APPENDIX:

CONTAINING

Reports of Committees

OF THE

BOARD OF REGENTS

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

ON

VARIOUS IMPORTANT SUBJECTS.

REPORT ON THE ADMISSION OF FEMALES.

(See p. 30)

Submitted September 29, 1858.

THE Committee to whom was referred the application of young ladies of Michigan for admission as students to the University, respectfully report:

That they entered upon the investigation of the subject referred to them fully impressed with its importance; regarding it as second to no question which has yet engaged the attention of the present Regents. According to the varions views and opinions entertained by the friends and opposers of the measure, its decision involves the destruction of the University on the one hand, and the grossest injustice to the young ladies of Michigan on the other. The advocates of the proposition claim that the ladies by every consideration of right and justice have a title to share in the educational advantages which the University may and should confer, while its opponents insist, that to admit ladies to the University would be an innovation never contemplated by its founders, or its patrons, destructive to its character and influence, and ruinous to the ladies who should avail themselves of it. Among the opponents of the measure we find many of the ablest educators of the country, and among its advocates some of the staunchest friends of education, and of the University, who think that the adoption of the measure would bring troops of friends to the institution and greatly strengthen it in the affections of the people, as well as open to it a new and extensive field of usefulness. We have therefore sought to collect facts and opinions from such sources as we thought most likely to furnish the former of a character to be relied upon, and the latter such as would command respect, and exert a healthful influence upon publio sentiment, and aid the Board of Regents in forming an enlightened judgment, and in deciding

wisely upon the interesting question. We accordingly wrote to the presiding officers of Harvard and Yale, of Antioch and Oberlin, of Union and other eminent educational institutions, and to several eminent politicians, statesmen and divines; we have also collected the sentiments and opinions of educational associations, and of intelligent professors and other friends of education in Michigan and elsewhere, and now submit to the Board of Regents in a condensed form the substance of the information thus collected, without enumerating all the sources from which each opinion and fact is derived.

The question of opening to young ladies universities or colleges established for the education of boys, has never before been seriously agitated anywhere, that we are aware of; and although it has to some slight extent been discussed in newspapers, in associations, and by individuals, yet it has not before been formally presented for the deliberate consideration of a college board of trustees, or of a University Board of Regents, and it may therefore be fairly considered (as applicable to che University of Michigan) a new question, and for that reason one requiring great caution and full deliberation, and one which the most judicious friends of the measure do not desire to see forced upon the University by a bare majority of the Board of Regents, against the deliberate convictions of a respectable minority, and contrary to the wishes of the President and nearly all the Faculty.

The Superintendent of Public Instruction of this State in his published reports earnestly advocates the right of women to an education in the University upon the ground that by the statute of this State, "the University shall be open to all persons resident of this State," claiming that women are embraced within the term persons. That women are included within the ordinary definition of the word "persons" we have no doubt, whether the legislature in the enactment of this provision so intended or not. Aristotle has well said that the nature of everything is best seen in its smallest proportions. So if we wish to investigate the character of a state or nation, we should first inquire into the families of which it is composed, and to do this we must first ascertain the elements which form these; as the husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, which are in every hall and in every cottage; and would we not pronounce that an imperfect investigation, and the examiner a dolt, who should omit to notice the wives, and mothers, and daughters, as constituting parts of these families, and as contributing to the formation of their character? It is claimed by some that under this statute the Board of Regents has not the power or legal authority to exclude ladies, if it is conceded that they are persons, as we think it must be. Those who thus reason can scarcely be said to have well considered their argument, nor the extent to which its logic would lead them, if by it tney would tie the Regents down to the necessity of admitting every human being embraced within the ordinary signification of the term

person, and this is literally the only qualification required by the statute, viz.: that the applicant shall be a 'person." They are to be admitted if residents of the State, "under the regulations prescribed by the Regents;" and if nonresidents, under "such regulations and restrictions as the board my prescribe;" but no one will seriously argue that the Regents cannot lawfully and consistently with the statute exclude immoral persons, notwithstanding they are technically "persons." So they may exclude any person whose presence would detract from the character of the institution, or prevent it from attaining to the proper rank of a University, or from accomplishing the work of such an institution of learning.

In answer to what is said of the rights of women under the statute of this State, which provides that the University shall be open to all persons resident of the State, it is claimed by those who oppose the admission of ladies to the University, that when the University was endowed, it was not understood to mean a school for the education of both sexes. That no University had ever attempted to do that work, and that a mixed school, or a school for the coeducation of the sexes, has never been understood as constituting any part of the definition of the word "University," and that it would be a misapplication of the funds of the University to appropriate them to the education of

women.

The subject of education has for some years past attracted a large share of attention from all classes of people in the United States, and nowhere has a deeper interest been manifested on this subject than in the State of Michigan. Our admirable public school system, or State system of education, has been the result of the great and growing interest felt by the people in this subject; commencing with the primary schools and advancing upward through the Union Schools with their preparatory departments, and the Normal school to educate teachers, and culminating in the University, where the broad fields of universal knowledge lie temptingly open before the student, it has been said and thought by some that the system was perfect and complete. It affords, or is designed to furnish, and will do so, when perfectly carried out, the best elementary training for children in the primary schools, where the foundations of learning for all the future generations of the people of Michigan are to be laid. Here the plastic elements are collected together which are to form the minds and characters of our future statesmen, our judges, and jurors, and witnesses, and profesional Here too are the mothers and governesses, the female friends and com. panions of those to receive their first views of education and their first taste for knowledge. Here indeed is the character of the State first placed into the mould which is to give it form. Fortunately, those who organized these primary schools did not so organize them as to educate the sexes seperately; had they done so, we should now probably find great difficulty in bringing them to

men.