COLLEGES FOR WOMEN, institu tions of higher learning, designed to give women practically the same advantages of instruction and research as are af forded to men. They are of three types: independent or separate colleges; co-or dinate or affiliated colleges, connected more or less closely with an older college for men, and coeducational colleges.
I. Independent colleges for women of the same grade as those for men are peculiar to the United States. The ear liest foundation was Mount Holyoke Col lege, opened as a seminary in 1837; re organized as a college in 1893. The first charter for a collegiate institution found ed only for women was granted Elmira College in 1855. The four colleges, Vas sar, opened in 1861; Smith, in 1875; Wellesley, in 1875, and Bryn Mawr, in 1885, are ranked among the leading col leges of the United States.
II. The affiliated colleges for women are five: Radcliffe College, at Harvard University, opened in 1879; Barnard Col lege, at Columbia University, in 1889; Woman's College, of Brown University, in 1892; College for Women, of Western Reserve University, in 1888; Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, at Tulane University, in 1886. In all these colleges the standards of entrance and gradua tion are the same as in the men's col.
leges with which they are affiliated, and usually the instructors are the same.
III. The prevailing system of educa tion in the United States for both men and women began in Oberlin College, in Ohio, founded in 1833, chartered as a college in 1850, built "for the education of both sexes and all colors." Antioch College, also in Ohio, followed in 1853, by admitting both men and women on equal terms. In 1900 every State uni versity in the country, except those of Virginia, Georgia, and Louisiana, ad mitted women.
Many professional schools and colleges have been opened to women in theology, law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, schools of technology and agriculture, and the number of women entering these professions is increasing rapidly.
In Europe the advance in this direc tion has been much slower. The first woman's college in Cambridge, England, was begun in 1869. Now Oxford and Cambridge give large opportunities to women, but do not confer upon them their degrees. With these exceptions, all the greater English and Scotch uni versities and colleges in Great Britain and in her colonies give their degrees to women.