Note 26 — Front matter

Colleges for women draw their students from private schools to a much greater extent than do coeducational colleges; and it was the very great inefficiency of these schools that induced the earlier colleges for women to organize preparatory departments of their own. The entrance examinations of the women’s colleges are the only influence for good that has ever been brought to bear upon the feeble teaching of these schools. In 1874, before the numbers of women wishing to prepare for college were great enough to influence the private schools, a plan for raising their standard was devised by the Woman’s education association of Boston, at whose request Harvard university for 7 years conducted a series of examinations modeled on the Oxford and Cambridge higher local examinations which have been such an efficient agency in England. Committees of women were organized in different cities, and an attempt was made to induce girls’ schools to send up candidates for these examinations. In 7 years, however, only 106 candidates offered themselves for the preliminary examination, and only 36 received a complete certificate. In 1881 the entrance examinations of Harvard college were substituted for these special women’s examinations, in the hope that the interest in reaching the standard set by Harvard for its entering class of men might add to the number of candidates; but even after this change was made comparatively few candidates took the examinations, and in 1896 the effort was discontinued; the Harvard examinations have been used from that time onward simply as the ordinary entrance examinations of Radcliffe college. In Great Britain the Cambridge higher local examinations are taken annually by about 900 women. There was needed some such pressure as is brought to bear by pupils determined to go to college to induce private schools to add college graduates to their staff of teachers. The requirements for admission to Bryn Mawr college have to my personal knowledge been a most important factor in introducing college-bred women as teachers into all the more important private girls’ schools of Philadelphia and in many private schools elsewhere; and every college for women drawing students from private schools has the same experience. On the other hand, every relaxation in the requirements for admission, such as the practice of admitting on certificate adopted by Vassar, Wellesley and Smith, tends to deprive girls’ schools of a much needed stimulus. Radcliffe and Barnard, like Bryn Mawr, insist upon examination for admission and decline to accept certificates.