The Weiser signal. [volume] (Weiser, Idaho) 1890-1904, 1902-01-23
EDUCATION OF GIRLS
THE LONG FIGHT OF WOMEN FOR
KNOWLEDGE NOT YET ENDED.
Persistent Opposition of Conserva-
tives to COeducation-The West
Has Always Been More Progressive
Than the East.


Than the East
Coeducation is the great social achieve
ment of the nineteenth century hun
dred years ago there was no public provi-
sion anywhere in the world for the higher
education of women. "Why do you want
to so to the academy" said shrewd,
matter of fact New England farmer,
Francis Stone, in 1885, to his bright, as
piring daughter, Lucy. "Your mother
learned just enough arithmetic to count
her eggs and chickens and figure up her
butter money. She has got along well
enough. What was good enough for her
ought to be good enough for you" So he
refused to give Lucy money. to go to a |
seminary, and Lucy had to teach coun-
try school at 81 week, year after year,
to pay her way at Quabog and Wilbra-
ham and South Hadley. "Girls cannot |
learn Greek and Hebrew and algebra"
said her brother, when Lucy expressed |
her wish to go with him to college
So Lucy had to save up $40 to
enable her to travel across the state of
New York to Buffalo, and thence (as
q deck passenger on Lake Erie
steamer to Toledo, in order to reach the
brave western college bearing the hon
ored name of the missionary Oberlin,
which alone in the whole round world
admitted women to equal educational
opportunities Graduating there in 1847,
she began her divinely appointed work
for womans equality in the same year,
at the age of 20. 1t had cost her ~
years Of toll and privation to gain what
the twentieth century girls enjoy with
out the asking.
But the wave of sympathy and appre-
citation of what Father Shepherd, the
founder of Oberlin in 1882, justly called
''the misjudged and neglected SEX" sus-
| tanned Miss Willard and Mary Lyon and
Catherine Beecher in their efforts to fit
women to be the wives of missionaries
and the companions Of scholarly men.
! The persuasive eloquence of Frances
Wright and Ernestine l.. Rose and Lu-
creta Mott and Abby Kelly and the sis
| tiers Grimke won for women the priceless
! privilege of free speech, and prepared
the way for Lucy Stone and Antoinette
| L. Brown and Paulina Davis and Eliza
| beth Cady Stanton and Susan b. An
thony, as they in their turn blazed the
path for Julia Ward Howe and Mary A.
Livermore and an, army of women lee
turers and reformers who followed.
Every state west of Pennsylvania, from
Ohio to California, opened it's colleges
and universities to women. Geneva col
lege in 1916 was the first medical school
in the world to admit a woman as stu
dent, and in 1S4T had the pleasure of
seeing my sister, Elizabeth Blackwell,
receive her diploma, and hear her pro-
nounced by the faculty to be the leader
in every department of study OF her class
of $50 young men. But it had cost her
seven years heroic effort to get what
hundreds of young women now obtain
every year without opposition.
But conservatism dies hard. Failing
to prevent coeducation by direct methods,
it has resorted to compromises. To meet
the growing demand by women for higher
education the aristocratic east, with its
class distinctions and inherited preju-
dices, has combated coeducation by flank
movements. Women's colleges were
established at Vassar, Smith, Wellesley
and Bryn Mawr. Graduates Of coeduca
tional colleges were employed in many
cases as presidents, professors and in
structors in these institutions.
A more subtlelfor Of compromise has
, recently been devised in order to stavt
off the inevitable. Western Reserve anc
! Brown and Columbia and Harvard have
practically instituted womens depart
ments under such titles as Barnard, Rad
cliffe, etc, which have been endowed by
rich men and women. In these, wome1
pursue similar studies in separate classes
under the professors Of mems colleges
receiving diplomas certified by the presi
/. dents of these colleges as indicative o
equal proficiency. And now new stel
in differentiation is proposed. Physician
. have ceased to predict physical deteriora
: tion of women as result of college stud
l les. but certain presidents and professor
, of mems colleges now seek to ward oil
I coeducation by asserting that classlca
4 education and the higher mathematic
e unfit women to be wives and mothers
A sympathetic crusade against coeduca
ton had gradually been initiated by eas'
ern Dame Partingtons. u. STANLEY dai
e president of Clark university, OF Wol
f cester, Mass, has stirred western eut
l.. Gators by his misleading utterances
g Chicago.
? President Hall, describing "The Idef
School, to his summer school at Worce'
ter. is actually reported as saying:
"There are many people who neve
n oupht To be educated, and who would
e better in morals if they never had bee
r TO school. We. are coming to unde
e stand the vanity of scholarship"
And, again, he proposes to segrega'
the sexes after the girls are thirteen an
the boys eleven years Of age. de says:
J. "Boys can hereafter rarely 40 tne
II best work under female teachers, pecaus
n thew feel their manhood, and the SEX
d will pretty much part company. IL
u girls need reverent exemption from con
net,tlon. In soul and body girls a
more conservative, while boys are mo-
radical. Facts, ideas. laws, principi
y should be in their atmosphere, ana Inc
J. are of vital Importance. They have e
,r tered the stage Of apprenticeship to lie
ID So If appears that facts. ideas, law
te snd principles are not adapted 10 W
II men. What mistake nature has MAJ
- in putting boys and girls as brothers al
"A sisters into the same families, since TN
y need to part company SO early: Pre'
j. dent Clark's address is surprising mi
" ture Of sense and nonsense, containil
ID many admirable suggestions, but assui
1T ing that the sexes are 30 intellectual
IL distinct that they require different 60