Year: 1878

Views of the President of the University of

 WiscOnsin-COn Study not Inju-

 riOus to Young Women.

 fiji lis annual report, President Bae- com, of the University of Wisconsin, takes issue with the Board of Visitors of that institution, on the question of the effect of coeducation upon the health of the young women students. He says : Contrary to the opinion of the Visitors, the young women do their work with less rather than with greater labor than the young men, and certainly do not fall below them in any respect as scholars. We also believe this labor to be done by them with perfect safety to health, nay, with advantage to health, if ordinary prudence Is exercised. The young Wo- men whose health was primarily the ground of criticism, have improved ID strength rather than deteriorated since they have been with us, though they have burdened themselves with extra work. which we do not counsel. We confess to some surprise that so many of the medical profession bring forward for the first time in connection with. coedu- cation function familiar from the dawn of human life, US if it had the force of a fresh discovery in putting down this form of progress, when, in fact, it has no more to do with coeducation than with separate education, can as well be provided for in the one form of instruc- tion as in the other, and bears with ten fold force against the labors of women as operatives, clerks, teachers, house. keepers, in which callings continuous hard work has been allowed to pass ut- terly unchallenged. Though my con- viction has been, previous to this report, that the health of the young women as a whole was better than that of the young men, and that there were striking in stances of graduation among the young women with robust strength, I am striv- ing to test this opinion by facts, so fa1 with the following results. All excuses for ill-health are gwen by me. The exact number of students 1n our cole giate> and dependent courses is 357. O1 this number 93 are young women-s trihe more than one-quarter. During the past eight weeks, the most trying weeks in the year for students, there have been 155 days of absence from i'll. health on the part of the young men, and IS on the part of young women The young women should have lost, ac. cording to their numbers, 54 days, o1 three times as many as they have actu ally lost. The students were not aware that any such registration was being made.

 It may be felt that the young men are less conscientious in pleading il-healtt than the young women, and this if doubtless true but I sharply question { young man, and rarely ask any questions of young woman. I explain the facts ill this way: The young men are no accustomed to confinement, and, though sun- browned and apparently robust they do not endure the violent transition as we'll as women. Study is more con genial to the habits of young women, ,anc the visiting, committee are certainly mis taken in supposing that they have te work harder in accomplishing then tasks. The reverse is true. In addition to the above bill of ill-health against tht young men, a corresponding large mum Der of them have been compelled, from the same cause, to leave the university altogether. A second showing of tht registration, which I had not contem plated, but one very interesting, is this The absences of the young women ar' almost exclusively in the lower classes Of the IS, two are in the Sub-freshmen 14 in the Freshmen, one in the Sopho more, one in the Junior, and none in thu Senior. The absences of the young mel are evenly distributed, on the othe hand, through the entire course. Th' young women do not then seem to deter iorate with us in health, but quite tn opposite. I do not belong to the mum Der of those who set lightly by health I would not sacrifice any measure of for scholarship but it has long seemed to me plain, that young woman wh' withdraws herself from society and give herself judiciously to college course, i far better circumstanced in reference t. health than the great majority of he |, sex"