400 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT -VII 



in company with Mr. Sage, visited various Western in- 

 stitutions where experiments in the way of what was 

 called " coeducation" had been tried. At Oberlin College 

 in Ohio two serious doubts were removed from my mind. 

 The first of these was regarding the health of the young 

 women. I had feared that in the hard work and vigorous 

 competitions of the university they would lose their physi- 

 cal strength; but here we found that, with wise precau- 

 tions, the health of the young women had been quite equal 

 to that of the young men. My other fear was that their 

 education with young men might cost some sacrifice of the 

 better general characteristics of both sexes ; but on study- 

 ing the facts I became satisfied that the men had been 

 made more manly and the women more womanly. As to 

 the manliness there could be little doubt; for the best 

 of all tests had been applied only a few years before, when 

 Oberlin College had poured forth large numbers of its 

 young men, as volunteers, into the Union army. As to the 

 good effect upon women, it was easy to satisfy myself 

 when I met them, not only at the college, but in various 

 beautiful Western homes. 



Very striking testimony was also given at the University 

 of Michigan. Ten years earlier I had known that institu- 

 tion well, and my professorship there, which lasted six 

 years, had made me well acquainted with the character and 

 spirit of its students ; but, since my day, women had been 

 admitted, and some of the results of this change surprised 

 me much. Formerly a professor's lecture- or recitation- 

 room had been decidedly a roughish place. The men had 

 often been slouchy and unkempt. Now all was quiet and 

 orderly, the dress of the students much neater; in fact, it 

 was the usual difference between assemblages of men alone 

 and of men and women together, or, as I afterward phrased 

 it, "between the smoking-car and the car back of it." 

 Perhaps the most convincing piece of testimony came from 



an old janitor. As I met him I said : i i Well, J , do the 



students still make life a burden to you?" "Oh, no," he 

 answered; "that is all gone by. They can't rush each 



