OBERLIN AND CO-EDUCATION
By ROBERT S. FLETCHER
Early Oberlin is best understood as the
experimental college
of its day. For the most part, the
colleges of the middle third of
the nineteenth century sternly resisted
the assaults of innovation.
A monastic unworldliness and
timelessness characterized the
great majority; they stood barrenly and
stubbornly isolated amidst
the pounding surf of romantic reformism.
Even newly-established
institutions of the always-innovating
West were so completely
dominated by the ideals and traditions
and general conservatism
of ancient foundations in the East that
only incidental concessions
were made in them to local convenience
or liberalism. Curriculum,
rules, ceremonial, even buildings were
slavishly patterned after
those of eastern parent institutions. No
western college could bear
a prouder title than
"Yale-of-the-West" or "Princeton-of-the-
West." Indeed, one important
purpose of many of them seems
to have been to save the West from
"innovation," a word which
bore decidedly unfavorable implications
to easterners of Federal-
ist traditions.
But innovation, barred elsewhere, was
always welcomed at
Oberlin. Oberlin embraced the heretical
theology of President
Charles Grandison Finney and every
reform which could be
reconciled with that form of revolt
against Calvinism. Oberlin
was the chief center of the peace
movement beyond the Appa-
lachians. Students and faculty embraced
Graham vegetarianism
and expelled meat from the commons. The
largest local chapter
of the American Moral Reform Society in
the West was at Ober-
lin. Negroes were welcomed as students
at Oberlin when they
were scarcely or not at all tolerated
elsewhere. Of course, Ober-
(1)
2 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL
AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
lin was a focus of anti-slavery
sentiment and Underground Rail-
road activity.
The new educational ideas sponsored by
Johann Heinrich
Pestalozzi and Philipp E. von Fellenberg
in Europe and by W. C.
Woodbridge, Samuel Read Hall, Horace
Mann and others in the
United States did not generally affect
collegiate education. Again
Oberlin was the exception to the rule.
The volumes of the Amer-
ican Annals of Education and other American educational pe-
riodicals of that era are full of
discussions of required manual
labor for students, teacher training,
musical instruction, the over-
emphasis on Greek and Latin, the evils
of rivalry and "emulation,"
and "female education."
Oberlin combined a college, a prepara-
tory school, and a female seminary as
well as a theological school
in one institution and so it is not
surprising to find experiments
tried in the elementary course extended
also to the "Collegiate
Department." In the early years all
students were required to
engage in manual labor, agricultural,
mechanical or domestic.
Probably the first teacher training
course in the West was estab-
lished in Oberlin in 1846. Musical
instruction by a pupil of
Lowell Mason was made available for
preparatory, "female" and
college students alike. Courses in
English literature and Hebrew
were substituted for part of the Latin
and Greek. All grades,
ranks and honors were abolished. Young
women taking the
Ladies' (Seminary) Course were admitted
to classes with college
men. And finally in 1837 the system of
"Joint education of the
sexes" was carried to the point
where four "females" were ad-
mitted along with the young men to the
full classical course and
to candidacy for the baccalaureate
degree. Thus, naturally
enough, college co-education began at
Oberlin a hundred years
ago.
From 1834 to 1837 joint education of the
sexes (as it was al-
ways called in Oberlin until the late
'sixties) involved association
of men and women students at the commons
table, the performance
of domestic duties by the young ladies
for the young men (waiting
on table, washing, mending, and
cleaning), and attendance of
some regular college classes by the
young ladies as part of their
OBERLIN AND CO-EDUCATION 3
special "Ladies' Course."
Though the matriculation of Mary Hos-
ford, Mary Kellogg, Elizabeth Prall, and
Caroline Mary Rudd
in the full college course was
apparently largely on their own
initiative and the faculty was divided
on the advisability of their
action, the important fact is that they
were admitted, as they
could not have been at any other
college.1 Furthermore, there is
some evidence to indicate that admission
of women to the college
course had been contemplated from the
beginning. In 1834 an
official spokesman for the institution
wrote to the Ohio Observer,
a religious periodical published at
Hudson: "We knew, moreover,
that female education was
grievously neglected, . . . as there was
not . . . a female Collegiate
Institution in the United States, we
felt that there were [sic] as yet
unoccupied in the shades of
Academus a wide area."2
Few people at Oberlin would have had the
temerity to sug-
gest that there might be two sides to
the slavery question or tem-
perance reform, but the attitude toward
joint education, at least
in the early years, was more objective.
Early in 1836 "one of
the Faculty" wrote to a New York
paper, "This feature is by no
means an essential ingredient in our
system, and if found to oper-
ate injuriously or even inconveniently,
it will be laid aside."3 It
was at just about the same time that the
faculty presented to the
Oberlin trustees a report on the
"result of their experience in ...
placing young gentlemen and ladies under
the same system of
instruction and discipline," in
which they declared "that the mutual
influence of the sexes upon each other
is decidedly happy in cul-
tivating both mind and manners."4 A
"Report on Educating
the Sexes Together," prepared by a
committee made up of two
professors (one of them, Amasa Walker)
and the wife of the
president, presented in 1845, was more
circumspect. Certain
"evils" apparently inherent in
the system were recognized: "A
1 An exact statement of the facts
concerning the admission of the first four
women students will be found in Robert
S. Fletcher and Ernest H. Wilkins, The Be-
ginning of College Education for
Women and of Coeducation on the College Level,
Oberlin College, Bulletin (March
20, 1937). The story of these first four college
girls is told in Robert S. Fletcher,
"The First Coeds." The American Scholar (New
York), VII (Winter, 1938), 78-93.
2 Statement
of Reverend John J. Shipherd in the Ohio Observer, July 17, 1834.
3 New York Evangelist (March 6, 1836).
4 MS. Minutes of the Trustees of the
Oberlin Collegiate Institute, March 9, 1836.
4
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
tendency to spend too much time and to
be too much engrossed
in each other's society," and
"early matrimonial engagements"
resulting sometimes "in violation
of the engagement; and usually
in a great absorption of time and
thought, in a decline of piety,
distaste for study, and impaired
usefulness." Nevertheless, they
expressed themselves as not
"discouraged with our plan of edu-
cating the sexes together."5
In 1836, Reverend John Keep of the Board
of Trustees
wrote to Gerrit Smith, the reformer of
Peterboro, New York:
"the uniting of the sexes on the
Oberlin plan of education gains
in popularity."6 But the year
before John Morgan, professor
of New Testament literature, wrote to
Theodore Weld: "The
mixing of young men and women together
in the same institu-
tion strikes me as not at all
judicious."7 Mrs. Alice Welch
Cowles, principal of the Ladies'
Department, listed "peculiar ad-
vantages" of the system in her
notebook: "Mutually stimulate
each other," "Young gentlemen
converse on important subjects
with ladies educated in the same classes
with themselves," etc.8
But her brother-in-law, Professor John
P. Cowles, a Yale grad-
uate, was forced out of the Oberlin
faculty because of his violent
opposition to most all of the Oberlin
experiments and doctrines,
including joint education.9 A
former student, embittered by rad-
ical disciplinary action, even wrote a
pamphlet charging that as-
sociation of the sexes resulted in gross
immoralities.10
The outside world was apparently
cognizant of the experi-
ment in joint education but, with so
many other radical departures
being tried at Oberlin, it did not in
these early years receive par-
ticular attention. There are a few evidences that this feature
stirred some interest. In 1836 a visitor
to Oberlin wrote to cer-
tain eastern religious papers that
"the whole plan has operated
5 MS. in the Office of the Secretary of
Oberlin College.
6 Letter dated October 14, 1836, in the
Gerrit Smith MSS. (Syracuse University
Library).
7 Gilbert H. Barnes and Dwight L.
Dumond, Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld,
Angelina Grimke Weld and Sarah Grimke,
1822-1844 (New York, 1934), I,
198.
8 A
note dated November 1, 1836 in a MS. commonplace book in private pos-
session.
9 Ohio Observer, November 6 and
13, 1839.
10 Delazon Smith, A History of
Oberlin, or New Lights of the West (Cleve-
land, 1837), 26-35.
OBERLIN AND CO-EDUCATION 5
well," but expressed "no wish
to see it repeated elsewhere, until
this [experiment at Oberlin] shall have
fairly developed its tend-
encies."11 In 1838 a New England
schoolmaster wrote to his
father, Nathan Lord, president of
Dartmouth College: "One of
my young ladies will be fitted for
College next fall and, were she
to enter, girl though she be, would take
the first rank in her class.
I don't know however that any of our New
England Institutions
are so liberal and unprejudiced in their
notions of equality, that
they would be willing to admit her, and
I fear that I shall be
obliged either to send a candidate to
Oberlin, or keep her my-
self."12 And, in the
same year, the American Annals of Educa-
tion, edited by William C. Woodbridge, commented: Oberlin's
"most interesting feature--to
us,--is the uniting of the sexes in
a course of liberal study, and the
unexpected results which have
followed. . . . The experiment is
unequivocally successful. We
consider it now fully established, that
the sexes may be educated
together. [??] This discovery is one of
the most important ever
made. The benefits which are likely to
flow from it are immense.
Woman is to be free. The hour of her
emancipation is at hand.
Daughters of America rejoice!"13 Even members of the Oberlin
faculty were not yet prepared to use
such glowing terms.
But as years went on, and more young
ladies were graduated
from the partial co-education of the
special Ladies' Course and
from the full co-education of the
regular college course, the sys-
tem became more and more firmly rooted
in Oberlin. Girls like
Lucy Stone were attracted out to the
near-frontier of northern
Ohio because nowhere else were they
admitted to regular college
classes and to candidacy for a degree.
After 1858 young lady
graduates, previously required to be
respectfully silent at the
college Commencement exercises, were
allowed to read their own
graduation essays. In 1862, Mary Jane
Patterson received the A.
B. degree and went out to a long and
useful career in the negro
11 New York Evangelist, October 1, 1836, and Religious Intelligencer and New
Haven Journal (New
Haven, Conn.), October 1, 1836.
12 Furnished by Miss Laura W. L. Scales to Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick and
by the latter to the author. The
original letter in the possession of Miss Scales is
dated April 23, 1838.
13 American Annals of Education (Boston), VIII (October, 1838),
477.
6
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
high school in Washington, D. C., the
first American negro woman
to complete a regular college course.
In the 'fifties and 'sixties Oberlin
gladly and enthusiastically
sponsored joint education as one of the
most successful features
of the institution and one which might
well be adopted elsewhere.
No one in Oberlin any longer had any
doubts about its practi-
cability and desirability. An official
statement published in 1851
declared that the results of the system
were "cheering, beyond
the most sanguine expectations. . . .
The female pupils enjoy
privileges for mental culture of a
higher order than are enjoyed
by ladies, perhaps in any other school
in the world. The material,
social and moral influence of the sexes
has been highly salutary."14
In 1857 a professor wrote to the New
York Independent: "The
joint education of the sexes has been
here attended by the best
results. . . . The manners of both sexes
are improved by proper
association.... A quiet and healthy
emulation is supplied to each
sex by the presence of the other in the
same classes."15 The
Oberlin students, too, were loud in
their praises of the "joint"
or "mixed" system. One young
man wrote to an intercollegiate
publication: "Brothers in the
monastic colleges we pity you, but
we think there is hope, if not for you,
for your successors....
We read in the signs of the times, that
in the next age the maiden
shall, with her brother, con the classic
page, and with him woo the
muses in their sacred haunts .... God
meant the joint education
of the sexes .... Our grandchildren will
wonder why it was not
always so."16 In an appeal for funds in 1865 great pride was
taken in the fact that Oberlin had
"demonstrated the happy ef-
fect of the joint education of the
sexes," to which system it was
declared was due the "entire
absence of traditionary College ex-
ploits and outbreaks."17 Thus
Oberlin became as completely
identified with co-education as with the
anti-slavery movement.
Of course, there was some outside
criticism. Dr. Sylvester
Graham, the dietetic reformer,
demonstrated the disunity of re-
14 Oberlin Evangelist (Oberlin, O.), December 3, 1851.
15 Independent (New York), January 22, 1857.
16 University Quarterly (New Haven, Conn.), II (October, 1860), 372-3.
17 Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at
the
West, Twenty-second Annual Report (New
York, 1865), 59-61.
OBERLIN AND CO-EDUCATION 7
form, in 1850, by declaring
that "we could not keep the sexes
too separate, when they left the family
circle. He would not
have them see each other at all till
they were properly betrothed
by their parents."18 A correspondent of the New York Evan-
gelist characterized the association of the sexes in college
as a
"rash experiment," which
imperilled the innocence of young ladies
and outraged the "common sense of
fathers and mothers, and the
wise instincts of the female mind."19
Professor (after 1866, President) James
Harris Fairchild
took it upon himself to explain and
defend joint education, or
co-education, before the world. In 1852
he delivered an address
on "The Joint Education of the
Sexes" before the Ohio State
Teachers' Association at a meeting at
Sandusky. It is a careful
piece of formal logic without much
specific reference to the
Oberlin experience. First, he martialed
and developed the ad-
vantages of joint education as he saw
them: "a sense of re-
sponsibility to society at large,"
"a purer moral atmosphere," "a
higher degree of social
cultivation," and "a wholesome incitement
to effort in study." He then listed
common objections and ef-
fectively demolished them in the manner
of the experienced de-
bater. This address was published as a
separate pamphlet, and
also in the Ohio Journal of Education
and the Pennsylvania
School Journal.20 Probably the publication of the address in the
Pennsylvania periodical accounts for the
extensive debate on
"co-education of the sexes" in
schools and colleges at two meet-
ings of the Pennsylvania State Teachers'
Association in 1854.
At one of these meetings Professor John
F. Stoddard, in de-
veloping the moral advantages of
co-education, drew on Oberlin
for evidence. "At Oberlin
College," he declared, "where both
sexes are admitted, not an oath is
uttered, nor a segar smoked,
nor a glass of liquor drunk. What other
college can make the
same boast? Yet there is no other
sufficient assignable cause than
18 Ohio Teacher (Cincinnati), I
(August, 1850), 122.
19 Quoted in the Oberlin Evangelist. August
4, 1858.
20 James Harris Fairchild, The Joint
Education of the Sexes: a Report Pre-
sented at a Meeting of the Ohio State
Teachers' Association, Sandusky City, July 8th
[1852] (Oberlin, 1852); Ohio Journal
of Education (Columbus), I (December, 1852),
353-69, and Pennsylvania School
Journal (Lancaster; Harrisburg), I (January, 1853),
314-20.
8
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
the presence of females."21 When Fairchild
became president of
the college in 1866 he put much emphasis
on "joint education"
in his inaugural address, listing it as
one of the main essentials
in Oberlin's success.22 He
was well prepared to make the clas-
sic argument for co-education in his
address to the convention
of college presidents at Springfield,
Illinois, in 1867.
Oberlin's primacy in co-education was
more than a chron-
ological accident. Oberlin, almost alone
among the colleges of
that day, was predisposed to experiment;
and Oberlin's influence
was the most important tangible factor
in spreading the practice.
The western privately supported colleges
which adopted co-educa-
tion in the mid-century were mostly
consciously following the
Oberlin precedent. These institutions
included, among others,
Antioch, at Yellow Springs, Ohio;
Olivet, Hillsdale, and Adrian
in Michigan; Iowa College (later
Grinnell), Tabor and Cornell
College in Iowa; Knox and Wheaton in
Illinois; Beloit, Law-
rence and Ripon in Wisconsin;
Wilberforce, the Ohio negro
college; Otterbein; Northfield College
(later Carleton, "the
Northwestern Oberlin") in
Minnesota; Washburn College in
Kansas; Pacific University in Oregon;
and Berea in Kentucky.
"There is no doubt," wrote
Caroline H. Dall in 1867, "that Ober-
lin, as the principal educational
influence in Ohio, imposed upon
Antioch and all other 'Christian'
colleges the necessity of educat-
ing both sexes."23
Competition from these co-educational
colleges, added to the
example of Oberlin, considerations of
economy and the democratic
21 Ibid., III (January, 1855), 200, et passim. The first
use of the terms "co-
education" and
"co-educational" seems to have been in Pennsylvania School
Journal,
I, 9-10, and elsewhere in volumes II and
IV.
22 James H. Fairchild, Educational
Arrangements and College Life at Oberlin,
Inaugural Address of President J. H.
Fairchild. Delivered at the Commencement of
Oberlin College, August 22, 1866 (New York, 1866).
23 On co-education at other colleges and
their relationship to Oberlin see: E. H.
Fairchild, Berea College (Cincinnati,
1883), 9, 12-3, 46-8, 54; Henry Garst, Otterbein
University, 1847-1907 (Dayton, O. [1907]), 71-3, 79-93; Delavan L. Leonard, The
His-
tory of Carleton College (Chicago, 1904), 127-35; Wolcott B. Williams, History
of
Olivet College (Olivet, Mich., 1901) passim; on Knox and
Wilberforce, Society for
the Promotion of Collegiate and
Theological Education at the West, Twenty-fifth An-
nual Report, 1868 (New York, 1868), 81-2 and 169-75; Daniel A.
Payne, "Historical
Sketch of Wilberforce University"
in Ohio Centennial Education Committee, His-
torical Sketches of the Higher
Educational Institutions and Also of Benevolent and
Reformatory Institutions of the State
of Ohio (1876). For a contemporary
list of
western co-educational colleges which
were directly influenced by Oberlin, see Caroline
H. Dall, The College, the Market, and
the Court (Boston, 1867), 382-8. The quotation
is from p. 383. See other material on
Oberlin and its influence on pp. 45, 381-416.
OBERLIN AND CO-EDUCATION 9
spirit of the West, led the new western
state universities, now
beginning to boom as a result of federal
land grants, to introduce
the same practice.24 Co-education was tried at Utah University
and the University of Iowa in the
'fifties but it was the con-
version of Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio
State in the early
'seventies that fixed it in the pattern
of the state university.25
A thorough study of co-education had
been made at the
University of Michigan in 1858. The
advice of the presidents
of the leading colleges of the country
had been sought. Mark
Hopkins of Williams favored the
experiment. President Theo-
dore Dwight Woolsey of Yale was opposed.
Even Horace Mann
of co-educational Antioch was not
over-enthusiastic and Finney
felt that the success of the system at
Oberlin was partly the re-
sult of the unusual religious and moral
atmosphere. No action
was taken at Michigan until 1870
when popular pressure brought
to bear through the state legislature
forced a favorable decision.
Within a few years President James
Burrill Angell had become
an enthusiastic advocate of the idea and
Michigan was added to
Oberlin and Antioch as an example of the
successful practice of
co-education.26
24 An implication of the influence of
privately-endowed co-educational colleges
on the universities is found in Helen R.
Olin, The Women of a State University, an
Illustration of the Working of
Coeducation in the Middle West (New
York, 1909),
39-40, et seq. Considerations of
economy were undoubtedly powerful everywhere and
appealed strongly to taxpayers. On Ohio
State University, see T. C. Mendenhall, ed.,
History of Ohio State University (Columbus, 1920), I, 89.
25 For general treatments of the
early spread of co-education see: E. V. Wills,
The Growth of American Higher
Education (Philadelphia, 1936), 140-3;
Thomas
Woody, A History of Women's Education
in the United States (Lancaster, Pa., 1929),
II, 224-303; and three articles by Anna
Tolman Smith: "Coeducation of the Sexes in
the United States," in United
States Commissioner of Education, Report, 1891-1892
(Washington, 1894), II, 783-862;
"Coeducation of the Sexes in the United States,"
ibid., 1900-1901 (Washington, 1902), II, 1217-315 and "Coeducation
in the Schools and
Colleges of the United States," ibid.,
1903 (Washington, 1905), I, 1047-78. An excel-
lent brief statement of the beginnings
of college education for women is to be found
on p. 1055. The reference by Woody (History
of Women's Education, II, 231) to
Blount College as a co-educational
college before Oberlin should be considered in the
light of Edward T. Sanford, Blount
College and the University of Tennessee (1894?),
which indicates (pp. 21-3) that this
institution was no more than a seminary or
academy and not of college rank at the
time the girls attended.
26 Burke A. Hinsdale, History of the
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1906),
130-8. Wilfred B. Shaw (A Short History of the University
of Michigan [Ann Arbor,
1934], 49-50) is right in his emphasis
on the importance of this decision, but the facts
hardly justify him in his deprecatory
reference to "Oberlin, Kalamazoo College, and
a few smaller institutions [which] had
accepted the principle of co-education."
The
United States Commissioner of Education (Report,
1870 [Washington, D. C., 1875],
512-3) gives the total number of
students at Oberlin in all departments in 1870 as 1,074
(the only higher educational institution
in the United States having over a thousand
students) and the total attendance at
Michigan (pp. 510-11) as 462. In 1876-1877 the
enrollment in the Collegiate Department
alone at Oberlin was 335 and that at Michigan
only a few more, 355 (United States
Commissioner of Education, Report, 1876-1877
10 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Now, Oberlin had never given official
aid and comfort to
radical feminism; the woman's rights
movement was one reform
that was too extreme even for Oberlin.
Lucy Stone and An-
toinette Brown represented exceptions
to, and not typical ex-
amples of, ideal Oberlin womanhood. But
feminism was making
rapid strides in Europe and America. In
1867 John Stuart Mill
sponsored woman suffrage in Parliament
and two years later pub-
lished a book entitled The Subjection
of Women, in which he ar-
gued for "perfect equality"
between the sexes. English women or-
ganized under the leadership of Lady
Amberley and others of the
aristocracy. In the mid-sixties the
"German General Woman's
Club" was founded, followed ten
years later in France by the "So-
ciety for the Amelioration of the
Condition of Women and for De-
manding Woman's Rights."27 The work
of women as nurses in
the Crimean War and in the American
Civil War had done much
to gain for them the right to be
considered human beings. Com-
plete political, social and economic
equality was still a long way
off, but even many conservatives were
willing to grant to women
the right to be educated. Perhaps this
was the most important
right of all, the right which opened the
way in the course of time
to all the others.
In England considerable advances were
made in the move-
ment for the higher education of women.
Educational associa-
tions for women were found all over the
country and in 1867
Miss Emily Davis presented a memorial to
the national Schools
Inquiry Commission in behalf of
education for adult female stu-
dents.
Immediately thereafter she began soliciting funds and
support for a woman's college to be
associated with Cambridge
University, and Girton was founded, as a
result, in 1869. Newn-
ham followed in 1871 and in 1878 London
University threw "open
[Washington, 1879], II, 518, 520).
Charles F. Thwing wrote in his American Colleges:
Their Students and Work (New York, 1879) on p. 123: "Touching the
reputation of
a college it is generally granted that
the name of the University of Michigan, and
of Oberlin stands as high as that of any
college west of the Alleghanies; and that of
Harvard and Yale occupy a similar
position in the East." In the 1870's Michigan was
fast advancing as Oberlin's rival for
western leadership.
27 Kaethe Schirmacher, The Modern
Woman's Rights Movement (New York, 1912).
OBERLIN AND CO-EDUCATION II
its degrees, honors, prizes to students
of both sexes, on terms of
perfect equality."28
English reformers had long been familiar
with the Oberlin
experiment and now the new interest in
higher education for
women turned attention toward the plains
of northern Ohio
where women had been admitted to a full
college course along
with men for nearly a third of a
century. In 1865 Sophia Louisa
Jex-Blake, a friend of higher education
for women and England's
first woman physician, made a tour of
American schools and col-
leges for girls, first visiting
"Oberlin in Ohio, the oldest and
largest of existing Colleges for both
sexes." She attended classes
and interviewed professors and was
everywhere "assured that
hardly an instance had arisen where harm
came from the system
of joint education, and that many good
results undoubtedly did
follow." "Whatever
shortcomings or errors," she told her read-
ers, "may be recorded against
Oberlin, it should ever be remem-
bered in her favour that she took the
initiative before all the world
in opening a college career to
women...."29 Two years later
Lord and Lady Amberley, the
liberal-minded parents of a liberal-
minded son, spent four months in the
United States visiting
Niagara Falls, the Oneida Community,
Boston, New York, Wash-
ington, Chicago and Oberlin. Lord
Amberley also observed
classes and interviewed professors,
"heard some girls construing
Latin, some answering metaphysical
questions, etc." He found
the faculty "strongly in favour of
the mixed system, thinking it
a healthy stimulus to work, and
believing it to have a good effect
on manners...."30 In 1868
the London Contemporary Review
published an article on co-education by
the Reverend Thomas
Markby in which there is considerable
reference to Oberlin,
mostly quoted from Miss Jex-Blake's
account.31 The Honorable
28 C. S. Bremner, Education of Girls
and Women in Great Britain (London,
1897), 130-3, 140-1, and Mary Agnes
Hamilton, Newnham, an Informal Biography
(London).
29 Sophia Jex-Blake, A Visit to Some
American Schools and Colleges (London,
1867), 43-7. A sketch of Miss Jex-Blake
is in the Dictionary of National Biography,
1912-1921 Supplement.
30 Bertrand and Patricia Russell,
eds., The Amberley Papers (New York, 1937),
II, 62-63.
31 "On the Education of
Women," Contemporary Review (London), VII (Feb-
ruary, 1868), 242-61.
12 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Dudley Campbell (M. A., Cant.), a London
barrister, spent sev-
eral days in Oberlin in 1871, and
recorded his observations in
another article in the Contemporary
Review.32 "At Oberlin Col-
lege in the State of Ohio," he
wrote, "where the pupils number a
thousand, half of them women, the ages
vary from seventeen to
seven-and-twenty; and there the system
has been in successful
operation for more than five-and-thirty
years. The testimony of
the Professors is unanimous to the
effect that the general tone of
the students, not only as to conduct,
but also as to industry, is far
superior to what is usual in colleges
managed on the separate
principle." In the classes which he
attended he noted that "the
women seemed to have no difficulty in
holding their own" with
the men students. An American woman,
Miss Mary E. Beedy,
delivered a lecture in 1873 before the
"London Sunday Lecture
Society" on the subject of
"joint education" as practiced in the
United States. The lecture was published
in pamphlet form.33
Despite the fact that this Miss Beedy
was an Antioch graduate
she drew her illustrations largely from
Oberlin and quoted Fair-
child's 1867 address on co-education
extensively. She explained
the spread of co-education in America in
the following words:
Oberlin sent out staunch men and women.
Wherever these men and
women went it was observed that they
worked with a will and with effect.
The eminent success of Oberlin led many
parents in different parts of the
country to desire its advantages for
their sons and daughters. But Oberlin
was a long way off from New England and
from many other parts of the
country; besides some thought it an
uncomfortably religious place; negroes
were admitted, and it was altogether
very democratic, much more so than
many people liked. So parents began to
say, "Why can't we have other
colleges that shall provide all the
advantages of Oberlin and omit the
peculiarities we dislike?"
Nor was interest in this revolutionary
Oberlin experiment
entirely limited to England. The French
Government sent M.
Celestin Hippeau, a leading French
educational reformer, to study
new departures in the schools and
colleges of the United States
and when he published his report in 1870 he included an
entire
chapter on co-education as practiced at
Oberlin. He marveled
32 "Mixed
Education of Boys and Girls in England and America," Contemporary
Review, XXII (July, 1873), 257-65, and reprinted as a separate
pamphlet by Riving-
ton's in 1874.
33 Mary E. Beedy, The Joint Education of Young Men and Women in
American
Schools and Colleges; Being a Lecture
Delivered Before the Sunday Lecture Society,
on 27th of April, 1873 (London, 1873).
OBERLIN AND CO-EDUCATION
13
at "the association in the same
institution, in the same classes, in
the same scientific and literary
exercises for the most part, of
young men and young girls between the
ages of 15 and 18 years,
receiving the same degree of
instruction." He quotes Fairchild
as saying to him that in his teaching of
Greek, Latin, Hebrew,
Mathematics and Moral and Mental
Philosophy he had found the
young lady students equally as capable
"of understanding and ex-
pressing the truth" as young men.
Hippeau reports attending a
class in Greek, himself, and hearing
"a young colored girl trans-
late with great exactness a chapter of
the First Book of Thucyd-
ides."34
In the late 'sixties and the 'seventies
in the United States even
more than in England women were coming
into their educational
heritage. In these years Vassar, Wells,
Smith, Wellesley and
Bryn Mawr were founded. Many colleges
opened their doors to
students of both sexes and others in the
East compromised by
establishing co-ordinate women's
colleges alongside the men's col-
leges. In the West co-education won a
sweeping triumph, but in
the East the administrators, teachers
and alumni of the men's col-
leges and of the separate women's
seminaries and colleges put up
a stout resistance.
There were few subjects more debated in
this period than
co-education. It was argued pro and con
at every gathering of
college professors, in the press and in
many books and pamphlets.
Its opponents declared that it was
unnatural and immoral and that
it would make men students effeminate
and women students mas-
culine. The health of women taking
college courses in competition
with the stronger sex must certainly
suffer. In a book published
in 1873, Dr. Edward H. Clarke, a Boston
physician, warned that
co-education threatened the physical
well-being of the whole
mass of American women.35 "The law
of civilization tends to
encourage the separation of the sexes at
that time of life when
students ... are in college,"
declared a trustee of Wells College.
34 [Celestin] Hippeau, L'Instruction Publique
aux Etats-Unis, Ecoles Publiques,
Colleges, Universities, Ecoles
Speciales (Paris, 1870), 101-20,
132-3. There is a sketch
of Hippeau in the Enciclopedia
Universal Ilustrada, Europeo-Americana (Bilbao,
Madrid, Barcelona, 192?-).
35 Edward H. Clarke, Sex in
Education; or, A Fair Chance for the Girls
(Boston, 1878).
14
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
"The reactionary effort of the past
forty years is against nature,
against education and therefore is
finally impossible."36 The
friends of co-education declared that
the contrary was true: the
system
was natural (it was segregation that was unnatural); it
was no more immoral than the association
of brothers and sisters;
men and women were no more likely to be
unsexed by association
in college than elsewhere in society,
and the health of college girls
was as good as that of other young women
of the same age.
The strongest argument against
co-education was that it was,
at best, a doubtful and dangerous
experiment, whereas separate
men's colleges had proved their worth
through centuries. Here
was where Oberlin came in. The normal
reply to this objection
was: Look at Oberlin, co-education has
been practiced there for
over thirty years with the greatest
success. And so the American
educational world turned its eyes on
Oberlin, and Oberlin came
to serve as "a model and examplar
for all colleges that proposed
the open door for women."37
The friends of co-education might report
their own impres-
sions of Oberlin or cite the statements
of foreign commentators
like Miss Jex-Blake and Hippeau but the
most popular source of
ammunition for the defense was
Fairchild's address on "Co-edu-
cation of the Sexes" delivered
before a meeting of college presi-
dents at Springfield, Illinois, on July
10, 1867. This highly fa-
vorable description and analysis of the
Oberlin experience was
easily available as it was published in
Barnard's American Journal
of Education in January, 1868, in the Report of the United
States
Commissioner of Education for 1867-1868
and in James Orton's
symposium on The Liberal Education of
Women.38 Fairchild's
opinions, arguments and exact wording
crop up again and again
36 S. Irenaeus Prime, The Higher
Education of Women [Delivered before a
University Convocation at Albany, July,
1875].
37 United States Commissioner of
Education, Report, 1903, 1, 1055.
38 This is the most important compendium
of contemporary opinion on the sub-
ject. James Orton, ed., The Liberal
Education of Women; the Demand and the
Method, Current Thoughts in America and
England (New York and Chicago, 1873).
Of Fairchild's address Miss Beedy (Joint
Education of Young Men and Women, 16)
says: "In 1868 [1867] a meeting was
called of all the College Presidents of the
country, to discuss questions relating
to college discipline and instruction. As Oberlin
was the oldest college that had adopted
the system of joint instruction, a strong desire
was felt to secure a critical and
comprehensive statement of the results of the system
there. Dr. Fairchild, the present
President of Oberlin, was deputed to make the
Report."
OBERLIN AND CO-EDUCATION 15
in the literature of the subject in this
and later periods. Hippeau
paraphrased him extensively; Miss Beedy quoted whole pages.
As Clarke's book was the most important
document on the neg-
ative side in the controversy,
Fairchild's essay was the most im-
portant on the affirmative.
The movement won some notable victories
even in the East.
Swarthmore in Pennsylvania, Bates in
Maine, Cornell and Syra-
cuse in New York, and Boston University
adopted co-education.
President Frederick A. P. Barnard of
Columbia in his annual re-
port of 1880 hailed Boston University,
"right under the shadow
of Beacon Hill itself, a university
which admits young women as
freely as Oberlin, or Antioch, or
Berea."39 President Edward
H. Magill of Swarthmore defended the
action of the trustees of
that institution by giving Oberlin
"where co-education has been
well-tested for more than thirty
years," Antioch, and Michigan
as proofs of the safety and practical
advantages of co-education.40
President Andrew D. White, in his report
to the trustees in favor
of co-education for Cornell, cited the
Oberlin co-eds' health statis-
tics given by Fairchild and commented on
the excellence of the
scholastic work of women students as
observed in Michigan, An-
tioch and Oberlin classes: "the
most concise and vigorous render-
ing from the most concise and vigorous
of all the ancient authors
--Tacitus himself--was given by a young
lady at Oberlin col-
lege."41
Even Dartmouth, Williams, Amherst and
Harvard appointed
special committees to canvass the
advisability of admitting women
students. The Dartmouth committee
appears never to have made
a report.42 The special
committee at Williams presented a ma-
jority report opposing co-education; but
John Bascom, professor
of rhetoric, wrote a minority report
favoring its adoption.43 Pro-
39 [Frederick A. P. Barnard] The
Higher Education of Women, Passages Ex-
tracted from the Annual Reports of
the President of Columbia College, 1879, 1880,
1881 (New York, 1882), 29.
40 Edward H. Magill, An Address upon
the Co-education of the Sexes (Phila-
delphia, 1873).
41 Orton, Liberal Education of Women, 216-23.
42 Leon Burr Richardson, History of
Dartmouth College (Hanover, N. H.,
1932), II, 662.
43 Orton, Liberal Education of Women,
209-16. There are references to Oberlin
on pages 212-3.
16 OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
fessor John Morgan of Oberlin, a
Williams graduate, once very
skeptical of mixed education, watched
the controversy with in-
terest and, when the trustees decided in
the negative, wrote ban-
teringly to his old friend and
classmate, Hopkins: "I suppose
Williams is bound to be exclusive of
ladies--a great mistake I
think. But it may not last
forever."44 The subject was debated
in the Amherst Student in 1871
and twenty undergraduates fa-
vored the admission of women, believing
that their "presence
would effect a complete reformation in
many of those immoralities
which now disgrace our college."45
Professor W. S. Tyler, Am-
herst's historian, voted in favor of
trying the experiment, but de-
clared in an address at Mt. Holyoke in
1873 that he did not expect
it to be a success, because of the great
difference in conditions at
Amherst from what he understood them to
be at Oberlin, which
"has long furnished the standing
argument in favor of co-educa-
tion."46 James Freeman Clarke, the
fighting old liberal of the
Harvard Board of Overseers, prepared a
minority report in be-
half of co-education for Harvard. Citing
the examples of success
at Michigan and Oberlin he declared his
belief that "the system
is good in itself, that it is in
accordance with the ideas of modern
society--that in practice it has worked
well, wherever tried, and
that the sooner it can be introduced at
Cambridge the better it will
be for our excellent university."47
At a "Social Science
Convention" held in 1873 the question
of co-education for Harvard was warmly
debated. Wendell Phil-
lips and Thomas Wentworth Higginson
spoke in favor of it;
President Charles W. Eliot presented the
official attitude of op-
position. Higginson referred to Oberlin
as a college which "for
44 John Morgan to Mark Hopkins,
September 12, 1872, Morgan-Hopkins MSS.
(in Oberlin College Library).
45 Orton, Liberal Education of Women, 203-8.
46 W. S. Tyler, The Higher Education
of Women, an Address before the
Trustees, Teachers and Pupils of
Mount Holyoke Seminary, July 3, 1873 (Northampton,
Mass., 1874), 4, 6-7. See the letter
from Professor Hiram Mead of Oberlin published
in the appendix.
47 Orton, Liberal Education of Women,
231-7. Samuel Eliot Morison makes the
statement (Three Centuries of
Harvard, 1636-1936 [Cambridge, 1936], 393) that "no
proposition to make Harvard College
co-educational has ever been seriously enter-
tained." In a letter to the author
(August 7, 1937) Morison explains that Clarke's
report was not "seriously
entertained" because it was a report to a committee only
and did not reach the Board of
Overseers. It seems significant, however, that anyone,
like Clarke, who served as an overseer
for seventeen years should have taken such
a stand.
OBERLIN AND CO-EDUCATION 17
30 years" had "educated men
and women side by side." Eliot
also cited Oberlin. "I think that
all ladies and gentlemen," he
said, "who know of the growth of
the institutions of the West,
where boys and girls are now educated,
will say that Oberlin Col-
lege is by far one of the most
successful of those institutions....
They have graduated more girls in their
college course than any
other institution, except the few of
recent origin, where the course
is low. To my mind, it is altogether the
most favorable example
of an institution for the co-education
of the sexes in this country,
and therefore in the world."48 He
then proceeded to develop his
argument against co-education
from the Oberlin example.
The years 1873 and 1874 represent a high
point in the con-
troversy. Eighteen seventy three was the
year of the Higginson-
Eliot debate and of the publication of
Orton's important com-
pendium of opinion, The Liberal
Education of Women, and also
of Clarke's Sex in Education. In
1874, the two important replies
to Clarke's charge that college
co-education endangered the health
of the participating women students were
published. Dean George
F. Comfort of Syracuse wrote one which
was entitled Woman's
Education and Woman's Health. He did not deal extensively with
Oberlin but referred to it in passing as
the college where "the
movement for opening colleges and
universities to women was
inaugurated."49 The second answer
was a collection of essays,
edited by Anna C. Brackett, designed to
prove the physical com-
petency of women to take a full college
course along with men.50
Included were chapters by Caroline Dall,
Mary E. Beedy (who
includes a reference to "Oberlin,
the oldest experiment in co-ed-
ucation at college"), Dr. Mary
Putnam Jacobi and a review of Sex
in Education by the editress. There are
also chapters dealing
with the health of college girls at
Michigan, Mount Holyoke
Seminary, Vassar, Antioch and Oberlin.
In the chapter on Oberlin
48 Orton, Liberal Education of
Women, 309-24, especially 813 and 320-1.
49 George
F. Comfort, Woman's Education and Woman's Health, Chiefly in Reply
to "Sex in Education" (Syracuse, 1874), 126-7, et passim.
50 Anna C. Brackett, ed., The
Education of American Girls, Considered in a
Series of Essays (New York, 1874), 248, 329-45 et passim. Mention
should also be
made of a symposium entitled Sex and
Education, a Reply to Dr. E. H. Clarke's Sex
in Education (Boston, 1874), edited by Julia Ward Howe. This book
contains a letter
from Fairchild on the health of Oberlin
College girls and a reference (p. 99) to
"Oberlin, Antioch, and Cornell as
the best examples of co-education."
18
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
Mrs. Adelia A. F. Johnston, new dean of
women, sought to prove
that women students at Oberlin were
equally as healthy as men
students and women of the same age in
other walks of life.
The dispute over the effect of college
work on the health of
women was pretty definitely closed by an
analysis of health
statistics of college alumnae made by
Carroll D. Wright of the
Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of
Labor in 1885. The data
utilized was collected from some seven
hundred alumnae of twelve
colleges, three women's colleges and
nine co-educational, in-
cluding Michigan, Cornell, Syracuse,
Wisconsin, Boston Uni-
versity and Oberlin. Wright's conclusion
was that "the female
graduates of our colleges and
universities" did not seem to show
"any marked difference in general
health from the average health
likely to be reported by an equal number
of women engaged in
other kinds of work."51
Meanwhile co-education steadily
advanced. Even the con-
servative South was invaded, where the
University of Mississippi
admitted women in 1882. It was something
of a moral triumph
for Oberlin when her ancient and more
conservative rival, Western
Reserve, accepted women students and
President Carroll Cutler
presented a statement to the Western
Reserve Board of Trustees
in praise of the once-despised
Oberlinism of "joint education."52
Though the co-educationists' increasing
assurance of victory
tended to cool the ardor of the debate,
argument flared up
sporadically as at the annual gathering
of the American Institute
of Instruction at Saratoga Springs in
1882. Dr. John Hancock
of Ohio declared that co-education was
harmful to the men stu-
dents. President James Marvin of the
University of Kansas
denied it. President W. W. Folwell of
the University of Min-
nesota then commented drily: "While
gentlemen are arguing the
question as to whether young women can
be taught in colleges
with young men, I beg to have it
remembered that Oberlin has
been doing the thing for thirty years,
and that fifty or more
51 At
this date Oberlin was still second among the co-educational colleges in the
number of women graduated. Annie G.
Howes [and Carroll D. Wright], Health
Statistics of Women College Graduates
(Boston, 1885).
52 Carroll Cutler, Shall Women Now Be
Excluded from Adelbert College of
Western Reserve University (Cleveland [1884]). A co-ordinate system was finally
adopted.
OBERLIN AND CO-EDUCATION 19
institutions in the West and Northwest
have been doing it from
the beginning. What you are speculating
about has already been
done. Let me say to you that the thing
is settled."53 Folwell
underestimated the number of
co-educational colleges. In 1873
there were already nearly a hundred. In
1890 the number had
reached 282 and in 1902, 330,
about half of them still in the
Middle West, the region of Oberlin's
greatest influence.54 By
the opening of the twentieth century
co-education, once a radical
Oberlin "peculiarity," had
become a typical Americanism.
53 American Institute of Instruction Fifty-third Annual Meeting: Lectures, Dis-
cussions, and Proceedings,
Saratoga, N. Y., July 11-14, 1882 (Boston, 1882), 121-123.
54 United States Commissioner of
Education, Report, 1903, 1, 1064.