第138章

As I drafted the main features of the university charter these statements were in my mind, but I knew well that it would be premature to press the matter at the outset. It would certainly have cost us the support of the more conservative men in the legislature. All that I could do at that time I did; and this was to keep out of the charter anything which could embarrass us regarding the question in the future, steadily avoiding in every clause relating to students the word ``man,'' and as steadily using the word ``person.'' In conversations between Mr. Cornell and myself on this subject, I found that we agreed; and in our addresses at the opening of the university we both alluded to it, he favoring it in general terms, and I developing sundry arguments calculated to prepare the way for future action upon it. At the close of the exercises Mr. John McGraw, who was afterward so munificent toward us, came to me and said: ``My old business partner, Henry Sage, who sat next me during the exercises this morning, turned to me during your allusion to Mr. Cornell with tears in his eyes, and said: `John, we are scoundrels to stand doing nothing while those men are killing themselves to establish this university.' '' In the afternoon Mr. Sage himself came to me and said: ``I believe you are right in regard to admitting women, but you are evidently carrying as many innovations just now as public opinion will bear; when you are ready to move in the matter, let me know.''

The following year came the first application of a young woman for admission. Her case was strong, for she presented a certificate showing that she had passed the best examination for the State scholarship in Cortland County;and on this I admitted her. Under the scholarship clause in the charter I could not do otherwise. On reporting the case to the trustees, they supported me unanimously, though some of them reluctantly. The lady student proved excellent from every point of view, and her admission made a mere temporary ripple on the surface of our affairs; but soon came a peculiar difficulty. The only rooms for students in those days on the University Hill were in the barracks filled with young men; and therefore the young woman took rooms in town, coming up to lectures two or three times a day. It was a hard struggle;for the paths and roads leading to the university grounds, four hundred feet above the valley, were not as in these days, and the electric trolley had not been invented. She bore the fatigue patiently until winter set in; then she came to me, expressing regret at her inability to toil up the icy steep, and left us. On my reporting this to the trustees, Mr. Sage made his proposal. I had expected from him a professorship or a fellowship; but to my amazement he offered to erect and endow a separate college for young women in the university, and for this purpose to give us two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A committee of trustees having been appointed to examine and report upon this proposal, I was made its chairman; and, in company with Mr. Sage, visited various Western institutions where experiments in the way of what was called ``coeducation'' had been tried. At Oberlin College in Ohio two serious doubts were removed from my mind.

The first of these was regarding the health of the young women. I had feared that in the hard work and vigorous competitions of the university they would lose their physical strength; but here we found that, with wise precautions, the health of the young women had been quite equal to that of the young men. My other fear was that their education with young men might cost some sacrifice of the better general characteristics of both sexes; but on studying the facts I became satisfied that the men had been made more manly and the women more womanly. As to the manliness there could be little doubt; for the best of all tests had been applied only a few years before, when Oberlin College had poured forth large numbers of its young men, as volunteers, into the Union army. As to the good effect upon women, it was easy to satisfy myself when I met them, not only at the college, but in various beautiful Western homes.

Very striking testimony was also given at the University of Michigan. Ten years earlier I had known that institution well, and my professorship there, which lasted six years, had made me well acquainted with the character and spirit of its students; but, since my day, women had been admitted, and some of the results of this change surprised me much. Formerly a professor's lecture- or recitation-room had been decidedly a roughish place. The men had often been slouchy and unkempt. Now all was quiet and orderly, the dress of the students much neater; in fact, it was the usual difference between assemblages of men alone and of men and women together, or, as I afterward phrased it, ``between the smoking-car and the car back of it.''

Perhaps the most convincing piece of testimony came from an old janitor. As I met him I said: ``Well, J----, do the students still make life a burden to you?'' ``Oh, no,'' he answered; ``that is all gone by. They can't rush each other up and down the staircases or have boxing-matches in the lobbies any longer, for the girls are there.''