Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission Part 76

In cities the most important movements relate to the physical development of the young and the use of the school machinery for the benefit of persons beyond the limit of school age by means of evening schools, or outside the appointed school hours by means of vacation schools and recreation centers. The most extensive work along these lines is going on in New York City, and formed one of the most instructive features of the exhibit of this great metropolis.

A beginning of continuation schools for the people is seen also in the county agricultural school included in the Wisconsin exhibit. Schools of this type form a prominent feature of the German exhibit and const.i.tute for us at this time the most important lesson of that comprehensive exposition. Apart from the educational lessons, which possibly only appeal to specialists, this exposition marks distinct steps in the realization of the chief end of educational exhibits, namely, the increase of popular interest in ideal purposes through their effective symbolic representation.

ANNA TOLMAN SMITH, _Chairman of time Committee_.

GROUP 2, MISS ANNIE G. MACDOUGAL, CHICAGO, ILL., JUROR.

Under the group heading "Secondary Education," the two cla.s.ses into which it was divided represented: High schools and academies; manual training high schools; commercial high schools. Training and certification of teachers. (Legislation, organization, statistics. Buildings: Plans and models.

Supervision, management, methods of instruction, results obtained.)

Miss MacDougal's report is as follows:

Study of the world's work, as displayed at the St. Louis Exposition, revealed the truth that to-day there is no clear line of demarcation between the work of men and of women. The product of woman's brain or of her hand was there placed side by side with the similar work of man, to be judged upon its merits, not by a standard suggested by limitation and apology. Such a cataloguing was the surest evidence of woman's industrial progress. Her part in art, literature, music--the decorative side of life--has long been granted; what she is capable of doing in the practical business enterprises of modern society is just beginning to be revealed.

My opportunity for observing this phase of woman's work was largely confined to the educational exhibits, where I had the pleasure of serving as a juror, by appointment of the board of lady managers. Owing to the character of the exhibits in the Department of Education, it was impossible to differentiate the work of the men and the women teachers, excepting where the exhibits showed the work of separate inst.i.tutions for the s.e.xes.

A comparison of that kind would be profitable only from a pedagogical point of view and is of minor consideration in our American system of education. Woman's place in the schoolroom is defended by tradition, expediency, and merit; and instead of surrendering in the face of foreign criticism their positions as instructors, women teachers are to-day broadening their field of labor by serving as instructors in many higher inst.i.tutions where a generation since they were not even admitted as students. To-day, in high schools, academies, and colleges, women not only share in the work of instruction, but fill offices of administration as well.

Woman's success in a purely administrative or executive function was what proved most interesting at St. Louis. Many of the State exhibits of the public schools were in charge of women. In each instance I found them well informed on questions of school statistics and eager to be helpful to visitors. It seemed as though these young women felt the distinction of serving in a public capacity and had taken pains to prepare themselves for a creditable performance. The most striking instance of independent and original work was shown in the State exhibit from Minnesota. This exhibit was under the sole charge of Miss Susanne Sirwell, who planned it with the main purpose of exploiting the complete system of manual training adopted in the Minnesota schools. With this plan in view, Miss Sirwell collected the specimens from various schools of the State, supervised the erection of the booth, and installed the displays. As a result, the Minnesota exhibit had a distinct system and unity, was free from useless and c.u.mbrous repet.i.tion, its main idea was readily grasped, and it stood as a memorable proof of one woman's artistic sense of proportion and adequacy.

It was original in conception; it had beauty of color, order, and arrangement, and, as Miss Sirwell herself laughingly boasted, it was one of the two or three exhibits in that huge building which were ready and finished for public inspection on the opening day of the fair.

GROUP 3, MISS MARY B. TEMPLE, KNOXVILLE, TENN., JUROR.

Under the group heading "Higher education" the five cla.s.ses into which it was divided represented: Colleges and universities, scientific, technical, and engineering schools and inst.i.tutions; professional schools; libraries; museums. (Legislation, organization, statistics, buildings, plans and models, curriculums, regulations, methods, administration, investigation, etc.)

Miss Temple reports as follows:

The Educational Department at the World's Fair in St. Louis presented greater progress in woman's work since the Columbian Exposition of 1893 than was shown by any other great division at the exposition.

In regard to an approximate estimate of the proportional number of exhibits by women in the five cla.s.ses of group 3 (higher education) of the Educational Department, I would say that only in the cases of the several large female colleges which installed exhibits at the fair were there special women's exhibits distinct from those of men. In the United States section valuable and important displays were made by Va.s.sar, Bryn Mawr, Woman's College of Baltimore, Smith, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, Pratt Inst.i.tute (New York), Milwaukee-Downer College (Milwaukee), and several lesser women's colleges, while in the English section a wonderfully interesting showing of women's activity in "higher education" was made by the Oxford a.s.sociation for the education of women, including Lady Margaret Hall, Summerville College, St. Hugh Hall, St. Hilda's Hall; by Girton College and Newham College, Cambridge University; by Westfield College and the London School of Medicine for Women of the London University; by Owen's College of the Victoria University of Manchester; by University Hall of the University of St. Andrew, and by Dublin Alexandra College.

In the German section no special exhibit of a woman's department was made by any university or college. According to the German system women's education is carried on side by side with men's.

Women acquiring a leaving certificate from a cla.s.sical gymnasium can matriculate on an equal footing with male students in the universities of Heidelberg, Frieburg, Erlangen, Wurzburg, and Munich. In the other universities, except Munster, by permission of the rector, or under the statutes, women are permitted to hear lectures. In all the German universities there are in attendance many women, either as matriculants or as hearers, ranging from 10 to 200 women at each university.

In the universities of France, Belgium, and j.a.pan a similar plan of educating men and women together exists. But outside the University of Paris, of Louvain and of Tokio, the number of women attending the courses does not compare with the number in attendance at the German, English, and American universities.

Among the lesser nations at the fair, as Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, China, Canada, Sweden, Ceylon, and Cuba, the exhibits so often appearing under the name of college work scarcely represented work in higher education, except in the line of art.

The very fact that at St. Louis women's work was nowhere separated from men's, but was shown side by side with it, was in itself a radical advance in the last eleven years. While this applied to every department of the exposition, it applied with greatest impressiveness to the Department of Higher Education, for this in the past had been set apart as man's special province, though, of course, down through the ages there have been brilliant exceptional cases of women becoming profound students and learned teachers, as Hypatia, Maria Agnesi, and others.

In the five cla.s.ses of group 3 (higher education) in the Department of Education there was really less scope and a more restricted field for women than in any other group of the Educational Department. Of the five cla.s.ses, to glance hastily over them--i.e., cla.s.s 7, colleges and universities; cla.s.s 8, scientific, technical, and engineering schools; cla.s.s 9, professional schools; cla.s.s 10, libraries; cla.s.s 11, museums--only in cla.s.s 7 and cla.s.s 10 has woman gained for herself any distinctly marked footing. In the other three cla.s.ses, the hold she has acquired, from the very nature of the case, has been limited, but in every cla.s.s of group 1 (elementary education), of group 2 (secondary education), of group 4 (special education in fine arts), of group 6 (special education in commerce and industry), of group 7 (education of defectives), of group 8 (special forms of education, text-books, etc.), she is the controlling force, and is very strong.

Inasmuch, however, as higher education has been considered less naturally her field, the steady advance she is making in it is the more noticeable and more striking, as shown at the World's Fair of 1904. In replying to the question of an approximate estimate of the proportionate number of exhibits by women in the five cla.s.ses of group 3, I may venture to say it was near 37 per cent of the domestic and foreign exhibits, estimating the percentage of work exhibited by men and women as probably proportional to the respective number of each s.e.x registered.

(See monographs on Education in United States. See monographs on History and Origin of Public Education in Germany. List of British Exhibits, Departments H and O.)

In giving the nature of the exhibits by women in the department of higher education we gladly state that they differed little from the exhibits by men, as the requirements called for in the circular of the department were identically the same for both.

It happened, however, possibly from being younger inst.i.tutions and having less to show in the way of literature, libraries, histories, etc.; partly, also, from having a less liberal supply of money; also partly from a smaller sense of ambition and rivalry with other inst.i.tutions, that the exhibits of Va.s.sar, Bryn Mawr, and the other women's colleges were smaller, less costly, and less elaborate both in materials and in installation than those of the men's colleges. The exhibits consisted largely of photographs, diagrams of statistics, prospectuses, and reports. In the case of the English women's colleges the showing was quite on a par with those of the men's universities, as they were in every case a part of the same. The American women's colleges in addition showed charts, department work, special work, histories, publications, and models of buildings and grounds.

In the lesser foreign countries exhibits of art and needlework, though sometimes questionably under the head of higher education, were thus entered by the so-called colleges. And while these could not be measured by the same standard as the English and American women's college work it was, however, valuable and instructive as showing the emanc.i.p.ation and progress of women in lands where until within a few years her opportunities have been most restricted and as presenting the liberal spirit toward her which now animates the civilized world. Especially in j.a.pan and Mexico the women's displays were novel and interesting.

I am glad to pay tribute to the department work of the Woman's College, Baltimore, and to the advanced special work of Bryn Mawr.

As to what advancement was shown in the progress of women, I would emphatically answer that advancement was unmistakably apparent in every line of women's educational work--advancement not alone along old lines, but along new as well. One of the greatest steps forward made by woman in the last eleven years, since the Columbian Exposition, has been the throwing open to her of the doors of nearly all of the old established men's colleges, giving her in every country, in every State, and in nearly every large town almost the same free and easy access to learning enjoyed by her brothers. Coeducation and coeducational inst.i.tutions have rendered it possible for every woman desirous of self-improvement to find the highest advantages immediately at hand, only waiting for her to help herself.

Domestic science and household economics are new sciences developed under the active interest of college women in the last twenty-three years. Their real hold upon the public, however, and their enlarged avenue for bettering the home, the food, the health of the nation, and consequently its usefulness, happiness, and prosperity has come within the last eleven years.

In all lines of art, from the fine arts of painting and sculpture to the practical and useful work of design in its multifold forms, women's advance is almost phenomenal. In the sciences of astronomy, medicine, physics, and psychology she has been far from inactive during the last half decade. In teaching, in all its branches from kindergarten and primary work through all the grades of intrauniversity training to specialization in various lines, she has achieved her most striking success. In the future her usefulness will be more and more increased in this her beloved profession. The number of women teachers is rapidly increasing, while the number of men is decreasing, and more and more women's college graduates are employed in the various chairs of colleges and universities.

While the educational exhibits at St. Louis gave, in a general way, a complete presentation of women's part in the progress of the world, there was far less shown of the work of foreign women than was desired in order to make a really satisfactory and just comparative estimate of the relative advance of the women of our own country and those abroad. In fact, the exhibits of foreign women were too limited to allow of any comparison between the two.

Women's work in art, in school organization and management--exemplified in the control of the great women's colleges--her achievements in teaching, in research (historical and scientific), in medicine unmistakably show that she is able to do and is doing unusual and far more capable work than she has ever done previously. Her p.r.o.nounced success in serious literature, as well as in lighter literature, would alone demonstrate this.

The work of women at this exposition differed from that of the past in having extended into many new lines, whereas in quality it is greatly superior to anything they have ever before accomplished. A few years ago the scientific and professional woman was the exception, to-day she is the rule. Either working alone or a.s.sisting some great man, woman is found everywhere. To cite instances, I refer to the able a.s.sistance Mrs. Hedrick, a Va.s.sar alumna, gives to Professor Newcomb in his calculations on the moon; to the brilliant aid rendered by the wealthy and gifted young American girl of Leland Stanford and Johns Hopkins, Dr. Annie G. Lyle, to the famous Dr. Theodore Escherich, of Vienna University, in his important expert medical researches, which have resulted in the famous scarlet-fever serum, the discovery of Doctor Moser with the help of Doctor Lyle. As we have said, women's work has not only grown in extent, but in variety, in complexity, in greater thoroughness and ambition, and especially in the greater appreciation it receives from the world.

Woman's splendidly accomplished successes as seen at the World's Fair give impulse to her efforts in every line. a.s.sured of sympathy, encouragement is imparted to other women to take up science, teaching, the professions. Formerly almost insurmountable obstacles were encountered by women. To-day the open door to triumph, according to her ability, along almost every line is hers. In primary education, in all university training, in economic arts, in all sanitary studies, in philanthropic work, and in much of the practical part of medicine the Louisiana Purchase Exposition showed women's efforts in a varied light of helpfulness and suggestion for the future.

The juxtaposition of man's and woman's work was suggestive to men, and at the same time will incite women to more and better endeavors along new lines. It will enable her to acquire more scientific ways and a better preparation for the business world.

It will teach her a saving of energy and greater self-reliance.

The incalculable advantage of women's work for the first time having a place side by side with men's can not be overestimated.

It enabled women to see at a glance their own weaknesses, and at the same time presented to the view of others their strong points in the most telling manner. The jury of higher education did not ask on examining an exhibit whether it was men's or women's work. Each exhibit was judged entirely on its individual merit as presented. And if the universities and great men's colleges (and in many cases these included women's work) received a higher grade of award than did the great women's colleges, it was because, in the opinion of the jury, the equipment of the former and the larger showing in the way of actual work and appliances ent.i.tled them to the award, rather than that it was the respective work of either men or women. But I may say, to show the absolutely unbiased mind of the jury, that women's work in many lines came in for even greater appreciation than did that of the men.

By no means would the results have been better if their work had been separately exhibited. A far greater importance was a.s.sumed by women's work in the placing of it side by side with men's work. Thus displayed, it received precisely equal attention and a more liberal study undoubtedly than it would have done if placed alone.

At Chicago and various other expositions it was relegated to a far less desirable position by itself. The very fact of its isolation in a building designated the Women's Building set it apart as a different and inferior effort and created a prejudice against it.

Women's work was far more varied at St. Louis and more representative of different nations. The so-called strictly feminine, viz, art and needlework, pottery, decoration, libraries of books by women authors, attractive parlors, displaying women's taste, which largely filled the charming women's buildings at Chicago, at Atlanta, at the Tennessee Centennial, at Omaha, and at Buffalo, were unquestionably showy and striking displays. In St. Louis, on the contrary, women's exhibits mingled with men's work in the serious and practical enterprises of the day and appealed to the same audiences. Woman appeared as she really is, the fellow-student, the fellow-citizen, and partner of man in the affairs of life.

Manufacturers were not asked to state the percentage of woman's work which entered into the manufacture of their special exhibit, nor did I have any way of forming any estimate on this point; neither were they shown in any manner that would indicate in any way or enable the investigator to distinguish what part had been performed by women.

Considering all kinds of work involved in the exhibits of the Department of Education, whether installed by women alone or in conjunction with men, the taste, completeness, ingenuity of the same, the clerical work during the duration of the fair--in other words, the whole connection of woman with carrying out the administration of the Department of Education--it may be considered that 50 per cent of the work was performed by women.

The German section was entirely under the supervision of men, as were most, if not all, of the foreign exhibits. But women were everywhere else omnipresent in charge of the Educational Department.

In the awards to higher education I would say that upward of 20 per cent went to women exhibitors. (For percentages and other suggestions I am indebted to Dr. J.J. Conway, St. Louis University, also a member of jury of higher education.)

We point with pride to the discovery of radium by Madame Currie, of Paris, as both a new, useful, and distinctive work of woman.

Columns might be written on this invention alone. The work of Madame Currie was certainly original. Miss Annie E. Sullivan's new methods of teaching the deaf-blind, as in the case of Helen Keller, gives her the honor not only of prominence as an educator of defectives, but also of inventing a very new and valuable method of instruction. The methods of teaching defectives are the wonder of educators, and will probably be effective of marvelous results in the near future. The highest praise must also be bestowed upon the work of Mrs. Shaw and Miss Fisher, of Boston, and of Mrs. Putnam and Mary McCullough, as the promoters of kindergarten work. Kindergarten work is self-eloquent.

Credit is due woman for her conception of the idea of traveling libraries, which have so effectively brought cheer and recreation, and even reform, to many restricted lives. The libraries of the Colonial Dames and everything along the line of reading circles, literary clubs, etc., have had their inception in the brains of women. Traveling libraries have been a boon to many a small town. Though it is impossible to digress in woman's work in the industries, the Newcomb Pottery, made at the Sophia Newcomb College, Louisiana, should be mentioned, all of which is done by women educated at that school of design.

I commend the ample and reliable literature on all these subjects, as a better source of information on the merits of these inventions that can be shown in this brief report. But most of women's work in the educational section, the school work, art work, etc., was an improvement along already existing lines. But along household and economic lines women, during the last ten years, have done original thinking and much investigation. And the studies in sanitary chemistry, the attainments as a scholar and scientist of Mrs. Ellen C.

Richards, Va.s.sar, 1870, stand out conspicuously, having won for her the respect of the world.

The question of the value of the product or process, as measured by its usefulness or beneficent influence on mankind, is so vast that a flood of answers sweep over one, embracing the whole field of women's usefulness and the whole realm of education.

The usefulness of the discovery of radium has scarcely been estimated as yet, nor has the beneficent influence of teaching defectives, and of many of the household inventions been fully enjoyed up to this time. The question involves much of the scientific success of the future along both physical, mental, moral, and educational lines, and, judging by the past, we feel a.s.sured that many brilliant achievements will owe their origin and accomplishment to women.

There was naturally nothing lacking in the merits of the installation of any exhibit presented by women, nor in the taste manifested in the placing of the same. The women's college booths were always effectively arranged and sometimes made up for the lack of range of exhibit by unusual artistic grouping and tasteful placing of the displays.