Boston University - HUB Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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IX53 5 7+ Y' BOSTON UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. Snmns I. BOSTON, MARCH, 1880. VOL. VII. SINCE the last issue of the YEAR Boox, authority has been given for the holding of examinations for admission to the College of Liberal Arts by University Examiners in places at a distance from Boston. Principals of preparatory schools who would be glad of such an accommodation are invited to corre- spond with tl1e Dean of the College. Drei Jahr' ist eine kurze Zeit, Exclaims the student in Faust, when he begins to inquire about the study of medicine. Since his day, the German authorities have come to agree with this off'-hand judgment, and have accordingly lengthened the obligatory university course for medical students to four years. In Italy, by a royal decree of Oct. 8, 1876, the term is prolonged to six years, with severe biennial examinations. Moreover, in each country, in order to obtain admission to this university course, the student must already have graduated at a preparatory college whose curricu- lum is six years in duration. What the requirements oi' Ameri- can medical schools have been, one is really ashamed to state where any foreigner may read them. Still, as our leading paper shows, the signs in this department of education are at present auspiciousg and possibly shame at our past record as a nation will just now but hasten a greatly needed reform. The doctrine that a university should exist for the benefit of a single class or sex will soon belong to the realm of pedagogi- cal palasontology. Less than a month ago the venerable head of tl1e wealthiest and most numerously attended educational institution in the United States, President Barnard of Columbia College, wrote as follows: H What has been actually accom- plished is amply sufficient to justify the conviction that the Q I f We

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4 BOSTON UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. question of the admission of women to the lecture-halls of our highest institutions of learning is only a question of time. This measure, which has originally common sense in its favor, is supported by a force of public opinion which is constantly and steadily growing in strength. It finds its principal opposi- tion in blind and unreasoning prejudice, and in a regard for a usage which has no better justification than that it is tradi- tional. Most of the arguments employed by our opponents are too frivolous and, unsubstantial to' be worthy'of attentiong while many are miserable attempts at satire, which betray the conscious weakness of their authors, and are as silly in sub- stance as they are unamiable in spirit. ff The positive evidences of our progress are manifest enough. They present themselves on every side, as well abroad as at home. Conservative England, with all her proverbial and almost superstitious respect for traditions, and all her constitu- tional reluctance to depart from old ways, even when they are shown to be wrong ways, is beginning to treat this subject with a grave earnestness which makes it plain that she cannot long persist in restricting the privileges of her great universities to the youth of a single sex .... As I survey the field of contro- versy, nothing is more manifest than that the cause of univer- sity education for women is gaining ground in New England daily. One after another her prominent educators, one after another her eminent citizens, are giving in their adhesion to the proposed measure. We hear, on the other hand, of no renunciations on the part of any who have once enlisted in this cause. It need hardly be said, that in a question of public opinion upon any subject whatever, where changes are always going on, and always going on in the same direction, the revolution no matter how slow the progress, must be complete at last. I have myself, therefore, no question that the time is coming, and that, relatively to the lifetime of nations, it is probably not very distant, when all our principal universities- Harvard and Yale, and Princeton and Columbia, and the rest - will open their lecture-rooms as freely to women as to men. The Independent, Feb. 19, 1880. Other striking indications of the progress of public sentiment on this subject are given in the last Annual Report of Boston University.