Note 10 — III. THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN THE WESTERN STATES.

As the Cincinnati Wesleyan College is an example of the best that Methodism has done for the separate education of women, so Albert Lea College in Minnesota, founded and controlled by the synod of that State, would appear to be the most ambitious attempt of the Presbyterian Church to aid the separate higher education of women in the West. This college was founded in 1882, and opened to students in 1885. Its president makes for it, with relation to the country west of the Alleghanies, the same claim that the president of the Wesleyan made in its behalf with relation to the entire country, forty-eight years ago. Its president, Dr. R. B. Abbott, writes: “This is the only real college for women west of the Alleghany Mountains. There are female seminaries in abundance, some of which are named college, but are without a full college curriculum and without authority to confer the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts. Albert Lea is a college in fact as well as in name.”

Albert Lea is now in only its fifth year. I have not been able to obtain its latest catalogue. The above quotation from its president’s letter indicates its promise. Should it redeem this promise in its spirit and word, it would be a great blessing to the West; not so much young because women in this part of the country need another college within their easy reach, but because the entire community needs to have the difference between the nominal and the real college continually emphasized.

If Albert Lea draws sharp and visible lines between its standards and tests of scholarship, between its quality and methods of instruction and those of the majority of institutions in the above list, its influence will be potent in securing greater harmony between names and things in matters pertaining to education.