Higher education in the 19th century was largely the privilege of classical education for a privileged few. While the sons of farmers in New England, such as a Mary Baker's brother Albert, could make their own way to college through intellectual merit and enterprise—Albert taught in a primary school to earn college tuition money See Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966), p. 27 .—in North America and Europe, university education typically was for the social and economic elite.
Education and religious missions were thoroughly intertwined in Colonial era colleges, all of which were founded with religious affiliations. Among them were Harvard (1636, Congregational), William and Mary (1693, Anglican), Yale (1701, Congregational), Princeton (originally of New Jersey, 1746 Presbyterian), Brown (originally Rhode Island, 1764, Baptist), and Dartmouth (1769, Congregational).
While each of these schools would evolve into leading institutions of general education, they began as training grounds for the ministry. As was true with 19th-century pulpits, however, colleges of the era welcomed mainly men students. Oberlin College (Ohio) was the first coed college (opened in 1833). Mills College (California), along with Vassar (New York State), Smith and Wellesley (Massachusetts), and a few other colleges for women, were founded by 1875. More women's colleges would follow in the next few decades. Some "Ivy League" schools would not become coed for nearly another century (Yale and Princeton in 1969, for example; Vassar began admitting men students in 1970).
