Volume III Part 78 (1/2)
Mrs. Gardner's name was retained on the ward voting list, and she voted every year until she left the city for the education of her children.
Before the University at Ann Arbor was opened to girls in 1869, there had been several attempts to establish seminaries for girls alone.[319] But they were not successful for several reasons. As the State would not endow these private inst.i.tutions, it made the education of daughters very expensive, and fathers with daughters, seeing their neighbors' sons in the State University educated at the public expense, from financial considerations were readily converted to the theory of coeducation. Again the general drift of thought was in favor of coeducation throughout the young western States. Then inst.i.tutions of learning were too expensive to build separate establishments for girls and boys, and the number of boys able to attend through a collegiate course could not fill the colleges ready for their reception. Hence from all considerations it was a double advantage both to the State and the girls, to admit them to the universities.
James A. B. Stone and Mrs. Lucinda H. Stone went to Kalamazoo in 1843, immediately after his election to take charge of the Literary Inst.i.tute. The name was afterwards changed to Kalamazoo College. It is the oldest collegiate inst.i.tute in the State, having been chartered in 1833, and was designed from the outset for both s.e.xes. In the beginning it did not confer degrees, but was the first, after Oberlin, to give diplomas to women.
Kalamazoo was an object of derision with some of the professors of the University, because it was, they averred, of doubtful gender. But a liberal-minded public grew more and more in favor of epicene colleges. Literary seminaries had been established for coeducation at Albion, Olivet, Adrian and Hillsdale, but some of their charters were not exactly of a collegiate grade, and it was doubtful whether under the new const.i.tution, new college charters would be granted, so that Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor had the field.
In January, 1845, a bill was introduced in the legislature to organize literary inst.i.tutions under a general law, no collegiate degrees being allowed, unless on the completion of a curriculum equal to that of the State University. The champions.h.i.+p of this bill fell to Dr. Stone, for while it would have no special effect on Kalamazoo, it concerned the cause of coeducation in the State, and the friends of the University made it a kind of test of what the State policy should be in reference to the higher learning for women. Dr. Tappan, then the able president of the University, appeared at Lansing, supported by Rev. Dr. Duffield and a force of able lawyers, to oppose it, and the far-seeing friends of education in the legislature and in the lobby, rallied with Dr.
Stone for its support. For several weeks the contest was carried on with earnestness, almost with bitterness, before the legislative committees, before public meetings called in the capitol for discussion, and on the floor of both houses. Dr.
Tappan made frantic appeals to Michigan statesmen not to disgrace the State by such a law, which he prophesied would result in ”preparatory schools for matrimony,” and, shocking to contemplate, young men would marry their cla.s.smates. Among the friends of the measure present, were President Fairfield, Professor Hosford, and Hon. Mr. Edsell, of Otsego, all graduates of Oberlin, who had married their cla.s.smates, and ”been glad ever since.” They replied, ”What of it? Are not those who have met daily in the recitation-room for four years, as well prepared to judge of each other's fitness for life-companions.h.i.+p, as if they had only met a few times at a ball, a dress party, or in private interview?” The legislature was an intelligent one, and the bill pa.s.sed amid great excitement, crowds of interested spectators listening to the final discussions in the lower House. Governor Bingham was friendly to the bill from the first. After its pa.s.sage, he sent a handsome copy signed by himself and other officers, to Dr. and Mrs. Stone, at Kalamazoo, to be preserved as a record of the Thermopylae fight for coeducation in Michigan.
Rev. E. O. Havens succeeded Dr. Tappan in the presidency, and was supposed to be less strong in his prejudices, but when efforts were made to open the doors to both s.e.xes, he reported it difficult and inexpedient, if not impossible. But he counted without the broad-minded people of Michigan. A growing conviction that the legislature would stop the appropriations to the University unless justice was done to the daughters of the State, finally brought about, at Ann Arbor, a change of policy. Under the light that broke in upon their minds, the professors found there was really no law against the admission of women to that very liberal seat of learning. ”To be sure, they never had admitted women, but none had formally applied.” This, though somewhat disingenuous, was received in good faith, and soon tested by Miss Madeline Stockwell, who had completed half her course at Kalamazoo, and was persuaded by Mrs. Stone to make application at Ann Arbor. Mrs. Stone knew her to be a thorough scholar, as far as she had gone, especially in Greek, which some had supposed that women could not master. When she presented herself for examination some members of the faculty were far from cordial, but they were just, and she entered in the grade for which she applied. She sustained herself ably in all her studies, and when examined for her degree--the first woman graduate from the literary department--she was commended as the peer of any of her cla.s.s-mates, and took an honorable part in the commencement exercises. Moreover, she fulfilled the doleful prophecy of Dr.
Tappan, as women in other schools had done before her, and married her cla.s.s-mate, Mr. Turner, an able lawyer.
The statement by the faculty, or regents, that ”no woman had formally applied,” was untrue, as we shall see. The University was opened to them in 1869; eleven years before, Miss Sarah Burger, now Mrs. Stearns, made the resolve, the preparation, and the application to enter the University of Michigan; and young as she was, her clear-sightedness and courage called forth our admiration. As a child, in Ann Arbor, from 1845, to 1852, she had often attended the commencement exercises of the University, and on those occasions had felt very unhappy, because all the culture given to mind and heart and soul by this inst.i.tution was given to young men alone. It seemed a cruel injustice to young women that they could not be there with their brothers, enjoying the same.
In connection with her efforts and those of her friends to enter those enchanted portals, she bears grateful testimony to the discussions on the question of woman's rights, as follows:
When it was my blessed privilege to attend a women's rights convention at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1853,--and it was a grand meeting--where dear Lucretia Mott, Ernestine L. Rose, Frances D. Gage, Antoinette Brown, Lucy Stone, and others, dwelt upon the manifold wrongs suffered by women, and called upon them to awake and use their powers to secure justice to all, I felt their words to mean that the Michigan University as well as all others, should be opened to girls, and that women themselves should first move in the matter.
Thus aroused, though but sixteen years old, she resolved at once to make application for admission to the State University. Early in the autumn of 1856, she entered the high school at Ann Arbor, and studied Greek and Latin two years, preparatory to taking the cla.s.sical course. Four young ladies besides herself, recited with the boys who were preparing for college, and they were all declared by a university professor who had attended frequent examinations, to stand head and shoulders in scholars.h.i.+p above many of the young men. Miss Burger wis.h.i.+ng as large a cla.s.s as possible to appeal for admission, wrote to a number of cla.s.sical schools for young women, asking cooperation, and secured the names of eleven[320] who would gladly apply with her. In the spring of 1858, she sent a note to the regents, saying a cla.s.s of twelve young ladies would apply in June, for admission to the University in September. A reporter said ”a certain Miss B. had sent the regents warning of the momentous event.” At the board meeting in June, the young ladies presented their promised letter of application, and received as reply, that the board should have _more time to consider_. In September their reply was, that it seemed inexpedient for the University to admit ladies at present.
In the meantime, a great deal had been said and done on the subject; some members of the faculty had spoken in favor, some against. University students, and citizens of Ann Arbor also joined in the general discussion. The subject was widely discussed in the press and on the platform; members of the faculty and board of regents applied to the presidents of universities east and west, for their opinions. The people of Michigan, thus brought to consider the injustice of the exclusion of their daughters from this State inst.i.tution, there was offered for signature during the winter of 1859, the following pet.i.tion:
_To the Regents of the University of Michigan:_
The undersigned, inhabitants of ----, in the county of ----, and State of Michigan, respectfully request that young women may be admitted as students in the University, for the following among other reasons: _First_--It is inc.u.mbent on the State to give equal educational advantages to both s.e.xes. _Second_--All can be educated in the State University with but little more expense than is necessary to educate young men alone. _Third_--It will save the State from the expenditure of half a million of dollars, necessary to furnish young ladies in a separate inst.i.tution with the advantages now enjoyed by young men. _Fourth_--It will admit young ladies at once to the benefits of the highest educational privileges of the State.
Among the most active in lectures, debates, circulation of pet.i.tions and general advocacy were James B. Gott, Judge Edwin Lawrence, Giles B. Stebbins and O. P. Stearns, the last at that time a student, since a lawyer, and the husband of Mrs. Sarah Burger Stearns of Minnesota.
In the spring of 1859 formal application was again made to the regents by a cla.s.s of young ladies, only to receive the same answer. But the discussion was not dropped; indeed, that was impossible. Some of the most intelligent on this question believe that the final admission of women to the University was due to a resolve on the part of the people of the State to place upon the board of regents, as the terms of old members expired, men well known to be favorable. On the election of Professor Estabrook of the State Normal School there was one more n.o.ble man ”for us,”
who, with other new members, made a majority in favor of justice.
In the autumn of that year (1869) young women were admitted to full privileges in Michigan University, and, like political freedom in Wyoming, it has for years been confessed to have yielded only beneficent results. As long ago, however, as the first application was made (1858) women were permitted to attend certain lectures. They could not join a cla.s.s or read a book, but it was the custom for them to go and listen to the beautiful and highly instructive lectures by Professor Andrew D. White on history, sculpture, and mediaeval architecture, and they highly appreciated the privilege.
In March, 1869, President Havens said in the House of Representatives at Lansing, ”he believed the University should be opened to those who desired to obtain the benefit of the branches of education which they could not obtain elsewhere.” The Rev.
Gilbert Haven wrote to the American Society's meeting held in Detroit, in 1874: ”I have been identified with your cause through its evil report, and, I was going to add, good report, but that part has not yet very largely set in. I also had the honor to preside over the first ecclesiastical body that has, just now, p.r.o.nounced in your favor.” This church a.s.sembly was the Methodist State a.s.sociation, which adopted the following in October, 1874, without a negative vote, though several of the delegates refused to vote:
WHEREAS, The legislature of Michigan, at its recent session, has submitted to the electors of the State a proposition to change the State const.i.tution so as to admit the women of Michigan to the elective franchise; therefore,
_Resolved_, That this convention recognizes the action of the legislature as a step toward a higher and purer administration of the government of our country, and we hope the provision will be adopted.
But the above was not the strongest utterance of Bishop Gilbert Haven. Once at an equal rights society convention in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, where from floor to ceiling was gathered an admirable and immense audience, with profound respect I heard these memorable words:
”I shall never be satisfied until a _black woman_ is seated in the presidential chair of the United States,” than which no more advanced claim for the complete legal recognition of woman has been made in our country.
In February, 1879, a spirited debate took place in the legislature upon an amendment to the Episcopal Church bill, which struck out the word ”male” from the qualification of voters. The Detroit _Post and Tribune_ says a vigorous effort was made to defeat the measure, but without success. The justice of allowing women to take part in church government was recognized, and the amendment carried.
We have written persistently to leading women all over the State for facts in regard to their local societies, and such responses as have been received are embodied in this chapter. We give interesting reports of a few of the county societies in which much has been accomplished.
Of the work in Quincy Mrs. Sarah Turner says:
We never organized a woman suffrage society, although our literary club has done much for the cause in a general way.