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The development of coeducation

The af

filiated college for women

Graduate and professional

studies for women

rather than to reorganize colleges for men where conditions. were already established.

The independent college is not the method that has prevailed in the West. When the inspiration to higher education for women arrived west of the Alleghanies, conditions, especially lack of resources, practically necessitated coeducation. Oberlin, founded in 1834, was the first fully coeducational institution of college grade in the world. In 1841 three women received from it the bachelor's degree, the first to get it. Oberlin's success had a pronounced influence on the state universities, which, it was argued, should be open and free to all citizens, since they were supported by public taxation. Almost all the state universities and the great majority of the colleges and universities on private foundations are today coeducational. The results predicted by pessimists, viz., that the physical health of women would suffer, that their intellectual capacity would depreciate scholarship, and that the interests of the family would be menaced, have not eventuated.

The spread of coeducation in the state universities of the West and the South and its presence in the newer private universities like Cornell and Chicago had an influence upon the older universities of the East. This influence has resulted in a third method of solving the problem of women's education; viz., the establishment of the affiliated college. Several universities have established women's colleges, sometimes under the same and sometimes under a different board of trustees, to provide the collegiate education for women which is given to men by the undergraduate departments. Barnard College, affiliated with Columbia University, Radcliffe College, affiliated with Harvard University, Woman's College, affiliated with Brown University, the College for Women, affiliated with the Western Reserve University, and the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College for Women, affiliated with Tulane University, have all been founded within the past forty years.

All the universities for men except Princeton and Johns Hopkins and all the fully coeducational institutions admit

women upon the same terms as men to graduate work. Graduate work is also undertaken with excellent results in some of the independent women's colleges, as at Bryn Mawr. Professional education for women has been coeducational from the beginning, with the exception of medicine. The prejudice against coeducation in that profession was so strong that five women's medical schools were organized, but they provide instruction for little more than a quarter of the women medical students. The increase in the number of women in professional schools has not by any means kept pace with the increase in the colleges. It appears that, with the exception of teaching, woman is not to be a very important factor in the learned professions in the near future.

Nothing differentiates more clearly the American college from European institutions of higher education than the kind of non-scholastic activities undertaken by the students. From the very beginning the college became a place of resi dence as well as of study for students from a distance, and the dormitory was an essential element in its life. With increase in numbers, especially after the Revolution, when all distinctions of birth or family were abolished, students naturally divided into groups. The first fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa, was founded in 1776 at William and Mary, with a patriotic and literary purpose, and membership in it has practically ever since been confined to graduates who have attained high scholastic standing. When one speaks of college fraternities, however, he does not refer to B K, but to one of the intercollegiate social organizations which have chapters in several colleges organized somewhat upon the plan of a club and whose members live in a chapter house. The first such fraternity was founded at Yale in 1821, but it was limited to the senior class. The three fraternities established at Union in 1825-1827 form the foundation of the present system. The fraternities spread rapidly and are today very numerous. There are about thirty of national importance, having about a thousand chapters and a quarter of a million members. The fraternity system is

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Religious

life

Physical education

bitterly attacked as being undemocratic, expensive, emphasizing social rather than scholastic attainments, and, generally speaking, a divisive rather than a unifying factor in college life. Hence some colleges have abolished it. Fraternities have been defended, however, as promoting close fellowship and even helping to develop character. So strongly are they entrenched, not only in undergraduate but also in alumni affection, that they probably form a permanent element in college life.

The early American college was primarily a place to prepare for the ministry, and personal piety was a matter of official enforcement. For a number of reasons religious zeal declined in the eighteenth century. After the Revolution, under the influence of the new political theories and of French skepticism the percentage of students professing to be active Christians fell very low. In the early nineteenth century the interest of students in religion increased, and religious organizations in a number of colleges were founded. Practically all of these later gave way to the Young Men's Christian Association, which has now over 50,000 members organized in almost all the colleges of the country save the Roman Catholic. The religious interests of Roman Catholic students are in many colleges served by the Newman Clubs and similar organizations, and of Jewish students by the Menorah Society. The religion of college students has become less a matter of form and speech and more a matter of service social service of many kinds at home and missionary service abroad.

The educational reformers of Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries placed great emphasis upon a more complete physical training. This interest was felt in the United States, and simple gymnastic apparatus was set up at Harvard and Yale in 1826. The movement spread very slowly, however, due probably to ignorance of its real physiological import. Since the Civil War the development of the gymnastic system has been rapid, and now practically every first-class college has its gymnasium, attendance upon which is compulsory, and some have their

stadium and natatorium. Of independent origin but hastened by the spread of the gymnasium is the vast athletic interest of undergraduates. Its earliest form, conducted on a considerable scale, was rowing. The first rowing club was formed at Yale in 1843, and the first intercollegiate race was rowed on Lake Winnepesaukee in 1852, Harvard defeating Yale. Rowing is now a form of athletics at every college where facilities permit. The first baseball nine was formed at Princeton in 1859, and the game spread rapidly to all the other colleges. Football in a desultory and unorganized way made its appearance early in the nineteenth century. As early as 1840 an annual game was played at Yale between the freshmen and the sophomores, but the establishment of a regular football association dates from 1872, also at Yale. In the following year an intercollegiate organization was formed, and since then football has increased in popularity at the colleges to such an extent that just as baseball has become the great national game, so has football become the great American collegiate game. Track athletics is the most recent form of athletic sports to be introduced into the college, and most colleges now have their field days. In addition to these four major forms of college sports, tennis, lacrosse, basketball, and swimming also have a prominent place. The four major sports are usually under the control of special athletic associations, which spend large sums of money and have a great influence with the students. In fact, so great has become the interest of college students in athletics that much fear has been expressed about its influence upon scholastic work, and voices are not lacking demanding its curtailment.1 Military training is a phase of physical education which, though it had earlier found a place in the land-grant institutions, came to the fore as a part of the colleges' contribution to winning the world Students' Army Training Corps were established at many of the higher institutions of the country, and the academic studies were made to correlate with the military work as a nucleus. At the present time, however, the colleges are 1 W. T. Foster in N. E. A. Reports, 1915.

war.

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putting their work back on a pre-war basis, and it seems most unlikely that military training will survive as a corporate part of their work.

Journalism, though its actual performance is limited to a small number of students, has had an honored place as an undergraduate activity for almost a hundred years. It served first as a means of developing literary ability among the students, afterwards as a vehicle for college news, and now there has been added to these purposes the uniting of alumni and undergraduates. Hence we find among college journals dailies, monthlies, and quarterlies, some of them humorous and some with a serious literary purpose. Journalism is not the only method of expressing undergraduate thought. There has been a great revival of intracollegiate and of intercollegiate debating in recent years. Literary societies for debating the great issues preceding the Revolution was the first development of undergraduate life, and every college before and after the Revolution had strong societies. As undergraduate interests increased in number, and especially as the fraternity system began to spread, debating societies assumed a relatively less important place, but in the past two decades great interest has been revived in them. The glee club, or choral society, along with the college orchestra, minister to the specialized interests of some students, and the dramatic association to those of others. One significant result of such activities has been to establish a nexus between the college and community life.

One other feature of undergraduate life cannot be overlooked; viz., student self-government. The college student today is two or three years older than was his predecessor of fifty or sixty years ago. Moreover, with the great increase in the number of students has come a parallel increase in complexity of administration and in the duties of the college professor. Finally, a sounder psychology has taught the wisdom of placing in the hands of the students the control of many activities which they can supervise better than the faculty. As a result of these and of other

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