University of Virginia Library

XVI. The Students—Admission of Women, Continued

In December, 1913, in anticipation of the discussion
which the reintroduced bill was expected to arouse at the
approaching session of the General Assembly, the
Visitors expressed their willingness to listen to a debate
on the merits of the question involved; and an invitation
was sent out to prominent supporters and opponents of
the measure to be present and to speak at the next meeting
of the Board. The arguments offered on this occasion
are worthy of being summarized as showing the
differences in the opinions bearing upon the subject in
controversy. President Alderman's convictions were
submitted in the form of a letter. "The coordinate college,"
he wrote, "would assure (1) economy of force;
(2) unity of effort; (3) a better understanding between
the men leaders and the women leaders in social effort.
To women themselves will come from such association
with men a certain tradition of honor and breadth, a certain
habit of courage and thought, a certain discipline of
the mind, which will greatly tend to fit them for the uses

of freedom." "Princeton University and the University
of Virginia," he continued, "were the only seats of
learning of the first order in the United States which
had undertaken no responsibility for the higher education
of women. This attitude of aloofness might be
assumed without censure by a privately endowed independent
institution like Princeton, but could the same
position be safely held by a State University, the creature
and the servant alike of the people? "The reply
was an emphatic negative.

Mrs. Mary Branch Munford, who may be correctly
called the Joan of Arc of the movement for the higher
education of women in Virginia,—a champion who was
never daunted by an army of opponents, and never dismayed
by a world of difficulties,—took up the argument
where President Alderman had left it. Jefferson's
plan of a university, intermediate college, and primary
school, she said in substance, had been realized, so far
as men were concerned, by the growth of the public high
school. For them, the University had become the capstone
of the public school system. But not for women.
For every boy who finished the course in the high school,
there were two girls who also completed it. Where
were these innumerable couples to obtain the advanced
training necessary to fit them adequately to be high
school teachers, social workers, competent mothers?
The women only asked that the University should be
the capstone of their educational system as well as the
capstone of that of men, as it was now.

The State, Mrs. Munford continued, had been appropriating
one hundred thousand dollars less for the support
of the female normal schools than for the support
of the various institutions then in existence for the
training of persons of the male sex. Virginia stood in

the category of Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, and New
Jersey, from the fact that she, like them, provided no
collegiate education for women. Could she really afford
to provide such education by founding an independent
institution, in which every facility would have to be built
up from the ground? But even if she could, why erect
such an institution when there was the University, with
its administrative force, its teaching staff, its library,
and its laboratories, all in operation? It was one of the
advantages of the proposed coordinate college at Charlottesville
that it would make possible a stricter degree
of economy than an independent college elsewhere could
do, simply because it would have available for its own use
the various instrumentalities already in the service of
another seat of learning. In addition, the coordinate college
would be able at once to share in the traditions of
scholarship, and in the prestige of academic achievement,
which had been accumulated by the older centre of culture.
It was the influence of these subtle possessions which
had attracted to the University of Virginia professors of
the highest order of acquirements. Could a new independent
female college, without a large endowment,
hope to secure that class of teachers? Certainly not.
What was needed, as well as what was desired, was a
college standing off to itself far enough to ensure absolute
privacy for its students, and yet not so remote from the
University as to impair the efficiency of the teachers
who would lecture in both institutions, or to cause
serious inconvenience to the students in using the
common utilities.

Professor James M. Page described the pecuniary
advantages which would result from the establishment
of a coordinate college. "The principal financial saving
in having the Woman's College located near the

University," said he, "will be in securing an adequate
teaching staff at a comparatively low rate. None of
the present full professors of the University could undertake
to give courses in the Woman's College in
addition to what they are already doing. Instead, however,
of employing an adjunct professor of a certain
subject, paying him fifteen hundred dollars a year, the
University might join with the Woman's College and
employ an able full professor at three thousand dollars,
the University paying one half the salary, and the
Woman's College the other half. This full professor
could do at the University of Virginia the adjunct
professor's work, and at the Woman's College, the full
professor's work. With the aid of an instructor, that
particular subject could be cared for. Pay him eight
hundred dollars. Thus fifteen hundred, added to eight
hundred, would get full work instead of paying three
thousand dollars. The second saving would be in
having one president instead of a woman president besides
at five thousand. The Woman's College could be
operated through a dean who could give one-half of
his time to teaching. One bursar and one registrar
could serve both institutions."

The speech in opposition to the founding of a coordinate
college was delivered by Murray M. McGuire, an
alumnus of ability and prominence, whose exceptional
loyalty to the institution was known to all. He dissented
from the opinion held by the President and the
Rector, and many other interested persons, that the
adoption of the coordinate college project was the only
practical means of driving away the spectre of coeducation
from the University class-rooms. He had
employed all the powers and energies at his command
to discredit the several bills on the legislative calendar,

and the argument which we now repeat in substance was
the one which he had successfully put forward, and was
to continue to reiterate, before the committees of the
General Assembly. It was the strongest that was
offered on that side of the controversy.

The University of Virginia, he said, had been a man's
college from the beginning, and as such it had won all
its extensive reputation. Its tradition of scholarship,
its form of administration,—both grew out of the fact
that it was founded for the instruction of men, and to
encourage the association of men with men. The most
important feature of its social polity was the Honor
System. This could not be prolonged on its present
footing, or on any footing at all, should the Woman's
College be affiliated with the University. The Faculty
would have to pass new laws touching that system; and
the more such laws adopted, the more serious, in the
students' judgment, would become the encroachment on
their rights. The principle of self-government could
not fail to be enfeebled and undermined, since it would be
impossible, in actual practice, to apply the rule with the
same degree of strictness to the members of both sexes.
Furthermore, the need of economy would be certain to
augment as the demand for new buildings, more professors,
and an enlarged administration grew with the increase
in the size of the student body. In order to meet
this need, coordinate education would, in the end, be
forced to merge and disappear in coeducation. To what
resources could the State look-for the fund that would be
required for a double number of professors, salaries, dormitories
lecture-rooms, expenses, and repairs of all
sorts? Could not this difficulty be overcome by the
adoption of coeducation? Unquestionably. Nor would

there be the same insurmountable objections to such coalescence
as in the case of the schools for the two races.

Necessarily, the atmosphere of the University would
be altered by the proximity of a woman's college, for
the former institution would be theirs as much as it
would be the male students', even if they should attend
lectures in different halls or should occupy separate
living quarters. It would be neither a woman's world
nor a man's world,—rather it would be an atmosphere
of a mixed character and of no distinction. It was
different with the coordinate colleges now in existence,
for, without exception, they were situated in cities. The
significant fact had been noted that the unaffiliated
woman's seminaries were far more numerously attended
than these annexes. It was not accurate to say that
Virginia women were registered in the female colleges
of the North in larger groups than Virginia men were
registered in the male colleges situated in that region.
There would be no advantage to women in possessing in
common the University's staff of teachers, as these
teachers were already overworked. How could they
be rightly expected to prepare for two classes? Who
would correct the additional exercises of all sorts, and
also the voluminous examination papers?

Not one of the objections marshalled by Mr. McGuire
was devoid of a solid foundation in fact or reason.
But the logic of the position taken by him, and those
persons who shared his opinion, was that either an
independent institution must be erected for women, or
they must be denied all enjoyment of the ripe educational
facilities possessed by men in Virginia. If the need of
economy, as he said, would convert coordinate education,
in time, into coeducation, then the same need was equally

certain to stand in the way of the building of an independent
college for the members of the female sex.
The ultimate inference of that line of argument seemed
to be that Virginian women must remain indefinitely
without the advantages of that higher education which
even Mr. McGuire and his supporters acknowledged
they had the moral, if not the legal, right to claim and
enjoy.

When the debate came to an end, the Board of
Visitors announced that they would reserve their decision
until the ensuing January 5 (1914). When they reassembled
on that date, they adopted a resolution to
the following effect: that it was due the young women
of the State that they should have the amplest opportunity
to obtain the highest education which the Commonwealth
could afford to give; and that the surest way of
creating such an opportunity for their benefit was to
found a coordinate college in affiliation with the University
of Virginia. They recommended that, before
this step should be taken, a commission should be
appointed by the General Assembly to report upon the
cost of erecting such an institution; and, on the same
occasion, it was also suggested that the site should be
chosen on the eastern side of Charlottesville. The
object in view in this proposal was partly to enable the
projected college "to realize a definite individuality,"
as the President of the University expressed it; and
partly to allay the somewhat gratuitous apprehensions
of those alumni who thought that the mere presence of
so many young women would diminish the dignity of the
older institution.

When the bill for the establishment of the coordinate
college came up again in the General Assembly, during
the winter of 1913–14, the former arguments used in

support of, or in opposition to, the measure, were again
submitted. The wishes of the female advocates of that
measure were succinctly stated by Mrs. William G.
Stanard. "The kind of college wanted," said she, "will
consist of a group of buildings, containing class-rooms,
dormitories, and recreation halls, within its own grounds,
about half a mile from the University. The college
will be a part, and under the control, of the University,
but with such women superintendents and leaders as
shall be found necessary to be resident within it and
control its students. The college will have its own
name, its own individuality, its own life, but will share,
separately from the male students, the teaching force
and the laboratories of the University to such a degree
as may be found possible without detriment to the interests
of the male students. The coordinate college will
thus have the stamp which able professors have given the
University; share the sentiments and historical interest
created by a century of background; and breathe a
measure of the atmosphere of ideality that is one of the
characteristics of Jefferson's creation."

Such was the reasonable and temperate position
taken by thoughtful women at that stage of the controversy.
The bill, however, was defeated, as we have
already mentioned. Again, in the winter of 1915–16,
the same measure was listed on the calendar of the
General Assembly. A few weeks earlier, the Board of
Visitors had recommended that legislative authority
should be obtained for the establishment of a coordinate
college just so soon as sufficient funds should become
available for its erection and maintenance. It was
expected that the State would appropriate one hundred
thousand dollars for this purpose, while another one
hundred thousand would be collected in the form of

private subscriptions. The President of the University
again summed up the advantages to accrue to it from the
projected college: "First, it would, through that
college, have its opportunities of service increased
enormously; second, it would be able to reach with its
help one-half of the community which it had never pretended
to reach before; third, it would become an object
of constructive interest to a great multitude of new
homes in Virginia, the South, and the United States;
fourth, it would, in time, create new departments
peculiar to its own life,—like art, domestic economies,
museums, and lecture foundations; and, fifth, the new
duties imposed upon it would foster in it new energies,
new latent powers, new sympathies,—so that, drawing
near to the whole community, it would become a far
more useful, a far more inspiring institution, for it
would touch, with creative hand, all sides of State and
national life."

These arguments, pertinent as they were, failed of
their mark, for the new bill for the authorization of the
coordinate college was again defeated. The proposed
measure simply could not ride down the opposition of
those alumni who were convinced that coordinate
education was the first stage to coeducation, or the
hostility of those persons who thought that the sum to
be appropriated could more properly go to the improvement
of the primary schools. So far, the project had
not been directly patronized by the University. The
committee of women, apparently disheartened, submitted,
in December, 1917, to the Board of Visitors, a new bill
for approval; and they urged that body to father the
measure openly at the approaching session of the
General Assembly. During the discussion of the provisions
of this bill by the Visitors, it was disclosed that,

of their entire number, ten altogether, nine were convinced
that it should not be pressed so long as the war
lasted.

The committee of women were not in sympathy with
this seemingly reasonable view,—they expressed the
opinion that the coordinate college needed the University
as much in the time of war as in the time of peace.
What institution could train women for all branches of
war-work as successfully as the University of Virginia
could do? Which could better prepare them for the
radical economic innovations which were certain to
follow the close of the conflict? On the other hand,
the University needed the coordinate college. Was not
the whole row of dormitories in East Range locked up
because so many young men had been drawn away into
the army? Were not the lecture-halls half empty for
the same reason? If there should be a lack of room
within or near the precincts to accommodate all the female
students, could not board and lodging be obtained
in Charlottesville?

But the Visitors could not be persuaded to recall their
decision. They believed as firmly now as before in the
practical wisdom of establishing the coordinate college,
but they were convinced that nothing was to be accomplished
at this hour by their complying with the request
of the women's committee. That committee, therefore,
determined to go ahead independently. The bill, which,
through their action, found its way into the General
Assembly in the winter of 1918 seems to have stirred up
a feeling of unexampled bitterness. One observer informs
us that this emotion was fanned into such a flame
that the fundamental academic issues of the controversy
were forgotten. "The opposing contestants no longer
see things in a clear and detached way," he said, "and the

time has come to drop the matter until a newer vision
can be obtained." And so apprehensive were the
University authorities of the lengths to which this
exasperated sentiment might go, in the settlement of
the controversy, that the President, in a letter to R.
Walton Moore, earnestly counselled that all legislation
bearing on the admission of women to the University
should be confined to the field of the professional and
post-graduate courses.

There was sound reason for this prudent advice. By
1918, the argument which had been used by hostile
alumni that the coordinate college would divert to itself
funds that ought to be reserved for the country
schools had produced such a temper in the members of
the General Assembly that many of them were convinced
that coeducation was the cheaper system, and, therefore,
would interfere less with any appropriation which
they might wish to make for the public schools of the
State. This impression had really exercised an opposing
influence from the beginning of the controversy.
In a letter to Mr. Gordon, the rector of the
University, written as early as 1913, a prominent
citizen had condemned the coordinate college bill on
the ground that the Commonwealth possessed thousands
of illiterate children who, for their own tuition, were
pitifully in need of the solicited funds. "Should such
facilities be denied them," he asked, "simply to gratify
the hobby of a few women who were aspiring to establish
a school of higher training for women?"

The enemies of the coordinate college bill among
those alumni who were taking the leading part in the
discussions of the legislative committees still positively
refused to admit that the coordinate college was the
only means available to ward off coeducation, either in

whole or in part. But nothing in their arguments had
tended to shake the convictions of the President of the
University. It fretted him to think, he wrote in 1918,
that the University might, by that time, have had the coordinate
college in full operation, to offer the amplest assurance
that coeducation would always be excluded. A
modification in the attitude of the committee of women
was plainly indicated in a remark of Mrs. Munford's recorded
in March, 1919. "I am more and more impressed,"
she said in a letter to President Alderman,
"with the wisdom of getting the Board of Visitors behind
a proposition for opening the graduate and professional
work of the University on a full coeducational
basis as our next move." Ultimately, this policy was
successful. In 1920–21, for the first time in its long
history, women students were registered in the graduate
and professional departments of the University of
Virginia. In the meanwhile, coeducation, without
limitations, had been introduced within the precincts of
the College of William and Mary.