that sex had been secured beyond any serious reaction.

Spaniards, French, and Dutch took none. Even now the number of female emigrants to America is far beneath that of the male; The people who settled New England but in the time when America was thought were very peculiarly trained: they were of only as a wilderness full of savages, people of refinement and education reduced every woman who went voluntarily was a to poverty, and compelled to do hard work. heroine. With the exception of those of That work was an important part of their the Spaniards in the south-west of America, tuition, and the idea was handed down as a the Indian squaws were not inclined to fa- law that the thinker must work and the vour the advances of the European adven- worker must think. It was thus from the turers. So great inducements were offered earliest days held that women should unite to European women to go to Virginia and the highest intellectual culture with domesNew England, and a system of importation tic duties which, in a land of few scrsomething like that by which Miss Rye is vants, are generally arduous. The Yankee supplying Australia was devised. Many girls have thus had real powers and practiof the women who followed the pilgrims to cal qualities trained in them; and they were New England were moved to do so by their much more ready to march westward by the religious sympathies with them, and thus side of man, than their sisters of the old that region began with a somewhat superior world had ever been. Nevertheless, destiny class of women. Nevertheless, in all the was not to be swerved from its old method early settlements of America, women were of elevating woman. The discovery of for several generations rare enough to be gold in California, and other regions of of great importance, and obtained a con- the Pacific coast, and the wars attending sideration in society far beyond that which the settlement of Texas and Kansas, led to they enjoyed in Europe. The reader of another vast male emigration beyond the the early histories of the American colonies Mississippi. At one time a woman could will find that women were mixed up with hardly walk through the streets of San some of their most important public affairs. Francisco without having every one pause Indeed, it is almost certain that women would to gaze on her; and a child was so rare that have been enfranchised in New England- -as once at a theatre in the same city, where a they were for a time in New Jersey - but woman had taken her infant, when it began for something in Paul's writings about their to cry, just as the orchestra began to play, keeping silence in the churches, and the a man in the pit cried out- "Stop those Puritan State was a kind of church. How- fiddles and let the baby cry. I haven't ever, fortunately for women in America, heard such a sound for ten years!" The the high value which the people of New audience applauded this sentiment; the orEngland placed upon their mothers took a chestra stopped; and the baby continued better form even than enfranchisement. It its performance amid unbounded enthutook the form of giving the girls a good and sound education. The Puritans placed reading the Bible above all other things; the school thus was to them a part of the plan of salvation; and since the hard soil and the Indians demanded all the energies of the men, it was necessary that the women should be trained as educators of the young. And to this day two-thirds of the school-teachers throughout America are women. Under education women were shown to have as various and as valuable endowments as men. And thus it was that when the young men of the Eastern States began to settle in the far West- leaving the women behind them

the elevation of

siasm.

15

Into such communities as these women are now following; and in them they are finding a position and influence, enhanced by their scarcity, which is still very remarkable. In America men exceed women in number by a million; and in the West the disproportion is extreme. California there is one woman to three men; in Nevada one to eight; in Colorado one to twenty.* And if the women there had not

In

The Daily News has recently shown, by the corresponding statistics of the Eastern States, the error of the theory that the lowness of the birthrate in some of those States is attributable to a grow ing aversion of their people for large families. It shows that the result is due to the vast disproportion which has been made by male emigration, leaving many thousands of women for whom no husbands

gained in moral and intellectual power, we | other lands and ages, have "builded better should see them again having their heads than they knew." A great republic and turned and hearts corrupted by the poor the abolition of slavery were their unfore ambition of outshining each other in soci- seen results. The Puritans established ety. But the various important movements free schools to teach people to read the in the West for securing equal educational Bible, and so save them from hell; the reand political privileges, show that they sult is a grand system of universal secular have the ability and virtue to seize this education. fresh opportunity for securing the emancipation of their sex from the thraldom of ages.

Similarly, to return to the theme of Miss Becker's memoir, the plan of educating men and women in the same universities We cannot pause to particularize all the and colleges is not at all eccentric-is not changes which have resulted from the in- due to the whim of some visonary - but fluences described. We may sum them up originated in the economy of some Western in one direction by saying that, in 1829, the farmers. They wished to have their daughWestern State of Illinois began the work ters thoroughly educated, so that, in regions of reforming the provisions of the common as yet too thinly settled to have many law which America inherited from England schools, the daughter might be qualified to as it affects women that work which Mr. teach the rest of the family. And of course Lefevre has recently begun in the House of they wished to have their sons educated, for Commons; and since that young State in America particularly an uneducated took this step, the laws which give up a man is hardly a man at all. These farmers married woman, body, soul, and property were generally well-to-do but not wealthy, to the absolute ownership of her husband, and they put to themselves the question, have been modified in nineteen of the Why should we build two colleges - one for American States, and in many of them en-men, another for women— - when one will tirely stricken out of the statute book. No answer? These boys and girls grow up one dreams that in any of the new States gether in their homes, in neighbourhoods, that are forming in the distant West any in children's schools, Sunday schools, law will reappear that affects the equality of woman as regards property. And in none of these nineteen States has any man arisen to suggest that the home is less secure, or the domestic relations of men and women less happy, than before the household tyranny was overthrown; in not one has there been any reactionary movement towards its restoration.

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to

churches; and when educated they will pass their lives in each other's society. Why should there be an interval of four years, when the boys and girls shall be separated into two educational monasteries? They saw a double expense in it and no common sense. And to this primarily we owe it that there are now twenty-nine flourishing colleges in America where the youth The equality of women has been idly of both sexes study together, recite togeth called an American idea; " but that is er, and are in every respect upon an equal really to say it is the product of the ages ity. These are not small institutions. of experience which have passed into man Some of them have as many as a thousand since first from the rocks of Asia he turned pupils, and they are generally well-endowed. his face Westward. Every genuine Amer- Again, it is important to consider that ican idea is a fruit in which has garnered no American colleges or universities_are the light and flush of every dawn that has conducted upon the principle of the Engarisen on mankind. We sometimes meet lish institutions. The students do not with people in Europe who fancy that be- merely listen to lectures, and cram for anyond the Atlantic men are engaged in nual examinations; they are examined from evolving reforms out of their inner con- day to day. Consequently, in nearly all sciousness, and carrying them out for the of the colleges mentioned, the students of sake of experiment; but humanity is the both sexes are resident, the dormitories for same there as in all lands and ages, and the two being in separate buildings. In all what it does is rooted in the need of the other respects they mingle as freely as in the hour. America took up arms against drawing-room. The professors are both men George III. not for democracy, but against and women. American experience in this heavy taxes; she took up arms lately not co-education of men and women stretchies for humanity, but to save the Union. In over forty years, so that we know some these things Americans, like the people of thing of what the general effects are. And what the public estimate of those effects is in America may be gathered from the fa that the great State of Kansas has passed

are possible
the birth-rate of New England is as high as it is else-

As compared with the marriage-rate,

where.

a law that no school or college connected | ber of the United States Congress and the with its government shall refuse women on founder of the public school system of New the same terms with men, or in any respect England in its modern shape, is final. Mr. educate them differently. Indeed this ex- Mann was for many years by far the most perience of the Western colleges has so re-eminent educator in America, and he had, acted upon the Eastern States, where the in pursuance of his duties as superintendent separate plan-inherited from England of the schools of Massachusetts, travelled prevailed, that some of the finest of its through Europe and made himself personinstitutions have pulled down the ancient ally acquainted with all of its systems and barriers. It is even reported that the Vas- seats of learning. In 1853 this able and sar Institute the largest, wealthiest, and accomplished man was induced to accept even most aristocratic female college of the position of president of Antioch ColNew York- has decided to admit young lege, which had just been established in men hereafter; and the founder of the new Central Ohio on the co-educational plan. State University of New York, the "Cor- He was a severe moralist, and his wide acnell University," has declared it to be his quaintance with schools and colleges indesire to have it opened to women equally spired him with very serious misgivings as with men. This then is the verdict on the to the prudence of this new plan. But subject after forty years of experience, after he had been there about five years, marked by the critical vigilance of people devoting himself to a personal supervision who have as much anxiety for the purity over the college, President Mann wrote to and welfare of their sons and daughters as his friend Mr. Combe of Edinburgh in these any in the world. Indeed, so rapidly are terms:transatlantic institutions falling into this line that co-education may already be called the American system.

But its advocates are not content that the matter should rest upon the mere supposition that the plan answers, without any drawback, the simple purpose of educating young men and women for which it was instituted. They distinctly declare that it has resulted in advantages far higher than any contemplated by the economical farmers who devised it. When it began the prophets of evil did not fail to shriek out their warnings that the system would produce horrible results. The girls would become coarse, the young men coarser, and the project end in licentiousness. It is remarkable how often things have turned out the exact reverse of what was theorized concerning them. Theory said the sun moved around the earth; the truth shows that the earth moves around the sun. It said the earth is flat; we know it is round. It said the sky is solid; we know it to be a vapour. This reversal of old beliefs has been too common for wise men to accept at once even obvious theories. The experience of the American plan has not only shown that the apprehensions amid which it began were unfounded, but just the reverse of all that was predicted or apprehended has really come to pass. It is the estimate of persons who have been intimately associated as patrons and professors with these co-educational colleges that in refinement and morals they are infinitely higher than others in which persons of either sex are exclusively educated. On this point the testimony of the Hon. Horace Mann, some time mem

"We really have the most orderly, sober, diligent, and exemplary institution in the country. than half through the present; and I have not We passed through the last term, and are more had occasion to make a single entry of any misdemeanour in our record book- -not a case for any serious discipline. There is no rowdyism in the village, no nocturnal rambles, making night hideous. All is quiet, peaceful; and the women of the village feel the presence of our students, when met in the streets in the evening, to be a protection rather than an exposure is now almost five years since I came here, and as yet I have had no practical joke' or 'college prank,' as they are called, played upon me - not in a single instance."

It

"No one conversant with the daily life and walk of Antioch College can deny that the purity and high tone of its morals and manners, in both departments, were unequalled by those of any other known institution. There are many colleges at the West, in whose neighbourhood schools for young ladies have sprung up, in order that the services of teachers and professors in the former may be made available in the latter; and in such cases there have always been regulations prohibiting any intercourse whatever between the two. But it is the universal testimony of those acquainted with the subject, that loss of reputation, and even of character, are not unfrequent in such places, growing out of clandes

tine correspondences and meetings. Mr. Mann | connection with any student in it. And in thought the monkish error of repressing nat- short, through personal observations of that ural sentiments should be swept away with other and other co-educational institutions in the errors of the same nature, and a generous cul- United States, we have become convinced that ture should enlist them in the interests of purity. the purification and elevation of the educaYoung people are thoughtless rather than vi- tional systems of the world are to be wrought cious; and it is cruel to put them into circum- by carrying into them that influence which has stances where they can learn wisdom only from a fatal experience... At Antioch the dining-it has gone never failed to civilize and refine wherever the influence of woman. We

hall, which was the commons of both sexes, was a charming scene of social enjoyment and inno- are convinced that young men are never so cent hilarity- -a scene which Mr. Mann spec- animated to high endeavours, never so put ially enjoyed for its beneficent influences upon upon their manliness, as when in the presmanners and happiness. . . In American society ence of women; and, equally, that women the freedom of intercourse between the young has are never so inspired by womanly sentiever been found compatible with virtue, in strik-ment, or so raised to noble efforts, as by ing contrast with the system of repression that exists in the older societies of the world, even of modern Europe."

This was lately written, some years since President Mann's death, and when his widow had ceased to have any personal connection with the Institution.

Antioch College has been visited by Emerson, Theodore Parker, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Dr. Bellows, and other distinguished men. The testimonies as to its superior character have been uniform. A member of the Massachusetts Legislature who visited it said that he left it with a better opinion of human nature than he had when he entered it.

the presence of true gentlemen. The two sexes are meant to sustain and encourage each other, and their separation during the period in which principally each is forming its mind and character, is the relic of an age of monks and nuns - an age which branded all relations between the sexes as impure.

În a recent address the Bishop of Oxford, in maintaining the need of religious instruction in the universities, said: "A college life is to be a house in which the family life of England is to be exhibited on a larger scale; where young men are brought together, exposed necessarily by that very circumstance to a multitude of temptations to expense, as to the indulgence of natural appetites, as to intercourse with one another, where they may make utter shipwreck of life, if there is not a wholesome influence brought to bear upon them." But how is the college to be the larger English home, with all the pure influences of the family pervading it, if that particular influence which has made the English home what it is, is carefully excluded from it?

About twelve years ago the writer of this article, at that time very little interested in the subject of it, went to reside in the neighbourhood of Antioch College under circumstances which furnished ample opportunities for forming an acquaintance with its plan, professors, and students. And although he is quite familiar with the University of Virginia, Harvard, and to some extent with English universities, he has an It was prophesied in America that when entire conviction that in none of those male young men and women were brought toinstitutions can there be found anything gether in colleges, there would be many comparable to the moral elevation, the re- love affairs; and that these would be often finement, or the intellectual enthusiasm, imprudent, and lead to the neglect of which characterize the students of Antioch. studies. The experience of the American In our estimates, male students were first colleges shows that though there were fewer called gentlemen at Antioch. The young cases of this kind than had been antici men were none the less chivalrous because pated, they rather incited those concerned they did not drink or smoke; while their to better conduct and more earnest study. personal neatness, courtesy, and delicacy Both man and maid aspire to make the best of behaviour, showed that under the refin- appearance in the eyes of those they love, ing influence around them a certain manli- and not to be surpassed by others. And ness, very rare in college students, had ap- why should such attachments be impru peared in their characters. The college dent? Where does society offer the young had the grace of a refined household. On better opportunities for knowing each oththe other hand, the finest and most womanly er's minds and characters, than is implied traits were visible in the young women. in studying side by side for years? The During the seven years of the present writer's intimacy with Antioch College, he at no time knew or heard of any scandal in

chief source of domestic unhappiness is that the young, fresh from their monastic colleges, rush heedlessly into life-long rela

tions with persons of whose minds and the other to long beards. It would be characters they know little or nothing, or strange indeed if by the same mental diet, else enter into heartless marriages of con- the same intellectual sun and atmosphere, venience. There is too much levity associ- women should be made too masculine or ated with this subject; human happiness men too effeminate. The fact is, this is absoand welfare are more deeply involved in it lutely a phantom, It ought to be needless than any other; and to a thoughtful man or at this date to affirm to English people that woman it will be no disparagement of the the broad culture and profound psychologico-educational plan that it may lead to at- cal penetration of George Eliot, the severe tachments which, surviving the test of years scholarship of Elizabeth Browning, the politof associated study, may end in marriage.* ical insight of Harriet Martineau, and the In none of these colleges has the standard science of Maria Mitchell, coexist with the of study been in the slightest degree low- utmost womanly feeling and refinement. ered beneath that of those in which young We are not, however, disposed to evade, men alone are taught. The girls have not but rather to rejoice in the fact, upon which asked or received any favour. And they is based much of the opposition to the eduhave shown their entire competency to hold cation of women in directions hitherto retheir own in the same field with the other served for men- namely, that it must tend sex, whether as pupils or professors. Miss to extend their occupations to employments Mitchell is as good an astronomer as any in hitherto monopolized by men. That there America; and the professor of mathematics are occupations for which men and women at Antioch -a woman- taught without are respectively endowed we have no book the most abstruse portions of her sci- doubt; as little do we doubt that Nature ence with a clearness which the best male has in such cases set barriers which, though professors acknowledged could not be sur-they may be overleaped by peculiar natures passed. The writer has often been in the in long intervals, neither sex can destroy. recitation-rooms, and can testify that the Fortunately, however, we are not without girls in nowise were inferior in their performances to the young men; and at the commencement the public essays read by the female graduates dealt with subjects of general interest quite as ably as the orations of the male graduates. Indeed, the uniform testimony of these co-educational colleges confirms that of the examiners at Cambridge, England, that if there has been any difference between the examinations of the young men and young women, it has been in favour of the latter.

the means of knowing the directions in which the larger education which some women have managed to secure has tended to widen their sphere of employment. The age in which we live has prevailed against our hereditary theories, and many women have gained strength to contend successfully with the prejudices and sentimentalismns which still imprison the majority of their sex. It is remarkable how little of reactionary defiance has attended the movements of those who have thus been liberated. They have not only not sought to become sea captains or military generals, but have not even tried to become lawyers or ambassadors. Politically they have been content to demand the franchise; while the only profession before monopolized by men which they have invaded is that of medicine.

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The undeniable facts reported from Cambridge have compelled the opponents of all such steps to shift their ground. Forced to admit that women can pursue with equal success the same studies with men, they now say "Yes, but they are not proper studies for woman; they do not fit her for her true sphere; and consequently they un- The female physician," in our judg sex her.” Now it must be admitted that it ment, represents so well the healthiness and would be a strange anomaly in Nature if the safety of the "woman's rights" movethis were true. Women daily sit at the ment, that we propose to devote some porsame table with men, and partake of the tion of our present article to reviewing the same food; Nature has not provided one present relation of that sex to the medical kind of beef and mutton for women and profession, and the more recent steps by another kind for men; and yet the same which it has been reached. Before the meat and bread are converted by one sex female physician had made her appearance, into woman, by the other into man. The it was a conservative platitude that woman's two are not unsexed by breathing the same air, or by the same sunshine; there is not a female and a male air or sunshine; and yet one frame converts these to long tresses, None of the colleges to which we are referring permit students to marry while in college.

place was in the sick-room. Conservatism, however, meant that she should be there in the capacity of Mrs. Gamp, and had no idea that a Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was disguised in the nurse who relieved the physician of the more disagreeable duties of the