SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION.

Under the general head of superior instruction are included all institutions empowered by law to confer degrees, together with a number of seminaries for women offering a college curriculum but not conferring degrees.

The total of institutions in the various classes comprehended under the general head of superior, with the total of professors and students as reported to the Office for the current year, are as follows:

a Includes fifteen departments endowed with the national land grant. Vid. Table 52.

COLLEGES AND SEMINARIES FOR WOMEN.

ATTENDANCE OF WOMEN IN COLLEGES AND SEMINARIES.

Provision for the higher education of women is made in colleges and seminaries exclusively for women and in co-education colleges. The entire attendance of young women in the several classes of institutions, for the current year, so far as reported to this Office, was as follows:

Colleges and seminaries for women, Table 43

Colleges of arts and science, Table 47...

Colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts endowed with the national land grant,

Table 52

Total

a Includes 28 students in the course for women, Columbia College, New York.

25,318

a 16, 428

917

42.663

Of the three hundred and fifty-seven colleges included in Table 49, two hundred and seventeen admit women, and of these two hundred and one specify the sex of students in their reports. Of thirty-two independent colleges endowed with the national land grant twenty report students of both sexes and of these sixteen specify the sex of students in their reports. This gives a total of two hundred and thirty-seven co-education colleges reporting to the Office, and a total of two hundred and seventeen showing the relative proportion of men and women students.

The following shows the number of colleges and seminaries exclusively for women reporting to this Office each year from 1878 to 1888, inclusive (1883 omitted), with the number of instructors and students:

Number of institutions
Number of instructors
Number of students.....

1878. 1879. 1880. 1881. 1882. 1881. 1885. 1885-86. 1886-87. 1887-88.

223 227 227 226 227 236 227 2,478 2,323 2,340 2,211 2,721 2,989 2, 862 23, 633 24, 605 25, 780 26, 011 28, 726 30, 587 28,868

'Does not include Columbia College, New York.

201 159 2,123 1,851 27,143

207 2,581 20,772 25, 318

Table 57 presents the summarized statistics of enteres ind seminaries afering collegate cames of lastzetan áir women. Ote finired and shy-atne of the institutions Senors prepamarry fepartments whose stadens romarse 3 per cent of the entire annder reporet. One hundred and seventeen of the stations report themselves as anacrent 37 avanter alegate fermes. La reners the enem offered by Siese foes not tider materaly in that of the semmares not so authorized. Aa maria izatea parterus the normson stocked is very meimpiete. The aim ier of nations represented a the acl The Ff His and grounds is qe hundred and seventy-tvo, e a productive inds, my-ine: in the total income me me dy. The recipes com a dees, which form the chief svire v neome marges for ward and lodging be er inded, are reported from seventyState appropriaties vere reported in a stances and benefac The answers to the gay cercarbal beme have not been inexted a le mummary They were over in forty-three cases, but were sometimes and be as vamance with the temized parmenias.

DETAILED VIEW OF INSTITUTIONS FOR THE SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION OF WOMEN. The detailed statistics relating to colleges and seminaries for women are presented in Table 44, Divisions A and B.

For the purpose of showing the status of these institutions more clearly than can be done by the tabulated statistics alone, additional information drawn from reports and other official statements, precedes each division of the table.

REMARKS ON TABLE 44, DIVISION A.

Table 44, Division A, includes a group of institutions whose admission requirements, standards of instruction, and general organization accord with those that have long been characteristic of colleges of liberal arts. Their work is essentially collegiate, in which respect they differ from the older seminaries for women, which, while making more or less provision for the distinctive studies of the college curriculum, are schools for general instruction.

The advantages of endowments, equipments and teaching force concentrated upon the work of superior instruction, and of the associated efforts of a company of students thoroughly prepared for the pursuit of advanced studies, can not be questioned. The want of these conditions gave rise to the movement for the higher education of women that has swept through the leading nations of the world in the last twenty years, with results that have been productive of the highest good to individual students, and of deep and permanent advantage to society. The United States has been foremost in this movement; its example has been stimulating to other nations, and the history of what has here been accomplished, of the methods and the outcome of the various institutions which have arisen in response to the demand, is the constant subject of inquiry and study on the part of those who are interested in similar efforts in foreign countries.

The movement in the United States has resulted in opening to women the doors of many colleges which were originally limited to men, and in several special endowments for colleges for women.

The latter, which is in general the more costly experiment, has been confined so far to a few States. Between 1855 and 1868 five colleges for women were chartered in New York, two of these, viz, Rutgers College and Ingham University, having been incorporated originally as seminaries; the latter received a college charter in 1852 and the former in 1867. Massachusetts followed with Wellesley in 1870 and Smith College in 1871. The two latest additions to the group of institutions here considered bring into the movement new elements of power. Harvard Annex has solved a problem which has long engaged the attention of those secking to secure for women the highest intellectual advantages. It brings within their reach all the rich provision accumulated in the oldest centre of intellectual life in our country, and furnishes a precedent soon undoubtedly to be

followed by other universities.

Bryn Mawr, on the contrary, affords convincing evidence that the cause of woman's higher education will not be allowed to hang upon the chance of a liberal spirit in existing institutions, or to languish for lack of funds and plans and foundations.

In giving separate tabulation to the colleges in Division A of the table, the purpose has not been to indicate that their work differs essentially from that which is carried on elsewhere; the difference is in the conditions under which the work is maintained. One feature distinguishing these institutions from other seminaries for women is the definite classification of their students. This makes it easy to ascertain the extent of the de

mand made upon them for collegiate training.

The bearing of the statistics upon this point, it should be observed, can not be well understood without reference to the location of the colleges. They are grouped together in the North Atlantic Division of the United States, from whence the larger proportion of their students are drawn. With this consideration in mind it is interesting to note the statistics of instructors and students as reported for the successive years from 1877

to 1887, inclusive, in the college departments only:

26

Wells College, Aurora, N. Y

11

Elmira College, Elmira, N. Y.

11

Smith College, Northampton, Mass... 16 73 23 136 22 205 26 214
Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.
150 21 359 29 329 40 372

3བ:༣

213 28 222

30 217 28 215

21 254 22

43 450 54

25

18 14

50

12

59 12

47 18 44

42

35 11

33
32 7

265

450

50

71

55

37

The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, popularly called "The Harvard Annex," has for its object to repeat for women the instruction given in Harvard College to men. The course leading to the Society's A. B. certificate is the same as that leading in the college to the A. B. degree,-the requirements for admission are the same, the identical papers (printed by the college) being used, and the papers used at semi-annual and final examinations in the college courses are used in the "Annex" for its corresponding courses. Instruction is given by the college teachers (and by no others) and the result of the work of the women is passed upon by the same persons. The college allows the women the free use of its extension library, and the "Annex" is called upon to provide but a few books of reference. The "Annex" has its own laboratories of zoology, botany, chemistry, and physics.

Students may enter for a four years' course or for partial or special courses. To meet the variety in the amount and kind of work, three different forms of certificate, to be signed by the instructors, are awarded. The highest, for the full college course, corresponds, as credentials for work done, to the A. B. degree; the second certifies to a liberal course of study during four years, in which other branches are accepted as equivalent for Latin or Greek, while a third is an annual certificate adapted to shorter terms of study.

The attendance for each year from 1879 to 1887-88, inclusive, with the distribution of the students, so far as reported, is as follows: