Examinations for Women in 1874.
A Milestone in Women’s Education
[Education]. Harvard University. Examinations for Women in 1874. Cambridge: Welch, Bigelow, and Company, 1873.
8vo; blue wrappers; printed in black. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
First edition of Harvard’s first pedagogical guidelines for women’s education; this book is divided according to subject, and also suggests topics and questions for examination. Women were tested in topics including English, French, Physical Geography, Botany, Physics, Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, History, and either German, Latin or Greek. This copy is likely from a library, with a red ink ID number on the top of the upper wrapper.
According to the finding aid of the Radcliffe College Admissions Office archive,
The Harvard Examinations for Women were sponsored by the Woman's Education Association, Boston with the consent of President Charles W. Eliot from 1874. They were equivalent to the Harvard College entrance examinations and were designed to raise the standard of secondary education for girls, but not designed as admission tests for college.
As noted at the beginning of the pamphlet, “The examinations will be held for the first time in the last half of June, 1874” (p. 3). A preliminary and an advanced test were offered, for women aged seventeen and older. A New York Times article, published in October, 1873, reported that “[a]lready, and fully a half year before the examinations are to be held, very numerous letters of inquiry and application have been received by the authorities.” It went on to explain that examinations were held at testing sites throughout the country – “[e]ven far-off Texas will send its representatives” – and remarked on the variety of subjects offered to women for study.
A typical examination women would have encountered for “Political Economy,” for example, was twenty-six questions focused on Fawcett’s Manual for Political Economy and Blanqui’s Histoire de l’Economie Politique en Europe (pp. 70-71), or, for Latin, questions on the first three books of Virgil’s Aeneid. Once they passed their tests, women were able to acquire a certification verifying they passed either a preliminary or advanced examination from Harvard.
The Radcliffe College Admissions Office finding aid continues,
The Harvard Examinations for Women were sponsored by the Woman's Education Association, Boston with the consent of President Charles W. Eliot from 1874. They were equivalent to the Harvard College entrance examinations and were designed to raise the standard of secondary education for girls, but not designed as admission tests for college. They were administered by the WEA in four locations: Boston (later Cambridge), New York, Philadelphia and Cincinnati. After the establishment of the Harvard Annex they served as admission exams to the Annex and in 1884, the Annex took over their management. By 1906, the College Entrance Examination Board exam was an alternative route for college admission, and in 1916 the CEEB exam in four subjects along with the school record became the sole admissions test. From 1874 until 1916 Harvard professors graded the Harvard exams for women. A protest from President Lowell (see RG I, ser. 12) over this, was one factor in the discontinuation of the scheme and the transfer to the CEEB.
This booklet represents a groundbreaking advancement in women’s education; it’s likely it would have been distributed to educators and examination administers.
(#10105)
http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch01142
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F01E4D6163DE43BBC4151DFB6678388669FDE
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