be required to provide for the confinement of criminals in other institutions, which would be saved by the erection of the proposed House of Industry;

That Detroit is the place where a proper regard for economy would place this institution;

That its establishment will materially decrease the number now necessarily sentenced to the State Prison and the House of Correction, and thus enable these institutions, for several years more, to furnish security and adequate accommodations for all who will not be properly subject to sentence to the House of Industry;

That the appropriation provided for in this bill will secure the expenditure of from $75,000 to $100,000 in the construction of an institution imperatively demanded by the necessities of the State, and will save to the several counties annually a sum more than equal to the amount asked for.

Firmly impressed with these views, your committee recommend the passage of the bill herewith reported, and ask to be discharged from the further consideration of the the subject.

H. BARNS,

Chairman.

[ No. 11. ]

REPORT of the Committee on State Affairs relative to the establishment of a Female Department in the State University.

The committee on State affairs, to whom was referred that portion of the Governor's message relating to the establishment of a Female Department in the State University at Ann Arbor, report that they have given to this important subject all the consideration which the perform ance of their other imperative duties would permit.

The women of Michigan claim the right to a free and full participation in all the advantages arising from the expenditure of the literary funds of the State.

They base this claim upon their natural rights; upon their relations to society; the duties they are called upon to perform, and the broad ground of a wise State policy, which should provide in the most ample manner for the perfect education of those whose province it eminently is, to form the mass of mind which is soon to control the destiny and shape the policy of the commonwealth. That the position of woman, in enlightened society, thus lies at

the foundation of its structure, and gives her not only an important, but a controlling influence, in forming the manners, habits, and tastes, and in directing the intellectual movement and progress of the rising generation, is admitted by all. With such an admission, it is difficult, and we may say impossible to demonstrate that the full intellectual development of woman is not of equal, if not greater importance than is that of the other sex.

It is not sufficient to say that she moves in a different and less conspicuous sphere-that her duties are confined to a more restricted, quiet and domestic field-so long as it is acknowledged that her influence controls in forming the character of the sex upon which she is taught to rely, and in the superior advantages of which she claims the right to participate.

Since the establishment of the educational system of our State, the two sexes have been educated together in all our primary schools, in the union schools, in most of the private colleges, and in the State Normal School. From the co-education of the sexes in all these institutions, no inconvenience has resulted; on the contrary, great advantages have been seen and acknowledged. These advanta ges have been in the greater economy of the system, in the mental improvement incident to a well regulated social intercourse, and in the additional pride and ambition of the pupils. In all the lesser institutions of learning in the State, no change is asked or desired; all are now admitted to the common privileges. The system has been proved, by experience, to be all that its most sanguine supporters have hoped or promised; and the advantages secured such as could not be anticipated from any change in the system that would involve a separation of the sexes in the schools and colleges to which we have referred.

But the University of Michigan, the highest institution of learning in the State, where the advantages of all the others are combined, and to which is superadded studies

that can only be pursued under the most accomplished masters; where alone can be furnished the scientific surroundings necessary to a complete education; and which alone has an endowment sufficient to provide such facilities, the women of the State are not admitted.

Among the reasons urged for this exclusiveness is that of immemorial usage, the claim that never in any country have women been admitted to establishments of this class, and the fear that their admission to our State University would involve such a change in the management of that institution as would strike at the foundation upon which it is based; that it would be such a diversion of the fund provided for its endowment as was not contemplated by the donors; that any change, so radical in a system so well established, and which has prevailed since Universities were known, and which has received the sanction of the good and wise in all ages and countries, and which is sanctioned by long usage and the common consent of our countrymen, cannot be effected without great danger to the institution in which the change is proposed; and that such change, if it does not involve the very existence of the University, most certainly will impair its usefulness and bring into imminent peril the character and reputation of its students.

It is further urged that many of the studies pursued at the University are not only unnecessary to the proper education of woman, for her appropriate and destined sphere, but are absolutely incompatible with that character for true delicacy and modesty which are the most pleasing and essential elements of her being; that instead of the admitted and mutual advantages which result from the coeducation of the sexes in all of the less elevated institutions of learning, their union in the University would prove injurious to both, by a loss of womanly delicacy and refinement on the one part, and a proper sense of the dignity of their pursuits on the other.