COEDUCATION. 112 COEITICIENT. leges of pharmacy iu the United Slates were coeducational. In Canada, ilcGill University was opened to women in 18S3. To-day all the Canadian uni- versities, six in number, admit women. The leading universities of Australia admit women not only as students, but as lecturers and pro- fessors, in 1S7S the University of London opened all degrees, honors, and prizes to students of both sexes on equal terms. Victoria Uni- versity and the University of Wales give similar privileges to women. The University of Durham excludes women from only the degree in theology. Cambridge admits women to nearly all university and college lectures and grants a titular degree to such as fulfill the regular conditions. This degree, however, does not admit them to the governing board of the university. At Oxford women are admitted to nearly all university and college lectures, except those in medicine. They may take the examinations, and the results are announced, but they do not receive a degree. The four universities of Scotland, Aberdeen, Saint Andrews, Edinburgh, and Glasgow admit women to all degrees except in law, and Aberdeen even to that. The Royal University of Ireland grants equal privileges to both sexes. In France women are admitted to lectures on the same terms with men, professors, however, having a discretionary power of exclusion. In Germany the struggle of women for admis- sion to the universities has been especially stub- born, and resistance has now to a very consider- able extent given way. To be admitted, a woman must obtain consent from the Minister of In- struction, the rector of the university, and the professors whose courses she wishes to attend. Ordinarily only the courses of the philosophical faculty are thrown open to them, but in a few cases women have attended courses in medicine and law. Heidellierg. Freiburg, and Gottingen were among the first to grant the degree of Ph.D. to women: but in 1898 Berlin, perhaps the most conservative of all in this respect, bestowed this degiee on Friiulein Neimiann. In 1898-99, 315 women, mostly foreigners, attended the Ger- man universities. In Austria, since 1878. women have been admitted to the eight universities as hearers, and recently, in the case of foreigners. as matriculated stvidents. During the winter of 1890-1900 forty women were registered at Vienna, and in 1897 the degree of M.D. was granted to Fraulein Possauer. In 189.5 the three Hungarian universities were thrown o]ien to women, and graduates of the medical depart- ments are allowed to practice. The Italian imi- versities h.ave, since 1876, all been open to women on the same terms with men, and the fe- male attendance is large. The medical faculties of the Swedish universities were opened to women in 1870. and those of law and philosophy in 1873. In 1899 six women had taken the degree of Licentiate in Philosophy, and one that of Doctor of Liiws. The latter. Fraulein Eschelsson. was made privat-docent (q.v. ), to lecture on civil law. In Switzerland the universities are all open to women, and in most cases on the same terms as to men. At Zurich women were formally admitted in 1872, and they are even permitted to hold professorial chairs. There were, in 1895, 200 women in attendance, and a woman was lec- turer on Roman law. Women have been ad- mitted on the same terms as men to the Uni- versity of Copenhagen since 1875. The Spanish universities and those of the Netherlands are equally open to both se.xes. Russian higher edu- cation for women has had a stormy history. The medical schools were opened to them about 18G0, then closed, and again in 1872 reopened on ac- coiuit of the Nihilism that sprang up among women who went abroad, and i)articularly to Switzerland, to study. A separate medical .school for women was established at Saint Petersburg in 1872, suppressed in 18S2 on ac- count of Nihilism, and iu 1897 reopened. The universities are now closed to women, but there are higher coui'scs given to them at Saint Peters- burg under the ilinister of Public Instruction. In'estigations made by the University of Wis- consin, and in 1803-94 by the University of Virginia, have .shown that iu coeducational in- stitutions, according to testimony gathered in the United States and England, women equal or even surjiass nien in excellence of scholarship. L'l) to 1898 54 per. cent, of the women taking examinations for matriculation at the University of London had passed, as against 53 per cent, of men for the same period. Nor has the percent- age of withdrawals from college on account of liealth been greater with women than with men. Investigations into the health, etc., of college women are given under Collegi.te Educatioij FOR WojiEX. In the West, where coeducation is practically universal, no evil consequences have sprung from it, and there is but slight demand for separate schools. The main oljjection of both male and female students to coeducation is that it implies more restraint than exists where the sexes are apart. Of the many arguments for coeducation, doubtless that of economy has been most cfl'ective. It is noteworthy that in a rejiort of the JIassaehusetts Society for the University Education of Women the fact that the Uni- versity of California had a preponderance of women students was taken as a sign of the need for a separate college. Indeed, it may be said that having won. in most cases, their contention for admission to institutions for men. the advo- cates of higher education for women are turning their attention more and more toward separate schools, and that the privilege of separate edu- cation is, particularly in the East, coming to be sought and preferred by women rather than by men. Consult: Clarke, Sex in Education (Bos- ton, 1873) ; Fairchild, "Coeducation of the Se.xes." in Report of United States Commissioner of Education (^^'ashington. 1898). and Circular of Information. No. 2 (1883). on coeducation in the public schools: A. Solman Smith. "Co- education of the Sexes in the L'nited States," with l)ibliogra]ihy. in Report of United States Commissioner of Education (Washington. 1891- 92) ; "Coeducation." in Report of United States Commissioner of Education (Washington. 1894- 95). COEFFICIENT (Lat. co-, together + efficere, to work out, produce). In algebra, any factor of an expression is called the coefficient of the rest of the ]iroduct. The word, however, is usu- ally a|)plied only to some factor whose nu- merical value is expressed or known, and which appears first in the product — e.g. in the expres- sion 3fla", 3 is the coefficient of ax, and 3o is the coefficient of x. Vieta seems to have introduced the use of the word in this sense (1591). Since o = Id, the coefficient 1 may be understood be-
