Boston,
Massachusetts, is a lovely city, and the nearby town of Cambridge is
the home of one
of the most prestigious universities in the U.S., Harvard. Elizabeth
Cabot Agassiz (born Elizabeth Cary on this date in 1822) lived in Boston,
and when her sister married a Harvard professor, Elizabeth began to
hang out with a group of professors and other intellectuals in
Cambridge. That's where she met her husband, a Swiss scientist named
Louis Agassiz.
Elizabeth
Agassiz worked with her husband at his scientific research and
accompanied him on his expeditions. She also started a school for
girls, and her husband and other Harvard professors taught classes
there. After her husband died, Agassiz published several books on
natural history and, in 1894, helped start Radcliffe College for
girls and women. She was the college's first president.
 |
| Helen Keller was one of Radcliffe's most famous graduates. |
In
the first half of the 19th century, women were not allowed
to attend colleges or universities, although there were a few
all-female academies. After the Civil War, some colleges began to be
coed—which means men and women together on the same college campus.
Some women thought that “separate but equal colleges” were never
really equal. For many years, most universities remained all-male, and
starting a nearby “sister” college was the best option to help
women get a university education. Radcliffe, the “sister” college to
Harvard, was one of the “Seven Sisters colleges.”
These
days, most colleges are coed, but there are still about 60 women's colleges
and three non-religious men's colleges. (There are many religious
schools that are all-male.) Radcliffe became a part of Harvard University, starting in 1977, with full integration achieved by 1999.
What
do you think? What are the advantages and disadvantages to having
single-sex colleges, as opposed to coed colleges? Can separate but
equal work?
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on this Date:
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