omen, especially in the Middle West, a
discontent with existing conditions and a deep desire to know.

From the time of this awakening in the thirties and forties, two lines
of educational activity for the advancement of woman's education
steadily developed. One was the effort of women to educate themselves in
distinctly women's schools; and the other was the movement by which
existing institutions for boys and men were gradually opened to girls
and women. These two lines of activity still remain distinct, and not
always sympathetic with each other's aims.

The effort to establish distinctly women's schools was continued after
the Civil War by Matthew Vassar, who founded in 1861, and opened in
1865, the first adequately endowed and organized college for women in
America. Ten years later, Miss Sophie Smith founded and endowed Smith
College to furnish women "with means and facilities for education equal
to those that are offered in colleges for young men." The institution
was opened in 1875; and in the same year Henry Durant established
Wellesley College.

The last Report of the United States Commissioner of Education shows
that there are now 108 institutions of higher learning to which men are
not admitted; but most of them have modeled themselves so closely upon
men's colleges that they have not been able to work out lines of
distinctive instruction specially fitted to women. One cannot help
feeling that since they do not open their doors to men they should do
something more toward working out an ideal education for women than they
have so far undertaken. When the Association of Intercollegiate Alumnae
met in New York, in the autumn of 1911, its discussions gathered around
the possibility of adding to college courses subjects of special value
to women. Hygiene, biology and sociology were the subjects most favored;
but the matter needs attention from women and men who stand outside the
group dominated by our older college traditions. This movement to
provide distinctive schools for women had brought together, in 1910,
35,714 girl students in private secondary schools and 9,082 women
students in higher institutions of learning.

The second line of development, which sought to open up all existing
schools to girls and women, began when Boston opened a high school for
girls in 1825. New York opened a high school for girls three years
later.

It was in the West, however, that this movement took strongest root and
made