October 31, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



687 



schools by helping to fix their standards 

 and maintain a high quality of work. 



Another peculiarity of the American sys- 

 tem of higher education is the unparalleled 

 extent to which it provides for the educa- 

 tion of women. No system of higher edu- 

 cation in any country at any time has ever 

 made such liberal provision for the higher 

 education of women as our own. This has 

 taken different forms according to the local 

 conditions prevailing in different parts of 

 the country. In the state universities as 

 might be expected it has assumed the form 

 of coeducation in the fullest sense of the 

 term— absolute equality and similarity of 

 treatment of both sexes in all respects, 

 practically no recognition that either sex 

 requires or would care for any special pro- 

 vision for its peculiar wants or needs. In 

 the Mississippi Valley most of the church 

 institutions and other schools under non- 

 state control have, naturally enough, fol- 

 lowed the example of the state universities, 

 and established as a principle anyhow the 

 complete parity of the sexes in higher edu- 

 cation. 



In the east the older universities like 

 Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Pennsylvania, 

 etc., have adopted a somewhat different 

 plan. Starting as a mere scheme of pri- 

 vate tutors for women under a certain 

 supervision of the university, these plans 

 have worked out into a system of women's 

 colleges affiliated with or annexed to the 

 university in which many of the facilities 

 accorded to the men may be enjoyed by the 

 women. And finally the system of women 's 

 colleges, pure and simple, has been elabo- 

 rated which beginning with Vassar now 

 numbers east and west more than half a 

 dozen institutions of the first rank of which 

 we may well be proud. 



What the ultimate form of female edu- 

 cation is to be in this country I think no 

 wise man would venture to predict with 



any confidence. It is safe, however, to say 

 that in all probability the various forms 

 now in existence will continue to flourish 

 and other forms may be added as our 

 society develops. The typical form, how- 

 ever, that which will ultimately embrace the 

 vast majority of institutions and students 

 will be, in my opinion, for a long time to 

 come at any rate in the Mississippi Valley 

 the system of coeducation, simple, com- 

 plete and unadulterated; if for no other; 

 reason, for the simple one that for the com- 

 plete education of women as our American 

 society conceives it the entire range of edu- 

 cational institutions must be provided and 

 for a long time to come we shall not be able 

 financially to build and maintain two en- 

 tirely different systems of education, one 

 for women and one for meh. Nor, I may 

 add, will such a duplication of educational 

 faculties ever be justified by the fancied 

 evils of coeducation. 



There is still another feature of our 

 American system of higher education which 

 ought not to be omitted in even a cursory 

 view of the subject. That is the peculiar 

 way in which we have combined the work 

 of technical instruction with that of the 

 humanities and the professions in one insti- 

 tution. We have united, to use a German 

 term, the Polytechnicum and the university. 

 This has had a marked effect upon instruc- 

 tion in both branches of the institution. 

 The teclmical school has made university 

 work more practical, compelled it to meas- 

 ure itself by new and healthful standards 

 and brought a new spirit into much of its 

 activity. The university has humanized 

 the technical work. 



A technical school bodies forth in its 

 very aim and spirit an idea which is at 

 times in danger of being lost in the pursuit 

 of pure science and the humanities, viz: 

 that the ultimate test of all knowledge is 

 being good for something besides itself. 



