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PROCEEDINGS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 jiii pf 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SAGE COLLEGE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY, 
 
 May 75, A?7J. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED A REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF THE COR 
 NELL UNIVERSITY ON THE ESTABLISHMENT 
 OE SAID COLLEGE. 
 
 ITHACA: 
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 1873. 
 
PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 PR A YER BY REVEREND M. C. TYLER. 
 
 Most High and Holy God, before whom all dark 
 ness is as the light, and all wisdom of man is but dark 
 ness, we humbly and joyfully acknowledge thee to be 
 our Creator and Redeemer. 
 
 Beneath this open vault, in the broad temple of the 
 world Thou hast made, rejoicing in this genial air and 
 this goodly assemblage of scholars of truth, we bow 
 our hearts and implore thy blessing upon this act of 
 consecration. 
 
 We place this stone with reverent hands. From 
 the stately house of learning, which already rises be 
 fore our vision, from these cloisters, let streams of 
 light and truth and goodness flow for the healing of 
 the world. 
 
 Consecrate, we beseech Thee, all those who shall 
 soon throng these halls to the new era of generous 
 and impartial culture. May the generosities of the 
 founders of these halls, be rewarded by the fair and 
 holy characters which shall here be formed ; by the 
 
4 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 modesty and <rrace which shall adorn true Christian 
 
 * o 
 
 culture ; by the endless unfolding of science, philan 
 thropy and piety, in all coming generations. 
 
 O God, Fountain of all Love and Wisdom, to whom 
 all human science is but a faint shadow of truth, more 
 and more inspire us with humility, because of our igno 
 rance ; and with hope, because of the disclosures still 
 to be made to us. 
 
 Praised be thy name for the legacies of past wisdom, 
 for the victories of patient intellect sometimes crowned 
 with martyrdom, and for the Christlike humility and 
 love that have been joined with profoundest learning 
 in the centuries past. 
 
 More and more prosper, we beseech thec, all re 
 searches of reverent science. 
 
 May a holy awe inspire the philosopher, the states 
 man, the scholar, as Thou art seen to be the inspira 
 tion and source of all the laws which thou hast made. 
 
 Remove all veils of falsehood, imposture and super-- 
 stition, from our hearts and minds. Heal all the dis 
 eases of human society. Give patience to all who en 
 dure unutterable wrongs and oppressions, which come 
 from the ignorance and helplessness of mankind. 
 
 Inspire with generous and holy purpose all magis 
 trates and rulers. Purify all senates of legislation, and 
 preserve from corruption and anarchy the cities of 
 the republic. Let the Kingdom of Jesus Christ our 
 Lord be established in all our hearts, and fill the whole 
 earth. Accept us, we beseech Thee ; and praise shall 
 be to Father, Son and Spirit evermore! Avicn. 
 
Remarks of President White. 5 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS OF PRESIDENT 
 WHITE. 
 
 It is now a little more than four years since we met 
 in yonder pleasant village to begin, formally, our work 
 of instruction. 
 
 At that time ground was taken, both by our hon 
 ored Founder in his introductory speech, and by the 
 President of the institution in his inaugural address, 
 in favor of the education of young men and young 
 women together in colleges and universities. 
 
 In Mr. Cornell this idea seemed an instinct. He had 
 enjoyed none of the advantages given in seminaries 
 of advanced instruction ; he had been too much im 
 mersed in business, to have heard much argument for 
 or against perpetuating in the nineteenth century 
 semi-monastic arrangements which suited the thir 
 teenth ; there was in him, I think, an instinctive love 
 of fair play, an instinctive distrust of new theories to 
 bolster up outworn practices ; and these instincts he 
 expressed in that first official utterance, when he de 
 clared his hope that women should be educated here 
 as well as young men. 
 
 On the other hand, the ideas expressed that day by 
 the President of the University were founded upon 
 experience and observation within our higher institu 
 tions of learning. He had noted the fact that for very 
 many years, in academics, high schools and normal 
 schools, young men and young women of marriageable 
 age, and from distant homes, had been educated to 
 gether ; that while receiving such instruction they had 
 
6 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 generally been left without surveillance and to their 
 own sense of propriety ; that all this had gone on with 
 out scandal, without suspicion of danger or wrong, and 
 with such happy results in acquiring knowledge and 
 in the building of character, that of all the men and 
 matrons of this and neighboring States, none are more 
 valued than those educated on this system. 
 
 There happened to be in the audience on that day 
 a man who had thought upon this matter more deeply 
 than had either of the speakers. With them it was a 
 goodly theory ; with him it was more. He had arrived 
 not only at belief in the justice of admitting young 
 women to our college and universities, but he had 
 come to believe this the natural method the health 
 ful method the way out of the disorder, the gross- 
 ness, the boorishness, which have so long afflicted in 
 stitutions for the advanced instruction of young men. 
 
 Doubtless, too, with this belief was mingled a 
 kindly personal feeling. For, in his boyhood, he had 
 roamed over these hills and along the shores of yon 
 der lake, and among these gorges and forests about 
 us ; all this landscape, which has to you merely a won 
 derful physical beauty, has to him a consecration. 
 
 Upon the evening then of that day when we began 
 our work here, this man came to me and said, " when 
 you are ready to carry out the idea of educating young 
 women as thoroughly as young men, I will provide 
 the endowment to enable you to do so." That man 
 was Henry W. Sage. 
 
 Time passed on. There was a world of hard work 
 
Remarks of President White. 7 
 
 to do in that first period of organization ; there were 
 heavy loads to carry, struggles to go through, plans to 
 work out with infinite painstaking ; and our friend s 
 offer waited. But it was never forgotten, and at last 
 the time arrived, and he came forward to redeem his 
 promise. Time had not weakened his determination ; 
 it had but served to ripen it. His gift was larger than 
 any of us had dreamed of for such a purpose ; and to 
 day, for this College and yonder Chapel, it stands at 
 three hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 The matter was brought before the Trustees of 
 the University, and a committee was appointed to 
 examine and report upon it. I had the honor to be 
 associated with Mr. Sage on that committee, and to 
 gether we visited various institutions where the exper 
 iment had been tried. In due time our report was 
 made. The Trustees accepted the gift and decided to 
 go on with the work. 
 
 Among the universities which we visited was one 
 which had been working out this problem of coeduca 
 tion during about two years the noblest by far of the 
 universities of the west one to which this institution 
 of ours looks with respect as an elder sister ; nay, as 
 in some sense, a mother. I allude to the University 
 of Michigan. Brief as has been this experiment in 
 her halls, she has reached results of very great 
 importance ; and most heartily do I rejoice that 
 her President is with us here to-day, and by his 
 side three others, formerly professors of that institu 
 tion and now called to responsible positions elsewhere, 
 
8 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 but all ready to testify as to their experience in this- 
 matter. 
 
 Since the acceptance of the gift, the work has gone 
 steadily on ; and these massive foundations show that 
 this College building has been well begun. It is the 
 wish of its founder that it be a good building, and I 
 hazard nothing in saying that, with possibly two ex 
 ceptions, it is the finest among the college buildings 
 of our country. I know of some few more costly ; 
 I know of none more beautiful. I trust that the mod 
 esty of our architect, Professor Babcock, will not be 
 offended when I say that he has planned for us a 
 building admirably suited to the founder s noble pur 
 pose. Its arrangement of study and sleeping-rooms ; 
 its spacious parlors ; its gymnasium, bath-rooms and 
 infirmary ; its corridor, open to the southern sun and 
 protected from the winds of winter ; its conservatory, 
 its lecture-rooms, laboratory, museum, green-house 
 and botanic garden, for the department of botany and 
 horticulture, and other attractions, all combine to 
 make it a healthful and cheerful students home. 
 
 But comfort and bare utility have not been the only 
 things thought of. As a believer in the possibility of 
 " sermons in stones," I rejoice to see that in and about 
 this building there is to be a great deal of crystallized 
 eloquence, very forcible though very quiet, and more 
 over, perpetual. These two examples of the work 
 which has come from the hands and brains and hearts 
 of our stone-carvers these two sculptured capitals 
 with all their crisp leaves and rich fruits and flowers., 
 
Address of Henry IV. Sage. 9 
 
 are to stand among a multitude of others no less ex 
 quisite in workmanship, and they testify to you that 
 while utility and comfort are provided for, there is to 
 be a ministering unto the sense of beauty. 
 
 And here I cannot forbear a word of acknowledg 
 ment. Among the many services, so good, so kind, 
 so quiet, which have endeared to us Professor Gold- 
 win Smith, not the least is his thoughtfulness in 
 bringing over here a body of workmen, skilled 
 in the best practice, and to some extent trained in the 
 best art-schools, of the mother-country. These beau 
 tiful sculptures are their work. They have been done 
 with love, and years after we have passed away they 
 will be looked upon with gratitude. 
 
 And now I present to you one whom you will cer 
 tainly be glad to hear the man who can most fitly 
 speak here to-day ; to you, citizens of Ithaca, I pre 
 sent an old friend ; to you, Trustees, Faculty, and stu 
 dents of the University, a benefactor the Honorable 
 Henry W. Sage. 
 
 ADDRESS OF HENRY IV. SAGE. 
 
 We meet to-day upon this beautiful hillside, to in 
 augurate an enterprise which I think cannot but have 
 an important influence upon the future of this Com 
 monwealth and of our race. 
 
 It has been wisely said that " who educates a woman 
 educates a generation ;" and the structure which is to 
 be erected over this corner-stone will be especially de- 
 
io Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 voted to the education of women, and will carry with 
 it a pledge of all the power and resources of Cornell 
 University to "provide &ft& forever maintain facilities 
 for the education of women as broadly as for men." 
 This may truly be said to mark a new era in the his 
 tory of education ; for, although the education of 
 women with men has been heretofore practically con 
 ducted, notably at Oberlin, Ohio, for many years, and 
 at Ann Arbor, Michigan, for three years past, this is 
 the first University in this country, if not in the world, 
 which has at the same time boldly recognized the 
 rights of woman as well as man to all the education 
 she will ask, and pledged itself to the policy and duty 
 of maintaining equal facilities for both. It is, then, 
 no small matter of congratulation that this Univer 
 sity, a State institution, endowed by our general gov 
 ernment with a princely gift of lands, and by Ezra 
 Cornell, its founder, with his own fortune, and, more 
 than that, with his own great, earnest heart and zeal 
 ous love for man, is fairly committed to the education 
 and elevation of woman, and that henceforth the 
 structures now standing here, and those which shall 
 hereafter be added to them, are to be used forever for 
 the education of woman with man, to whom God gave 
 her as an help-meet, and as the mother and chief edu 
 cator of his race ! 
 
 I am not one of those who believe that the nature 
 and functions of woman, or her most important sphere 
 of duties in this life, are to be essentially changed by 
 education. God established these from the beginning, 
 
Address of Henry W. Sage. ti 
 
 and his purposes do not change. But I do most ear 
 nestly believe that every power he has given her, that 
 every grace and virtue which adorn her nature, that 
 every element of usefulness and helpfulness to herself 
 and others, may be increased without limit by educa 
 tion and culture, and that, in proportion as these are 
 added to her, will our race be elevated and improved. 
 But the world has been slow in comin to this con- 
 
 o 
 
 elusion ; and during the long centuries since our first 
 parents left Eden, woman, subject to man, has devel 
 oped less of her natural powers than he. In her moral 
 and affectional nature she has grown, in quality at 
 least, with man. But in the higher ranges of intellec 
 tual force and culture, in those creative qualities which 
 have marked the progress of ages in art, in science, in 
 philosophy and in legislation, man has, with rare ex 
 ceptions, walked alone woman has not been his com 
 panion and help-meet. And why? The answer to this 
 question is written upon the statute-books of every 
 civilized nation on earth. Man has used his power 
 over her, to say the least, unwisely and ungenerously. 
 vShe has been restricted by legislation in her rights of 
 property, in her freedom of action, in her power to 
 elevate herself. Less than thirty years since, in this 
 State, a married woman could not control her own 
 property not even the wages earned by her own 
 hands. They were her husband s. In many things 
 most essential to her interests and well-being man s 
 legislation made her a nullity. 
 
 I charge that this was ungenerous, because it injured 
 
12 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 woman without benefiting man ; that it was unwise, 
 because any limitations upon the development of wom 
 an react, and retard the development of our whole 
 race. But we begin to see light, and to-day I am glad 
 to know that there come up, as from the depths of a 
 great want, voices from the best men and women of 
 all lands, which demand that these old heresies be 
 done away with ; that woman shall have all rights which 
 justly belong to her as a human being, and that she 
 shall be improved by education and culture for her 
 duties in life as man is for his. Let us consider for a 
 moment this great want. Among the largest portion 
 of the population of this globe to-day, woman is but 
 the slave and servant of man doing his drudgery, 
 subject to his will. During her period of youth and 
 beauty, the prey and willing victim of the strongest ; 
 ignorant, degraded and brutal as the man who is her 
 
 o * o 
 
 master. Yet she is there the mother the teacher, 
 from her own low level, of the growing race. Looking 
 to the most civilized lands we meet problems, which 
 may well challenge the attention of the philanthropist 
 and the Christian statesman. In Great Britain, the 
 female population exceeds the male by nearly a million 
 and a half! In three of our New England States, the 
 excess is nearly sixty thousand. These results have 
 been produced by emigration, by war, shipwrecks, and 
 the risks and calamities which pertain to the employ 
 ments of men more than women causes which w^ill 
 not cease, but continue. Now, looking along the line 
 of these facts to logical results, what do we see? Not 
 
Address of Henry W. Sage. 13 
 
 long hence, millions of women enough, were they 
 congregated together, to form respectable States in 
 excess of men ! Human souls organized and equipped 
 with faculties for every function of life, endowed by 
 our Creator with all the feelings, impulses, and pas 
 sions of humanity, instinct with vital force, and reach 
 ing out for legitimate spheres of action, which, for 
 very important elements of their nature, can never be 
 attained ! In such conditions of this vast mass of hu 
 manity, what necessity for restraints and limitations ; 
 for elevation and purity ; for the positive control of 
 moral and intellectual forces over those of the gross 
 animal nature ! And how can this result be attained? 
 There "is but one answer to the question : By that ele 
 vation of character, by that broadening and deepening 
 of the whole nature, which comes from Christian cult 
 ure and education. It will inevitably happen that 
 women in large masses must be dependent upon their 
 own efforts for daily bread, and often, for the support 
 of helpless families. To fit them for these trials and 
 duties, the doors of opportunity must be opened wide. 
 All women should have the liberty to learn what they 
 can, and to do what they have the power to do. There 
 .should be no restriction in legislation, none in public 
 opinion, upon a woman s right to sustain herself in 
 any honest calling ; and she should, as much as man, 
 be fitted by education to use the faculties God has 
 given her where they will avail her the most. 
 
 Heretofore, the employments of self-supporting wo 
 men have been confined to narrow spheres. The nee- 
 
14 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 die, the factory, and domestic service have to a large 
 extent bounded them. But with the advancing strides 
 of civilization, new avenues open, and there is no limit 
 to the field which intelligent, earnest women have be 
 fore them. In the arts and professions, as teachers, 
 editors and authors, as clerks and saleswomen, ac 
 countants and telegraphers, in all the higher mechan 
 ical employments, in architectural drawing, and in 
 thousands of the less masculine pursuits which men 
 now monopolize, women, educated for the work, can 
 succeed as well. And there is manly work in this 
 world for every man in it besides ! In short, the effi 
 cient force of the human race will be multiplied in 
 proportion as woman, by culture and education, is fit 
 ted for new and broader spheres of action. And will 
 she be less woman with riper development of all her 
 faculties? As wife and mother, as sister, companion and 
 friend, will she be less true to faith and duty? Is man 
 made dwarf, or giant, by increase of moral and intel 
 lectual power ? We all know what culture in these 
 directions does for him. It will do no less for woman ; 
 and when she is completely emancipated from unjust 
 legal shackles, when she is free as man is to seek her 
 own path in life, wherever led by necessity or duty, 
 hope or ambition, when opportunity and aid for cult 
 ure in any direction are hers, then may we expect to 
 see woman enlarged, ennobled in every attribute, and 
 our whole race, through her, receive impulsion to a 
 higher level in all things great and good ! But this 
 is not the time or place to discuss these questions at 
 
Remarks of Professor Babcock. 15 
 
 length. Brief reference to some of the ideas and mo 
 tives which underlie this offering of a university edu 
 cation to the women of America is enough for the 
 hour. When this structure shall be completed and 
 ready for its uses, let us look upward and forward for 
 results. And if woman be true to herself, if man be 
 true to woman, and both be true to God, there ought 
 to be from the work inaugurated here this day an out 
 flow which shall bless and elevate all mankind ! 
 
 The corner stone was then laid by Mrs. Sage with 
 the following words : 
 
 " I lay this corner stone, in faith 
 That structure fair and good 
 Shall from it rise, and thenceforth come 
 True Christian womanhood." 
 
 Professor Babcock, the architect, being called upon, 
 said : 
 
 The contents of the box deposited in the corner 
 stone are as follows : 
 
 1. Parchments bearing the date of the laying of the 
 stone, and the names of the architect and builder. 
 
 2. Copies of the Register. 
 
 3. Laws and documents relating to the University. 
 
 4. The Albany Evening Journal Almanac of 1873. 
 
 5. The New York Daily Times. 
 
 6. The Ithaca daily papers. 
 
 7. Tht Era. 
 
 8. A letter addressed by Mr. Cornell " To the Coming 
 Man and Woman." 
 
 President White : The corner stone of the Sage 
 
1 6 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 College is now duly laid ; may God s blessing rest upon 
 the college, upon its benefactors, upon all who throng 
 its walls, upon all who go forth from it ! I have now 
 the pleasure of introducing the gentleman who has 
 written the letter, which has been deposited in the 
 stone, to the coming man and the coming woman. I 
 trust it may be a very long time before that letter 
 comes to its address. I have the very great honor 
 and pleasure of introducing the Honorable Ezra Cor 
 nell, who will now address you. 
 
 REMARKS OF MR. CORNELL. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 You will not expect me to undertake to do what I 
 am so little qualified to do to make a speech ; but I 
 rise with pleasure to thank God and our friends, in the 
 name of the Trustees of Cornell University, that this 
 great work goes steadily forward. 
 
 Four years ago we met and incorporated the Cor 
 nell University. There was a doubt, at least, whether 
 there was not a majority of our Trustees, and a ma 
 jority of the Faculty that had then been selected for 
 the University, opposed to this work. I cannot say 
 that this was the fact, but it is difficult also for me to 
 say that it was not the fact. 
 
 The work is moving forward ; and I am now able to 
 assure you that at least a majority, and a very de 
 cided majority, of both the Trustees and the Faculty, 
 
Speech of Chancellor Wine hell. 17 
 
 are in favor of this great experiment ; and as for my 
 self, I have the utmost confidence in its success. I re 
 gard it as the most important experiment that could be 
 made, not only for the institution, but for our sur 
 rounding country. It is important to the citizens of 
 Ithaca, that this experiment should be a successful 
 one ; and those of my fellow citizens who are within 
 the hearing of my voice, I trust will bear in mind that 
 much depends upon them for securing the success of 
 this undertaking, and I hope and trust that whatever 
 they may do, they will do most heartily and cheerfully 
 to secure that success. 
 
 Again thanking our friends for the means that have 
 enabled us to make this rapid progress in this matter 
 of coeducation, and of placing the women of Amer 
 ica upon the same footing with the men of America 
 in regard to education, I will close, with the remark 
 that the letter deposited in the corner stone addressed 
 to the future man and woman, of which I have kept 
 no copy, will relate to future generations the cause of 
 the failure of this experiment, if it ever does fail, as I 
 trust in God it never will. 
 
 SPEECH OF ALEXANDER WINCH ELL, L.L. D., 
 CHANCELLOR OF THE SYRACUSE UNIVER 
 SITY. 
 
 Mr. President : I felicitate myself heartily in being 
 called upon to participate in the ceremonies of this 
 occasion, the first instance in which a great and pros- 
 
1 8 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 perous University has so far recognized the imperious 
 demands of the age for equal rights to women, as to 
 lay the corner stone of an edifice to be consecrated 
 especially to their collegiate education. I do this with 
 especial satisfaction, recalling the period spent in pro 
 fessional companionship with him under whose ad 
 ministration this auspicious event takes place, in an 
 institution where for some years he was one of my 
 colleagues, a great and leading university of the west, 
 and one of the greatest and most respectable in the 
 country. 
 
 I have long desired to visit this spot, and to tread 
 the soil that has been consecrated to the necessities 
 and uses of Cornell University, a very Minerva among 
 the colleges of the land ; but I never anticipated the 
 opportunity to do so would bring with it the oppor 
 tunity to testify before an audience like this, to my 
 deep interest in the Cornell University, and my hearty 
 good wishes for its welfare, its usefulness, its perpe 
 tuity and its greatness. 
 
 You remember, Mr. President, when we were asso 
 ciated together as fellow professors, each in his way 
 trying to interpret the records of the past, the ques 
 tion of higher coeducation of men and women used 
 sometimes to be canvassed. At an earlier period, if 
 my recollection serves me rightly, than that which wit 
 nessed our association together as fellow professors, 
 the question had been canvassed by the board of re 
 gents and professors in the university, and a judgment 
 arrived at, for the time being, adverse to the admission 
 
Speech of Chancellor Winchell. 19 
 
 of women into the university. I cannot refrain how 
 ever, from doing myself the justice to say, that at a 
 period still antecedent to the epoch of that memora 
 ble discussion I had myself taken sides with the party, 
 which then constituted the minority in the institution, 
 that was destined so soon to present a strong and 
 respectable majority that should act, and consummate 
 in that action a deed of justice to the other sex. Even 
 at that early period, in surveying the intimations of 
 the time and I am carried back over an interval of 
 twelve or fifteen years in referring to these events 
 I had detected as I thought, this great question 
 looming up in the educational horizon, a question 
 which was destined to demand a solution ; but I did 
 not surmise that it would so soon attain to the actual 
 zenith, and overshadow all of us to such an extent that 
 no man can possibly ignore its presence. More than 
 one, I am happy to say, has entertained a conviction 
 upon this subject, which has not been produced by 
 the successes that have been attained in the modern 
 experiments at coeducation, and not produced by 
 events of the magnitude, and importance, and mean 
 ing of those which are transpiring to day. Although 
 my own mind has been long settled, and though many 
 minds have been satisfied in regard to the merits of 
 this question, it may be worth the while to suggest to 
 those who are disposed thus to consider the pros and 
 cons of the argument, that there are certain negative 
 propositions, in the first place, well calculated to dis 
 pel all the difficulties that have beset the pathway of 
 
2O Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 those who have been slow to arrive at the conclusion 
 which I have embraced, and have insisted upon on more 
 than one occasion. 
 
 Among these negative propositions let it be remem- 
 ,bered, in the first place, that this question of the 
 higher coeducation of man and woman is not one 
 
 o 
 
 which is to be settled as a question of masculine taste. 
 Whether a certain class of men approve or disapprove 
 of the attempt of women to the realities of a university 
 education, has no pertinence to the question. Whether 
 woman possesses the actual right to avail herself of all 
 the advantages that are provided in human society to 
 attain to the highest possible education and culture, is 
 something which has no connection whatever with the 
 prejudices, or opinions, or judgment, of any fragment 
 or portion of masculine humanity. We may like or 
 dislike to see a woman pursuing differential calculus, 
 or translating Homer. W r e may think it unfeminine, 
 but we have no more right to deny her the privilege, 
 than we have to curtail the right of any man to pur 
 sue a vocation which we regard as a violation of good 
 taste or propriety, or as totally at variance with the 
 cast of his mind. 
 
 And then, in the next place, the settling of this 
 question in the affirmative does not imply that all 
 women must attain to, or seek after, a collegiate edu 
 cation. No ; make what provision we will, there will 
 yet be left an abundance of women to preserve in 
 themselves all that charming mood of nature which 
 ive witness in those unsophisticated by Greek and 
 
Speech of Chancellor WinchelL 21 
 
 conic sections ; a sufficient number to perpetuate all 
 the pretty affectations and unnaturalnesses of the 
 boarding-school miss ; and a sufficient number to save 
 us from the awful darkness of ignorance of the New 
 York and Parisian fashions ; and a plenty of women to 
 pay homage at the shrine of Madam Demorest. 
 
 Neither, in the third place, does it follow, or settle 
 this question in the affirmative, that women, because 
 educated and cultured, are therefore to aspire to polit 
 ical and public stations, and to participate in public 
 life. We may entertain what opinion we will respect 
 ing the fitness of women for such positions, respecting 
 those women who aspire to such positions, and re 
 specting the competency of women to discharge high 
 public duties, but all this is foreign to the question, 
 and does not affect her natural dowry in the right to 
 
 education. 
 / 
 
 And neither, in the next place, is it pertinent to the 
 question to inquire whether the pursuit of the higher 
 studies be compatible with the health of woman. She 
 is to be her own judge in that respect. We allow her 
 to judge in regard to the healthfulness of all other 
 pursuits. The pursuit of fashion, in some instances, 
 is reported to have been damaging if not ruinous to 
 health ; yet in our legislative halls, and in the for 
 mation of public opinion, we enact no laws which in 
 terfere with the right she exercises to pursue her busi 
 ness of fashion, and to lead a life which may be, and 
 is, prejudicial to her physical health. 
 
 Finally, neither are we to enquire whether woman 
 
22 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 is capable of competing with her fellow man in the 
 pursuit of higher education. It may be that she will 
 prove an unequal competitor. It may be that she will 
 fall behind, but the only question which concerns us 
 is, does she aspire to this education ? Does she desire 
 to associate herself with her brother, her fellow stu 
 dent, in the advanced walks of linguistic and scientific 
 attainments? She has asserted in our ears that such 
 is her aspiration, and we have only to inquire what is 
 the fact in this respect. All these collateral inquiries 
 are entirely foreign to the question of culture of the 
 mind, and we must in justice, concede to woman seek 
 ing this privilege aspiring to enrich her mind with a 
 knowledge of literature and science the same privi 
 leges, the same opportunities, that have been provided 
 so wisely and so generously for our sons and brothers. 
 And there are certain affirmative propositions well cal 
 culated to strengthen the convictions of those who 
 have taken sides in the behalf of women on this great 
 question of higher coeducation, to which let me di 
 rect your thoughts. 
 
 In the first place, the pursuit of the higher litera 
 ture and science has a tendency to conserve all that 
 is truly feminine in women. We have always main 
 tained that it is the especial office and function of 
 learning and culture to refine. We have always main 
 tained that there is nothing unrefining in the most 
 difficult scientific and literary attainments. The in 
 fluence of that culture must be the same upon woman 
 as upon man. It must tend to add refinement to the 
 
of Chancellor Wine he II. 23 
 
 feminine graces and accomplishments which nature 
 has given to women. 
 
 That we have seen masculine educated women we 
 must confess, and masculine educated women who in 
 some of their qualities were not especially inviting ; 
 but let it be remembered that their masculine cast of 
 character was given to them by nature, and not by 
 the culture which they get in the college or univer 
 sity. Nature is to be charged with that coarseness 
 and roughness, which exist in spite of culture. There 
 are educated men and women who still remain rough 
 and unpolished, but less rough and less unpolished 
 than if they had not received a higher education. 
 
 In the next place, I would remind you that the pur 
 suit of science is eminently healthful ; and if a woman 
 has, by the laws of nature, a predisposition to debility 
 or invalidism, I am sure that the degree of activity, 
 the bodily and mental action, which we find to be 
 necessary in the pursuit of natural science especially, 
 is a remedy for that tendency. These health-giving 
 influences, which are derived from the pursuit of sci 
 ence, woman has a right to demand for herself. Mr. 
 President, I have not turned back to a time in our ex 
 perience and in the history of the University of Mich 
 igan, when we were enabled to contrast the excuses 
 for absence which were rendered by male and female 
 students on account of sickness, but I might have 
 done so. Before I leave that point, however, I will 
 not refrain from making allusion to the fact that it is 
 well understood by professors and teachers that while 
 
24 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 many excuses are rendered by young men, who on ac 
 count of sickness are unable to attend the exercises, 
 and when those excuses come to us, we are in the 
 habit of accepting them, believing those students to 
 be honorable young men, and not entertaining for a 
 moment a doubt as to the truth of their statements 
 or the validity of their excuses ; there is something 
 entirely remarkable in the fact that excuses of this 
 kind, in our experience in the University of Michigan, 
 came less frequent from the female side of the Uni 
 versity than |/rom the other. Does not that argue 
 that a healthy influence is exerted by the pursuit of 
 higher studies ? We have found hard study and se 
 vere study to be entirely compatible with female phys 
 ical vigor. The college, I believe, may be put in fa 
 vorable contrast with the boarding-school in this re 
 spect. 
 
 In the next place, I would remind you as one of 
 my affirmative propositions, that woman is a success 
 in the pursuit of science. My thoughts turn back to 
 my experience as a student in schools and academies 
 preparatory to college. Perhaps I was in a mood to 
 be unduly impressed as to the excellencies of the other 
 sex, but there is certainly one thing I have a faint rec 
 ollection of, and that is, that the most penetrating and 
 successful student, with the most comprehensive grasp 
 of the subject which I ever saw, in that dread and 
 horror of college students, the differential calculus, was 
 a lady. She w^as a little my senior, and it is in this 
 way that I account for her superiority over myself. 
 
Speech of CJiancellor Wine hell. ^^^ 25 
 
 And I remember, too, of being in a class where there 
 were young ladies who were pursuing the study of 
 geometry ; and the neatest, and readiest, and most con 
 vincing demonstrations of propositions in geometry 
 came, from those fair and charming lips. 
 
 And then you remember, Mr. President and friends, 
 that the history of the world has given us many names 
 of women prominent in science and literature. History 
 gives us the name of Hypatia, a teacher of philosophy in 
 the Platonic school of Alexandria ; and you will remem 
 ber also, how in later times, in the middle ages, the 
 University of Bologna served itself with female pro 
 fessors, and furnished the world such an array of names 
 of illustrious ladies, as to give to that renowned univer 
 sity a lustre which is destined to be perpetuated through 
 all time. Laura Bassi was a professor of mathematics 
 and natural philosophy in that university, and gave 
 learned lectures attended by crowds of learned women 
 as well as men, in the pursuit of the higher sciences, 
 from the surrounding countries, from France and Ger 
 many ; and you well remember how this lady attained 
 to such distinction in the world of letters and science, 
 as to be honored with the degree of Doctor of Laws. 
 There is also the name of Novella d Andrea, professor 
 of astronomy, who, by skill in mathematics, and by the 
 the delivery of learned lectures, attained to a position 
 of celebrity that has never been surpassed ; and the 
 name of Maria Agnesi, professor of mathematics, who 
 occupied the chair that had previously been occupied 
 by her father. In linguistic science and literature, Clo- 
 
26 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 tilde Tambroni, a professor of Greek, and other emi 
 nent women, reflect equal lustre upon the history of 
 the University of Bologna, while in France, Madam 
 Dacier was the distinguished editress of some of the 
 Greek classics of the celebrated Delphin edition. And 
 among the literary and learned ladies to whom we 
 might refer, we recall such names as that of Mrs. Mary 
 Somerville, who was latterly almost the peer and com 
 peer of the celebrated mathematician and astronomer 
 Laplace ; of Caroline Herschel, the distinguished assis 
 tant and colaborer of her more distinguished brother 
 Sir William Herschel, who has testified that but for her 
 cooperation, and the services she rendered him in the 
 pursuit of astronomical science, he could not have at 
 tained the results which crowned his life. 
 
 In our own country, as some of the more advanced 
 students in botany will remember, there is the name 
 of Mrs. Almira Lincoln Phelps, the author of a text 
 book on botany, which has continued in use in our 
 schools for a longer period than any text book ever 
 introduced to the American public; and Miss You- 
 mans, another ornament to botanical science ; and Miss 
 Redfield who was an expert in zoological science, and 
 also an author ; and Mrs. Agassiz, the wife of the non 
 resident professor of zoology in this institution. I need 
 but mention the name of this thorough scholar and 
 charming writer, to convince you that women are ca 
 pable of attaining to as consummate a degree of knowl 
 edge and culture in zoological science as any man in 
 the country. Lastly, Miss Mitchell, professor in the 
 
Speech of Chancellor Wine he II. 27 
 
 department of astronomy, is worthy to be named in 
 connection with the female professors of astronomy in 
 other and foreign institutions. 
 
 In my own experience, Mr. President, to which you 
 did me the honor to allude, I have had an opportunity 
 to make observations which are similarly convincing. 
 A few years ago, as has been remarked, ladies were for 
 the first time admitted to Michigan University ; and 
 I am able to testify that they have acquitted them 
 selves with just as much credit to themselves, as have 
 the men who studied with them. A few years ago, 
 the first year I think when women entered in any 
 numbers, I had the pleasure of instructing a class of 
 one hundred and two in botany, and at the close of the 
 period of instruction, a written examination was had, 
 .and in looking over the examination papers I paid 
 particular attention to the characteristics of these pa 
 pers in reference to the subject matter which had been 
 treated of, and in reference to the correctness of the 
 spelling of technical terms, and I am very happy to 
 .announce the fact, that in both of these respects the 
 lady members of the class stood number one. I would 
 say, however, in order to make this statement clearer 
 .and more forcible, that I entered into an analysis of 
 the different groups of persons constituting the class. 
 There were first I may say the ladies, then the gentle 
 men constituting the class. It was made up also of 
 regular freshmen. (Laughter). Yes, regular freshmen 
 and irregular freshmen, and among the freshmen were 
 the classical students and scientific students, and in 
 
28 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 addition to the freshmen there were also select stu 
 dents, and pharmacy students, and irregular students 
 I mean irregular in their studies. The class was 
 classified with reference to residence, whether as resi 
 dents of Michigan or non-residents ; they were also di 
 vided according to course, into classical, latin-scien 
 tific, and scientific, or classical and non-classical ; and 
 so I made out of this list of one hundred and two per 
 sons seventeen groups, and however I could group 
 them the ladies always stood first. Now it may be per 
 tinent for me to make a few other statements in this, 
 connection, and as they are of interest, and as they 
 may be made the text for some very interesting discus 
 sion if any one shall ever take them up, I will read an 
 abstract of the other results. 
 
 Taking the several groups in the order of profi 
 ciency, and giving only the percentage of perfection 
 in the character of their examination papers, we ob 
 tain the following exhibits : Female freshmen 93 ; 
 latin-scientific freshmen, including some females 97 ; 
 all classical students 75 ; all Michigan freshmen 74 ; 
 all Michigan students 73 ; foreign freshmen 72 ; class 
 ical freshmen 72; the whole body of freshmen 71; 
 all students examined 71 ; select students 70 ; foreign 
 students 70 ; male freshmen 70 ; all non-classical stu 
 dents 69 ; scientific freshmen 68 ; pharmacy students 
 66 ; foreign non-freshmen 65 ; Michigan non-freshmen, 
 last of all, 60. 
 
 Now I do not mean to imply, friends, that the at 
 tainments of the gentlemen in this class were low, ab- 
 
Spcccli of Chancellor Wine/tell. 29 
 
 solutely, but rather that the proficiency of the ladies 
 was high absolutely. Neither do I imply that this 
 disparity in the relative proficiency existing between 
 the two sexes is something destined to be maintained 
 in the whole history of the university. I admit that 
 these ladies who stood this test were a select class of 
 lady students ; only that class of ladies had then ven 
 tured to make application for admission to the uni 
 versity. Hereafter, when the average lady student 
 shall be emboldened by the success of these to knock 
 at the door of the University and find admittance, I 
 expect we shall find an equality in the scholastic mer 
 its of the two sexes. Be that as it may, my observa 
 tions upon this class, and similar observations upon a 
 larger class, which I taught about a year ago, of two 
 hundred students, convinced me, and, as I believe 
 demonstrated, that women are capable of pursuing 
 the study of science successfully and creditably. But 
 whether they can or cannot succeed, as I before as 
 serted, it is their right to be there, and to do the best 
 they can. 
 
 Now in concluding these remarks, allow me to echo 
 some sound advice which fell upon my ears recently 
 from the lips of a most distinguished American edu 
 cator : " Follow after truth follow after the whole 
 truth" In laying the foundation and rearing the su 
 perstructure of this edifice, and of this institution 
 whose corner stone we put in place to-day, let no de 
 partment of the domain of truth be neglected. Let 
 the minds of those who shall be trained here be en- 
 
3O Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 riched with the knowledge of truth in all its integ 
 rity ; let it be remembered that the field of moral and 
 religious truth, and the moral and religious history of 
 our race at large, supply us with the data and basis 
 of a philosophy as positive as any drawn from the 
 facts of physics, or of civil history ; that these women 
 whcx shall flock to this building have the right to have 
 their education directed to the entire field of truth, 
 and to be reminded that it is the will of the Author 
 of truth, that the entire field shall be faithfully and 
 candidly explored. 
 
 As truth is an expression of the mind and will and 
 thought of God, so are mere unreasoning human dog 
 mas, and narrow prejudices, both irreverent towards 
 God and unworthy of one who takes upon himself 
 the sacred office of giving instruction to man or wo 
 man in the truth w r hich God has ordained to be. 
 
 The next speaker was Moses Coit Tyler, editor of 
 the Christian Union, and formerly Professor of the 
 University of Michigan. 
 
 SPEECH OF MOSES COIT TYLER. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : It is the re 
 mark of one of the true thinkers of our time, Freder 
 ick Robertson, that the first maxim in conduct and in 
 culture is this ; " Save yourself from all sectarianism." 
 And what is sectarianism, in any direction, but the 
 imperfectness of doing things by sections rather than 
 by spheres, partially rather than integrally? 
 
Spec cli of Moses Coit Tyler. 31 
 
 In this vast and fatal business of education, particu 
 larly the higher education, has not the world all the 
 while been held back, and human growth cramped and 
 stifled, by the pettiness of educational sectarianism ; 
 that is, by the adoption in education of principles 
 viewed only on one side, and of methods fragmentary 
 in execution ? 
 
 There, to begin with, is the educational secta 
 rianism which takes limited and prejudiced conceptions 
 of the topics upon which education should be em 
 ployed. It fences off a certain small section of knowl 
 edge, and sprinkles upon it the drops of its consecra 
 tion, and then says to the young student : " There LS 
 your true field of work. There only should you delve 
 and plough and gather your harvest." The first sec 
 tary who meets us in this spirit, perhaps, is the classical 
 sectary, and he says : " Only the dead words that were 
 once alive and musical in the streets of Athens and of 
 Rome are worthy of the scholar s devotion." But just 
 behind him, and with equal intensity, cries out another : 
 " Only the literatures of living speech, and not the 
 dead ones at all, are worthy of living men." But 
 these voices are soon drowned in the vehement excla 
 mations of a third sectary, not at all less confident 
 than the others : " Why fritter life away," he says, 
 " over mere words mouthfuls of spoken wind ? Give 
 us something tangible and practical in education. What 
 you call literary studies are but a waste of time and 
 force upon vapid and fruitless tasks. Of course, in 
 this practical age, science furnishes the only education 
 which is of any real utility." 
 
32 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 So, everywhere, the sectaries in education grapple 
 together, and rend each other with mutual reproaches, 
 each one making his own private partiality in knowl 
 edge the test and the measure of all desirable knowl 
 edge. Accordingly, since institutions of learning have 
 commonly been founded under the guidance of such 
 men, we find here one school dedicated to one bit of 
 knowledge, and there another school reared to the 
 service of another bit of knowledge ; but, at last, the 
 truth has begun to dawn upon us, that schools which 
 teach only bits of knowledge, at least do not deserve 
 to be called universities. That school, only, is the 
 university, where the universe of knowledge is cher 
 ished and pursued. 
 
 But educational sectarianism shows itself in another 
 form, not less disagreeable than the other, and of more 
 particular interest for us here to-day. This is the form 
 of sectarianism which applies itself, not to the studies 
 to be pursued, but to the students who are to pursue 
 them ; which throws its limitations about persons and 
 not about topics ; which belittles not the area of knowl 
 edge, but the number of those who may have access 
 to knowledge ; and which does this on principles that 
 are unreasonable and unjust. For, in all this world, 
 what is there that ought to be freer to all who hunger 
 for it than knowledge, which, as a great lover of it 
 said three hundred years ago, " bringeth to every kinde 
 of man the truest pleasur, the surest profet, the great 
 est praise that can be either gotten in earth or given 
 from heaven (heaven only excepted) " ? What cruelty, 
 
Speech of Moses Coit Tyler. 33 
 
 therefore, is more cruel, what exclusiveness is more 
 unnatural, than that which would bar out from this 
 exquisite and supreme boon, any human being who is 
 qualified to partake of it ? Yet we know that in times 
 past just this has been done ; we know that in times 
 present just this is still done. 
 
 To say nothing of those cases of exclusion from the 
 university, which have rested on matters of creed or 
 race, this must be mentioned, that nearly all the 
 greatest, most respectable, and most advantageous 
 universities in the world to-day make the fact that a 
 student however gifted with abilities, however ac 
 complished in studies, however fine and noble in char 
 acter is a woman, the ground for her being denied 
 all the incomparable intellectual benefits of which 
 they have accumulated the trust in the course of ages, 
 and of which they hold a sort of monopoly ; thus 
 virtually repelling from the higher pursuits of knowl 
 edge those who would be among the most loyal and 
 most successful seekers of it, and thus adding to this 
 
 o 
 
 original cruelty the secondary one of giving encour 
 agement to the insolent taunt, which says either that 
 high learning is impossible to a woman, or else that 
 it is unbecoming in her. 
 
 For my part, I think that the deepest significance 
 of this rare festival which is enacted here to-day is, 
 that it is a protest a benign, let us hope an effica 
 cious protest against this most arbitrary species of 
 educational sectarianism. It is a proclamation that at 
 last, here, on these beautiful and bountiful heights, 
 3 
 
34 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 the entire circle of catholicity in education is to be 
 rounded out to its fullness. This festival signifies 
 that, in the invitation which the University sends 
 abroad into the world, there shall no longer remain 
 any discord of inconsistency to jar the magnanimous 
 words of its Founder, who would have this a place 
 "where any person can get instruction in any study." 
 This, indeed, seems to be the true idea of a univer 
 sity a school, in its instruction as universal as knowl 
 edge, and in its invitation as universal as the lovers 
 and seekers of knowledge. To throw open all studies 
 to the free choice of all human beings, that is the 
 only scheme for a University worthy of this ground 
 we stand on, and of the period of time which the 
 world has grown to. 
 
 I am sure, therefore, that we are all glad and proud 
 to be here to participate in the inspiration of this 
 most memorable scene. We are all glad to have the 
 privilege, on this very spot, of joining in this living 
 testimony of thanks to Mr. Sage, the wise and large- 
 hearted benefactor who rears here this temple, not of 
 education only, but of educational justice likewise ; 
 and whose name, from the rocky seed which he now 
 plants in this soil, will reap harvests of benediction 
 through all times to come. 
 
 It would be hard to imagine any misfortune in man 
 ners or in morals or in civilization, that larger some 
 thing which includes both manners and morals more 
 serious than would follow from a wide and palpable 
 disparity in the culture of the sexes. But who does 
 
Speech of AFoscs Coit Tyler. 35 
 
 not see, in the enormous multiplication of colleges and 
 in the great diffusion of the desire and the ability to 
 go to them, that a liberal education is to be the rule 
 and not the exception for the gentleman of the future 
 that " Coming Man " to whom Mr. Cornell wrote 
 the letter which he has just deposited in yonder corner 
 stone? But unless a liberal education be likewise the 
 rule and not the exception for the lady of the future 
 the " Coming Woman " who is also addressed by 
 Mr. Cornell s letter both lady and gentleman will 
 associate, in the future, in a companionship that will 
 have elements of inevitable misunderstanding and em 
 barrassment for both. " Women and men," says John 
 Stuart Mill, "at last are companions; unless she rises, 
 he sinks." 
 
 Besides all this, in man s efforts towards an} great 
 achievement in this world, he never works so grace 
 fully, never so wisely, never so successfully, as when 
 he has the company and the help of woman. We are 
 all glad, therefore, to be here to exchange congratula 
 tions over this act, in which man not only confers 
 blessing upon woman, but confers blessing upon him 
 self also; for he thus secures to the extent here pos 
 sible, the company and the help of woman in the 
 greatest task he has in this world the prosecution of 
 knowledge, which Lord Bacon calls that " great Plea 
 or Suit, granted by the Divine favor and providence, 
 whereby the human race seeks to recover its right 
 over nature." 
 
 I have just spoken the name of Lord Bacon. It 
 
36 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 seems to me that in a university like this, there is no 
 other name more fit to be spoken than the name of 
 that prodigious man whose mind was itself a sort of 
 university for had he not taken all knowledge for his 
 province ? and whose philosophy has reformed the old 
 universities and established the new ones, and still lives 
 in all our best studies commanding us with unceasing 
 monition, to keep our faces fronting " the true end of 
 knowledge," which is " the glory of God and the relief 
 of man s estate." So I need make no apology for 
 quoting here, as I conclude these remarks, still another 
 saying of this master of us all, this perpetual chancellor 
 of all the liberal universities. As will be recollected 
 by everyone, it was in Lord Bacon s day that Galileo 
 invented the telescope, and pointed it for the first 
 time, with eager and reverent expectation, toward the 
 infinite mysteries of the sky. You know what a rev 
 elation rewarded that first real look into the heavens ; 
 and as the message announcing it sped across the bo 
 som of Europe, from land to land, to the few wise men 
 who were anywhere waiting to hear it, it found in Eng 
 land one man, perhaps only one man, already with 
 hand upon ear to catch its import from afar. That 
 man was Lord Bacon. And when he heard what 
 Galileo had done, he pronounced it an achievement 
 dignum humane gencrc. And, sir, while sitting here 
 this afternoon, I have been trying to think what word 
 would be the most fitting by which to describe the act 
 which takes visible form here to-day. I might say 
 that it is worthy of Henry W. Sage to do this thing. 
 
Remarks of Professor Goldwin Smith. 37 
 
 That would be true. I might say that the doing of 
 this thing is worthy of Cornell University, and of its 
 munificent founder. That would be true ; for in the 
 very midst of the grave charges against Mr. Cornell 
 which now fill even the ai r we breathe, I desire to ex 
 press my individual belief, based on good evidence, 
 that these charges are wantonly and entirely false. 
 And again I might say, that the doing of this thing is 
 worthy of the President of Cornell University a man 
 who, when the whole world shall come to know him 
 as his own friends already know him, will be as dis 
 tinguished for self-sacrifice as he even now is distin 
 guished for brilliant ability. Yet it seems to me that 
 the best language by which to characterize the foun 
 dation, upon this spot, under all the circumstances of 
 our time, of the Sage College for Women, w r ould be 
 simply to say of it in the comprehensive phrase of 
 Lord Bacon, that it is an achievement worthy of hu 
 man nature. And if it be so, who can have any doubt 
 of the result ? 
 
 REMARKS OF PROFESSOR GOLDWIN 
 SMITH. 
 
 Mr. President, for the first and probably for the last 
 time in my life, I am rather glad to be called upon, al 
 though I never rise among American speakers without 
 the most painful conciousness of my English defects. 
 I have made a point of being here to-day. 
 
38 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 With regard to the special object of this meeting, I 
 have three things to say. First, that I heartily pay 
 homage to the munificence and benevolence of the 
 founder of this edifice. I pay a respect in which no 
 flattery or insincerity mingles, an unfeigned respect, to 
 any rich man who can keep his heart above his wealth 
 and remain true to humanity. In the second place, 
 let me say that no man connected with the cause of 
 education, can be more heartily desirous for the im 
 provement and education of women than I am. We 
 have, on my side of the line, set on foot a movement 
 in the form- of ladies classes, in which I have been 
 most happy to take part ever since I have been in Can 
 ada. I would only say, that in removing artificial priv 
 ileges and artificial barriers, let us take care that we 
 do not attempt to remove the great land marks of na 
 ture, or encourage in the sexes the belief that they arc 
 rival competitors, instead of being helpmates. 
 
 In the third place, let me say that upon any doubt 
 ful question connected with education, I should pay 
 sincere deference to the opinion of the President and 
 the Faculty of this University. I have passed some 
 years in intercourse with the President and the mem 
 bers of the Faculty, and I have a sincere respect for 
 their opinion, and shall be sincerely inclined to defer 
 to them on any question when my opinion might dif 
 fer from theirs ; and I was glad to gather from Mr. 
 Cornell s remarks that the Faculty, as well as the Trus 
 tees, had been consulted upon this important ques 
 tion, and that this measure has their approbation. 
 
Remarks of Professor Goldwin Smith. 39 
 
 My chief reason for wishing to be present here to 
 day, and forgiving up another engagement to be pres 
 ent, was that I might gratify my own personal feel 
 ings by appearing among the friends of Cornell Uni 
 versity. I understand that it has been said by people 
 who have nothing more important to talk about, that 
 I had lost hope in the University and had deserted it. 
 I am unwilling that, to the misconstruction under 
 which the rules of this Institution labor, there should 
 be added even so trifling a misconstruction as that. 
 I have not lost hope in the Cornell University, nor 
 have I deserted it ; my hopes for it and my affections 
 for it are unchanged. My home, which for three very 
 happy years was among the kind hearted citizens of 
 Ithaca, is now in Canada. There are my relatives, 
 probably the nearest relatives I have ; and besides, it 
 is natural that an English citizen should be most at 
 home under the English flag. 
 
 The President has adverted to the time when I and 
 my friend John Stuart Mill, who has just passed from 
 among us, and Bright and other political friends were 
 struggling in England in favor of the Union of the 
 United States. Throughout that struggle, I had what 
 I thought was the real honor of my own country in 
 view ; and I have never ceased to be an Englishman, 
 as probably the readers of the American press have 
 some reason to know. My home is in Canada, but I 
 retain the connection which I have had from the be 
 ginning with this University. My affections for it are 
 unchanged, my hopes for it are unabated. 
 
40 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 I will not say that it has no difficulties still to con 
 tend with. It will still need wise and prudent govern 
 ment, as all are aware, who are aware of the immense 
 difficulty of building up a great institution, and above 
 all a great university. It will need wise government, 
 in order that it may have its resources steadily directed, 
 not towards objects of display, but toward solid and 
 essential objects. It will need to be cautious how it 
 ventures on perilous experiments. It will need to have 
 permanently attached to it, and untired in their devo 
 tion, a staff of able and energetic professors. All this 
 it will need, nor can any one yet exactly predict what 
 form the institution will ultimately take ; but I believe 
 it will be a great and good institution, and one which 
 any man will feel it an honor to serve. I have believed 
 it an honor to serve it, and I hope that I shall still feel 
 it to be an honor. 
 
 I was especially anxious to be present to-day, .in or 
 der to show that those suspicions which are abroad, 
 and which have taken form in calumnious charges, have 
 no presence in my mind. It is not for me to meet 
 the attacks that have been made upon the founder 
 of this University. No doubt proper investigation 
 will take place, and those attacks be refuted in a most 
 decisive manner. It is not for me, a foreigner and a 
 stranger, to trace such calumnies to local, political, or 
 personal causes. But in this Government of faction, 
 of which we are all enamored and believe to be the 
 only best government for man, among other faults is 
 that of slander; and that is the bane of other coun- 
 
Remarks of Professor Goldwin Smith. 41- 
 
 tries besides the United States. Morever, let me say 
 this : That though I feel it is an honor to serve this 
 University, and that no doubt, no cloud which might 
 pass over its prosperity, would in the least degree in 
 fluence my mind, I would not serve it for a moment 
 if I had the slightest suspicion that it was devoted to 
 any other than a public object, or that it was in the 
 slightest degree, or in the most indirect manner, pro 
 moting private gain. 
 
 I am, of course, not officially cognizant of its affairs ; 
 but I have lived in an atmosphere of the warmest 
 friendship with the President, and he has told me 
 plainly and without any reservation, of his difficulties, 
 and of all that was going on. I have met, too, and 
 conversed upon this subject with persons who were 
 opponents to Cornell, and unfavorable to this institu 
 tion, and they also, I am sure, speak without reserve ; 
 and let me assure you that I am perfectly convinced,, 
 as convinced as I am of my own existence, that the 
 management of the property of the University has 
 been wholly for the benefit of the University, and 
 strictly in accordance with the rules of honor. 
 
 I do not choose to flatter Mr. Cornell. I believe 
 that flattery is the greatest insult you can offer to a 
 man of any sense, or any depth of character ; but I am 
 perfectly convinced of his unselfishness, and perfectly 
 convinced that, when an investigation takes place, his 
 name will come out as pure as the driven snow. Er 
 rors he may have committed in the execution of so> 
 difficult and complicated a task, and one requiring so. 
 
.42 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 much experience ; but depend upon it that he is inno- 
 cent of these things which are charged upon him ; 
 that his hands are clear, his aims are unselfish, his char 
 acter is pure ; and that no one who serves Cornell Uni 
 versity need fear that he is serving anything but the 
 <:ause of humanity. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, I will say no more. 
 
 SPEECH OF COLONEL HOMER /> . S PR A CUE. 
 
 Fifty years ago, Mrs. Emma Willard, whose name 
 is worthy to be enrolled with those of the foremost 
 educators of modern times, established at Waterford, 
 N. Y., a female seminary. At her first public exam 
 ination, a young lady recited so well in geometry that 
 many of the listeners were incredulous, and some de 
 clared that it w r as a mere act of memory, for they said 
 that no woman ever did or ever could learn geometry. 
 
 At that time, the subject of an advanced and thor 
 ough education for females in science and in litera 
 ture was new, and its advocacy somewhat alarming. 
 Even Mrs. Willard is careful not to shock public sen 
 timent by any bold innovation. She endeavors to 
 disarm prejudice > by saying that she has no idea of 
 giving to girls a real college education. On her peti 
 tion to the legislature for aid, she enters her caveat in 
 .these remarkable words : " The absurdity of sending 
 .ladies to college will strike every one, and I hasten to 
 
Speech of Homer B. Spraguc. 43 
 
 say, that the seminary which I propose will be as dif 
 ferent from those appropriated to the other sex, as the 
 female character and duties are from the male." Year 
 after year she pressed her plan upon the attention of 
 the Assembly, and her efforts were heartily seconded 
 by that enlightened statesman, Gov. DeWitt Clinton, 
 who, in one of his messages recommending the scheme, 
 -says : " It is the only attempt ever made in the Uni 
 ted States to promote the education of females by the 
 patronage of the government." But it failed. 
 
 This was the first female academy in the United 
 States. It afterwards grew into that noble institu 
 tion, The Troy Female Seminary. There appears to 
 have been at that time no high school for girls, much 
 less any female college. For twenty years, that is, 
 till 1839, there was no normal school in the country. 
 Indeed, the prevalent ideas on the subject of female 
 education were heathenish. 
 
 In Greece it has been confined to the hctaerac, a 
 class of whom the least said the better. In Rome, 
 /except with some of the patricians and afterwards with 
 a few Christians, it was very uncommon. In China, it is 
 .still what it was twenty thousand years ago, when 
 roast pig was invented in the days of Ho-ti, as re 
 corded by Charles Lamb ; every Chinese boy is taught 
 to read and write ; but no girl, except occasionally a 
 daughter of the rich. They belittle her mind, as 
 they do her foot. The Hindoo women are Caspar 
 Mausers, buried body and soul in their zenanas. The 
 Turk gravely denies that woman has a soul. A 
 
44 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 Christian writer of the thirteenth century, evidently 
 the parent of a long line, defines appropriate female 
 education in his day, as instructing her " to pray to 
 God, to love man, to knit, and to sew." 
 
 What a change ! The progress of physical science 
 has hardly been more marvellous within the last gen 
 eration, than the progress of ideas on the right edu 
 cation of this half of the human race. The census of 
 1870 and the report of the Commissioner of education 
 show in the United States nearly one hundred thou 
 sand high schools, one hundred and forty normal 
 schools, and more than fifteen hundred academies. To 
 a large majority of these institutions young ladies are 
 as freely admitted as young gentlemen, and in about 
 equal numbers. The same public documents show us 
 fifty-four colleges for females, and seventy-seven into 
 which both sexes are admitted. I am well aware 
 that some of these exist on paper only. Indeed, it 
 requires a vivid and creative imagination to take a 
 score of children, call them freshmen, sophomores, 
 juniors, and seniors, dub the school-ma am " President 
 and Faculty," take away thebirch rod and substitute 
 the power of expulsion, give the urchins diplomas in- 
 barbarous Latin instead of yellow rewards-of-merit in 
 good English, and style the whole thing a College in 
 stead of Kindergarten, or a University instead of a 
 district school. So intangible and mystical are some 
 of these " colleges," that the Commissioner of educa 
 tion, acute and painstaking as he is, cannot ascertain 
 in eighty-five of them, what is the sex of the students- 
 
Speech of Homer />. Spraguc. 45 
 
 But making all due abatement for ambitious and po 
 etical exaggeration, it is clear that the experiment of 
 higher education for females has been very extensively 
 tried. 
 
 What has been the result ? The testimony of these 
 institutions is multitudious and it is uniform, showing 
 that the female intellect is equal to the male. My 
 own experience is a fair illustration. It embraces 
 high-schools, of which I had charge for years, and in 
 which, among many excellent scholars in Greek, Latin, 
 Mathematics, some of whom now occupy distinguished 
 positions, the best scholar was a young lady ; a normal 
 school, in which the ladies were fully equal to the 
 gentlemen ; and an incorporated academy, of which I 
 have now had charge for nearly three years, contain 
 ing more than five hundred students, of whom the 
 girls, though largely inferior in number, carry off most 
 of the prizes. So far as the experience of the hun 
 dreds of educational institutions of all grades, from the 
 high school to the university, during more than a 
 quarter of a century, could solve what is problematic, 
 or settle what is a priori likely, it has established the 
 fact that in the United States young women are at 
 least equally capable with young men. 
 
 I hail this result. Admit it, and you must admit the 
 desirableness of such institutions as this whose corner 
 stone we have just laid. Deny it, and you only 
 strengthen the argument by showing the greater need 
 of them 
 
 It is objected that there is no demand for advanced 
 
46 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 female education. So much the worse for our civiliza- 
 thon, for there is hardly a surer test. But is it true 
 that there is no demand ? Possibly, the call may not 
 be so general or so urgent as we could wish. Froude 
 tells us that a great man must create a taste for him 
 self. Very likely, people must be educated to appreci 
 ate education. But surely, the spontaneous upspring- 
 ings of thousands of schools which profess to give 
 high instruction to ladies demonstrates the existence 
 of a great and growing demand, and, if anything could 
 emphasize the fact and intensify its significance, it 
 would be a scene like this. 
 
 I do not deny the wide prevalence of a feeling, a 
 relic of the old barbarism, a vague impression, very 
 general among the unthinking, that woman less needs 
 education than man. One fact, a result and evidence 
 of this, is seen in the revelation of the last census, that 
 of three million adults in our country unable to read 
 and write, there are one hundred and forty-five illite 
 rate women to every hundred illiterate men. On this 
 subject, as on some others, the Sage College will throw 
 light. 
 
 It reminds us that learning is good for its own sake. 
 It challenges us to adduce any consideration showing 
 that education is beneficial for one half of the world 
 that will not show it to be equally beneficial for the 
 other half. It reminds us that greater knowledge and 
 higher culture tend ever to nobler character ; to give 
 a mastery not only over the outer but over the inner; 
 to subordinate the animal and enthrone the spiritual ; 
 
Speech of Plainer B. Spragnc. 47 
 
 to lift above the brute and brutish appetite, above the 
 savage and savage passion ; to enlarge, invigorate, pu 
 rify, ennoble ; to open new fields of useful activity and 
 new sources of refined enjoyment. 
 
 Now, why should woman stop just where man be 
 gins? Why should the entrance upon a college course 
 for him mark the limit of training for her, and his 
 starting-point be her goal. I know the old, fashionable, 
 mock-chivalric treatment of this subject, the feeble and 
 pretty affectation, which patronizingly regards her as 
 an impossible compound of mental weakness and moral 
 strength, a divine infant, a celestial simpleton, a sick 
 angel. Pope s estimate may be compressed into two 
 words, " Pretty Polly " ; Addison s, " Be a good girl ; 
 you shall have a new fan." A fashionable poet tells 
 us, "her whole empire is to please." Mrs. Browning 
 happily hits off some of these namby - pambyisms, 
 where, in Aurora Leigh, she makes Romney compli 
 ment with polished sarcasm the newly-published book 
 of some fair authoress, 
 
 " Expressing the comparative respect 
 
 Which means the absolute scorn. Oh, excellent ! 
 What grace ! What facile turns ! What fluent sweeps ! 
 What delicate discernment ! . . . almost thought ! 
 The book does honor to the sex, \ve hold. 
 Among our female authors we make room 
 For this fair writer, and congratulate 
 The country that produces in these times 
 Such women competent to ... spell !" 
 
 If woman s mental constitution be different from 
 man s, surely this University, with its many parallel- 
 
48 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 courses existing and to be established, may happily 
 meet her different needs. 
 
 But it will hardly be claimed that her mental con 
 stitution is more different than her physical. Why 
 .should she have different intellectual, any more than 
 different bodily food ? She is an ethereal creature, 
 says the undergraduate poet. Well, must she sip aes 
 thetic tea, just taste the froth and foam, the jellies and 
 cream, the ambrosia and nectar of literature, nibble at 
 homeopathic morsels of science, and, remembering 
 that " every part strengthens a part," feed on the 
 tongues of nightingales and the brains of humming 
 birds ? 
 
 I think it is generally admitted that she has a talent 
 for speech. Let her study words, explore, gather, col 
 late, classify the germs, trace their wondrous growths, 
 and see them expand into organic forms and great 
 trees. She has taste and fancy. Let her cull from 
 universal literature the flowers of rhetoric, the aroma 
 of poetry, and create what she does not find. She has 
 memory and insight. Let her summon up the distant 
 past, disentangle historical truth, reproduce and paint 
 the scenes. She has imagination, intuition, and rea 
 son. Let her scale the heights of philosophy, gaze 
 into the depths of theology, penetrate the arcana of 
 nature, sift and test the star-dust, track the comet to 
 his fiery lair, 
 
 "And mark faint nebulre circling into worlds." 
 
 The fact is, she needs advanced education as much 
 more than man does as her bodily strength is inferior. 
 
Speech of Homer B. Spraguc. 49 
 
 The struggle for existence grows sharper. He can 
 gain a livelihood by animal power. He can dig, lift, 
 drag, carry, fight ; wield the oar, the scythe, the flail, 
 the axe, the sword ; as your Ithaca poet sings, he 
 
 " Shall swing the hammer in the gleaming mine, 
 And plant the ocean with his commerce sails, 
 And whirl his engines through the tunneled rock." 
 
 But what shall become of his mother, wife, sister, 
 daughter, if driven to toil with her hands? She must 
 rather be able to rely on mind, not muscle ; strokes of 
 the pen rather than of the arm ; skill, grace, learning, 
 intellect, rather than bone, sinew, brawn, brute force. 
 More than ever before, she needs this higher train 
 ing, because new mental activities are opening to her. 
 There is the vast field of authorship. In 1824 Mrs. 
 Child, on the publication of her first book, was warned 
 that thenceforward she could not be considered re 
 spectable, because she had written a book ! But who 
 sneers at George Eliot ? There is the kindred field of 
 journalism, equally vast, into which she has hardly set 
 foot, but in which her quick discernment, ready wit, 
 fluent speech, and moral sensibility, peculiarly qualify 
 her to succeed. There is the lecture platform. Twen 
 ty years ago, I o\vn I felt a slight shrinking as I saw 
 Grace Greenwood come upon the stage to read one of 
 her beautiful lectures. Last week she addressed a 
 large audience in Brooklyn. The elite of the city 
 were therc,"and not an imp of the press whispered 
 "indelicate." You IT ay question Anna Dickinson s 
 conclusions. You cannot deny her power, but you 
 4 
 
50 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 involuntarily say, " The tools to him who can use 
 them." There is the pulpit, and the presence in it of 
 those who remind us of the apostolic times, when 
 " virgins did prophesy." The only Unitarian church 
 in Connecticut is ably ministered unto by a woman ; 
 a female preacher acceptably fills the desk of the Uni- 
 versalist church in New Haven ; and, within a year, I 
 have heard the eloquent Quakeress, Miss Smiley, 
 preach a very effective sermon from one of the leading 
 Congregational pulpits of America. There is the med 
 ical profession, in which no one questions the propriety 
 of an educated female physician prescribing for female 
 patients and children. Especially, there is the work 
 of school instruction. The prejudice, at one time 
 very strong, against female teachers, is dying out. 
 By the last census there arc reported to be in the 
 United States 221,000 instructors, of whom 127,000 
 are ladies. Not one of these teachers but would have 
 been made more efficient by a higher education. Not 
 one of their millions of pupils but would have felt the 
 beneficent effects. A higher culture, more extensive 
 attainments, loftier character, on the part of teachers 
 these are the one thing of which this nation is in 
 greatest need. Skilled laborers of the highest type 
 are scarce. Wooden-heads and wax-figures swarm. 
 As Webster said of the legal profession, " It is crowd 
 ed below, but there is plenty of room in the upper 
 stories." Within three years, I have had applications 
 from more than three hundred lady candidates desir 
 ing to teach, not one in fifty of whom could teach 
 
Speech of Homer B. Spragitc. 5 I 
 
 the higher English and classical studies. In these and 
 in other departments of mental labor, there is room for 
 educated women in larger numbers and of higher 
 qualifications. 
 
 I know it will be answered that the appropriate 
 sphere of woman is home. Be it so. There, too, she 
 needs greater mental resources to save her from ennui, 
 and its accompanying evils. " An idle head is the 
 devil s workshop," for the manufacture of gossip, for 
 fashion -worship, pleasure - hunting, dissipation, vice. 
 Let her drink deep of the sweets of science and 
 breathe freely the inspirations of literature, as a per 
 petual antidote to the tedium and the temptations of 
 a home without children. 
 
 If she have children, still more will she need this 
 thorough and exalted training. No task more diffi 
 cult, more delicate, or more momentous, ever devolved 
 upon a human being than falls to the lot of a mother 
 in the rearing of her child to physical, mental, and 
 moral perfection. 
 
 How precious the privilege, how rare yet how sub 
 lime the power, of conducting her own children, not 
 through the steps of an elementary education merely, 
 but through an academic or even a collegiate course ! 
 How many thousands of mothers throughout this 
 land would find a lofty mission and perpetual bles 
 sedness in so teaching their aspiring children ! How 
 many tens of thousands of ingenuous youth, to whom 
 fortune has denied the means of academic or colle 
 giate education, might find in such instruction an 
 unspeakable boon ! 
 
52 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 Young America is conceited, disrespectful, does not 
 honor overmuch his mother. Commonly he soon out 
 strips, or thinks he outstrips, her mental attainments. 
 Her stature dwindles as his increases. At best, in his 
 fancied greatness, he pities while he loves her. But 
 what if she has traversed every inch of these intellec 
 tual regions before him, has scaled those heights, has 
 conquered those enemies, has looked deeper into those 
 mysteries, is superior at every point, can in an instant 
 flood his darkness with light, sweeps with steady gaze 
 the circumference of his groping thought, and shows 
 him ever an angelic intellect as well as a mother s 
 heart ! With such a mother, filial love would almost 
 become worship. 
 
 Very eloquently and beautifully has one of the 
 speakers, Professor Tyler, this afternoon spoken in 
 his delightful way of that surpassing genius, in some 
 respects perhaps the foremost intellect of modern 
 times, Francis Bacon. How much of his greatness 
 was due to his mother! She was the daughter of Sir 
 Anthony Cookc, tutor to King Edward VI. Every 
 evening when Sir Anthony came home, he taught his 
 daughter the lessons he had given to his royal pupil. 
 Anne Cookc mastered Latin, Greek, and Italian, and 
 became eminent as a scholar and translator. She 
 taught her son. A suggestion of Bacon s reverence 
 for her, some conception of what he felt that he owed 
 her, may be gained from the touching request in his 
 will that he might be buried by her side. " For my 
 burial, I desire it may be in St. Michael s Church at 
 Gorhambury, for there is the grave of my mother." 
 
Speech of Plainer B. Spragiie. 53 
 
 Again, she needs education to fit her for the com- 
 
 c> 
 
 panionship of the educated. The vast disparity in 
 mental stature between husband and wife has been a 
 frequent cause of domestic infelicity. So Pericles and 
 many an Athenian found it. The wicked and waggish 
 old monk, who gave us the etymology of ctlibatc and 
 celibacy, cocli bcatitudo, heaven s bliss, had doubtless 
 seen the effect of this disparity in reversing the order 
 of nature, the butterfly before marriage becoming the 
 caterpillar after it, or, by a still more alarming meta 
 morphosis, transformed into a hornet. Witness Soc 
 rates, Dante, Montaigne, Sir Thomas More, Shake 
 speare, Hooker, Moliere, Milton, Rousseau, Drydcn, 
 Addison, Shelley. 
 
 But does not a collegiate education unfit her for 
 home and household duties ? Surely there is nothing 
 in the nature of deep study or high thinking to make 
 her less practical. Of Elizabeth Carter, whom Dr. 
 Johnson pronounced the best Greek scholar in Eng 
 land, and who knew Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, 
 Italian, Spanish, and German, he said, " She can with 
 equal skill make a pudding or translate Epictetus, 
 work a handkerchief or compose a poem." Mrs. 
 Browning s thorough acquaintance with Greek, Latin, 
 and Hebrew, her profound studies and lofty genius, 
 did not make her less admirable as a wife and mother. 
 Mrs. Willard, in the home circle as in the company of 
 sctvans, illustrated Wordsworth s "perfect woman, 
 nobly planned." 
 
 After all, not matrimony but character, not widow- 
 
54 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 hood nor motherhood, but moral and intellectual 
 strength and beauty, is the great object of woman s 
 existence. It is a common and most pernicious mis 
 take to teach a girl that umvedded life is a failure. 
 Happy she who can be, with Milton, " married to im 
 mortal verse," or can say, with Michael Angelo, u I 
 have espoused my lot ; my works shall be my child 
 ren." 
 
 Finally, woman needs the higher education to res 
 cue her from the possibility of becoming a noisy zealot. 
 I take square issue with those idiotic youth and feeble 
 minded women of both sexes, with whom every learned 
 woman is a " blue-stocking," and every " blue-stock 
 ing " is obtrusive, egotistical, immodest, boisterous to 
 sum up all in one bad word which ought to be a good 
 word " strong-minded" The truth is precisely the re 
 verse. Not education, but a lack of education ; not 
 high cultivation, but the absence of it, is the cause. Not 
 the limiting, but the enlarging of the range of study, 
 is the cure. It is only the superficially-educated that 
 love to parade their intellectual power, or wag their 
 loud sharp tongues. Increase of modesty comes with 
 increase of knowledge. 
 
 Shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, 
 But drinking largely sobers us again." 
 
 Professor Silliman used to tell us that, from his second 
 year in college, he had been generally estimating at a 
 less figure his own achievements, until he had reached 
 the humility of Newton, who saw all his discoveries as 
 a few pebbles on a shoreless ocean. Glorious John Mil- 
 
Speech of Plainer B. Spraguc. 5 5 
 
 ton seldom errs ; but he blunders sadly, when teaching 
 his daughters to read but not to translate Latin ; he 
 justifies himself with the grim joke, u One tongue is 
 enough for a woman." Von Moltke, the first of mod 
 ern scientific warriors, before the splendor of whose 
 military genius even the name of Napoleon grows pale, 
 can speak in seven languages ; ay, and " he can be si 
 lent in seven languages ! " 
 
 But granting all that has been urged in behalf of ad 
 vanced education for females, why coeducate? 
 
 Because young ladies should have the best possible 
 advantages. No man honors more than!.! the munifi 
 cence of Matthew Vassar, and those others who, with 
 princely liberality, have endowed female colleges at 
 Aurora, at Elmira, and elsewhere. But such institu 
 tions, without exception, are too limited in scope to 
 afford the best opportunities to large numbers ; too lim 
 ited in curriculum of study, in apparatus, in library, 
 in faculty, in equipments. It is not good policy to 
 scatter resources and make two weak colleges, a college 
 for the brothers, and another for the sisters, instead of 
 one strong institution for both. Feeble colleges are 
 better than none ; but I submit that we have rela 
 tively too many of these what shall I call them ? 
 monohippic, uniequine, or, to use the homely vernacu 
 lar, one-horse institutions. And we have not, nor are 
 likely to have, a university exclusively for women. 
 
 Association with the other sex exerts such a refin 
 ing influence, as nothing else can, upon each. Espec 
 ially do young men need this. Many a scholar of pro- 
 
56 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 found erudition has made an utter failure in life, be 
 cause of a lack of good manners and good breeding. 
 Such instances will occur to every one, showing that 
 the solitary student becomes either fatally timid, or fa 
 tally awkward, boorish, selfish. Neither in church, 
 nor in school, nor in the family, is it good to be alone. 
 A man can hardly be a complete gentleman, a woman 
 can hardly be a complete lady, without the restrain 
 ing, stimulating, and ennobling influence of the pure 
 of the other sex. 
 
 Wherever earnest men and women are associated in 
 the promotion of any good cause, such association is 
 elevating and healthful. The testimony of colleges 
 that coeducate to the good order and exemplary con 
 duct of the students, is remarkable, and amply corrob 
 orates what I say, that association in this high work 
 brings out what is manliest in young men, what is 
 most womanly in young women. 
 
 Young people, like old people, are formed for soci 
 ety. Most of them will contrive to have it, under 
 some circumstances or other. Hitherto their compan 
 ionship has been almost wholly for pleasure, for dis 
 play, for killing time, or for dissipation of some kind,, 
 in fashionable parties, in holiday excursions, in frolic, 
 or small talk, or worse. Here, at least, they shall meet 
 for serious, earnest, Christian work. 
 
 I have no fear of the results on female character. 
 There exists, in some quarters, an unreasonable dis 
 trust of college students. As a body, even where they 
 are at worst, I believe they will compare favorably in 
 
Speech of Homer B. Spragiie. 57" 
 
 character with the average of young men in that com 
 munity, and in many cases they are, as a class, supe 
 rior. I know that the students of Cornell University, 
 three years ago, were exceptionally correct in their 
 bearing and conduct. For two years I was thrown 
 into quite intimate relations with many of them, and 
 never have met a class of young men that seemed to 
 be of higher purposes, of purer motives, or more 
 blameless deportment. There was a public sentiment 
 among the students that would not tolerate anything 
 dishonorable or mean. I know, too, the character of 
 this Faculty and of the people of Ithaca. The moral 
 atmosphere in which you all move is such, that I 
 should esteem my son or daughter not unfortunate in 
 coming within its influence. 
 
 But is there not danger that attachments will spring- 
 up ? I take this bull by the horns, for it is a bull, 
 worthy of Sir Boyle Roche himself. Yes, attachments 
 will spring up ; at least, I hope so. Under what con 
 ditions could they arise more favorably? In what cir 
 cumstances could life-long companionships begin more 
 auspiciously ? How vastly are the chances for mistake 
 in this important matter diminished by the wide range 
 of intelligent selection ! No, I do not fear these attach 
 ments. In those institutions where coeducation has 
 been most thoroughly tried, I am informed that the 
 unions so begun have been most happy ; that they 
 have not caused the fortunate subjects to swerve from 
 the work of the class-room. " Love," says Landor, com 
 pressing a volume of wisdom into a sentence, " Love 
 
3$ Laying of Corner Stone, 
 
 "is a secondary passion with those that love most ; a 
 primary with those that love least." Ever honor and 
 conscience control supremely those with whom love is 
 .most absorbing. Than such a love, really_there is noth 
 ing nobler, nothing that more lifts in the scale of be 
 ings. Beautifully does Tennyson show its annihilation 
 of selfishness : 
 
 " Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with might, 
 Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight." 
 
 We can forgive Dick Steele a thousand slips and weak 
 nesses, when we think of his more than chivalric ideal 
 of womanhood, and that lofty utterance in regard to 
 one whose saintly character and royal intellect had in 
 spired him, " to love her u as a liberal education ! " 
 
 For these reasons I congratulate Mr. Sage on the 
 .auspicious work of which this day marks the begin 
 ning. God grant that his life may be spared to wit 
 ness its consummation ; to read the story of his benef 
 icence in the grateful eyes of many hundreds of our 
 fairest daughters ; to see other universities and col 
 leges following this good example, and flinging their 
 gates wide open ; to see, through many years, class 
 after class go from these beautiful hills, laden with the 
 choicest treasures of learning and science, to adorn 
 thousands of Christian homes and enrich the common 
 intellect of the nation ; and to realize more and more, 
 that each class is a successive wave of that incoming 
 and outflowing tide, that is destined to rise higher and 
 .spread wider, till ignorance and crime shall vanish, and 
 " the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth, as 
 ihe waters cover the sea." 
 
Speech of President An gel I. 59 
 
 SPEECH OF DR. JAMES B. ANGELE, PRESI 
 DENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICH 
 IGAN. 
 
 Mr. President, Eadics and Gentlemen : I suppose 
 few persons have traveled more hundreds of miles to 
 be here to-day than I have ; and I can think of few oc- 
 sions which would have called me from my duties, 
 now unusually pressing, except this very one which 
 places me before you at this hour. 
 
 The sight of this declining sun and of this patient 
 company, already two hours and more upon their feet, 
 would certainly incline me to embrace the opportunity 
 which I asked for of your President, to sit quietly in 
 my seat and rejoice with you at the benediction. But 
 being upon my feet, I will say, if you have patience to 
 wait and hear the simple words, that I am truly glad 
 and proud to be able to stand here to-day. I am glad 
 I can stand here, unworthy as I am to do it, to bring 
 to you the greeting of the University and the State of 
 of Michigan ; for I think we have a right to rejoice with 
 you here to-day. I think that I and my brethren of my 
 old Faculty, whom I am sorry New York has stolen 
 away from us, may claim it not only as our privilege, 
 but also in some sense, if you will permit me to say so, 
 as our right to sit with you here on this platform. 
 We cannot but rejoice in the munificent generosity of 
 your benefactor, who has laid the foundations of this 
 structure so well ; for his business interests in our State 
 
60 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 are so large that we regard him as almost a Michigan 
 man ; and when it is not known that he resides in New 
 York, we claim him as a citizen of Michigan. We re 
 joice in this beautiful edifice as, in part, a Michigan 
 gift. I rejoice, furthermore, in behalf of our Univer 
 sity and our State, because your honored President 
 here, as you all know, though Yale graduated him, won 
 the first spurs of his intellectual knighthood under our 
 roof that knighthood which he has since illustrated 
 so splendidly upon a hundred fields, and above all 
 upon this now classic ground upon which we stand. It 
 is not until after coming here to-day for the first time r 
 and looking over this fair field crowned with these 
 proud structures it is not until now, that I have un 
 derstood how he has been able to carry the weight of 
 a responsibility almost too much for human strength 
 to bear. It is because these harvests of beauty and 
 glory have been springing up beneath his eye, even 
 while the seed was falling from his hand. I come, too,, 
 to rejoice with you in the princely munificence of the 
 Founder, who is known to us as to all men in the na 
 tion, and who never seemed nobler to me than since I 
 have come to know, from striving to build up univer 
 sities, what moral courage and self-denial it costs for a 
 man in active business, like him, and Mr. Sage, and 
 Mr. McGraw, to take clean out of their active business 
 such sums as they have laid down here for you, and to 
 say " that shall go for other men, not for me." We, 
 my friends, you and I whom Providence has not trusted 
 with the power to attempt this, we little know what 
 
Sp cecli of President Angell. 61 
 
 the cost is, I fancy ; and the older I grow and the more 
 I see of men, the more do I look upon it as among the 
 most heroic and courageous and noble of human acts. 
 And above all, to my mind, is it hard for a man to re 
 tain his generosity and his confidence in his fellow 
 men, enough to open his hand, when his motives are 
 misconstrued at every step, and even the noblest deeds 
 he does are turned into shafts with which to stab him to 
 the heart. That is what calls for heroism and moral cour 
 age, to have confidence, to believe, and to keep doing 
 good, certain that the day will come when man shall 
 see, as God now sees, what the truth is. 
 
 It is, indeed, an auspicious beginning you have made 
 to-day. I cannot but think that if there are any here 
 who doubt at all the wisdom of this experiment, they 
 must at least concede that this is a noble attempt to 
 solve the problem which demands solution at the hands 
 of American citizens the problem, how to secure to 
 women the same educational advantages long secured 
 to man. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the wise words said here to-day, 
 there is still a good deal of scepticism and doubt in the 
 community, not about the duty of giving higher edu 
 cation to women, but about giving it in this particular 
 way. Many would have it imparted by some other 
 means, but ask by what means, and you do not readily 
 get a satisfactory answer. Some say it is to be clone 
 by building up women s colleges ; but pray who are to 
 build them ? Where are the Cornells and Sages, who 
 will cover this land with colleges for women, as it is now 
 
62 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 filled with colleges for men? If women waic for that 
 before securing their education, -they go to their graves , 
 in ignorance. Concede, if you please, that colleges 
 which have been already established for women are as 
 meritorious as our colleges for men, which some will 
 question, it still remains true that the number is so 
 small, and must be so small for generations to come, 
 that it cannot meet the demand. What then shall be 
 done ? The only other answer is of course the obvi 
 ous one, to do what you are doing, and open the doors 
 of colleges built for men. 
 
 So far as I have observed, the chief objections to 
 this course group themselves under t\vo or three heads. 
 The first one, which used to be cited much more fre 
 quently than now, has been answered here so com 
 pletely that I need but avert to it. It is this : that 
 women are not capable of attaining to high culture. 
 Well, my friends, that objection has been taken care 
 of to-day. One would think from hearing these per 
 sons talk, that the young gentlemen who carry off the 
 degrees of A. B. and B. P. had some marvelous attain 
 ments in literature and science. Well, we won t deny 
 that .among ourselves, undergraduates, but the men 
 who have been through college are generally con 
 vinced that there is not so extraordinary an accumu 
 lation of knowledge in an ordinary college course, but 
 that many a bright girl can get it, and now does get 
 it. I give the result of the work at our University 
 without any disparagement to the young men, and I 
 say in all frankness, that in all departments of study, 
 
SpeecJi of President Angell. 63: 
 
 the young ladies have fully held their own, to say the 
 least, and no less in the higher mathematics than in 
 the department of literature. They have shown the 
 same variety of aptitude, the same variety of skill r , 
 that the young men have. Some have been brilliant, 
 some have been less so, some have been broken at ex 
 amination. That for your encouragement, young gen- 
 men, because we are impartial. 
 
 Another class of objections sum themselves up under 
 this head and to my mind it was formerly a much 
 more formidable one, namely, that women have not 
 the physical endurance to go through the course, and 
 I do not doubt that mothers who hear me here to-day 
 think so, that it would be too heavy a draft upon the 
 nervous strength of their daughters, and that they 
 would break down and come home invalided. Now 
 the only way this can be answered is of course by ex 
 periment. An American woman has said that any 
 lady, who can endure the draft that modern dress and 
 modern society make upon her, can certainly endure 
 any college course so far as physical exhaustion is con 
 cerned. I am simply here to bear testimony, in the 
 plainest way, to what our experience has shown. I 
 have made it an object of particular examination and 
 scrutiny, and I am thoroughly convinced that there is 
 no danger which need be considered worthy of men 
 tion, in any young woman, in tolerably good health,, 
 pursuing the regular course prescribed, nor has it actu 
 ally been the case that our young women have been; 
 impaired in health by the course. 
 
454 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 The third class of objections, and the last I shall 
 name, sum themselves up under this head : That 
 there will be some kind of moral embarrassment which 
 will be unpleasant, or that there will be some sacrifice 
 of that peculiar charm, that delicacy which we describe 
 by the term womanliness. None, certainly, can hold 
 more firmly to this opinion than I, that if there were 
 to be the slightest sacrifice of that charm, that deli 
 cacy which is to woman what color is to the flower, 
 that nameless something that poets strive to describe 
 but cannot, that something which attracts us to wo 
 man, and which in its essence charms as in all nature, 
 if we may trust the German poet, who tells us, " Das 
 civig Weibliche zicht us hinan" if this were to be lost, 
 it were, indeed, in my judgment, too great a cost to 
 pay. If we are to make masculine women, or blue 
 stockings, then, for one, let me have the privilege of re 
 signing my position. But I wish to testify, so far as 
 my experience has gone, I give it only as three years 
 experience, I must say I see no tendency in this di 
 rection. We all know that American men, according 
 to the testimony of Europeans, are proverbially cour 
 teous to ladies ; and from students of colleges you may 
 be assured you may rely upon courteous treatment 
 toward ladies. So far as I know, though we have no 
 regulations or rules in regard to the matter at all, but 
 have left the whole thing to the innate good sense 
 and courtesy of the students, I have yet to learn of 
 the first thing which should cause the least apprehen 
 sion upon this point. I speak with great plainness 
 
Speech of President Angel I. 65 
 
 -and emphasis, because I know this is a subject upon 
 which there has been great concern, and upon which 
 there was in my own mind at one time. 
 
 So much for these three points. I need not stop to 
 argue upon them. The argument has been made by 
 you and the verdict rendered. It is blooming up in 
 stone before me, to stand for ages. I oome to rejoice 
 with you not so much to argue with you but to re 
 joice with you in the bright auguries of this day. 
 Why, my friends, there is no such thing as jealousy 
 between good colleges, and good universities. De 
 pend upon it, it is only a poor college that is jealous 
 of a good one. It is only a mean man who is envious 
 of a worthy one. If you hear backbiting conversa 
 tion by a man, you can form your opinion of him, 
 whatever you may think of the man he is talking 
 about ; and that is true of colleges. No, my friends, 
 you cannot make this college so splendid that we shall 
 not rejoice in it, cannot win a success here that we shall 
 not rejoice in. Every good college helps every other 
 good college, and every good man helps every other 
 good man on the face of the earth. This is the true 
 spirit, and I come here to ask you to lock shields in 
 this good work, and to move on in the advance in this 
 noble work, in the common battle against ignorance 
 and prejudice. That is what these American colleges 
 mean, and I thank God for the success which has 
 crowned you here. As I stand here and look around 
 me to-day, remembering that only six years ago there 
 was nothing here, I fairly rub my eyes and ask if this 
 5 
 
66 Laying of Corner Stone. 
 
 is not some dream of the Arabian Nights. It is like 
 the stones of the castle which grew up in a night with 
 splendid minaret and turret. I rejoice with you to 
 day. My University rejoices with you to-day. The 
 State of Michigan rejoices with you to-day. Let us 
 go on, my friends, now and always doing the best 
 work we can for this and every institution of learning 
 throughout the land. That is our high vocation, and you 
 young gentleman, and you young ladies, who are com 
 ing here, have your part in it as truly as we have. 
 That is the message which I bring to you missionary 
 if you please from the western prairies, as the Presi 
 dent has intimated, that you may always proceed 
 upon the same mission wherever you may go, convey 
 ing good news and glad tidings to the studious youth 
 of this land. 
 
 The exercises closed with the Lord s prayer pro 
 nounced by Dr. Wilson, and the benediction. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE BUILDING. 
 
 The Sage College is arranged in the form of a quad 
 rangle. The front portion of the building is four sto 
 ries in height, and contains on the first floor a parlor, 
 reception-room, matron s rooms, class-room, and sev 
 eral students -rooms ; and on the other floors, a library, 
 teacher s parlor, music rooms, infirmary, and dormi 
 tories. The south wing gives accomodations for the 
 botanical department of the University, a lecture-room 
 analyzing-room, professor s study, and museum. In 
 the north wing are the dining-room, kitchen, laundry, 
 bakery, pantries, store-rooms and servants rooms. 
 The upper stories are arranged as dormitories or stu 
 dents rooms. The eastern portion is the gymnasium. 
 There are accommodations for one hundred and twenty 
 students, besides officers, teachers and servants. There 
 are five stair-cases, so arranged that in case of fire in 
 any part of the building, every occupant can escape 
 by some one of them. Water and gas-pipes are to be 
 laid throughout the whole establishment. Ample pro 
 vision is made for ventilation by means of four large 
 
68 Description of Building. 
 
 shafts, artificially heated. The building is to be warm 
 ed by steam. The appointments in the way of bath 
 rooms, water-closets, ranges, laundry fixtures, etc., will 
 be complete and of the most approved description. 
 The foundations are of stone, and the walls above 
 them of red brick, with dressings of New Jersey brown 
 stone and bands and arches of black and yellow bricks. 
 Behind the south wing a large conservatory is to be 
 built, connected with the botanical department. The 
 entire cost of the buildings when completed and fur 
 nished will be 150,000. 
 
REPORT 
 
 SUBMITTED TO THE TRUSTEES OF COR 
 NELL UNIVERSITY, IN BEHALF OF A 
 MAJORITY OF THE COMMITTEE ON 
 MR. SAGE S PROPOSAL TO ENDOW 
 A COLLEGE FOR WOMEN. 
 
 By ANDREW D. WHITE, Chairman of the Committee. 
 AIl>anv, Fcbniarv 13, 1872. 
 
REPORT 
 
 To THE BOARD OF TRTSTEES OF THE CORNELL 
 UNIVERSITY : 
 
 Gentlemen: The Committee appointed at your last 
 meeting to examine and report concerning the estab 
 lishment of an institution for the education of women 
 in connection with the University, as well as in regard 
 to any proffer of an endowment for that purpose, re 
 spectfully submit the following 
 
 REPOR T. 
 
 Your Committee began at once an extended corres 
 pondence with persons in various parts of the country, 
 whose experience, in the education of the sexes to 
 gether, gives their statements value ; they also ob 
 tained various documents bearing on the question. 
 
 But in this correspondence they did not consult the 
 authorities of colleges which had never tried the sys 
 tem. They had before them, already, a long report 
 based on information thus obtained the report made 
 to the Regents of the University of Michigan several 
 
72 Report of the Committee 
 
 years since when the subject was first broached in 
 that State. The Regents committee wrote to a large 
 number of eminent gentlemen connected with the 
 venerable institutions of learning in the older States, 
 and to a very small number of others. The result was 
 what might have been expected. It was as if the Ja 
 panese authorities, aroused to the necessity of railroads 
 and telegraphs, had corresponded with eminent Chi 
 nese philosophers regarding the ethics of the subject, 
 instead of sending persons to observe the working of 
 railroads and telegraphs where they are already in use. 
 Of course, the great majority of responses to that 
 committee were overwhelmingly against the admission 
 of women. It was declared to be "contrary to na 
 ture," " likely to produce confusion," " dangerous," 
 " at variance with the ordinances of God;" in short, 
 every argument that a mandarin would be sure to 
 evolve from his interior consciousness against a rail 
 road or a telegraph which he had never seen, these 
 correspondents reproduced against a system of educa 
 tion they had never tried. 
 
 Nor did your Committee think it just to give theo 
 ries on one side, without giving them as fully on the 
 other. Against the theories of the eminent men re 
 ferred to, it would be only fair to set those of such 
 men as John Stuart Mill and Henry Thomas Buckle. 
 Such a discussion would have made the report very 
 cumbrous, and it has been judged best to present,, 
 mainly, facts and reasoning based on the experiences 
 of those who by practice know something of the mat 
 ter. 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 73; 
 
 A subordinate Committee, consisting of Messrs.. 
 Sage and White, was therefore appointed to visit lead 
 ing universities and colleges to which young women 
 had been admitted with young men, and to make ex 
 amination into their various systems, and their results, 
 moral and intellectual. 
 
 The institutions visited were Oberlin College, the 
 State University of Michigan, the Northwestern Uni 
 versity, near Chicago, the State Industrial University 
 of Illinois, and Antioch College, at Yellow Springs,. 
 Ohio, the college in whose work that noble citizen, 
 Horace Mann, gave up his life. The State University 
 of Wisconsin had been previously visited by a mem 
 ber of the Committee ; the State Agricultural College 
 of Iowa presented an example too recent to carry 
 great weight ; but a valuable letter was received from 
 its President, discussing the subject and stating facts 
 established in a long previous experience. 
 
 It was with some surprise that the Committee, 
 even those members whose attention had been long 
 directed to the subject, found how great a body of 
 facts had already been established, tending to the so 
 lution of the question in hand. 
 
 That there had been much presentation of theories 
 on one side and the other, they well knew. Discus 
 sions as to woman s mental and moral capacity, her 
 sphere of activity, her equality with man or subordi 
 nation to him, theories, physiological, psychological, 
 political, aesthetical and biblical, they were aware, had 
 been presented in endless variety ; but they now 
 
74 Report of the Committee 
 
 learned more clearly than ever before that, in this 
 matter, there is a vast body of facts, the outgrowth 
 of various ideas, upon various soils, in accordance 
 with various systems, under various degrees of free 
 dom. 
 
 It seemed their first duty to investigate these facts 
 .separately, then to collate them, then to throw any 
 light thus concentrated into various theories and pro- 
 . grammes. 
 
 First of all, it was found that, for very many years, 
 in fact during the greater part of the century, the 
 education together of young men and young women 
 of marriageable age, and coming from distant homes, 
 had been going on all about us, in the academies and 
 high schools of the State of New York and neigh 
 boring States, and that not only have no evil results 
 .followed worthy to be taken into the account, but the 
 system has worked so well that it has come to be re- 
 garded as natural and normal. 
 
 While this practical experiment has thus been going 
 on for many years, under almost perfect freedom as re 
 gards boarding, lodging and social intercourse, with no 
 well-watched quadrangles, no system of proctors to 
 restrain the young men, or of matrons to guard the 
 young women, the disputants on this question, on ei 
 ther side, appear to have been straining their eyes in 
 looking deep down into the human consciousness or 
 afar off into the universe at large, to solve a problem 
 which their fathers and mothers, and sons and daugh 
 ters had done so much already to work out, nay, in 
 whose solution they themselves had taken part. 
 
on tlic Sage Proposal. 75 
 
 Among; the letters giving results obtained in this 
 
 o o o 
 
 field of experience, none certainly is entitled to greater 
 weight than that of the Honorable Samuel B. Wool- 
 
 O 
 
 worth, for thirty-two years the successful principal of 
 some of the best academies in the State, and of one 
 which, under his management, ranked in many respects 
 the first. It should be added that this direct personal 
 experience of Dr. Woolworth is supplemented by an 
 experience of many years as Secretary of the Board 
 of Regents of the State of New York a position 
 bringing him into most intimate relations with every 
 academy and high school in the State. His letter is 
 as follows : 
 
 " All my experience in teaching has been in institu 
 tions to which persons of both sexes have been ad 
 mitted at Onondaga Academy six years at Cortland 
 Academy twenty-two years at the State Normal 
 School four years. 
 
 <k I answer your questions seriatim : 
 
 4 r. The coeducation of the sexes has been favor 
 able to good order and discipline. 
 
 " 2. A mutual stimulating influence has been exerted 
 on scholarship. 
 
 " 3. There have been no scandals at least not more 
 than may exist between the members of a school lim 
 ited to one sex, and the outside world. 
 
 " 4.. To most of the academies, and to all of the 
 normal and union schools of the State, both sexes are 
 admitted." 
 
 The letters received from the Principals of the State 
 
76 Report of the Committee 
 
 Normal Schools bear similar testimony. The Rever 
 end Joseph Alden, D. D., writes of his five years ex 
 perience in the education of young men and young 
 women together as Principal of the State Normal 
 School at Albany, that " no evil has been experienced 
 here ; " but that after an experience of thirty-five years 
 as student, tutor, professor, and president, in six dif 
 ferent colleges, his " opinion \^ fixed Q\\ the subject that 
 ladies should not be admitted to our colleges" 
 
 Doctor Alden gives no facts nor arguments in sup 
 port of this position, stating that " the grounds of this, 
 opinion, if committed to writing, would cover more 
 space than your Committee would care to go over ; 
 and I presume that my views of college education dif 
 fer so materially from theirs, as to render my own 
 premises unsound in their view." 
 
 The Doctor concludes by saying of his Normal 
 School experience, that he " don t think that it proves 
 anything with reference to a college." 
 
 It is to be regretted that the Doctor does not give 
 the Committee the benefit of the facts and reasonings 
 that have brought him to this conclusion. 
 
 It will however be observed by a reference to the 
 letter as given in the appendix, that in neither of the 
 colleges with which he had been connected had the 
 experiment of coeducation of the sexes been tried ; 
 and while the Committee arc ready to give full weight 
 to any expression of opinion by one so justly respected, 
 even though unsupported by any actual experience, 
 and at variance with his acknowleged experience in 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 77 
 
 the State Normal School, they think that it should be 
 very carefully compared with that of the other Prin 
 cipals of Normal Schools in the State. 
 
 But before giving their testimony, which is without 
 exception favorable to coeducation, a point should be 
 specially noted in regard to the analogy between the 
 instruction in the State Normal Schools and the col 
 leges. Dr. Alden asserts his belief that this analogy 
 is too remote to form the basis for a sound inference 
 in favor of admitting young women to college. 
 
 In the absence of any arguments or presentation of 
 facts by the Doctor to support this statement of opin 
 ion, the Committee are left to their own unaided rea 
 son on the subject, and they can only say that argu 
 ment from successful coeducation in normal schools 
 to successful coeducation in colleges and universities, 
 seems to them logically irresistible. In both cases the 
 students are of marriageable age, and from distant 
 homes, in both cases great freedom is allowed, though 
 in this matter the argument is, a fortiori, for success 
 in education in the colleges, rather than in the nor 
 mal schools, for the colleges generally have dormito 
 ries under some little control, while the normal schools 
 generally have none. Besides this, if there is any 
 force in the argument so often urged in favor of classic 
 al education, that it gives refinement and higher cul 
 ture, still stronger is the argument in favor of successful 
 coeducation in colleges, rather than normal schools. 
 
 From the testimony of the other principals the fol 
 lowing extracts present fair examples. 
 
/ 8 Report of the Committee 
 
 Principal Sheldon, of the State Normal School at 
 Oswego, writes of coeducation : " I think the influ 
 ence is good on both sexes, socially, morally, and in 
 tellectually. My experience in all grades of schools 
 below the university has confirmed me in this opinion. 
 This experience has led me to feel that it would work 
 equally -well in the university. Of this, however, I 
 cannot be so confident, as the conditions here arc 
 somewhat changed. I am now making a practical ex 
 periment in this direction by sending my own daugh 
 ter to Michigan University." 
 
 Principal J. \V. Armstrong, D. D., of the State Nor 
 mal School at Fredonia, writes: "My observation 
 shows that the morals of students of either sex deter 
 iorate, apparently, in proportion to the rigor of the 
 separation of the sexes. The same is true of their 
 delicacy of feeling, their sense of honor, and their 
 love of truth. 
 
 " In ail mixed seminaries and academies where so 
 cial intercourse of the sexes was either forbidden or 
 largely restrained, the ladies lost in prudence, delicacy; 
 and truthfulness, even faster than the gentlemen. 
 
 " For many years my views of school government 
 have been more liberal than the common practice 
 would justify. In this Normal School I allow, and 
 even encourage, all the freedom of intercourse between 
 the sexes, which would be allowed in a well-regulated 
 family. This has been tested for two years. The re 
 sults are good in the recitation-room, where they min 
 gle as they choose on the seats ; in the halls, where 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 79- 
 
 they communicate freely as at home ; in the boarding- 
 places, where they have only the same restrictions. 
 They visit, walk, and ride out together, out of recita 
 tion hours, whenever and wherever they please. The 
 results are, they study better, are more polite, visit far 
 less, walk and ride together far less, than when re 
 strained, and never under imprudent or objectionable cir 
 cumstances. 
 
 " We have the most orderly, studious, and happy 
 school I ever was in. 
 
 " In Genesee College the results were good, though 
 the restrictions were too many to allow the best re 
 sults. 
 
 " All my experience and observations have con 
 firmed my earlier faith in the sense and virtues of the 
 youth of the land who attend our schools, of the ne 
 cessity of the two sexes exerting reciprocally their in 
 fluence upon their development, in order to obtain the 
 best results, and of the fact that nine-tenths of all 
 the irregularity and disorder in our colleges arises 
 from the establishment of an arbitrary and unnatural 
 state of society among the students. 
 
 " I have written you in great haste and candidly." 
 
 It will be seen that Dr. Armstrong s experience ex 
 tends both to colleges and normal schools, and that 
 while arriving at an opposite conclusion from that 
 reached by Dr. Alden, he does not hesitate to support 
 it both by facts and arguments. 
 
 Says Principal Hoose, of the State Normal School; 
 at Cortland : 
 
So Report of tJie Committee 
 
 " My immediate personal observation and experi 
 ence cover about eight or ten years of college life 
 where both sexes recited together and attended college 
 upon an equality of privileges. 
 
 " I saw no harm, but good results ; scholarship was 
 as good, conduct better in regard to roughness, etc., 
 than when the sexes were separated. 
 
 " My opinion, based upon general experience, ob 
 servation, and principles, is in favor of the admis 
 sion, etc." 
 
 Prof. J. W. Dickinson, of the State Normal School 
 at Westfield, Mass., says : 
 
 " There is always a state of uneasiness among boys 
 and girls when they are collected apart from one an 
 other. This is clearly seen in our colleges and young 
 ladies seminaries. The presence of young ladies ex 
 erts a restraining and refining influence over young 
 men, and the presence of young men exerts an influ 
 ence that tends to give strength and dignity to the 
 characters of young ladies. We have had no trouble 
 arising from the association of the two sexes in our 
 school." 
 
 From these statements, from an overwhelming body 
 of other testimony, and from what may be observed 
 all about us in nearly every town in the State, it will 
 be seen that the successful education of youth of both 
 sexes of marriageable age coming from distant 
 homes, left to themselves almost entirely as to their 
 choice of homes and associates, guided by their own 
 judgment as to social intercourse and general conduct, 
 
on tJic Sage Proposal. 81 
 
 is a/rtr/, a fact not confined to recent experience, not 
 restricted to a narrow territory, but a fact of many 
 3 ears standing, a fact established in nearly every 
 county of this and neighboring; States. 
 
 It may, however, still be claimed that there is no 
 analoerv between instruction in academies, high 
 
 o j o 
 
 schools and normal schools, and instruction in uni 
 versities and colleges ; or in other words, that human 
 nature in persons studying algebra, geometry, lan 
 guages, and natural, moral and mental philosophy, in an 
 institution called an academy or normal school, is 
 not the same as in persons of the same age pursuing 
 the same general lines of study, in an institution 
 called a college or university. 
 
 The simple statement of the proposition would seem 
 to carry its own refutation ; but let it be conceded. 
 The Committee pass to the facts established in the 
 colleges and universities themselves. 
 
 The svstem of educating; youncr men and voun<r 
 
 * o J o J o 
 
 women together in colleges and universities is very 
 much more recent than their coeducation in acade 
 mies and high schools. 
 
 The causes are not difficult to find ; one is simple 
 matter of history. The colleges of this country in 
 herited a semi-monastic system from those of the 
 mother country. Those of the mother country inher 
 ited many controlling ideas of their system from times 
 before the Reformation, when universities were al 
 most entirely in the hands of a clergy vowed to celib 
 acy. 
 
 6 
 
82 Report of the Committee 
 
 The colleges and universities have been far less 
 amenable to public opinion than academies and high 
 schools have been, the latter being controlled by men 
 taken from the communities in which the schools were 
 situated, and representing the average common sense 
 of those communities ; the former more by faculties, 
 bred mainly in the traditional ideas, and by trustees, 
 too remote to feel warranted in making radical changes. 
 
 Under such a system, mandarinism is almost inevi 
 table. The traditional studies, the traditional modes 
 of government, the traditional habits of thought will 
 naturally be regarded as the only sound and safe ; they 
 will be argued for and fought for, to the last, by every 
 graduate honored with a degree, and every mandarin 
 glorified with a button. 
 
 Still, justice must be done the older colleges, by 
 saying that some of their greatest men have been 
 hopeful as to the education of both sexes together. 
 
 In the letter of President Mark Hopkins, of Will 
 iams College, to the Committee of Regents of the 
 University of Michigan, written in 1858, occurs the 
 following passage : 
 
 " The question you put me is one of no little inter 
 est. * " :: " * There are difficulties and embarassments 
 connected with it, still my impression is that the ad 
 vantages connected with our higher institutions for 
 young men, might be shared by young women to a 
 great extent, with great advantage to both. Probably 
 the course of study should not be the same through 
 out, but in many things there certainly could be no 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 83 
 
 objections to the continuance of that association in 
 .study, which is begun at the common school ; and 
 there would be many advantages from it. The diffi 
 culty would be social ; if intercourse of the classes 
 and aside from study could be properly regulated, it 
 would work well. That would depend much on the 
 arrangements you might be able to make, and on the 
 tone of sentiment in the community. * My 
 
 impression is that you might try the experiment safely, 
 and I hope you will do so." 
 
 A letter from the venerable President Nott, of Un 
 ion College, to the same Committee, at the same period, 
 dwells on the wide prevalence of the theory, that dif 
 ference of sex necessitates separation in education, on 
 the difficulties and dangers, on fears " that what is 
 gained to manners by diminished rudeness in one sex, 
 would be more than counterbalanced by loss of native 
 modesty in the other." In another letter, written to 
 the trustees, he says : " I would like to see the ex 
 periment tried under proper regulations, 
 and were I at the head of a university in Michigan, 
 and public opinion called for the trial of the experi 
 ment, I should not oppose obedience to the call. Cor 
 porations are always conservative ; it is their nature 
 not to lead, but to follow public opinion, and often far 
 in the rear. That it will not be approved by college 
 corporations generally, may be taken for granted." 
 
 This latter prediction, the correspondence of the 
 Board of Regents proved true. An overwhelming op 
 position is shown by the letters from the authorities 
 of nearly all the older colleges. 
 
84 Report of the Committee 
 
 It was thought by the writers that the results would 
 be " demoralizing ;" that "young men would lose a 
 proper sense of the dignity of their own pursuits ; " 
 that the results w r ould be " degradation " and " corrup 
 tion ; " that " it would deprive both sexes of the cul 
 tivation peculiar to each ; " that " the delicacy of fe 
 male character would be destroyed ; " that " common 
 morality would suffer ; " that " it would tend to unwo- 
 man woman ; " that <; the success of the measure 
 would produce confusion ; " that " to confound the 
 higher education of the two sexes, would lead to la 
 mentable consequences ; " that " the effects of such a 
 system would probably be to give them false ideas of 
 life in general and of their particular spheres, than 
 which nothing could be more injurious in the forming 
 stage of character ; " that " a present and local popu 
 larity might be gained, but at a fearful ultimate ex 
 pense and the disapprobation of men of science and 
 learning throughout the country." 
 
 These statements of theory have an interest ; but 
 as they are confessedly not based on observation, they 
 seem to your Committee to be entitled to the same 
 weight, and no more, that is given the testimony of 
 theorists on the opposite side who seem to suppose 
 that all evil is to be banished, all passion subdued, 
 and a millenium of pure thoughts and good manners 
 immediately brought in by a breaking down of the 
 barriers which now divide the sexes in advanced edu 
 cation. 
 
 From these statements of theories we turn to recit 
 als of facts. 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 85 
 
 The first college visited by the Committee, was Ober- 
 lin College, Ohio. There were found a very large 
 number of students of both sexes. For the young 
 men, dormitories were provided on the usual plan ; 
 for the young women, a large and well-appointed build 
 ing with matron and assistants, but the increasing num 
 bers of students have obliged the college authorities 
 to allow both young men and women to board in fam 
 ilies in the town ; the same cause has also led the au 
 thorities to admit young men in large numbers to the 
 privileges of the dining hall. Your Committee dined 
 in the college hall with two hundred students, about 
 half of whom were young men, and half young women. 
 The order was excellent, the appearance of all neat 
 and cleanly. The young men and young women sat 
 at the same table, on opposite sides ; the conversation 
 was quiet ; there was, throughout, an air of refinement 
 which the member of the Committee more familiar with 
 college life has never seen at a table frequented by 
 men alone. 
 
 In the recitation rooms a similar result was observed. 
 They seemed decidedly more orderly than those in 
 which young men are educated by themselves. Reci 
 tations were attended in different branches of mathe 
 matics, and in ancient and modern languages. The 
 young ladies, while showing self-possession, appeared 
 refined, quiet and modest. Their exercises were in 
 all cases performed as well as those of the young men, 
 in many cases better. 
 
 The Committe visited the students in their rooms to 
 
86 Report of the Committee 
 
 get at their ideas ; they also talked with citizens of 
 the town. The general statement was that the results 
 had been good, that the evil results, so generally 
 prophesied, had not been seen, that the system ap 
 peared to work well. 
 
 In the light of his experience, the President of the 
 institution, the Reverend Dr. Fairchild, states that 
 " the proportion of young ladies has not for many years 
 fallen below one-third, nor risen above one-half, except 
 during the war, when the ladies predominated in the 
 ratio of five to four ; " that the present number of stu 
 dents is about one thousand, but that the greater part 
 of these arc in what ought to be called a preparatory 
 department ; that in the college course proper, the 
 proportion of ladies to gentlemen has risen as high as 
 one to four, but that it now stands as one to ten ; that 
 the boarding-halls having been found insufficient, stu 
 dents have been allowed to board in families ; that 
 " the special discipline of young ladies is committed 
 to the Lady Principal, assisted by a ladies board of 
 managers composed in general of wives of profess 
 ors in the college. The advice of the College Fac 
 ulty is sometimes taken, but the young ladies do not 
 come before them for discipline." 
 
 There are no monitors, " but each one makes a 
 weekly report of success or failure in the performance 
 of prescribed duties. Young ladies boarding in fami 
 lies have their reports countersigned by the matron of 
 the house, who is, in a degree, responsible for the con 
 duct of her charge." 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 87 
 
 The association of the young men and women outside 
 of the class-room is regulated as experience seems to 
 require; some provision is made for social intercourse, 
 visiting is allowed under rules dictated by common 
 sense. 
 
 A very useful element in the preservation of proper 
 relations between the two sexes is found in the pres 
 ence of brothers and sisters, who are of course mutu 
 ally sensitive as to any thing that would tend to de 
 grade each other. 
 
 The social culture is found valuable. " To secure 
 this, the student does not need to make any cxpcndi- 
 trurc of time, going out of his way or leaving his proper 
 work, for the pleasure or improvement resulting from 
 society. He finds himself naturally in the midst of it, 
 -and he adjusts himself to it instinctively. It influences 
 his manners, his feelings, his thoughts. He may be as 
 little conscious of the sources of the influence as of 
 the sunlight or the atmosphere ; it will envelope him 
 all the same, saving him from the excessive introver 
 sion, the morbid fancies, the morosencss which some 
 times arise in secluded study, giving elasticity of spir 
 its and even of movement, and refinement of char 
 acter not readily attained out of society. It seems de 
 sirable that our young men especially should enjoy 
 these advantages during the period of their courses of 
 study, while the forces that form character work most 
 effectually." 
 
 It is also declared that good order is greatly pro 
 moted. There have been no difficulties in the college 
 dining-hall. 
 
88 Report of the Committee 
 
 " There has been an entire absence of the irregulari 
 ties and roughness, so often complained of in college. " 
 
 The Committee cannot but consider this as a crucial 
 test. The Oberlin College table is probably the only 
 one on the continent of which this can be said. 
 
 The system promotes morality. " Evils that might 
 be tolerated in the shape of drinking saloons and other 
 places of dissipation, if young men only were present,, 
 seem intolerable when ladies are gathered with them." 
 
 As to ability to maintain an excellent standing in col 
 lege classes, Doctor Fairchild declares that during his 
 own experience as professor eight years in ancient lan 
 guages, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, eleven in math 
 ematics, abstract and applied, and eight in philosoph 
 ical and ethical studies he has never observed any dif 
 ference in the sexes as to performance in the recitations, 
 lie is careful to state, however, that he does not at all 
 believe or consider that it follows from the above that 
 there are not great differences in mental and moral char 
 acteristics between man and woman, fatal to the theo 
 ries of those known as " strong-minded women." 
 
 As to health it seems best to give his own words : 
 
 " Nor is there any manifest inability on the part of 
 young women to endure the required labor. A break 
 ing down in health does not appear to be more frequent 
 than with young men. We have not observed a more 
 frequent interruption of study on this account ; nor 
 do our statistics show a greater draft upon the vital 
 forces in the case of those who have completed the 
 full college course. Out of eighty-four young ladies 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 89* 
 
 who have graduated since 1841, seven have died a 
 proportion of one in twelve. Of three hundred and 
 sixty-eight young men who have graduated since that 
 date, thirty-four are dead, or a little more than one in 
 eleven. Of these thirty-four young men, six fell in the 
 war, and, leaving these out, the proportion of deaths 
 still remains one to thirteen. Taking the whole number 
 of gentlemen graduates, omitting the theological de 
 partment, we find the proportion of deaths one to nine 
 and a half; of ladies, one to twelve; and this, in 
 spite of the lower average expectation of life for wo 
 men, as indicated in life insurance tables. The field is r 
 of course, too narrow for perfectly conclusive results ; 
 but there is no occasion for special apprehension of 
 failure of health to ladies from study." 
 
 The Doctor also alludes to the fear so often felt 
 that under this system " the young men will become 
 frivolous and effeminate, and the young women coarse 
 and masculine." As regards men, he says : " We 
 have found it the surest way to make men of -boys, 
 and gentlemen of rowdies." As to the young women, 
 he says : " You would know whether the result with 
 us has been a large accession of coarse, strong-minded * 
 women, in the offensive sense of the \vord ; and I say 
 without hesitation, that I do not know of a single in 
 stance of such a product as the result of our system 
 of education." 
 
 To show that the system of joint education " does 
 not bewilder woman with a vain ambition or tend to-- 
 turn her aside from the work which God has impress- 
 
<9O Report of t/ic Committee 
 
 >ed upon her entire constitution " that is, the duties 
 -of a wife and mother, it is stated that " of the eighty- 
 four ladies who have taken the college course, twenty- 
 seven only are unmarried, and, of these, four died 
 Dearly, and of the remaining twenty-three, twenty arc 
 graduates of less than six years standing." 
 
 In answer to the question whether young people 
 will, under such a system, form such acquaintances as 
 will result, during their course of study or after they 
 leave college, in matrimonial engagements, the Doctor 
 says : " Undoubtedly they will, and if this is a fatal 
 objection, the system must be pronounced a failure. 
 The majority of young people form such acquaint 
 ances between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four, and 
 these are the years devoted to a course of study. It 
 would be a most unnatural state of things if such ac 
 quaintances should not be made." 
 
 He then says very pertinently: " The reasonable 
 inquiry in the case is whether such aquaintances and 
 engagements can be made under circumstances more 
 favorable to a wise and considerate adjustment or more 
 promising of a happy result." 
 
 Finally the subject of immoralities and scandals is 
 taken up. The Doctor is understood to assert that 
 sporadic cases of scandal may occur, as has happened 
 in the most carefully guarded seminaries under the old 
 system, and even in monastic institutions, but that 
 this is all that is to be feared. 
 
 The address from which the extracts are made, 
 closes with the following words : 
 
on ike Sage Proposal. 91 
 
 " In concluding this statement, permit me to say 
 that I have no special call as an apostle or propagand 
 ist of this system of education. The opinions set 
 forth are such as with my limited experience I am 
 compelled to cherish, and when called upon, as now, 
 I cheerfully express them." 
 
 The Committee feel bound to add that these words 
 seem in accordance, not only with the entire spirit of 
 the report itself, but also with all the facts obtained 
 by them at Oberlin. 
 
 The Committe next visited the State University of 
 Michigan. Mere young women were admitted about 
 four years since. The system is the opposite of that 
 at Oberlin. There is no preparatory department, 
 there is no building set apart for the young women, 
 they are left free to choose their own boarding-houses 
 and form their own associations as they see fit. 
 Duiing the first year after young women were admit 
 ted, there was but one who availed herself of the 
 privilege ; there are now sixty, and this number is 
 about equally divided between the Colleges of Litera 
 ture, Science and Arts on the one side, and the Col 
 leges of Law and Medicine on the other. Young 
 men and women attend lectures and recitations to 
 gether, except in the Medical College, where separate 
 courses are provided. 
 
 The general testimony was in favor of the new 
 order of things. Some individuals in the faculty and 
 many citizens whose opinions are entitled to respect, 
 still declared themselves disbelievers in the system ; 
 
1)2 Report of tJic Committee 
 
 but their position was based upon general principles 
 and no fact was adduced in support of it. 
 
 On the other hand the sub-committee found that 
 the leading mathematician in one of the classes, who 
 had carried off a prize over the whole class, for solv 
 ing a difficult problem which had been presented,, 
 without finding a solution for several years, was a 
 young woman. They were also reminded that one of 
 the best Greek scholars in the institution for many 
 years, was a young woman ; and the class exercises 
 generally showed that the young women were not at 
 all behind the young men. There was also obtained 
 from the Professor of Natural History, Dr. \Yinchell r 
 a very ingenious and careful table of statistics regard 
 ing the study of botany. 
 
 This table, which is appended to the report, aims 
 to show the relative proficiency of young men and. 
 women ; and then, without regard to sex, of students 
 in the classical course, students in the course where 
 Latin is studied, but not Greek, students in the scien 
 tific course, and some others. The results were ob 
 tained by a careful award of marks in a given scale,, 
 upon a written examination held in June, 1871. 
 
 The points on which the comparison was made were 
 two, viz : The subject of botany itself, and style in 
 writing, etc. In the comparison as regards botany it 
 self, " all young women " stood first on the whole list ; 
 all young men stood eleventh. In the comparison as re 
 gards style, etc., " all young women" stood first, and 
 " all young men " seventh. The average standing in 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 93 
 
 botany on a scale of I OO was 93 for the young women , 
 
 against 70 for the young men. In orthography the 
 mean number of words misspelled by the young wo 
 men was 1.91, and by the young men 4.95. The pro 
 portional number of words misspelled was for the 
 young women 22, for the young men 56. In every 
 respect the young women gained the victory. 
 
 The Committee also heard in the class-rooms recita 
 tions in the languages by young women, showing as 
 much clearness and vigor as those by young men. 
 
 They conversed with some of the young lady stu 
 dents and were most favorably impressed by their 
 quiet dignity, modesty and refinement. The testi 
 mony of these, as regards danger to health from col 
 legiate study, was, that though there had been occa 
 sional cases of injury from overwork, the general health 
 of young women in college is quite as good as that of 
 young women out of college. 
 
 As to trouble arising from the mingling of the two 
 sexes in the university town, there has been less social 
 intercourse between the young women and young men, 
 than between the latter and the daughters of citizens 
 in the town, not in college ; the young ladies seem to 
 be quietly on their guard against receiving too much 
 attention from students of the other sex. 
 
 As to order, Professor Frieze, formerly the honored 
 acting President of the institution, than whom no one 
 could be more careful and conscientious in a statement 
 of the kind, writes : " One fact may be of interest. 
 The janitor of the recitation building, who has been 
 
94 Report of the Committee 
 
 in service four or five years, has repeatedly said, and 
 still says, that the conduct of students in that build 
 ing in moving from room to room, and especially in. 
 passing up and down the staircases, is very greatly 
 improved. They are almost free from crowding, 
 shouting, etc., the old complaints. He is sure this 
 increased gentleness in manners is due to the presence 
 of the ladies ; having noticed frequently the effect of 
 their presence in the halls." 
 
 One of the members of your Committee, during the 
 visit to that University, was under circumstances very 
 favorable to the formation of a correct judgment on 
 this point. For five years, during the period before 
 the admission of young women, he was in daily famil 
 iar intercourse with the students of the institution as 
 a professor. He can hardly be mistaken in the belief 
 that there has taken place a decided change for the 
 better, as regards student manners in the recitation 
 rooms, and in personal neatness and tidiness. 
 
 As to the general effect, Professor Cooley, of the 
 Law Department, Chief Justice of the State, and a 
 resident near the university grounds, writes: 
 
 " The admission of women has scarcely caused 
 a ripple on the surface of university matters. 
 From the moment the thing became an accomplished 
 fact, it has been to every one here a matter, I may 
 almost say, of entire indifference. As yet I have 
 witnessed no evil results whatever. You are misin 
 formed if you are told that the standard of admission 
 is lowered ; the tendency has been in the other direc 
 tion." 
 
on the -Srtgf Proposal. 95 
 
 Other valuable letters might be given, from 
 members of the Michigan University Faculty, but 
 these are selected because the well-known judicial fair 
 ness of the writers, places them beyond cavil. 
 
 Tha University of Michigan should not be dis 
 missed before alluding to one more point of great im 
 portance. The general testimony was, that the young 
 lady students were more conscientious in study than 
 the young men, and that this was the main cause of 
 their rc-markablc success in every class and study. 
 
 The next visit was made to the North Western Uni 
 versity, at Evanston, near Chicago, an institution 
 largely endowed, and under control of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. Here the ladies hall was visited, 
 and the experience of the President and several mem 
 bers both of the governing and instructing bodies ob 
 tained. 
 
 The experiment did not seem to have been so fully- 
 tried as at the establishments previously visited ; but 
 the universal testimony was in its favor. 
 
 Meeting the instructors and lady students, socially 
 in their hall, and setting with them at their table, it 
 was evident that the last charge in the world which 
 any sane man could think of bringing against them, 
 would be lack of feminine dignity, refinement, mod 
 esty or delicacy. 
 
 The next visit was to the Illinois Industrial Uni 
 versity, at Champaign, Illinois, about one hundred and 
 thirty miles south of Chicago. This is one of the re 
 cipients of the United States land grant, and is pro- 
 
<)6 Report of the Committee 
 
 grossing in a manner most satisfactory, under the pres 
 idency of the Honorable John M. Gregory, formerly 
 the very successful Superintendent of Public Instruc 
 tion in the State of Michigan. 
 
 The same absence of the evil results so long prc- 
 -dicted by theorists, the same good found elsewhere, 
 under the system of joint education, was found here. 
 Many interesting facts regarding this institution have 
 to be omitted for lack of time. 
 
 The final visit of the series was to Antioch College, 
 at Yellow Springs, Ohio, the institution noted as the 
 place where the final work of Horace Mann was ac 
 complished. 
 
 Here a system is established more akin to the re 
 strictive system at Oberlin, than the free system of the 
 University of Michigan ; there are separate halls for 
 the two sexes, and the young ladies hall is kept under 
 careful supervision. 
 
 Visits to the recitation rooms showed that the young 
 women were quite equal to the young men as regards 
 native ability and conscientious study. 
 
 In the dining hall both sexes were found together, 
 as at Oberlin, and the code of dining-table ethics was 
 evidently superior to that which generally exists when 
 a. great body of young men take their meals by them 
 selves. Nothing could be better of its kind than the 
 bearing of the young women. Here, too, there was 
 an utter lack of those masculine or semi-masculine 
 characteristics, that want of refinement and feminine 
 modesty which has been predicted by the theorists. 
 
on tJic Sage Proposal. 97 
 
 A written statement to the Committee by the pres 
 ent President, the Reverend G. \V. Hosmer, D. D., 
 contains much information of interest. 
 
 He says : " I have been president of this college 
 for five years. Of the one hundred and seventy stu 
 dents about the average number in attendance in all 
 departments one-third have been women, and the 
 average age of all our students has been twenty years, 
 nearly. In this institution both sexes have been re 
 ceived from the beginning with Horace Mann, eighteen 
 years ago. 
 
 " My personal knowledge for five years, and what I 
 have known of the institution from its beginning, make 
 me say confidently that the experiment has been suc 
 cessful. 
 
 " You ask for my opinion as to the effect of coedu 
 cation upon the intellectual progress, and upon the 
 character and conduct of the young men, and also 
 upon the progress, character and conduct of the young 
 women. 
 
 " I think the young men have not been hindered, 
 but rather quickened and urged forward in study ; and 
 as to character and conduct, I am sure they have been 
 improved ; rendered more orderly, gentle, and manly ; 
 and I think the young women have studied with more 
 earnest and stronger purpose, and with us, I am sure 
 their character has not suffered, but rather in character 
 and conduct they have been benefited. On the whole, 
 I think our young men have been made more gentle, 
 and our young women stronger and more earnest, by 
 7 
 
98 Report of the Committee 
 
 being members of the same institution, and meeting 
 in the recitations. 
 
 " You ask me next, if, on the whole, I think the co 
 educational plan is advantageous to the community, 
 or otherwise. I consider that better, more thorough 
 education of women is vital to the welfare of society, 
 and I think that the coeducation plan, with a large 
 elective privilege in taking studies, is a sure way to 
 such better and thorough education. 
 
 " Lastly, you ask me if it be better to have separate 
 lodging-houses and rules to regulate the conduct of 
 the young men and women ; or to leave them to their 
 own sense of right and of propriety. 
 
 " We have a separate building for the young women, 
 and a matron who lives with them, making family life 
 as nearly as can be ; and we have rules to prevent in 
 discretion, so that I think that it is true that our young 
 people, while they enjoy in a large measure the inter 
 course of home life, are held from dangers more se 
 curely than they could be in the usual order of Amer 
 ican society. 
 
 " I asked Horace Mann, the year he died, if he re 
 garded his experiment of coeducation a success : 
 1 Yes, he said, but the success has been more by a 
 care and vigilance brought as near to omniscient su 
 pervision, as it is possible for man to bring them. 
 
 " We too, have been careful, but not severely scrutin 
 izing, and I think that our young people enjoy their 
 student life more than is common in colleges. Our in 
 stitution is more like a home than any institution can 
 be, in which one sex is admitted. 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 99 
 
 " In a city where the young men and women could 
 live widely separated in the homes, and only come to 
 gether in the recitations, there might be no need of 
 many regulations, but if the institution be in a town 
 or village, I should think there must be separate halls 
 for the young men and young women, and judicious 
 regulations, and a parental watchfulness." 
 
 The Agricultural College of Iowa was not visited, 
 but the following letter from its president, the Hon 
 orable A. S. Welch, formerly principal of the State 
 Normal School of Michigan, and for a time Senator 
 of the United States from the State of Florida, seems 
 especially valuable. 
 
 " I have had charge of two State institutions, to 
 both of which young men and young women are ad 
 mitted. One of them is, as you may remember, the 
 State Normal School of Michigan, the other, this col 
 lege, which was opened in the spring of 69. Michigan 
 Normal School comprised about two hundred young 
 women and fifty young men, all of whom found board 
 in the different families of the city/" 
 
 " In this institution we have about fifty young wo 
 men and one hundred and fifty young men, most of 
 whom board in the same hall, the ladies having rooms 
 in the wing of the same building. 
 
 " The executive charge of these two institutions has 
 given me sixteen years of observation and experience 
 in the coeducation of the sexes, and I am unqualifi 
 edly in favor of it. 
 
 * Ypsilanti, a town with about half the population of Ithaca. 
 
ioo Report of tJie Committee 
 
 " First, I am sure that .the effect of the system on 
 the intellectual progress and on the conduct and char 
 acter of both the young men and the young women, 
 is, in every well regulated institution, safe and salutary. 
 
 " Second, all the results I have reached warrant the 
 belief that the collegiate education of young men and 
 young women in the same classes, is advantageous to 
 the community. Apart from the experience I have 
 had, I do not see how the isolation of one sex from 
 the other during the period given to the higher edu 
 cation, can secure a better scholarship, or more refine 
 ment of manners or greater purity of morals. 
 
 " Of course there will be trouble in the government 
 of colleges which admit both sexes, but such troubles 
 will, I believe, be less serious and more easily managed 
 than the rougher ones incident to colleges conducted 
 on the plan of sexual isolation. 
 
 " If young ladies attending college find their homes 
 with the better families of the city, their intercourse 
 with the young men may be left largely to their own 
 judgment and to the influences which such families 
 will naturally have over them, but if circumstances 
 compel you to gather them into a boarding-hall, they 
 should, it seems to me, be put under the immediate 
 supervision of a competent matron, and their social 
 intercourse with the young men be limited to certain 
 hours. They will help, rather than hinder the good 
 order of the recitation room." 
 
 It seems now advisable to find what light may be 
 thrown upon the subject of our investigation by a 
 
on tJic Sage Proposal. 101 
 
 collation of the various facts obtained, and of the rea 
 sonings to which those facts have given rise ; and 
 first, as to its effects on the present body of students. 
 
 EFFECTS ON YOUNG HEX. 
 
 As to the effect on character and manners, there 
 seems no exception to the rule that the admission of 
 young women to colleges and universities, thus far, 
 has tended to refine the young men ; from the decla 
 rations of such men as Presidents Fairchild, Hosmer 
 and Armstrong, down to the plain statement of facts 
 by the janitor of the University of Michigan, the testi 
 mony on this point is concurrent. 
 
 The question may be asked, " Is this a healthful re 
 finement? " It would appear to be so. It is just what 
 is sought for young men in the world at large. Noth 
 ing is more universally acknowledged to be a blessing 
 to young men in society, than association with young 
 women whose thoughts and pursuits are of an enno 
 bling kind. That the women entering a university will 
 be of this class, is in the nature of things. No frivo 
 lous young woman, no mere petted and spoiled beauty 
 of a season, will be likely to w r ish to undergo the 
 moral restraint or mental labor demanded in such a 
 course, and if such an one were to enter from caprice, 
 she would be certain to depart soon. It was once said 
 with authority, of a noble and educated woman, " To 
 know her was a liberal education," and within a month, 
 
IO2 Report of the Committee 
 
 one of the most noted divines and thinkers in this 
 country, a man not at all an advocate of what are 
 known as " woman s rights," has stood up and declared 
 his very great indebtedness to two women of noble 
 gifts of heart and mind.* 
 
 But will this refinement be gained at the cost of 
 manly qualities ? As to this we might balance theory 
 against theory. If it be argued, a priori, on the one 
 hand, that much association with young women is like 
 ly to make young men take on some unmanly quali 
 ties, it can be just as strongly argued on the other, 
 that the association is likely, while increasing refine 
 ment, to bring out the distinctively manly qualities. 
 
 There is truth, undoubtedly, in both these argu 
 ments ; men may lose their roughness and boorish- 
 ness and loud self-assertion, while they increase their 
 self-respect, manliness and true bravery ; and the testi 
 mony of Doctors Woolworth and Armstrong, and 
 Fairchild and Hosmer, shows clearly that this latter 
 statement expresses what has taken place where the 
 experiment has been fairly and fully tried. 
 
 And the recent history of this country affords a 
 valuable commentary on these statements. From no 
 colleges did a more hardy, manly, brave body of young 
 men go into our armies than from Oberlin and Anti- 
 och. 
 
 By that the charge of effeminacy is effectually dis 
 pelled. 
 
 Still another important question relates to the effect 
 
 * Doctor Hedge, in a recent speech at Boston. 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 103 
 
 of coeducation on young men, as regards devotion to 
 study. On one side, it has been argued that the pres 
 ence of young women would tend to divert young 
 men from close attention to study that it would 
 arouse thoughts more powerful than the love of learn 
 ing. On the other side, it has been argued that the 
 desire to appear to good advantage before the young 
 women will prove a powerful stimulus to the young 
 men, and also that the conscientiousness of women in 
 study, will certainly elevate the general tone of schol 
 arship. 
 
 The facts, as stated by the gentlemen already re 
 ferred to, and as observed by your Committee, decid 
 edly favor the latter argument. 
 
 The next question naturally is, what is to be the 
 effect on those it is purposed to introduce? 
 
 THE EFFECT ON YOUNG WOMEN. 
 
 The first question naturally regards the effect on 
 physical health. 
 
 On one side, appear those like that eminent author 
 ity, Dr. Clarke, of Boston, who think much close study, 
 at the time usually assigned to a college course, hurtful. 
 These say that they are frequently called upon to treat 
 diseases permanently injurious to body and mind 
 brought on young women by too close application to 
 study at this period of life. 
 
 On the other side are the statistics given by the 
 
IO4 Report of the Committee 
 
 President of Oberlin College, and the answers given 
 the Committee by the lady students themselves at the 
 University of Michigan, which seem to show that the 
 health of the young women is quite as good in college 
 as out of it. 
 
 The deterioration in the health of American women 
 is without doubt one of the most serious among mod 
 ern social problems. It outweighs, in real importance, 
 vast masses of questions usually claiming far more at 
 tention. 
 
 That some of this deterioration may be due to close 
 application to study is possible, but the numbers of 
 those who have ever closely applied themselves to 
 study is so very small, compared w r ith the number of 
 those in broken health, that, evidently, search must be 
 made for causes lying deeper and spreading wider. 
 
 The want of success in grasping and presenting 
 these causes hitherto by men, seems to show that there 
 should be brought to the question the instinct, the 
 knowledge, the tact of woman herself, and it would 
 seem that, for this, she has need of a system of edu 
 cation to give the mental strength required for search 
 ing out those causes, and grappling with them. 
 
 More than this, it would seem that if the cause lies 
 to any extent in want of knowledge of great princi 
 ples of health, or in want of firm character to resist 
 the inroads of certain vicious ideas in modern civiliz 
 ation, a change of woman s education from its too fre 
 quent namby-pamby character, into something calcu 
 lated to give firmer mental and moral texture, would 
 help, rather than hurt in this matter. 
 
on tlic Sage Proposal. 105; 
 
 While the Committee do not think this injury to- 
 health so likely to be increased as diminished by the 
 system of education proposed, they hold that very 
 careful provision should be made for the development 
 of physical strength commensurate with mental 
 strength. 
 
 Any college building erected for women should be 
 planned with special reference to the health of its in 
 mates. Sunlight should be admitted to every room 
 and copiously; the most effective system of ventila 
 tion should be adopted ; there should be a well- 
 equipped gymnasium, and provision should be made 
 for work in the botanical and general gardens, and for 
 amusements. 
 
 Physiology and hygiene should be among the sub 
 jects absolutely required in every course of study. 
 
 In the general system of studies, the Committee 
 believe that stimulus, in the way of competitive prizes,, 
 should not be brought to bear, to any considerable 
 extent, on the young women. If any quality in their 
 work at the various colleges, as submitted to the Com 
 mittee, appears more clear than another, it is consci 
 entiousness ; and this is far more effective than emula-- 
 tion in its direct influence, and more responsive to 
 considerations of health. 
 
 With such provisions and precautions, it is not 
 likely that a body of young women would be more in 
 jured by study in the college proposed than by the 
 aimlessness, listlessness, luxury and relaxing modes of 
 physical and intellectual life common among young j 
 
Report of the Committee 
 
 women who make no endeavor after a higher and bet- 
 
 ;ter education. 
 
 But another class of effects claims attention effects 
 
 <on character and manners. 
 
 By one side it is argued that the proposed system 
 will probably injure the dignity, modesty, refinement 
 
 .and delicacy of young women, that it will give a 
 masculine tone. 
 
 By the other side it is argued that association, under 
 proper restrictions, with young men engaged in scien 
 tific and literary pursuits makes any young woman 
 
 :feel, more than anything else, the necessity for wo 
 manly dignity and self-control, at the same time that 
 it brings out more clearly the value of that refinement 
 and modesty which all young men prize so highly. 
 That there may be some danger to certain classes 
 
 of women shallow in character and weak in mind is 
 not unlikely, but, of all women, these are the least 
 likely to involve themselves in the labor of prepara 
 tion for the university or of going on with its courses 
 of study. 
 
 As to the good effect on the women who have ac 
 tually entered the colleges, the testimony is ample. 
 The Committee in its visits found no opposing state 
 ment either from college officers, students of either 
 sex or citizens of university towns, and all their ob 
 servations failed to detect any symptoms of any loss 
 of the distinctive womanly qualities so highly prized. 
 Nor have they found that those who have been 
 
 vthus educated have shown any lack of these qualities 
 
 .in after life. 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 107 
 
 On the contrary, it would be hard to find a body of 
 women combining these qualities more nobly than the 
 matrons of this State and surrounding States, who 
 have graduated at the academies and normal schools. 
 These qualities they have, by the agreement of all 
 observers, in a very much higher degree than the 
 women of countries where a semi-conventual system 
 of education is adopted. 
 
 It may be said that they must come in contact with 
 vulgarity in words and actions, and so be injured. 
 This, it is believed, will be rare indeed. There would 
 at once be brought to bear a common law, a stringent 
 code not made by any Trustees or Faculty, but none 
 the less effective. It would be enforced by the great 
 body of students, and summarily. Should any boor 
 so far forget himself, as to say or do what could be 
 construed into an insult by the young women present, 
 there would certainly be a sufficient number of broth 
 ers, friends or admirers of the injured parties, to take 
 such measures as the case might demand. 
 
 And here, it may be added, would be one of the 
 good influences on the young men. Nothing is more 
 disheartening to those in charge of colleges, than to 
 find profanity and obscenity, on the part of a wretched 
 minority, tolerated by the great body of students, sim 
 ply because all arc men, and, by common consent, 
 among men a man may say what he pleases. 
 
 By the admission of women the point of honor in 
 this respect is at once changed. Words and actions 
 before unchallenged would now be necessarily forbid- 
 
loS Report of the Committee 
 
 den by the great body of students themselves, and 
 such edicts would be enforced. 
 
 With the aid of a few words of common sense to 
 young women by their matrons, and to young men by 
 their professors, there would be created a right senti 
 ment in this respect, powerful enough for all emer 
 gencies ; and it is believed that women would be sub 
 jected to far less annoyance from vulgarity in the uni 
 versity, than they constantly have to encounter in the 
 streets or conveyances of any town or city. 
 
 It seems necessary before closing this discussion as. 
 to the effect on woman by this plan of education to 
 allude to an argument often presented, that as woman s 
 sphere of duty is different from that of man,, her edu 
 cation should be different. The most natural argu 
 ment from analogy would seem to destroy this posi 
 tion. While the physical and material duties of wom 
 an differ widely from those of men, her physical nutri 
 ment and the ordinary conditions of sound physical 
 health arc the same. The simplest analogy would lead 
 us to the conclusion that the intellectual nutriment., 
 and the conditions of sound mental health should be 
 the same. 
 
 Under every roof in the land, we see persons of dif 
 ferent sexes in the household, preparing themselves by 
 the same diet for their different functions and duties- 
 It would seem then that, no matter how great the dif 
 ference may be between the intellectual duties and 
 functions of the two sexes, it does not at all follow that, 
 there should be a difference in the general preliminary 
 
on tJic Sage Proposal. 109 
 
 mental food. As the bodies of men and women are 
 built up by the same food, whether vegetable or ani 
 mal, so it would seem that their minds and hearts and 
 souls are to be built and beautified by the same moral, 
 mental and aesthetical food. 
 
 The very statement of this argument shows that 
 the same education of both sexes does not lead to any 
 usurpation of unnatural functions, social or political, 
 by women. It would rather show r that such education, 
 by its proper development of mind and heart and soul 
 in woman, would most surely lead to her taking that 
 very place, and discharging best those very duties, 
 whatever they may be, which the Creator has appointed 
 her. 
 
 Even if the most restrictive theory of woman s du 
 ties be accepted, even if it be allowed that her only 
 duties are those of a well-ordered household, would 
 she not be fitted better for her duties as the mother 
 of future generations of citizens by courses of study 
 large and broad, than by the unutterable inane instruc 
 tions of the great majority of our ladies boarding and 
 <( finishing " schools? 
 
 The noble institutions of comparatively recent cre 
 ation for the education of young women separately, 
 like Vassar College and Wells College, seem to support 
 this general line of argument by facts. The great ac 
 knowledged value of these institutions arises mainly 
 from the fact that they have broken away from the 
 traditions of the boarding and " finishing " schools, 
 and have provided thorough, substantial courses of 
 
no Report of the Committee 
 
 instruction more like those aimed at in our best col 
 leges. 
 
 While the admirable character of these colleges, 
 and the excellence of the work they are doing and 
 will continue to do, will, doubtless, be to many an ar 
 gument that young women can be most satisfactorily 
 educated by themselves, it will be no less strong an 
 argument for the position that, in the main, the best 
 studies for developing the most worthy culture in 
 young women, are identical with those required for 
 young men. 
 
 The question now arises as to the 
 
 EFFECTS COMMON TO BOTH SEXES. 
 
 First of these is the possible formation of acquaint 
 ances likely to ripen into matrimonial engagements. 
 
 The facts conceded by President Fairchild, on this 
 point, and his reasons based upon them have been 
 given, and seem convincing ; the Committee think 
 that the argument may be stated in yet another way. 
 Granting the possibility or probability of such en 
 gagements, the question comes up practically : " How 
 do young men and young women form such engage 
 ments now ? " 
 
 It is matter of notoriety that these engagements 
 the most important of life, are, as a rule, formed 
 with less care, foresight and mutual knowledge, than 
 any other. Choice is determined by mere casual meet- 
 
on tJie Sage Proposal. 1 1 r 
 
 ing, by an acquaintance of a few weeks, by winning 
 manners at a ball, by a pleasing costume in the street, 
 and at the best by a very imperfect revelation of those 
 mental and moral qualities which are to make or mar 
 the happiness of all concerned. Should such engage 
 ments be formed in a university where both sexes are 
 educated together, they would be based upon a far 
 more thorough and extended knowledge, upon an ad 
 miration of a much higher range of qualities, and up 
 on a similarity in taste and temper, which could not 
 be gained elsewhere. 
 
 Every one acquainted with life in our larger and 
 better colleges and universities, knows that nowhere 
 do men more surely value each other for real and 
 substantial qualities and attainments. Nowhere is 
 the merely dressy man in lower estimation ; nowhere 
 is the thorough scholar, the ready writer, the power 
 ful orator, more highly regarded ; nowhere do wealth r 
 family influence, intriguing, caballing, avail less; no 
 where do earnest purpose and good work avail more. 
 
 Certainly the choice of a companion for life made 
 in such an atmosphere cannot be less safe than that 
 which is made under the present system in the world 
 at large. If any theorist objects,, with some force, 
 that these attachments between students of either 
 sex, would so fill the thoughts, as to leave no place 
 for study, the testimony already laid before the Trus 
 tees shows that practical educators find that these 
 same attachments act as a powerful stimulus to study. 
 
 And it should be remembered here, that under the 
 
112 Report of t/ic Committee 
 
 present system of separate education, attachments 
 are frequently formed, engagements made, and the 
 resulting correspondence kept up, and yet that this 
 has never been considered a disturbing element in 
 American education. On the contrary it has been 
 -generally found that young men have been steadied 
 thereby. 
 
 Another class of effects has sometimes been feared 
 illicit attachments. Careful and confidential con 
 versation and correspondence with men in position to 
 know fully the value of this objection, fail to show 
 any especial danger. 
 
 In the recent meeting at Boston, Dr. Edward 
 Clarke, whose authority on any such subject is deserv 
 edly great, while opposing coeducation, on grounds al 
 luded to elsewhere, took pains to state that immoral 
 relations between students of a marriageable age were 
 not feared by him. He stated distinctly that what 
 ever danger there may be of this kind, is at an earlier 
 period, before young women have arrived at an age 
 to have an understanding of the necessary reserve 
 between the two sexes. This opinion, resulting from 
 an experience like that of Dr. Clarke who has thor 
 oughly studied the whole question involved, both 
 socially and physiologically, adds to the value of such 
 testimony as that of Dr. Woolworth, who, after an 
 experience of thirty-two years as principal of some 
 of the largest academies in this State, in which boys 
 and girls and young men and young women, of all 
 ages, have been brought together, thus according 
 
on t/ic ^rtgc Proposal. \ \ 3 
 
 to Dr. Clarke s experience, greatly increasing the 
 danecr uses these words : " There have been no 
 
 o 
 
 scandals, at least, not more than may exist between 
 the members of a school limited to one sex and the 
 outside world." 
 
 We would now call oiir attention to the 
 
 , 
 EFFECTS ON Till : C-XITERSITY. 
 
 The first point that will occur to every one under 
 this head is as to the standard of scholarship. It has 
 been claimed, that the admission of women would 
 tend to lower the scholarship ; and no case has been 
 more frequently cited than Oberlin College. 
 
 This objection is based upon want of recognition 
 of the fact that Oberlin College, and others like it, 
 carry on great preparatory schools, nominally subor 
 dinate to the regular college organization, but really 
 outweighing it in numbers. This is not the case at 
 the Cornell University, and there is no reason to ex 
 pect that it will be. The University authorities have 
 planted themselves firmly on the ground that they 
 have no right to use their endowment in duplicating 
 the instruction given i:i the academies and public 
 schools. 
 
 If women shall be admitted, it will be only upon 
 
 just such examinations as are passed by the young 
 
 men ; if they shall be continued from year to year, 
 
 it will be by passing the examinations now required. 
 
 8 
 
114 Report of tlic Committee 
 
 If it be said that the presence of women will tend 
 to lower the standard of scholarship, or at all events 
 to keep the Faculty from steadily raising it, it may 
 be answered at once, that all the facts observed are 
 in opposition to this view. The letters received by 
 the Committee, and their own recent observations in 
 class rooms, show beyond a doubt, that the young 
 women arc at least equals of the young men in colle 
 giate studies. As already stated, the best Greek 
 scholar among the thirteen hundred students of the 
 University of Michigan, a few years since ; the best 
 mathematical scholar in one of the largest classes of 
 that institution to-day, and several among the highest 
 in natural science, and in the general courses of study 
 are young women. 
 
 It has been argued that the want of accuracy and 
 point, the " sloppiness " of much of the scholarship 
 in some of the newer colleges, is due to the admission 
 of women. The facts observed by the Committee 
 seem to prove that this argument is based on the mis 
 take of concomitancy for cause. If " sloppiness " and 
 want of point are inadmissible anywhere, it is in 
 translation from the more vigorous and concise an 
 cient and modern authors. Now, the most concise 
 and vigorous rendering from the most concise and 
 vigorous of all Tacitus himself was given by a 
 young lady at Oberlin College. Nor did the Com 
 mittee notice any better work in the most difficult 
 of the great modern languages than that of some 
 young women at Antioch College. 
 
on tkc Sage Proposal. \ \ 5 
 
 Nor is our own University entirely without experi 
 ence on this point. Among candidates for admission, 
 two years since, no better examination was passed 
 than that by a young lady who had previously been 
 successful in a competition for the State scholarship, 
 in one of the best educated counties of the State. That 
 she did not remain in the Institution, was not at all 
 due to the want of ability to compete for its higher 
 honors. 
 
 As bearing on this point, the Committee present a 
 letter from Professor Walter Smith, a man of great 
 experience in England, as regards technical and art 
 education, and who, on account of this experience, has 
 been summoned to this country by the State of Mas 
 sachusetts, and made State Director of A^L Education. 
 
 " You ask my opinion, as a practical teacher, of the 
 capacity of women and girls to take in technical edu 
 cation of the highest class, in arts and science, and as 
 a corollary, what opinion I have formed of the gene 
 ral question, that which is now somewhat amusingly 
 called the higher education of women. 
 
 " To preface what I would say in response, I may 
 state that for twelve years I held the position in Eng 
 land of Head Master of a School of Art, in the West 
 Riding of Yorkshire, which never had less than two 
 thousand pupils under its art instruction, (and which, 
 for some years, had as many as six thousand pupils in 
 its various central and district classes) ; also that for 
 several years my own professional duties were spread 
 over three schools of art, in towns the population of 
 
1 1 6 Report of the Committee 
 
 which exceeded half a million one school beiner a 
 
 o 
 
 school of art and science and training-school for teach 
 ers, the only school of the kind in England, except the 
 National Training School at South Kensington, Lon 
 don. The principal male and female schools of the 
 district were also under my supervision. This, contin 
 uing in an unbroken period of ten years, gave me, as 
 I believe, sufficient opportunities of forming an opin 
 ion upon the question of capacity for sustained study, 
 with regard both to male and female students. 
 
 " During the period described, I must have given in 
 the schools of art, schools and colleges in which I either 
 taught or managed teaching, several hundreds of 
 courses of lectures upon the subjects which lay at the 
 foundation Af a knowledge of art, and those elements 
 of science that belong alike to art and scientific knowl 
 edge, such as geometrical drawing, orthographic pro 
 jection, practical and theoretic perspective, conic sec 
 tions, etc., etc., mechanical drawing being also an 
 important subject. 
 
 " I formed a very definite opinion about the teach 
 ability of the two sexes, taught in one class, because 
 the common evil of blackboard instruction became 
 apparent, viz : the teacher and all the readier pupils 
 being made to wait until the slower ones had got 
 through, before a fresh problem could be given. 
 This hindrance seldom came from the female stu 
 dents, and did come very liberally from others. At 
 the government examinations which came at the end 
 of the winter course, this was more palpably shown 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 1 1 7 
 
 by the results of the work done. I never remember 
 a year in which the amount, both the prizes and cer 
 tificates obtained by the ladies at these public exam 
 inations, was not, out of all proportion to the num 
 bers competing-, greater than that of those obtained 
 by the male students. 
 
 " There is only one serious cause of failure at the 
 public examinations at which girls sit for examina 
 tion ; and that is, their liability to become excited ; 
 some of the best suffer from that and are sacrificed 
 to it. 
 
 " My opinion concerning the capacity of women to 
 succeed in art study especially, was a good deal ma 
 tured by an incident in my early experience in the 
 north of England, which I shall not forget. When I 
 assumed my position as Head Master, I found what 
 probably always existed and unhapily now exists in 
 many schools, a desire on the part of young ladies to 
 draw and paint simple bits of prettiness, without any 
 thing educational in them. I strove hard to induce 
 
 o 
 
 them to attack the curriculum of study of the night 
 classes for artisans, the school of art course, which 
 meant work, both physical and mental, not the color 
 ing of bird s-nests and butterflies, etc., etc. 
 
 " At that time there were annual competitions for 
 bronze medals awarded by the Government Art In 
 spectors, which were distributed by an allotment of 
 three medals to each of twenty-three stages of in 
 struction, i. e., a possible three medals, if the work 
 was good enough. To induce the ladies of the day 
 
1 18 Report of the Cou unit tec 
 
 classes to enter these competitions, I promised that if 
 they would take up two stages of study, they should 
 be reserved for them, and I would ask the male stu 
 dents not to compete with them. Before this, no lady 
 had ever taken a medal in that school. Of course the 
 result of this protection was that works good enough 
 to take all the three medals in both stages were pro 
 duced. That success opened up a new world to the 
 dozen pupils who had achieved it. The next year I 
 declined to reserve stages for them, but recommen- 
 ed an open competition with the the male students 
 in every stage. At the next annual examinations 
 more than half the medals and prizes awarded to the 
 school were taken by the ladies, whose numbers were 
 about one-fifth of the numbers of the male students. 
 " In the following year the male students came pit- 
 eously to me to ask that some of the stages of instruc 
 tion might be reserved to them, as they could not com 
 pete with the ladies. 
 
 " Having gone through the bondage of protection 
 and emerged into free trade, we could not go back ; 
 and since that time no reservation or distinction has 
 been made between the students with regard to sex. 
 "That is an experience which will not easily be 
 erased from my memory. 
 
 " Independently of this, I have had, in the prepara 
 tion of both male and female teachers for the profes 
 sional art examination at the South Kensington Muse 
 um, London, special opportunities of noting the ment 
 al capacity of both sexes in grasping purely scientific 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 1 19 
 
 subjects, such as radial and parallel projection, and 
 here put on record that I have found young women, 
 not only equal to their masculine fellow students, but 
 clearer-headed and more successful, both in their prep 
 aration and final examination in London. 
 
 " I suppose I need not refer to the comparative suc 
 cess of the two sexes in the more artistic subjects of 
 study ; that has been definitely settled long since in fa 
 vor of the women ; and it is my experience in teach 
 ing the scientific subjects as recorded above which has 
 led me to the conclusion that in both fields, women 
 are at least the equals of men. 
 
 " Moreover I have seen that the result of this 
 mental work has been a very great advantage to those 
 women who have undertaken it ; it has made them 
 happier, and by inducing a feeling of equality with 
 their male fellow-students, has broadened their charac 
 ters and increased their intelligence in everything, and 
 thus made them more agreeable companions. 
 
 " I expect that if there be any real difference in the 
 mental capacities of men and women, which I doubt, 
 it will only be developed by an identical training of 
 both, letting the results manifest themselves, without 
 any extraneous assistance. 
 
 " It is an utterly useless experiment to teach the 
 two sexes differently and then point to a difference of 
 character as a proof of difference of mental capacity, 
 which is practically \vh:it we have done in England 
 hitherto. Up to within a year from the present time, 
 no grammar-school in the United Kingdom was open 
 
T2O Report of the Committee 
 
 to girls, and at the present moment no university is 
 open to them. That is sufficient ground for asserting; 
 an entire incompetence to form an opinion on the sub 
 ject, from evidence hitherto attainable of the people 
 who allowed so gross an injustice to last so long. 
 
 The speculations of mere theoriscrs on this ques 
 tion are absolutely worthless as evidence, and exceed 
 ing impudent in their pretentiousness. 
 
 " I have heard young men who never taught a mix 
 ed class of males and females for an hour in their lives, 
 glibly lay clown the axiom that man s is the reasoning 
 and progressive mind, woman s the contemplative and 
 conservative mind, and then proceed to account for 
 this phenomenon by quotations of the opinions of 
 philosophers, or by a recital of their own experienced 
 observation, made probably during a ball or a picnic. 
 
 " The first thing to be done before any reliable con 
 clusions can be come to in this matter, is to reject the 
 evidence of those who are mere speculators or retail 
 ers of hearsay evidence. Those men and women on 
 ly should be put into the witness-box who have some 
 thing to say ; it is utter waste of time to examine peo 
 ple of strong opinions, partisans of either side, who 
 make up for their want of practical experience by- 
 great vehemence of expression. 
 
 11 For my own part, I look upon a solution of this 
 question as of more importance economically than as a 
 matter of justice. One half of the minds of civilized 
 people are as deliberately crippled and stunted by our 
 foolish prejudices about capacities, as are the feet of 
 
on the Sage Proposal. I2.il 
 
 half the Chinese crushed into shapelessness and usc- 
 lessncss through an old tradition. But ours is the 
 more cruel habit of the two, for our barbarism sacrifices, 
 the beautiful mental structure ; the Celestials only dis 
 tort the small extremities of the body. 
 
 " Looking upon the question as one of fair play be 
 tween men and women, I cannot suppose it possible 
 for an intelligent man to believe it is for the good of" 
 the human race that the education of either half" 
 should be better than that of the other half. I am*, 
 aware that some fanatical persons regard women a^. 
 the superiors mentally of men, and their belief is to- 
 be accounted for by the example set to them by fanat 
 ical persons who have upheld the opposite of their 
 creed. 
 
 " It seems to me that practical people who know 
 anything of the subject will reject both fanaticisms, 
 and believe in the perfect equality of the two." 
 
 Still another effect upon the Institution has been 
 prophesied by some a loss of reputation. It is said 
 that the admission of women would tend to its classi 
 fication, in the popular mind, with certain institutions, 
 not highly esteemed among scholarly or thoughtful 
 men, or the public at large. 
 
 That this would be the effect on some minds is pro 
 bable ; but the Committee see no reason to believe 
 that this feeling would extend very far or last very long. 
 
 The same prophecies were made when the admission 
 of young women was proposed at the University of" 
 Michigan ; but the testimony of Chief Justice Coolev^ 
 
si 2 2 Report of the Committee 
 
 ;:a professor in that institution, shows that the stand 
 ard of scholarship is not lowered, and that no perma 
 nently injurious current of opposition has been felt. 
 The reason does not seem difficult to find. The 
 ^University of Michigan was strong enough to try the 
 experiment ; it had braved storms enough not to 
 tremble at a gust of prejudice. And it should be 
 borne in mind that the Cornell University, too, is not 
 so feeble in endowment, or in Faculty, or in number 
 of students, or in the general provisions for education, 
 or weak in its hold on the popular confidence, as to 
 .be shaken by a temporary loss of prestige in the minds 
 of a comparatively small class. 
 
 And it should also be borne in mind that the senti 
 ment of opposition to this movement now, is by no 
 means so unhesitating as it was a few years since. 
 Members of the Committee have been surprised to 
 find many advocates of coeducation in the very quar 
 ters where they expected the most steady opposition ; 
 and even if there be opposition, all the winds of pub 
 lic opinion which the University has encountered thus 
 far, have not been so favorable as to leave us without 
 -experience in buffeting opposing blasts, or, to state 
 the fact more plainly, while no institution has ever had 
 more noble friends or a more kindly public instinct in 
 its favor, none has ever had to encounter a more bit 
 ter storm of misrepresentation, sneers, and old-world 
 .arguments and pedantic missiles, and it is therefore of 
 very little consequence whether there be or be not 
 -.added one more cause of futile opposition. 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 123 
 
 EFFECTS ON COLLEGES FOR THE SEPA 
 RATE EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 
 
 In view of the noble endowments and efforts already 
 made in this State for the separate education of wo 
 men, the question naturally arises, what will be the 
 effect of the proposed experiment in coeducation up 
 on these? Here too we can appeal to fact rather than 
 theory. In the States where the system of educating 
 young men and young women together is being most 
 fully tried, there are, at the same time, institutions for 
 the education of young women apart, flourishing and 
 growing with the growth of the country. So it will 
 doubtless be in the State of New York. There will 
 always be a large number of parents who will prefer 
 to educate their daughters in colleges like Vassar or 
 Wells, where young women only arc admitted. Nor 
 do your Committee see anything to regret in this. 
 That prince among modern thinkers, John Stuart Mill, 
 never said a thing more wise than when he declared 
 that uniformity in education is an injury, and va 
 riety a blessing. This great Commonwealth is broad 
 enough for all, and any work proposed here will 
 strengthen and be strengthened by all good work done 
 at Aurora, Poughkeepsie or Klmini. 
 
 GENERAL DISCUSSION OF THE OPPOSING 
 THEORY. 
 
 In beginning their report your Committee stated 
 that their dutv seemed first to be to investigate the 
 
124 Report of the Committee 
 
 facts in the case separately, then to collate them, then 
 to throw any light thus concentrated into theories and 
 programmes. 
 
 In accordance with this plan they would conclude 
 the general discussion of this subject by concentrating 
 such light as they have been able to gain, upon the 
 main theory embedded in the arguments against mix 
 ed education. 
 
 The usual statement of this theory contains some- 
 truths, some half-truths, and some errors. As ordina 
 rily developed, it is substantially that woman is the 
 help-meet of man, that she gives him aid in difficulty, 
 counsel in perplexity, solace in sorrow ; that his is the 
 vigorous thinking, hers the passive reception of such 
 portions of thought as may be best for her ; that his 
 mind must be trained to grapple with difficult subjects, 
 that hers needs no development but such as will make 
 her directly useful and agreeable ; that the glory of 
 man is in a mind and heart that rejoices in solving the 
 difficult problems, and fighting the worthy battles of 
 life ; that the glory of woman is in qualities that lead 
 her to shun much thought on such problems, and to 
 take little interest in such battles; that the field of 
 man s work may be the mart or shop, but that it is 
 well for him to extend his thoughts outside it ; that 
 the field of woman is thc household, but that it is not 
 best for her to extend her thoughts far outside it ; 
 that man needs to be trained in all his powers to search, 
 to assert, to decide ; that woman needs but little train 
 ing beyond that which enables her gracefully to assent ; 
 
on tJic Sage Proposal. 125 
 
 that man needs the university and the great subjects 
 of study it presents ; while woman needs the " finish 
 ing schools" and the "accomplishments/ and that, 
 to sum up, the character, work, training and position 
 of women are as good as they ever can be. 
 
 The truths in this theory have covered its errors. 
 The truth that woman is the help-meet of man has 
 practically led to her education in such a way that half 
 her power to aid and counsel and comfort is taken 
 away. 
 
 The result has been that strong men, in adversity 
 or perplexity, have often found that the " partners of 
 their joys and sorrows" give no more real strength 
 than would Nuremberg dolls. Under this theory, as 
 thus worked out, the aid and counsel and solace fail 
 just when they are most needed. In their stead the 
 man is likely to find some scraps of philosophy begun 
 in boarding-schools, and developed in kitchens or 
 drawing-rooms. 
 
 But to see how a truly educated woman, nourished 
 on the same thoughts of the best thinkers on which 
 man is nourished, can give aid and counsel and solace, 
 while fulfilling every duty of the household, we are 
 happily able to appeal to the experience of many, and 
 for the noblest portrayal of this experience ever made, 
 we may name the dedication to the wife of John Stu 
 art Mill of her husband s greatest essay. 
 
 But if we look out from the wants of the individual 
 man into the wants of the world at large, we find that 
 this optimist theory regarding woman is not supported 
 
126 Report of the Committee 
 
 by facts, and that the resulting theory of woman s ed 
 ucation aggravates some of the worst evils of modern 
 society. One of these is conventional extravagance. 
 
 Among the curiosities of recent civilization perhaps 
 the most absurd is the vast tax laid upon all nations 
 at the whim of a knot of the least respectable women 
 in the most debauched capital in the world. The fact 
 may be laughed at, but it is none the less a fact, that 
 to meet the extravagances of the world of women who 
 bow to the decrees of the Breda quarter of Paris, young 
 men in vast numbers, especially in our cities and large 
 towns, are harnessed to work as otherwise they would 
 not be ; their best aspirations thwarted, their noblest 
 ambitions sacrificed, to enable the " partners of their 
 joys and sorrows " to vie with each other in reproduc 
 ing the last grotesque absurdity issued from the pre 
 cincts of Notre Dame de Lorette, or to satisfy other 
 caprices not less ignoble. 
 
 The main hope for the abatement of this nuisance, 
 which is fast assuming the proportions of a curse, is 
 not in any church, for, despite the pleadings of the 
 most devoted pastors, the church edifices are the cho 
 sen theaters of this display ; it would seem rather to 
 be in the infusion, by a more worthy education, of 
 ideas which would enable woman to wield religion, 
 morality and common sense against this burdensome 
 perversion of her love for the beautiful. 
 
 This would not be to lower the sense of beauty and 
 appropriateness in costume ; thereby would come an 
 aesthetic sense which would lift our best women into 
 
on tJie Sage Proposal. \2J" 
 
 a sphere of beauty where Parisian grotesque could 
 not be tolerated; thereby too would come, if at all,, 
 the strength of character which would cause w r omark 
 to cultivate her own taste for simple beauty in forrrr 
 and color, and to rely on that, rather than on the lat 
 est whim of any foolish woman who happens to be not 
 yet driven out of the Tuilleries or the Breda quarter^ 
 Still another evil in American women is the want of 
 any general appreciation of art in its nobler phases,, 
 The number of those who visit the museums of art 
 is wretchedly small, compared with the crowds in the 
 temples of haberdashery. Even the love of art they 
 have is tainted with " Parisian fashions." The paint 
 ing which makes fortunes is not the worthy represent 
 ation of worthy subjects ; French boudoir paintings 
 take the place of representations of what is grand in 
 history or beautiful in legend ; Wilhems and his satirr 
 dresses, Bourgereau with his knack at flesh color, have 
 driven out of memory the noble treatment of great 
 themes by Ary Scheffer and Paul Delaroche ; Kaul- 
 bach is eclipsed by Meissonicr. Art is rapidly becom 
 ing merely a means of parlor decoration, and losing its 
 function as the embodiment of great truths. 
 
 o 
 
 So rapidly evaporates one of the most potent influ 
 ences for good in a republic. An education of women, 
 looking to something more than accomplishments, is 
 necessary to create a healthy reaction against this 
 tendency. 
 
 Still another part of woman s best and noblest influ 
 ence has an alloy which education of a higher sort, 
 
H2S Report of Ihc Committee 
 
 under influences calculated to develop logical thought, 
 anight remove. For one of the most decided obstacles 
 to progress of the best Christian thought and right 
 reason has arisen from the clinging of women to old 
 abuses, and the fear of new truths. From Mary Stu- 
 -art at the Castle of Ambroise to the last good woman 
 who has shrieked against science, from the Camarilla 
 which prays and plots for reaction in 4 every European 
 court down to the weakest hunter of the mildest her 
 esies in remote villages, the fetichisms and supersti 
 tions of this world are bolstered up mainly by women. 
 
 In Lessing s great picture, the good, kind-faced 
 woman whose simplicity Huss blesses as she eagerly 
 heaps up the fagots for his martyrdom, is but the type 
 of vast multitudes of mothers of the race. 
 
 The greatest aid which could be rendered to smooth 
 the way for any noble thinkers who are to march 
 through the future, would be to increase the number 
 of women who, by an education which has caught 
 something from manly methods, are prevented from 
 clinging to advancing thinkers or throwing themselves 
 hysterically across their pathway. 
 
 So too that indirect influence of women on political 
 events, so lauded even by those who are most opposed 
 to any exercise by her of direct influence, has some bad 
 qualities which a better system of education might 
 diminish. The simple historical record shows that in 
 what Bacon calls the " insanity of states," her influence 
 has generally been direful. From Catharine de Med- 
 icis in the struggle of the League, down to Louise 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 129 
 
 Michel in the recent catastrophe at Paris from the 
 tricotcuses of the first French Revolution to the pdt- 
 roleuses of the last, woman has seemed to aggravate 
 rather than soothe popular fury. Nor is the history 
 of civil strife nearer home without parallel examples. 
 
 An education which would lead women to a more 
 thoughtful consideration of great questions and more 
 logical treatment of them, would, perhaps, do some 
 thing to aid mercy and justice in the world at those 
 very times when they are most imperiled. 
 
 But to all this it may be said that these considera 
 tions are too general and remote that woman s most 
 immediate duties relate to maternity, and that her most 
 beautiful mission relates to the dispensing of charities. 
 As to her duties as mother, if the subject were fully 
 discussed, it would be shown that, under the present 
 system of physical, mental and moral education of 
 women, there is a toleration of perhaps the most can 
 cerous evil of modern society. Suffice it that the sys 
 tem of education proposed cannot make it worse, and 
 may make it better. 
 
 As to woman s beautiful function as the dispenser 
 of charities, it will do no harm to have leading minds 
 among women, shown, as a stronger education would 
 show them, that systems of charity based on impulse 
 and not on reason have in older countries caused al 
 most as much misery as they have cured. Her work 
 in charity would be certainly strengthened by the 
 training which would give her insight into this. 
 
 9 
 
1 30 Report of the Committee 
 
 THE PROPOSED ENDOWMENT. 
 
 Amonj?" the matters on which the Committee was 
 
 o * 
 
 instructed to report, were any proffers of endowment 
 having reference to the education of both sexes to 
 gether. 
 
 They are now authorized to submit, herewith, the 
 proposal signed by the Honorable Henry W. Sage, 
 of Brooklyn, a member of the Board of Trustees, of 
 fering to the Institution the sum of two hundred and 
 fifty thousand dollars, to be paid within three years 
 from the acceptance of the offer, on the condition, to 
 use his exact language, that " instruction shall be af 
 forded to young women, by the Cornell University, as 
 broad and as thorough as that now afforded to young 
 men." 
 
 This is the entire statement of the condition. The 
 Trustees arc not hampered by any subordinate condi 
 tions as to method. 
 
 POSSIBLE PLANS FOR THE COEDUCATION 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 In view of this offer, two plans for a Woman s Col 
 lege have been discussed. Both are based upon our ex 
 perience, which proves that some portion of the en 
 dowment must be used in providing accommodations 
 for boarding and lodging. Under the present circum 
 stances of the University, remote as it is from the 
 town, such provision is a necessity. 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 1 3 1 
 
 The first plan discussed is that of a large quadran 
 gle or series of quadrangles adjacent to the Universi 
 ty grounds, to be made up of a central building con 
 taining some special lecture-rooms and recitation- 
 rooms and a museum connected with a department of 
 botany and horticulture, and of houses, neat and well 
 constructed, which could be afforded at a moderate 
 rent, on condition that each tenant take into the fam 
 ily a certain number of lady students. Thus would 
 be established a system akin to that of the University 
 of Michigan, the one which has been so long tried in 
 the academies in this State, that of breaking up the 
 lady students into small colonies, and bringing them 
 directly under family influence. The advantages of 
 this system would be its greater economy, its smaller 
 demands as regards supervision and its aiding to meet 
 one of the greatest wants of the Institution, houses 
 for its officers and for families wishing to enjoy the 
 benefits of a university town. Its disadvantages seem 
 to be the difficulty of finding suitable tenants and the 
 impossibility of the most thorough supervision by the 
 University itself. It ought to be said, however, that it 
 is still an open question whether this supervision is as 
 truly effective as that exercised in the family. 
 
 The other plan, is to erect on the same land adja 
 cent to the University grounds a large college build 
 ing complete in all respects, with lecture-room, special 
 recitation-rooms, infirmary, gymnasium, bathing- 
 rooms, and study and lodging-rooms for from one hun 
 dred and fifty to two hundred lady students a build- 
 
132 Report of the Committee 
 
 ing which would form a striking architectural feature 
 in its connection with the University. 
 
 The advantage of this new plan is that it would ad 
 mit of most complete supervision that it would tend 
 to satisfy the popular mind in this respect and it would 
 add to the dignity of the College and of the Universi 
 ty. The disadvantages are that it would require the 
 furnishing and keeping up of a great establishment. 
 
 This objection vanishes, however, before the propos 
 ed endowment, in addition to the cost of the building. 
 
 Each of these plans has strong arguments in its fa 
 vor. On the side of the first may be ranged such state 
 ments of experience as those of Dr. Armstrong, Dr. 
 Woolworth, the academies of this and surrounding 
 States, and the University of Michigan. 
 
 On the other side is the theory of Horace Mann, 
 who, in his letter to the Committee of the Michigan 
 Regents, declared that a separate college-building for 
 young women, under careful supervision, was a matter 
 of absolute necessity ; and with Mr. Mann, the great 
 majority of the public would probably agree. 
 
 It will be observed that each plan provides for ac 
 commodation near the University buildings. This the 
 Committee regard as absolutely essential. To place 
 the buildings proposed at a point remote from the gen 
 eral University buildings, from the laboratories, the 
 lecture-rooms, and the museums, would place the 
 young women under great disadvantages and even dan 
 gers. It would oblige them to take long walks, and 
 frequently, through rain and snow, after sitting in warm 
 
on the Sage Proposal. 133 
 
 recitation-rooms, and this could not fail to be very in 
 jurious to their health. 
 
 It will be noted that certain lecture and recitation- 
 rooms are provided for the young ladies under both 
 systems. The purpose of this is two-fold : first, there 
 are some subjects which it may be found desirable to 
 teach the young women apart from the young men, as 
 for example, physiology and kindred studies. Again, 
 there seems a peculiar fitness in bringing one leading 
 department into especial connection with this part of 
 the University ; this is the department of botany and 
 horticulture. All the different plans agreed on provid 
 ing a botanical lecture-room, laboratory and museum, 
 with green house and botanical garden, in connection 
 with the proposed College. Apart from the fact that 
 botany and horticulture have special attractions for 
 young women, it is believed that work in such gardens 
 in connection with such a department would afford the 
 best of all physical exercise. 
 
 It is not impossible, too, that, to some extent, self 
 supporting labor may thus be afforded. The demand 
 for floral products of every sort in all our cities is im 
 mense, and steadily increasing, and the University 
 grounds are not more remote from some of the most 
 important markets than are many of the existing 
 sources of supply. 
 
 In concluding their report, the Committee would 
 state one simple argument, which seems to them en 
 titled to weight, even with those who dissent from 
 many or from all of the arguments already presented. 
 
134 Report of the Committee 
 
 The Cornell University is, in a certain sense a State 
 institution. The main source of its endowment from 
 the government of the United States and its Charter 
 both State and National, give it this character. In 
 view of the unmistakable tendency of popular sen 
 timent, in view of the fact that in our Act of Incorpora 
 tion, the word persons, referring to those entering the 
 Institution, is to be read in connection with a context, 
 which leads to the inference that the persons entering 
 the University are of the same sort as the persons in the 
 public schools and academies, that is, persons of both 
 sexes, it seems doubtful whether it will be possible 
 much longer to refuse to tiy the experiment of educa 
 ting the sexes together in the University. And the 
 the question therefore arises, whether it is not best to 
 accept a gift which affords the best opportunity that 
 has ever been offered to try fully and fairly the experi 
 ment. Indeed, it is a question whether we have any- 
 right to reject such an opportunity. 
 
 In view of this, as well as the considerations previ 
 ously presented, your Committee recommend that 
 Mr. Sage s gift be accepted on the conditions named by 
 him, and that the establishment created under it be 
 known as the Sage College of Cornell University. 
 ANDREW D. WHITE, Chairman, 
 In behalf of a Majoritv of the Committee. 
 
YC 65136 
 
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