The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-06-18
VAssAR.

III DeBlllS 10 Uc 1cdIcu tAab ooSoi
College will go the way of other institu
tons that have not been well supported
by the public. Vassar was 'big
scheme" in its early days, but the
novelty of female college having worn
Z off, the school no longer prospers, the
decline having been steady for some
time. There is even talk of closing it,
though that will hardly be done as It's
founders, the Vassars, are immensely
wealthy and will not "shut up the
shop" for lack of patronage. The fall
ing off in the number of students has
been serious, and the financial report
for the year just closed shows
deficiency of s13,796. The
decreased attendance is attributed
largely to the ridicule of Vassar
girls by the photographers of the press,
though other causes are also stated, az
the admission to other colleges of young
women, the jealousy of other denomina-
tons over the preponderance of Baptists
in the board of trustees, and the I'M
popularity of President Caldwell. On
the 9th instant the president and three
trustees resigned.
Perhaps the chief cause for the failure
of Vassar has not been discovered by
the trustees and those most interested
in the success of the institution; tits
not impossible that the cause may be
found in the fact that the college is for
women only, founded and conducted
largely upon the theory that there
should not be co-educat ton of the
sexes. Other colleges and high |
schools, as they admit young
women, prosper amazingly in the mat
tera OF attendance and the educa-
tional progress of their female students,
and they are doing this while Vassar,
with its better facilities, its chcapness
and its special adaptability to the
higher education of girls is going down.
1t is not only conceded but claimed by
many of the most experienced teachers
that in the mixed schools,
especially those of the higher
orders, the pupils make faster
progress than in those where only
one sex is taught; besides this, the
mixed schools are popular and as
consequence more prosperous. There
is another cause for the failure of Vas
sar, and that lies in the fact that it
contemplates more than women want,
if not more than they are capable of.
Many women have minds equal to
those of men in the same walks of life,
and they are capable of receiving the
training and education in the higher
branches bestowed upon men; but
such women are by no means in the
1t is no disrespect to the sex
to say that the dependent position they
have occupied in the world since
mea and women have been has
not tended to develop their
minds in away to make it easy, or even
necessary and desirable, for them to
acquire the education in the "ologies"
md "osophies," and matters generally !
that are classed among the heavier !
branches of study. During late years f
women have made. wonderful progress
N the matter of mind development, :
and desire and determination to obtain e
ieeper and more thorough education; Q
hey are fast walking to the front,
though, unfortunately. comparatively
ew Of them as yet feel that the higher
education means more than the tedious r
md laborious storing of the mind with [
that will not be useful. If L
he desire for more thorough education s.
Fere more general among the sex, Vas L
ar College would not to-day be on the Ii
lecline; but then it would better for t,
he young women to get their know Ii
edge by the side of the voting men, III il
be regular colleges and high schools. u