e. Some of the earliest of the academies admitted
girls as well as boys from the beginning, and some soon became
exclusively female. When it became evident from the work of the
academies that sex differences were not of as great importance as had
been supposed, it was not a long step to higher education. Some of the
academies added a year or two to the curriculum and took on the more
dignified name of "seminary." In this transition period the influence
of a few great personalities was profound, and even a brief sketch of
the history of women's education cannot omit to mention the splendid
work of Emma Willard and Mary Lyon. Mrs. Willard was an exponent of
the belief that freedom of development for the individual was the
greatest desideratum for humanity. She not only diffused this idea in
her addresses and writings but tried to utilize it in the
establishment in 1814 of the Troy Female Seminary, which was the
forerunner of many others throughout the country. Mary Lyon was rather
the representative of the religious influence in education, the
embodiment of the belief that to do one's duty is the great purpose in
life. In 1837 she founded Mount Holyoke Seminary, which had an
influence of inestimable value in sending well-equipped women
throughout the country a teachers. The importance of this service was
particularly evident during the period of the Civil War.

Although a number of excellent institutions for women bearing the name
of college were founded before the Civil War, the first one of really
highest rank was Vassar College, which opened its doors to students in
1865. Smith and Wellesley were founded in 1875, and Bryn Mawr in 1885.
These four colleges are in every respect the equal of the best
colleges for men. They are the most important of a dozen independent
colleges for women, almost all of which are situated in the East. To
establish the independent college was the chief method adopted in the
older parts of the country to solve the problem of women's higher
education, rather than to reorganize colleges for men where
conditions were already established.

=The development of coeducation=

The independent college is not the method that has prevailed in the
West. When the inspiration to higher education for women arrived west
of the Alleghanies, conditions, especially lack of resources,
practically necessitated coeducation. Oberlin, founded in 1834, was
the first fully coeducational institution of college grade