St. Clair County, Illinois - Chapter 18, 1928

Chapter 18

IN THE DAYS of the Lebanon Seminary, the institution was co-educational. There is no account of any legislation on the subject in the records, but the very first year the school opened there was one woman in the faculty, and while we have no list of the students enrolled, there are traditions that both boys and girls were included. After a few years there seemed to be a disposition on the part of the management to segregate the girl students. In April, 1834, the Board passed a resolution employing Mrs. Peter Akers to be the "Principal teacher of the female department," acting under the superintendence of the president of the Seminary. Her salary was fixed at fifty dollars per session. There were two sessions a year of five months each. In September of the same year, another resolution was passed instructing the committee on seminary building to '"make an arrangement and prepare a home for a female school." In January, 1836, a scale of tuition fees was placed in the records with the statement that it applied to both male and female students. The fees were as follows: For reading, writing, and the four primary rules of arithmetic, five dollars per session. For higher arithmetic, grammar, and geography, without the use of the globe, seven dollars per session. If geography lessons with the use of the globe were desired, the fee was three dollars more. Then we find the statement, "In the female department, for drawing, painting, and needle work, three dollars extra." From this it appears that, not only were girls admitted to the school, but as early as i8j6 there was instruction for beginners in the fine arts and home economics. On the same date there is this record: "Male and female departments shall be maintained for this session." Also Miss Polly Thorp was elected principal of the Female Department at a salary of one hundred and twenty-five dollars per session.

The Board had another meeting in April, 1836, which was about the middle of the session. From the following resolution, passed at that meeting, it may be inferred that the "Female Department" was doing satisfactory work: "Resolved, that it is expedient and the wants of the country demand, of the Trustees of McKendree College, the establishment of a Female Institute connected with the college, but conducted in a separate building with a female boarding house connected with it. And that our agent is hereby authorized and requested to use his best efforts in his contemplated tour in the east, to raise the sum of twenty thousand dollars for that object." In October, 1836, it was ordered that the female school taught by Miss Thorp should be held in the north room of the college building until further orders. It is also recorded that Rev. Rufus Spalding was invited by the Trustees of McKendree to take charge of a female academy. However, there is no record to show that he accepted the invitation.

After 1836 there is no mention of girls in the school for more than thirty years. Why they were no longer there, whether they were legislated out or voluntarily withdrew, can be only a subject of conjecture. Mrs. Mary Fitzgerrell, a daughter of Jonathan Moore, came to Lebanon in 1850 as a member of her father's family. Her brother, Risdon M. Moore, graduated from McKendree that year and she would have been glad to become a student in the institution, but was not permitted. She attended a school for girls which was held in the basement of the Methodist Church, but for a taste of higher education, was obliged to go to the Illinois Women's College at Jacksonville. The first McKendree catalogue was published in 1837. It contains no girls' names. Nor does any other of the catalogues until 1870.

By the middle of the century there was a feeling in certain quarters that while it was a fine thing to give educational privileges to the intelligent young men who were to be the leaders of the coming generation, their sisters also should have the same privilege, or at least not be barred from it by a Christian college, for which many noble women had made sacrifices as well as men. It was a sentiment that had to have time for growth before it would be generally accepted. Illinois Women's College at Jacksonville, whose first president was a McKendree man, had been in successful operation for several years, demonstrating that the women of this western country were capable of acquiring higher education, and that some even at that early day were anxious to receive it. Several colleges had already tried the experiment of co-education and some of McKendree 's patrons felt that it would be an appropriate step to admit women to the privileges of higher education. At the meeting of the Joint Board in 1852, President Anson W. Cummings presented a resolution to the effect that women should be admitted to McKendree on the same terms as men. It was discussed a while, then laid on the table until the next annual meeting, and then forgotten.

In 1865, a committee which had been appointed to consider this question, failed to agree. A majority of the committee, thru their chairman, Rev. Joseph Earp, presented a report favoring the proposition, while a minority report against it was presented by Hon. A. W. Metcalf. There was an interesting discussion m which the arguments were not recorded, and then the whole matter was referred to the Southern Illinois Conference, as a means of avoiding decision on a question which had strong advocates on both sides. But the question would not down.

At the meeting of the Joint Board on June 10, 1868. Dr- B. F. Crary introduced a resolution providing for the admission of young women into the college as students. After "considerable discussion" it was laid on the table "for the present." In the afternoon session of the same day the record says, "The resolution offered by Dr. Crary to admit young women into the college on the same terms as young men was taken from the table, and after some further discussion. Rev. P. P. Hamilton moved that said resolution be laid upon the table and made the special order of business on the second day of the next annual meeting of this Board at 10 o'clock A. M., which motion was adopted."

This action postponed the matter for a year. Then Rev. Ephraim Joy moved that copies of the resolution be sent to each of the patronizing conferences, in order that they might take action in regard to it. Later on the same day, Dr. Crary offered this resolution, "Resolved, that the faculty be requested to organize a Normal Department in this institution." Dr. A. C. George moved to amend it by adding the words, "To which both males and females shall be admitted." The chairman, Rev. Thomas A. Eaton, ruled the amendment out of order. Then Dr. Crary appealed from the decision of the chair, and when the vote was taken the chair was not sustained. The amendment was then adopted, and then the resolution as amended.

If the order of the Board had been carried out immediately and the Normal Department established, girls might have entered McKendree that year by the door of the Normal Department. But it was not done. Another year soon slipped by, and on Wednesday, June 9, which was the second day of its session for 1869, the Board adopted various reports and recommended the class for graduation. Then the hour of ten o'clock having arrived, according to their legislation of the year before, the resolution in regard to the admission of women as students in McKendree, which had been "lying on the table" for a whole year, was taken up for further consideration. It was the motion of

Rev. Joseph Earp which brought it before the house again. Of course it was discussed again at length. When the vote was taken the result as shown in the records was fourteen yeas and seven nays. This was a clear two-thirds majority m favor and it was declared adopted. It would be interesting to know how each member voted, but while a record of that kind is kept m Congress, it is not in McKendree's Board, and as the men who voted that day are all dead, without a single exception, that bit of information is entirely beyond our reach.

The resolution, as finally adopted, reads as follows: Whereas the universities and colleges of the west are opening their doors to women, and whereas women need education as much as men, and whereas McKendree College owes a debt of gratitude to noble Christian women, therefore be it resolved that young women be hereafter admitted to all the classes of McKendree College on the same terms as young men.

B. F. Crary J. W. Phillips This was a piece of epoch-making legislation in McKendree. The admission of women into the college where they had not had any place for more than thirty years worked radical changes in the institution. The presence of the more gentle sex m the class room doubtless had a civilizing and cultural effect on the men of the college and m all probability improved the quality of the education which they secured. Yet strange as it may seem there was a feeling of opposition to this splendid step of progress, on the part of certain students whom the Apostle Paul would likely have characterized as "lewd fellows of the baser sort." These seemed to have a feeling similar to that of a certain saloon keeper, who, when the temperance campaigners came to hold a prayer meeting in his saloon, declared that it was "no place for women." This sentiment was expressed in a college prank doubtless perpetrated by some of this class of college boys, when the news was spread abroad that women were to be admitted to the college.

Professor Blair had a gentle mare which he kept tor a driving horse. The next morning this mare was found in one of the recitation rooms on the second floor, with a large placard hung about her neck bearing this inscription "First female student in McKendree."

Of the men who framed, signed, and presented the resolution to admit women, the first. Dr. Benjamin F. Crary, was a member of the St. Louis Conference, which was then an official patron of McKendree and sent Conference vis- quest, presented the case of Miss Mary Julia Jewett, who according to his statement had completed a course of study "about equivalent to the college course" and would like to receive the degree of Bachelor of Arts. A committee, consisting of Professor Blair, Professor Deneen and Dr. George, was appointed to examine her as to scholarship. The next day the committee presented a favorable report and the degree was granted; so Miss Jewett was the first woman to receive a degree from McKendree. This was in 1869.

Freshman Senior

itors each year who were members of the Board, the same as those from our own conference. He was at that time editor of the Central Christian Advocate, which was then published in St. Louis. The other. Rev. John W. Phillips, was for many years a prominent member of the Southern Illinois Conference, and served one term as presiding elder of the Alton District. He was a brother of Rev. Daniel W. Phillips, who was afterward president of McKendree. Before ,the close of the session in which the legislation for the admission of women was passed. President Allyn, by re

Before women were admitted to McKendree as students, there was a girls' school carried on for several years in the basement of the Methodist Church in Lebanon. It was known as the "Lebanon Female Institute." We reproduce here a program presented by the pupils of that school. It bears no date, but circumstantial evidence indicates that it was some time in the year 1858.

The college catalogue of 1870 shows that those names which we have listed above are those of girls who enrolled m McKendree in the fall of 1869.