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CHAPTER XL
The Distaff Side
C OLBY COLLEGE has never been coeducational de jure, although for two decades it has been so de facto. Legally the college is organized into two separate units known as the Men's Division and the Women's Division. At Commence- ment, the Colby diplomas are presented separately to the men and to the women. How does it happen that this college is today coeducational in fact, but not in legality? How have women students fared through the years? Has there ever been equality of the sexes on the Colby campus?
Preceding chapters have made frequent reference to the women, and part of their story has already been told in some detail. The reader has already ob- served the arrival of women in a college for men, the repeated opposition to their presence, the decision to put them into a separate college, and their final acceptance. We are ready now to learn how and why Colby women became increasingly prom- inent, so that for the past thirty years there has never been the faintest suggestion that Colby ought to be rid of them.
All honor is due to Mary Low, the first girl to brave the lion's den of a Colby classroom. When she was permitted to enroll in 1871, she was not only the sole woman in the entire college; she had to make her way in competition with several brilliant men, among whom were Leslie Cornish and Henry Hudson, both of whom became justices of the Maine Supreme Court. All through their four col- lege years, Leslie Cornish and Mary Low vied for top honors, and on Commence- ment day in 1875 it was the woman who delivered the valedictory. As wife of the State Librarian, Mary Low Carver became also an expert in library science, made the first systematic catalogue of the Maine State Library, and was a frequent contributor to library journals. Fortunately this talented woman lived to attend the Centennial in 1920, and in 1921 the observance of the fiftieth anniversary of her own admission as the first Colby woman. On the latter occasion, Mrs. Carver's classmate, Judge Cornish, then chairman of the Colby Trustees, said when he intro- duced her to the audience: "Fifty years ago a boy and a girl presented themselves for prize entrance examinations at Colby. The girl won first and the boy won second prize. Today the boy who took the second prize takes pleasure in pre- senting the girl who won first prize."
Until her junior year Mary Low remained the only woman student among more than fifty men. Then, in the fall of 1873, four other girls came as freshmen. Among them was the second woman to receive a Colby diploma, Louise Helen Coburn, a member of Somerset County's most prominent family, that had been connected with the College almost since its founding. Her grandfather, Eleazer
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Coburn, had become a trustee in 1836, and her uncle, Abner Coburn, went on the Board in 1845. Next to Gardner Colby, Abner Coburn was the College's most generous benefactor during the nineteenth century. The Coburns were a family devoted to good books, good music, good art, and especially to education. When Louise learned that a girl had been admitted into the College down in Waterville where her uncle was a leading trustee, she determined that she too would seek admission there. Great was her joy when she learned that, unlike Mary Low, she would not be the only female in her class, but would have the company of three other girls.
Like her predecessor, Miss Coburn made an outstanding scholastic record, winning the respect and esteem of her male competitors. As leader of the Colby alumnae she later pressed the campaign for adequate housing of women students, for the Alumnae Building, and for recognition of the women in graduate and cor- porate affairs. She succeeded in having women admitted to the Board of Trustees and was herself the first member so elected. The writer of many articles and poems, Louise Coburn is perhaps best remembered as the author of one of the finest histories of any Maine town and among the best local histories in the whole nation: Skowhegan on the Kennebec.
During the 1870's, after the decision had been made to admit women, a major question was whether women were capable of taking the same academic program pursued by the men. Strangely enough, the social implications of coeducation attracted little attention. The one prevailing issue was whether girls had any place in the pursuit of subjects so long held as the sole province of the male. The answer was not long delayed. So well did the women perform in the conventional liberal arts subjects that they were soon winning all the prizes awarded for academic excellence. In fact, no small part of the agitation that arose later in regard to the retention of women in the College was prompted by the fact that they persistently ran away with the honors.
Colby alumnae have long ago forgotten the first woman officer whose name appeared in the college catalogue. For 14 years after the entrance of Mary Low in 1871 the only catalogue reference to women, other than the female names in the directory of students, was the simple sentence: "The courses of study are open to young women on the same terms as to young men." Then, in the summer of 1885, the Trustees purchased of Hall C. Burleigh, for $5500, the house on Col- lege Avenue just south of the residence of Dr. Nathaniel Boutelle1 and put it into suitable condition for occupancy of women students. The catalogue for 1885-86 therefore contained the following statement.
The Trustees have recently purchased for a Ladies Hall the house formerly the residence of Professor Briggs. It is situated on College Street, near the University buildings, and affords a pleasant and con- venient home for the young ladies. It is under the direction and care of Mrs. A. L. Mortimer.
Mrs. Mortimer thus had the distinction of being the first woman other than a student to have her name in the catalogue, but not until ten years later, in 1895, was any woman mentioned in the august list headed "Faculty of Instruction," al- though appended to that list, on the same page and in equally large print, ap- peared the name "Samuel Osborne, Janitor." There is no more important witness than that fact to show how little regard was given to women during the first quarter
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century of their enrollment at Colby. They were considered not quite so high in status as the janitor.
Official indifference to the women was not shared by the men students, at least not during the early years. In 1884 the Echo stated editorially:
It seems as if the most enthusiastic admirers of the co-ed system must have their enthusiasm increased by the extraordinary success it is meet- ing here. If the proportion of the fair sex continues to increase, they will soon cease to be the exception and become the rule. If co-education is a settled fact, and we presume it is, it should be fully realized as soon as possible, and it can never be realized until steps are taken to give the girls the benefit of all the advantages which the boys enjoy.2
The beginning of women's instruction at Colby was truly coeducational. Not until several years later was there any question that women should be enrolled "on the same terms as the young men" - that is, in the same classes, competing for the same prizes, and having the same privileges consistent with the mores of the time.
When Albion Woodbury Small become President in 1889, he found the ad- mission of women by no means acceptable to all supporters of the College. The Alumni Association had recently passed a resolution requesting the Trustees to ban women from further admission. Observing that the women had many sup- porters, not the least of whom were members of the powerful Coburn family of Skowhegan, Small hit upon the idea of coordination to replace the existing system of coeducation. He seems at first to have conceived of two separate colleges under a single administration and a single faculty, and it was only financial inability to set up such a plan that caused his men's college and women's college to be desig- nated later as men's division and women's division.
Small proposed that, as soon as finances should permit, instruction should be given in entirely separate classes to men and to women. He agreed that it might be acceptable, as well as economical, to have both sexes attend lectures together, but he insisted that laboratory work in the sciences could be segregated by sched- ule, although both sexes might have to use the same facilities. Small intended later to introduce into the separate colleges "different courses, appropriate to the particular sex." In class organization, rank, prizes, contests, appointments and honors the members of the two colleges would be treated as independently as if they were in distinct institutions.
On June 30, 1890, the Trustees voted to inaugurate President Small's plan of coordination. Women graduates of the college, though few in number, were loud in protest. Nineteen of them, whose graduation years ranged from 1875 to 1890, signed a printed statement of sixteen pages, setting forth in detail the case of equal treatment of the sexes at Colby. The text of this powerful statement is said to have been chiefly the work of Louise Coburn, although Mrs. Carver certainly collaborated in the final writing. Other well known Colby women whose sig- natures were affixed to the document were Bertha Louise Soule, 1885, Hattie M. Parmenter, 1889, and Addie F. True, 1890.
Pointing out that the decision of the Trustees constituted a retreat from the progressive step taken in 1871, the statement said:
The College seeks to justify itself by an alleged act of higher generosity. She will establish within her precincts a college for women, in which they
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may go on to even higher achievements. But by that decision the College confesses that she made a mistake twenty years ago, and thus places her present alumnae in the anomalous position of being the visible evidence of that mistake.3
The alumnae statement devoted four printed pages to the subject of compe- tition between the sexes, and it kept the discussion on a high level until it reached the conclusion of the argument. Then the embattled women stated bluntly what they felt was the chief cause of men's desire to be rid of them.
The records show that the women's scholastic achievement has often surpassed the men's. Can it be that the women have taken too many college prizes for their own good? The issue is not whether men and women can recite together, whether men and women shall study this or that. It is simply the issue whether the men are willing to take the risk of having women surpass them in scholarship.4
The valiant protest was of no avail. The Trustees refused to reconsider their decision and, when college reopened in the fall of 1890, the coordinate system went into effect. Two arguments had prevailed with a majority of the Trustees. First, a steady decrease in male enrollment had accompanied the increase in num- bers of women; and second, the Board was convinced that the enrollment figures supported the contention that men were seeking admission to other colleges than Colby, simply because at the Waterville college the women were becoming too prominent. Whether or not the conclusion was valid, the fact that the Board accepted it was enough. President Small's plan of coordination became a fact.
When the new plan went into effect, the editor of the Colby Echo was the man who many years later would become President of the College, Franklin W. Johnson. In an editorial he expressed student opinion of the new regime.
When it was discovered that exactly twice as many women had entered in the Class of 1894 as had ever before enrolled in any freshman class, there was great jubilation over this triumph of fact over fiction. Coordi- nation is a success. Colby has reached a new era of prosperity. A way has been found to be just and wise without being impractical. No previous editor of the Echo could possibly have said that the men in col- lege would heartily welcome sixteen young ladies in one class. But we can sincerely say that their presence, under the coordinate system, is most cordially welcomed. We know that many supporters of the college have worried over the question, What shall we do with our girls? They believed in coeducation in theory, but very few of them had the courage of their convictions when they selected a college for their daughters. We are proud that Colby has become the pioneer of the most promising plan yet suggested to make the American college the common possession of men and women.5
It was at once apparent that, if a separate college for women was to be developed, there must be more adequate housing than was afforded by the con- verted old farmhouse on College Avenue known as Ladies' Hall. In 1892, there- fore, the Trustees launched a campaign for a women's dormitory. An attractive circular, containing an appeal signed by Josiah Drummond, chairman of the Colby Trustees, was sent widely over New England. The statement said:
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At the annual meeting in June, 1892, the Trustees of Colby University voted to appoint a committee of women to solicit funds for the building of a dormitory for young women. Over sixty girls are now enrolled in the several classes, and there is every indication that the numbers will increase. Some adequate provision should be made for their care and comfort.6
Attention is called to the words which this historian has italicized in the above statement. The committee to raise funds was to be distinctly a committee of women. Thus in 1892, the Colby Trustees adopted the position which they were to sustain for many years to come - a position that seriously hampered the de- velopment of equal opportunities for women on the Colby campus. The women graduates and their friends were somewhat condescendingly permitted to raise funds, secure buildings, and promote the welfare of women students, but the cor- poration would not officially take the lead in such endeavors. Even as late as the closing years of this century's third decade, when the handsome Alumnae Building opened its doors, the women had been tolerantly allowed to secure the necessary funds rather than actively assisted by the governing authorities.
The committee of women that launched the dormitory campaign in 1892 was headed not by a Colby graduate, but by the competent and popular wife of the Professor of Biblical Literature who had formerly been head of the college. Mrs. G. D. B. Pepper was not alone among non-Colby women in this determined group. She was eagerly joined by Mrs. Henry Burrage, wife of the leader of Maine Bap- tists; by Mrs. Alfred King of Portland; by the wife of Judge Percival Bonney; and by the wife of the Colby Librarian, Edward W. Hall. Of course Colby women themselves were well represented by such leaders as Mrs. Carver, Miss Coburn, Nellie Bakeman, Bertha Soule, and Anna Cummings.
The campaign was not immediately successful. The national depression of 1893 caused a scarcity of money and deep fear among persons of means. Nor was the Colby constituency, especially among the Baptists, wholeheartedly in favor of the coordinate system. Many friends of the college could not forget the strenu- ous opposition of Louise Coburn and her associates, when they circulated their open letter to the Trustees, although Miss Coburn herself loyally accepted the change and became a member of the small executive committee that conducted the campaign. Although the women tried very hard to secure the needed funds, the new dormitory did not become a reality until the twentieth century was well under way, and then it came, not through a wide subscription, but through the generosity of one woman. That story has its place later in this chapter.
Until 1896 the women in charge of girls at Colby were simply house mothers like Mrs. Mortimer. Then, six years after coordination had been established, Mary A. Sawtelle was elected the first Dean of the Women's College at a salary of $1000. She was given faculty status by being designated also Associate Pro- fessor of French in the Women's College. In 1898, with Miss Sawtelle still pre- siding, the catalogue term "Women's College" was changed to "Women's Division." The same issue of the catalogue contained a brief historical sketch.
The Board of Trustees in 1890 adopted the plan proposed by President Small, organizing within the University a college for young men and a coordinate college for young women. The conditions of entrance are identical for the two divisions. Instruction in the different branches pur-
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HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
sued in common by the men and women is given in each division sep- arately, except in the case of lectures, which are given to the students of both divisions simultaneously, and excepting also laboratory work, in which pupils are engaged upon individual problems. In class organiza- tion, rank, prize contests, appointments, and honors, the two divisions are treated independently.
From the opening of Ladies' Hall the women students were kept under strict supervision. The following items, selected from the long list of regulations show how Colby women lived in the 1890's.
It is intended that each building occupied by the women shall be regu- lated upon the model of a well ordered private household. Each such building must be regarded by all students not occupying rooms in it, as a private residence, to be entered only with the consent of the occupants. It has been arranged that a family shall occupy a portion of each house in which the College furnishes rooms for young women. These families are not servants of the students. It is a part of the contract between the College and the families that the latter shall inform the Matron of any disregard of these conditions. Although the Matron has her living quar- ters in Ladies' Hall, she is equally responsible for the young women in all college residences.
Study hours in the women's houses must not be violated by music or any sounds above conversational tones, nor shall any student be inter- rupted by another student for any matter which could be attended to out- side the study hours.
The young women at Ladies' Hall receive on Thursday and Saturday evenings; at Palmer House on Monday and Friday evenings; at Dunn House on Tuesday evening and Wednesday afternoon.
The families in the college buildings agree that the outside doors shall be locked at 10 P. M., and no student occupant is permitted out of the house later than that hour.
In 1899 Miss Sawtelle was succeeded by Grace E. Mathews as Dean. In- creasingly aware that the Women's Division must be more adequately recognized, the Trustees then voted to "appoint from this Board a committee of three, con- sisting of the President of the College and two others, who shall associate them- selves with the Dean of the Women's Division and two of the alumnae, those six to constitute the Committee on the Women's Division, to consider such matters as may be referred to it, to investigate the division, study its interests, and make such reports to the Board as it may think best." At the same time the Trustees were reluctant to spend money for the convenience of the women, because they voted that "it is inexpedient to purchase a couch for the women's waiting room in Champlin Hall." That referred to the room where the girls were permitted to study between classes.
Not until 1898 was the Dean of Women joined by another woman on the teaching staff. Then President Butler recommended the employment of "an in- structor of physical culture for women." Miss Margaret Koch then started the work which now justifies the employment of three persons.
That in the early years the women were unwelcome guests in a men's college, but that the attitude of the male students toward the girls was more favorable
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than the attitude of faculty and trustees, is the recollection of Miss Adelle Gil- patrick, 1892, the distinguished author of the Centennial Pageant. When she was a freshman in 1888-89, Miss Gilpatrick found very strong feeling against the women on the part of the men students. "While women had been admitted, they were barely tolerated. It took a good deal of courage for a girl to go to Colby in those days."
Miss Gilpatrick admitted that the student attitude had changed when she returned to Waterville as a teacher at Coburn in 1896. She said:
Colby then had a Men's Division and a Women's Division. We no longer heard about separate colleges. Dr. Butler accepted the situation, and did nothing to increase the separation of men and women in the classroom. He had come from Chicago, where women were treated educationally equal to men. Furthermore, he had a scholarly and talented sister whose learning he highly respected. When I returned, I found that a change had occurred in the attitude of the men students. The boys were more friendly, but the official attitude of the faculty was still one of mere toleration.
Despite the coldness of the men and despite the lack of a modern dormitory, women continued to enroll in ever increasing numbers. It had been far from the official intent that the Women's College or the Women's Division should ever num- ber as many students as its male counterpart. To stem the rising tide the Trustees voted in 1900 that the women's enrollment should be limited to those who could be accommodated in the college residences for women, unless a girl lived with her parents in the town. In the autumn of the same year the Trustees appointed a Committee on the Future Policy of the College, and the report of that committee relighted the smouldering fires of controversy.
How Colby men felt about the influx of women in the 1890's is revealed in a letter written by Charles K. Merriam, 1875, of Spokane, Washington, to his class- mate, Leslie C. Cornish, a member of that special committee on future policy.
I am sorry that what some wiseacres said way back in the '70's has be- come virtually true in regard to Colby's policy of admitting women; namely, that it would become a women's college. This is as sad as it is true, and the fact having been proven by actual experiment, there remains but one thing to do. If Colby is to be retained as a college for higher education of boys, she must exclude the girls. If the buildings now occu- pied by girls could be used as a nucleus for a separate institution, I would like to see it done, but not under the Colby name. Such a separate women's college should have a different name.
From the final sentences in the above statement it is clear that Miss Gil- patrick was wrong in thinking that the idea of separate colleges did not again arise after 1896. It became a very real issue in President White's administration. It was on the eve of White's inaugural that the special committee presented its report to the Board. That committee had been composed of three trustees: Charles E. Owen, Alfred King, and Leslie C. Cornish. The majority report, signed by Owen and King, said:
We believe that Colby should continue to use its equipment for the higher education of both men and women, and that the number of each
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sex should be limited only by the means of the college to provide suitable accommodations and competent instruction.
We therefore recommend that the system of coordination be continued. As the condition of the College shall allow, the students of each division should become separated in chapel, exercises, recitations, lectures, public and Commencement exercises, and every effort should be made to secure this as soon as possible.
Mr. Cornish, the brilliant lawyer who would later become Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Court, did not agree with his two colleagues. Let us see how Lawyer Cornish argued the opposition case in his minority report.
It is admitted that the number of women applicants is increasing much faster than the number of men, so that in a few years the women will outnumber the men. There are fewer men in college today than at any time in the past ten years. In 1891 there were 137 men; today there are only 123. By contrast, 1891 saw only 47 women in the college; today there are 80.
When the women shall outnumber the men, the latter will feel that they are attending a woman's college, and the number of men will be further lessened. Many desirable young men are already repelled from Colby because of the large number of women here.
What today strikes us as a strange argument was Cornish's legal interpretation of the word "youth." He said: "The institution was chartered as a literary and theological institution for 'the education of youth.' I think that word would be interpreted by any court to signify only young men."
The minority report concluded with these words: "I am not opposed to the higher education of women. On the contrary, I favor it; but I am also in favor of sending our youth to a college for men and our women to a college for women."
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