produced pro-
ound impression III England 1t did not OF
atisfy but rather stimulated the zeal of Us
he advocates of the higher education of
women. 1t was soon followed by the for pr
nation of National Union for the I'M flu
,rovement of Womens Education en-
tracing among its members many men and Gu
women of high distinction which es- nj
ablished an organ fer the inculcation of its
Jews, and stimulated the erection of girls ~;
chools for superior instruction in different ~
arts of the kingdom, under the direction "
nd control of a corporation organized for
hat purpose. lie:
The two great and venerable universities OF
t England thus illustrate the modern re-
larkable movement toward the higher edu- m
alton of Women, in two distinct stages of its wi
rogress In Oxford we see the movement
lst beginning; in Cambridge it appears in al
highly advanced state of transition. If tn
rom these we turn to the University of
london, established half century ago in ba
igorous and indignant protest against the az az
xclusiveness and bigotry of the older in e4
titutions, which would deny to half the
zen of the United Kingdom, to say nothing
the women, the advantages OF liberal
ducation, we shall find the movement in
q its final stage of accomplished purpose.
t is now several years since University
'ollege, London, opened its doors freely for in
ne admission of women students; but,
hough the instruction 1t gave them was +ol
lentical with that given to men, it taught on
together separately and at different hours.
10 very long experience was necessary to
lake it manifest that an arrangement of Pi
MS kind is exceedingly uneconomical in eF
egard both to time and to labor; or that
ne reasons which had been supposed to gu
lake II necessary or proper we're without ere
lbstantial foundation. BY the spontane-
US act of the professors themselves, the de
asses were one after another combined, we
ntil at length there is no longer any class
/ University College in which young men ne
nu 'ouhs "oineh uo ho' SUI
RECEIVE INSTRUCTION TOGETHER
bit
The University has been as liberal as the to
ollege. 1t examines young women on pre- ly
sely the same terms young men, and
rants them the same degrees. In the first 80
examination of women by this university I;i
It the degree of B. A., held two or three vi.
ears ago, one of the alumni of Newman nol