THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



DECEMBER, 1902. 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.* 



By President DAVID STARR JORDAN, 



LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY. 



r MHE subject of the higher training of young women may resolve 

 -*~- itself into three questions: 



1. Shall a girl receive a college education? 



2. Shall she receive the same kind of a college education as a boy? 



3. Shall she be educated in the same college? 



As to the first question: It must depend on the character of the 

 girl. Precisely so with the boy. What we should do with either de- 

 pends on his or her possibilities. No parent should let either boy or 

 girl enter life with any less preparation than the best he can give. 

 It is true that many college graduates, boys and girls alike, do not 

 amount to much after the schools have done all they can. It is 

 true also that higher education is not a question alone of preparing 

 great men for great things. It must prepare even little men for 

 greater things than they would otherwise have found possible. And so 

 it is with the education of women. The needs of the time are impera- 

 tive. The highest product of social evolution is the growth of the 

 civilized home, the home that only a wise, cultivated and high-minded 

 woman can make. To furnish such women is one of the worthiest func- 

 tions of higher education. No young women capable of becoming such 

 should be condemned to anything lower. Even with those who are in 

 appearance too dull or too vacillating to reach any high ideal of wis- 

 dom, this may be said it does no harm to try. A few hundred dollars 

 is not much to spend on an experiment of such moment. Four of the 



* Abstract of an address before the Federation of Woman's Clubs, Los 

 Angeles, May 5, 1902. 

 vox,, lxii. 7. 



