Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1889-11-28
COLLEGES FOR WOMEN.
Equality In Educational Institutions
Progress in Higher Education and Its
Beneficial Results.


Equality In Educational Institutions
Progress in Higher Education and Its
Beneficial Results.
Since Frederick Maurice established
Queens College in London, England
has advanced rapidly in furnishing
higher education for women. Girton
and Newman at Cambridge, and Som
erville and Lady Margarite's Halls at
Oxford, are the marks for advanced ed
ucation for the sex in England, while
Wellesley, Smith and Holyoke colleges
in New England. Vassar and Bryn
Mawr elsewhere. and the attachment of
women TO college work at Harvard,
Cornell and Columbia among the insti-
buttons OF the East, together with the
equal rights which the sex has in the
State universities at the West. are Il
fair measure OF the interest now taken
In the higher education OF women in
this country. Oxford and Cambridge
In England are no more q full measure
of the interest in England than the in
situations here named are an adequate
expression Of the interest in the United
States. There are hundreds OF less
noted educational institutions scattered
all over England and America where
the advanced work has been immensely
improved by the opening of the stand
ard institutions to women. 1t Is, per-
haps, thirty years since this movement
began. Queens College in London was
the pioneer institution Of this kind, and
their promoters in both countries de-
serve the greatest credit for having
opened avenues to strong and bright
women which had heretofore been
closed to them.
Such an impetus has been given to
the higher education of women by
these institutions that the present gen.
Grafton is already feeling their in
fuence. Miss Annie j. Clough, OF New
ham College, in speaking of the inAu-
ence OF this education upon English
woman, is careful 10 motto the increased
fields OF usefulness which have opened
since women have been cultivated to
enter them. In England these institu-
tions connected with Oxford and Cam
bridge, and already begun in different
parts of the United Kingdom, have
greatly increased the teaching force oil
the country. They have also added
several now professions to those now
filled by women. Positions as convey.
ancers, analytical chemists and dispen-
sers, the charge of gardening, farming
and business, the study OF medicine.
careers in art, literature and research,
have opened to women who could en-
ter upon them, and almost every kind
of intellectual and administrative work
has been undertaken by women who
were qualified for these spheres. A
large and competent body of teacher.
is already the result Of the higher edu
cation OF woman in Great Britain
While the sex have thus made room
for women in occupations which have
heretofore been exclusively or mainly
reserved for men. they have not failed
to bring into homes OF their own tn,
results of wider contact with though
and life which have como to them FROM
the higher education.
The home is an important field To-
the exercise of womeu's intelligence a
the iectureship or the professional
chair, and it is here that the women o
position In England, or those who fel
passion within them to do grea
things, have nobly justified the oppor
tunities extended to them.
In this country. where the freedom
Of occupation is less controlled by ira
dition. the higher education OF woman
has begun to change the character Q
our social and intellectual life Tn
same lines of occupation open to then
in England are free to them In Amer
lea; but with the larger opportunitie
OF q great country, they have yet
make themselves felt in the genera
welfare as effectively as they have oil
tanned recognition of their influence /
Great Britain. The larger develop
ment of the higher education OF wome
in our own women's colleges is too re
cent for the graduates to have full
made their mark in professional O
educational life, and yet whoever vi,
its the schools or goes among tho late:
applicants for professional position
} will find that bright and thorough
} educated women are constantly fndin
their way into new positions, and thu
enlarging the sphere of their sex. TIL
home, with us, re-absorbs large nun
Der of the graduates of these institl
tons, where their culture becomes tn
confer of social and personal influence
J that touch the lives of those aroun
! them. All over the country the:
: bright women are thus beginning 10 r,
, construct and elevate social life II
college education OF American wome
Is thus restoring 10 thousands OF loca
! tiles the higher moral and intellectu
, society which was formerly delightf
: feature OF the smaller New Englar
! towns No one can understand. wi
| has not known the eagerness vii
! which the American girls have r
! sponded to the opportunity for high,
, education. the extent aud the variety
: the best sort which has thus been G
fered to women and is now distribute