as in Great Britain and the United States, the higher education of women received its chief impulse from the work and the requirements of women teachers. In Ontario women are allowed to teach in high schools as assistants, but they cannot become head teachers without taking a degree in arts. Hence the opportunity of securing a degree is of great practical importance to those who are ambitious to secure promotion in the teaching profession. Several women are now in their fourth year in the University College, all of whom will probably take their degree of B. A. in the coming year. My last annual report contained a very full summary of the state of higher education for women in Europe. Since that date women have been admitted to certain of the honor examinations of Oxford University, the statute to that effect having been passed by the convocation of the university April 29, 1884. University College, Liverpool, one of the youngest though most vigorous local colleges, has been admitted to a place in Victoria University. This puts a medical degree within the reach of residents in Liverpool and neighborhood without the expense of going to Glasgow or Edinburgh for the completion of their medical training. As part of the Victoria University the college is now able to confer on women trained within its walls the same degrees as those open to men. The report of the first session of the department for women, Owens College, Manchester, is encouraging. The total number of registered students is 60, and the attendance and work have been highly satisfactory. A series of scholarships has been founded, the value of each being 201. per annum, tenable for three years. Two such scholarships will be offered in July for competition among the pupils of the Manchester High School for Girls, and two for open competition at the end of September or the beginning of October next. The council has not so far thrown open any of the college scholarships for competition among the students in the department for women. By the generosity, however, of a governor of the college, Mr. Thomas Ashton, the council is enabled to offer for competition among duly qualified students in that department in October next an extra Victoria scholarship (in classics). The value of the scholarship will be the same as that of the ordinary scholarship, 401. per annum for two years; the examination will be in the same papers; the standard to be reached will be the same; and the conditions of competition and tenure will be identical, or as nearly so as the nature of the case will allow. The degree of doctor in mental and moral science at London University has been won by a woman, who thus becomes D. Sc. The following statement is from a paper on the "University education of women," by Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, read before the recent International Conference on Education, London: Without counting those who have this year completed their university course, about 392 students have been sent out into the world from Newnham and Girton,' of whom 127 passed honor examinations, and during the last academic year there have been between the two colleges 146 students in residence. If we inquire about the subsequent history of these 392 students, we find that about 205 are in different ways engaged in teaching (including 5 who are married), 3 are preparing for the medical profession, 11 have employments of other kinds, 2 have gone into sisterhoods, about 47 have married or are on the point of doing so, 102 others are living at home without (so far as we know) being engaged in carning their living, 9 (including 2 married ones) have died, and there are about 20 respecting whom I have failed to obtain information. From these statistics it appears that the majority of students have been preparing for professional work, chiefly the work of teaching. It would be a mistake to suppose, however, that they come exclusively from the class which supplied female The following statistics of students in Girton College are from the college report for 1884: The number of students who have been in residence in the college since its commencement is 181. Of these, 80 have obtained honors according to the Cambridge University standard (28 in classics, 22 în mathematics, 1 in mathematics and in moral sciences, 1 in mathematics and in history, 14 in natural sciences, I in natural sciences and in moral sciences, 7 in moral sciences, 5 in history, and 1 in theology) and 25 have passed examinations qualifying for the ordinary B. A. degree; 51 have not yet completed their course. teachers thirty years ago, because, during that period, this class has been considerably enlarged, partly from the increase of honorable and independent posts (due in the teaching profession, mainly, to the increase in number and importan.co of high schools for girls), but still more from the steadily growing feeling among tho daughters of professional men that they ought to earn their own living. It would be interesting to try to ascertain the causes of this growing feeling; perhaps one of them may be found in the diminution of necessary domestic work, due to the increased manufacture on a large scale of articles of food and clothing, and to the invention of the sewing machine and other labor saving apparatus; but, however this may be, of the fact that more women seek serious work outside their homes than was formerly the case there can be no doubt. But though the professional class of students is in the majority there remains an important class who come from a disinterested love of knowledge and desire for intellectual training. It is, I believe, the universal opinion of all who have watched the work at Cambridge that the intermixture of these two classes has been a gain to both, the presence of the one tending to foster the spirit of steady and concentrated work, and of the other to promote a greater interest in the subjects taught for their own sako. The cause of higher education for women has been materially advanced in Scotland through the opening of Queen Margaret College. This is a practical outcome of the efforts made by the Glasgow Association, although the funds for this particular institution are due to the generosity and public spirit of one woman, Mrs. Elder. The senatus of the University of St. Andrews has received six petitions on the subject of university education of women, one of which was presented by the L. L. A.'s of the university. The petitioners ask two things: (1) They all ask for such a course of university education as the senatus may think fit to grant; (2) some of them ask for admission to degrees in arts. As to the first the senatus expresses its willingness to grant separate courses of systematic university instruction to women, provided a sufficient sum of money is raised by the petitioners (or others) to enable this to be done, especially as during the earlier stages of the experiment the attendance at the several classes might not be so large as to furnish adequate remuneration to the professors without such a fund. As to the second, the senatus resolves as follows: (1) That in the mean time, as an equivalent for graduation, women students be recommended to take the L. L. A. examination in all the subjects necessary for the M. A. degree, inasmuch as the examination papers used in the two cases are the same. (2) The senatus is further willing to urge upon Parliament the claims of women to the privileges of matriculation and graduation, and the existing interests of the university warrant such a step, and provided that every female student attending the university shall lodge or board in some house in St. Andrews to be approved of by the senatus. At the L. L. A. (literate in arts) examination of 1884 there were 319 passes, with as large proportion of honors. In his report upon the higher education of women, published after his visit to England, Principal Dawson, of McGill University, says: In Britain, as in this country, the question of separate or mixed education of the sexes has been much discussed; but in this, as in other matters, the practical and free genius of the English people has set itself to work out the problem in real life, instead of debating it in a theoretical manner, and consequently we find a number of experiments in progress. These may be classified under three heads: (1) What is sometimes called in this country "coeducation," or the education of both sexes in mixed classes; (2) separate education in colleges specially for women; and (3) intermediate or eclectic methods, in which the two first are combined in various proportions. The coexistence of these different methods has the good effect of enabling parents and students to make a choice of systems and to avail themselves of that which they prefer, without establishing anything more than a friendly rivalry between the different kinds of institutions. The method of mixed classes Principal Dawson found in successful operation in University College, London, and in University College, Bristol. As examples of education in separate colleges he instances Cheltenham, which has as many as 500 pupils and students; Bedford, North London, and Milton Mount Colleges; the King's College classes, London; and Holloway College. The third method is that pursued at Girton and Newnham Colleges, Cambridge; Somerville and Lady Margaret Halls, Oxford; the woman's department of Owens College, Manchester; and the classes of the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association. The second annual report of the Royal University of Ireland presents a gratifying view of the work of the women students. The number of women who have availed themselves of the opportunities presented by the university has not been large, but of those who have passed through the university examinations a considerable proportion have done so with marked distinction. In the autumn of 1883 the matriculation examination was passed by 33 women, of whom 11, or one-third, obtained honors, some of them in more subjects than one. Twenty-three passed the first university examination in arts, 12 with honors, and, of the 9 women candidates who presented themselves at the second university examination in arts, 5 obtained honors, almost all in more subjects than one. At this examination a woman student obtained the first place in the honor list, both in logic and in biology, obtaining honors also in Latin; another headed the honor list in English, while a third obtained the only honors given at the examination in music; and at the examination for the university scholarships, held last January, a woman student obtained the first place in the competition for the scholarships in modern literature. The higher education of women is steadily gaining ground in India. A high school for girls has recently been opened at Poona and numbers some 60 pupils. The array of facts which meets us thus from year to year with reference to new provision for the higher education of women or the good results from existing provision is sufficient proof of the inestimable value of these provisions to the individual women who have or may enjoy them and of large benefits ensuing therefrom to society in general. TABLE IX.-UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES. The following is a statement of the aggregate number of this class of institutions, with instructors and students, as reported to this Bureau each year from 1874 to 1884 (1883 omitted): New Hampshire. 1 Oregon 68 68 2,289 1,978 311 b497 224 417 446 3,641 | 01, 797 373 298 75 6203 22 42 33 106 4,002 2,817 1, 185 1, 362 810 960 6 9 589 329 260 b165 53 203 Pennsylvania... 26 59 a1, 828 1, 328 408 6336 172 308 22 26 46 76 602 421 66 758 236 107 327 2,601 c1, 215 34 283 c41 2 €393 337 20 50 85 133 Vermont.. 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 20 102 78 15 370 829 a32,755 21,774 8, 161 67,466 6,037 6,090 3, 815 32,767 ac14,355 c2,009 3,694 1, 196 Sex not reported in all cases. b Classification not reported in all cases. c A small number of scientific students included here. d Includes 82 sex not given. |