148 THE COLLEGE 



tional. There are in the United States 464 colleges for men. In 

 1870 one third of these colleges admitted women; in 1880, so suc- 

 cessful had coeducation proved itself to be, one half had been opened 

 to women, and in 1900 two thirds of all colleges for men had become 

 coeducational. At the present time, if we omit Catholic colleges, 

 which, in America, are mainly training-schools for priests, 80 per 

 cent, or four fifths, of all colleges for men teach women exactly the 

 same subjects by the same professors in the same lecture-rooms, and 

 allow them to compete for all their degrees, prizes, and fellowships. 

 There are in the United States also thirteen separate colleges for 

 women. In the year 1902 there were nearly 22,507 women studying 

 in colleges for men, and over 5549 women studying in separate 

 women's colleges, or in all about 28,000 women college students. 

 Although there were in the United States two million less women than 

 men, women formed about one third of all college students. In 

 addition to the 28,000 women students in colleges and graduate 

 schools of philosophy, there were, in 1902, 9784 women studying 

 engineering, mechanics, agriculture, and other technical subjects in 

 universities and technical schools; 1177 studying medicine, 218 

 studying pharmacy, 162 studying dentistry, 165 studying law, and 

 106 studying theology, or a total of 12,614 women pursuing profes- 

 sional and technical courses. If we combine these two classes of 

 students we get a total of 40,676 women studying in the colleges 

 and professional and technical schools of the United States, and the 

 number of college and professional women students is steadily in- 

 creasing. Coeducation is the only economical method of educating 

 all those women. It is impossible, even if it were not criminally 

 wasteful, to duplicate in every part of the world colleges and universi- 

 ties for women, and not all the wealth of all the world can duplicate 

 the few great scientific teachers that are born in any single generation. 

 Experience proves that unless schools, and still more universities, 

 are conveniently near, even boys go without a higher education. 

 Unless in the future all existing colleges and universities are to 

 become coeducational, unnumbered generations of girls must go 

 without any education beyond that of the high school. 



This is not the place to discuss whether or not the college cur- 

 riculum for men and women should be the same. Women must 

 decide this for themselves. Men cannot decide it for them. In a 

 few years one third of all the college graduates of the United States 

 will be women, and we may safely leave the kind of education to be 

 given their daughters in their hands. For myself I am convinced 

 that college and school education should train the mind and faculties, 

 and not fit directly for practical life, and that, therefore, the question 

 as to whether a woman is to make beds, or a man to curry horses, 

 after leaving college, should not affect their education in college, but 



