Art and Handcraft in the Woman's Building
of the World's Columbian Exposition

126 ART AND HANDICRAFT place. The value of Mrs. Shaw’s work can hardly be overesti- mated, it is so far-reaching in its wisdom and its influence. Miss Blow has done a similar work for St. Louis and the West. The “grammar schools” have always furnished the most important part of instruction to the mass of people in Massachu- setts. They were open to girls, but under varying conditions. The question of co-education of the sexes was differently settled, according to the prejudices of school boards or the local condition of the school. At the present time great differences in this respect may be found. In some towns all the schools are alike open to both sexes; in others the two unite in the primary school, are separated in the grammar schools, and come together again in the high school. The high schools are generally open to both sexes, except in. the old part of Boston, where ancient prejudice leads to the duplication of the high anet Latin schools, and in some towns where an endowed school for girls was already in existence. While the public schools were thus progressing, both in their methods of work and their relation to women, it would be unfair not to recognize the service done by many large private schools and academies, some of which have retained public confidence for many years, advancing with the demands of the times. Without detracting from the merits of others, I would specially name the Mt. Holyoke Seminary, founded by Mary Lyon in the western part of the State. This was originally established in the interest of the (so called) Evangelical churches, and its object was understood to be to train women for mission life, as the wives of missionaries going out to foreign service. But, however much this purpose narrowed the scope of instruc- tion in its earlier days, the institution has broadened and liberal- ized until now it has lately received the charter of a college, and its graduates are often highly accomplished in branches not specially adapted to work among the heathens. Its original plan, like that of Wellesley College, contemplated the union of industrial labor with study, and so made a valuable contribution toward the discussion of the question now so promi- nent—industrial education. The academies generally admitted both sexes, and thus naturally solved the question of co-education. President Eliot once gave it as his opinion that the improve- ment of these endowed academies was the best method of giving women all the higher education they needed. But there was a dangerous tendency in them to desultory work and a want of