Coeducation

“ Where it is prevalent, it is a sign that true coeducation that is, education in terms of generous and welcome equality—does not exist. I have rarely found opposition to coeducation on the part of really serious students. ”

“ If men and women are to be fitted for life with this ideal in its broadest implication as a primary determinant of curriculum and method, then coeducation, judged either by its fruits or by its promise, and acknowledging frankly its defects, is unquestionably a hopeful system. When it shows itself clearly disastrous to the solidarity of the highest social interests, it will unquestionably be discarded. ”

“ COEDUCATION SOCIALLY CONSIDERED THE idea of coeducation is a peculiarly American idea. Perhaps nowhere else in the world do such large bodies of young men and young women meet together for purposes of study and, at the same time, enjoy together such social freedom as is the case in the coeducational institutions of the United States. ”

“ And still in those sections where, with growing experience, the anxieties about coeducation have been allayed, a healthy and hearty relationship and honest rivalry between young men and women exists. It is a stimulating atmosphere, and develops in good stock a strength and independent balance which tell in after-life. ”

“ The asserted violation of reasonable social proprieties constitutes one of the most frequent and important sources of annoyance to the advocates of coeducation. To behold the campus dotted with couples, billing and cooing their way to an A.B., is a thing, it is said, to rejoice Venus or Pan rather than Minerva, and were it the frequent or necessary outcome of coeducation, the future of the system would certainly be in jeopardy. ”

“ It is very largely a question of reform and development in home education. Clearly, then, husband and wife have great need of intelligent sympathy and counsel in the discharge of their joint, yet partially differentiated, tasks. Hence, it should be the high [246] function of public education to promote this healthy companionship in social duty. Furthermore, American experience appears to show that it can best do so by training young men and women together. Indeed, in this regard the sociological value of coeducation is very important. ”

“ The development of coeducation, the prevailing type of education in the United States for both men and women, has already been sufficiently described. 345 In coeducational colleges men and women have the same instructors, recite in the same classes, and enjoy the same freedom in choice of studies. To the faculties of these colleges women are occasionally appointed, and, like their male colleagues, teach mixed classes of men and women. ”

“ It is only on the basis of a just evaluation of man, from all points of view, that we can found a proper human selection.
Coeducation.—It is now beginning to be understood that the coeducation of the two sexes in schools, not only does no harm, but is very advantageous, both from the sexual and the moral points of view. In the universities it is already established. In children's schools and many primary schools it has always existed. It is especially the authorities of secondary schools who have raised opposition. ”

“ The child must not be allowed to regard such education as experimental, and as possibly dangerous, If the child were to be enlightened with all sorts of warnings, dangers might ensue. It is necessary that the child should regard coeducation as something perfectly natural. In this connexion, the matter assumes a different aspect, according as coeducation is undertaken from the outset, or only after the children are already half-grown. ”

“ As a matter of fact coeducation is one of the most characteristic expressions of the social evolution of modern and especially western life. It is not now, and is not likely soon to become, an adequate or satisfactory expression of social and educational ideals in old communities or at all events in the conservative strata of such communities, inheriting as these do directly and easily the traditions of the past, and consequently clinging tenaciously to custom. ”

“ The strengths of this system, accordingly, are to be found in its tendency to promote independence of judgment, individuality of tastes, common-sense and foresight in self-guidance, disinclination to claim favor, interest in learning for its own sake; friendly, natural, unromantic, non-sentimental relations with men. The early fear that coeducation would result in classroom romances 324 has proved exaggerated. These young women do marry; so do others; so do young men. ”

“ On the other hand, several urge that, where age and numbers are equal, each sex is more inclined to develop the best qualities peculiar to itself in the presence of the other.
Some girls are no doubt far fitter for boys' studies and men's careers than others. Coeducation, too, generally means far more assimilation of girls' to boys' ways and work than conversely. Many people believe that girls either gain or are more affected by coeducation, especially in the upper grades, than boys. ”

“ By the coeducation method, "young men are more earnest, better in manners and morals, and in all ways more civilized than under monastic conditions. The women do more work in a more natural way, with better perspective and with saner incentives than when isolated from the influence of the society of men. ”

“ It is certainly hard to point out any unavoidable features of coeducation which should inevitably preclude the development or retention of good manners and fine feeling. If the psychologists are correct, the acquirement of what we call manners belongs largely to a period antedating college life, and although a coarsening of the moral and esthetic fiber during this period would unquestionably appear in less refined conduct, it is not obvious that any such change commonly occurs, much less must occur under coeducational conditions. ”

“ Not that the author is arguing against the higher education of women or even specifically against all forms of coeducation, but that he makes a plea both for young men and for young women, for that form of education, and for such favorable conditions of growth, as correspond in both cases most nearly to their individual and very different needs. ”

“ Coeducation is a reflection, often unconscious, of the tendencies which have produced this condition. It represents historically, as well as intrinsically, the democratic disposition to offer equal educational opportunities so far as possible to every human being. The touchstone by which it tests worthiness for such opportunities is social service. ”

“ The various plans of promotion and grouping of children found in different cities are in operation because of certain beliefs concerning differences in general mental ability. Coeducation is urged or deplored largely on the ground of belief in the differing abilities of the sexes.
Exact knowledge of just what differences do exist between people and the causes of these differences is important for two reasons. First, in order that the most efficient measures may be taken for the education of the individual, and second, in order that the race as a whole may be made better. ”

“ For the slow evolution of such a scheme, we must first of all distinctly and ostensively invert the present maxim, and educate primarily and chiefly for motherhood, assuming that, if that does not come, single life can best take care of itself, because it is less intricate and lower and its needs far more easily met. While girls may be trained with boys, coeducation should cease at the dawn of adolescence, at least for a season. ”

“ The reasons for the present reaction against coeducation are ascribed partly to the dislike of the idle boy to have girls excel him and see his failures, or because rowdyish tendencies are checked by the presence of women. ”

“ Theoretically it seems reasonable to assume that those who are to work together in later life may gain some advantage by spending the years of study side by side. The practical result of coeducation in the western states, where it has been given the freest opportunity, appears to demonstrate that such is actually the case. The majority of those who have had extended experience, after making all due allowance for special difficulties to be surmounted, are emphatic in their opinion that mentally and morally both sexes are the gainers by it, as compared with training in separate institutions. ”

“ The elimination of any stereotyped concept of the roles of men and women at all levels and in all forms of education by encouraging coeducation and other types of education which will help to achieve this aim and, in particular, by the revision of textbooks and school programs and the adaptation of teaching methods ”

“ With a view to extending and modernizing the education of women coeducation is practised in most institutions and there are two liceos for girls. Students of especial ability are sometimes sent abroad for study, and foreign instructors are engaged. ”

“ Common, old-fashioned honesty demands it. It must not be. The vital interests of our country cry aloud against it.
"We must steer aloof from making these pinchbeck and galvanized scholars. This will be very pleasant to the eyes of all honest, earnest, and competent teachers. We are all presidents and professors these days; but we have an uncontrollable fancy for those noble old words, 'teacher' and 'school.' "
The social importance of coeducation is shown thus:
"The young ladies and gentlemen are permitted, we may say required, to have interviews in the drawing-rooms twice in each month. ”

“ And, as in the case of women just mentioned, there will unquestionably be an increasing number of men in coeducational institutions whose means will permit, and whose tastes will dictate, a less hasty and slavish subserviency to the demands of professional training, and a longer dalliance with arts and letters. This disposition will be rapidly augmented by a wider appreciation of the educational value of these subjects on the part of the communities whence these young men come. ”

“ But in most of the higher coeducational institutions the principle has from the first been assumed that students of both sexes become sufficiently matured by eighteen years of home, school, and social life—especially under the ample opportunities for learning the uses of freedom which our social habits afford—safely to undertake a college course, and advantageously to order their daily lives. ”

“ The more I see of it the more I admire the co-education system. To me it is delightful to see boys and girls playing together. Segregate boys and you destroy their perspective. I used to find at the university that it was generally the English Public School Boy who set up one standard of morals for his sisters and another for the shop-girls.
Co-education is the greatest thing in our State educational system. The bairns early learn the interdependence of the sexes; boys and girls early begin to understand each other. All danger of putting women on a pedestal is taken away ”

“ Co-education, the schooling together of boys and girls until puberty, is a step in the right direction. It familiarises children with each other in quite the best and most innocent manner; it is no more likely to create evil results than the daily life at home of the perfect family of boys and girls meeting under the protection of their own parents. ”

“ There is a tendency to think that when children go to school the family has a release from responsibility. But the school is simply the community—the group of families—syndicating its efforts for the formal training of the young. Every family ought to know what the community is doing with its children. The school belongs to all; it is not the property of a board, nor a private machine belonging to the teaching force; it belongs to us and we owe a social duty as well as a family obligation to understand its work and its influence on the children.
Parents ought to visit the school. ”

“ They welcome co-education as likely to bring with it a healthy radicalism in regard to the older tradition of studies in boys’ secondary schools. They approve it as leading to mixed staffs of men and women teachers, and as the most effectual way of putting girls in a position of reasonable equality with boys in respect of intellectual and civic opportunity. On the other hand, those who oppose co-education in secondary schools rest their case upon the danger of the intellectual or physical overstrain of girls during adolescence ”

“ If the teacher finds it necessary to speak to the child at all about the habit of listening to others recite, after she has already made the attempt to interest the child in his own work, she should take the matter up with the child, individually. An effective way to apply the principle of initiative in coöperation is to approach the child with a smile on your face, when he is alone, and in the same breath that you speak of his habit of listening to others, mention the fact that you used to have trouble, too, keeping your mind concentrated. ”

“ Moral Training at the Heart of Education.—The right and helpful relation of the school to the family, then, is one that must first of all place moral character, the power to live a good and useful life in all social relations, at the centre. And it is one also that takes account particularly of the development of the family order and of what we must save and of what we may throw away in that order, if we would have a stable inner circle of human rights and duties as a pattern for all relationship in the industrial order and in the state. ”