The Iowa Alumnus Volume 4 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ...young men. This would indicate that young women are taking advantage of the opportunities offered, which goes to prove that if given a chance for an education they will accept it and this in spite of the fact that University Education for women has been for several decades in the experimental stage with a strong constituency of influential opponents to it still existing. Many arguments have been presented against it. The consideration of the physical condition of women has been made a prominent reason. They are said to be physically unable to endure the strain of mental discipline incident to University training. It is not many years since a tract called "Sex in Education" attempted to prove that college education destroys the health of young women and makes invalids of a large majority of them. In spite of such evidence as has been adduced the colleges for women, which present a curriculum in some respects comparable to the undergraduate work of Universities, are filled to overflowing with applicants and the endowments for their colleges are far short of the opportunities demanded by the constantly increasing attendance. The attendance of women at Universities where women are admitted has been steadily increasing. Even to the apparent observer the health of most of these young women is average if not robust. The argument recently emphasized at a session of the Economic Association--that the highly educated are defective in virility and consequently that learning is a menace to race perpetuity and a sociological danger--must be met in its application to men as well as women and in opposition to such an argument we see Universities multiplying all over our land, and if there is a shibboleth today it is that libraries and institutions of...