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

134 ART AND HANDICRAFT throughout the country in the brief space allowed, I have given the story of its development in Massachusetts as enabling me to present it in a more clear and connected form, and also because the roots of the whole system were planted in this colony, which was more truly representative of the future America perhaps than any other. But the march of education, as of empire, “ westward takes it way,” and since the opening of the great regions west of the Alle- ghanies to settlement, the school-house and the school-book—nor- mal school, college, kindergarten, and training school—have gone with the emigrants over the mountains, and like the plants of other climes found congenial soil and grown more vigorously, but they have left behind them many enemies and parasites that checked their growth in their native regions. Especially has the education, of women thus prospered. Co-education of the sexes has found less prejudice to contend with in the West than in the East. The noble stand taken by the University of Michigan, founded in 1837, in opening its doors freely to women, instead of hindering its pros- perity, has helped to place it among the four oldest and best col- leges of the country in rank. Yale College, in Connecticut, one of the most conservative insti- tutions in the country, has lately taken the last step first and invited women to her post-graduate courses. So many other insti- tutions have fallen into this line of progress, that now it has been said by a superintendent of education that “ a college course is looked upon as the rational and proper method of fitting a girl to do her share in the work of the world.” To carry out this last idea, the alumnæ of colleges admitting- women, have formed an association throughout the country to pro- mote education. It numbers 1,458 members, of whom 175 have received master’s or doctor’s degrees, and 31 fellowship; 55 of the members are married women. They have done much to promote many practical measures, and have formed a bureau for the employ- ment of teachers, which has led to a demand for college training for the teachers of all higher schools. It is significant, however, that while the highest salary for a non-resident teacher has been only $1,400, “the best situation has been offered by an insurance company for a private secretary of high attainments in stenography and higher mathematics.” The normal school system has also been extended over the whole Union. There are some twenty-three thousand pupils in the schools of thirty-eight States, and 71 per cent of them are women.