I

T HAS cropped out here in the educational field, this fighting of women for “rights," just as it has pushed into every other phase of life. Women will continue to hammer at the gates until all the doors are open, until they can see and know what these strong, dominating males have known from the beginning of time. If they prove themselves worthy of being admitted into the Castle of Knowledge, and equal to understand its mysteries why should they not be admitted? What more has man done to deserve it?

Long ago if the women could "sew fine seams," bear children, and see that the glorious creature called "man" kept his stomach full, their duties were done, their capacities were taxed to the utmost.

In 1830 and on to 1840, some improvements were made in the schools, and a little better opening was made for girls to go to them. They took advantage daintily and greedily with the result that better breeds ensued from the Civil War period on. The mothers as well as the fathers were educated and their close, subtle influence on the young was telling. At the time of the Civil War, more chance was forcefully given to women. They were needed as teachers to take the places of the men who were called to fight and educating them became a necessity. The east has always been a conservative section and the women were ostracized for two silly reasons. First, because they always had been, and second, because they were considered incapable of the work!

Marion Talbot, a brilliant, thinking young woman, and a graduate of college, along with

seventeen other equally enthusiastic college girls, decided to strike a blow for liberty. They organized the American Association of University Women. Try, urge, entreat, reason as best they could, sixty-six members were all they could enlist. But now there are nineteen thousand! All the women wanted was what men already had. Was that asking too much?

At last they won separate colleges. It was an effort coupled with long striving against odds. There was, as to-day, adverse criticism, and sour forebodings. It was said they could never compete on an equal basis with men. Proof enough against this is the black-and-white record of the higher scholarship of women in comparison or contrast to that of the men.

After segregated education for women had become established fact, another revolution broke out and is in full swing at the present time. It is the question of Coeducation or Segregation? If careful notice were taken, we would see that the side for segregation is upheld by those who avoid college because they cannot keep up, or by those who consider it plebeian. That is, they are the ideas of the newly rich, the lately snobbish. It is not upheld by mothers who are themselves college educated.

But I do not wish to blindly strike out, and in a mad rage denounce the other side as "all wrong." They also have feasible reasons to support them. Olivia Dunbar in an article entitled "Women at Man-Made Colleges" lists a few reasons why she is adversely inclined toward coeducation. In the first place, she says it does not allow for

a genuine interplay of the mind. Women at school with men, whether they realize it or not, must play second fiddle. Also their athletic life is limited, their small contests are very minor in comparison to the great fame of the men's football, basket-ball and track.

Besides, there are differences in social life. Men have never been subjected to the same restrictions as women, and therefore they are freer to follow their own wishes. From a psychological standpoint these restrictions, though much less severe now have affected the girls and they still carry in their hearts the feeling that they are supervised, questioned, protected and inferior. In student activities, it is always a man for president and a girl for vice-president. But there was once a time when they were not vicepresidents either; so that, after all, we are progressing instead of retreating. Just because woman still takes second place in many things, does not prove that coeducation is a failure. We have not entirely broken away from the old régime, the change is gradual. Too much cannot be expected

at once.

Another objection Miss Dunbar makes against mixed colleges is the domination, she says exists, in the recitations of man. His remarks are set, certain assertions, hers are timid opinions easily overwhelmed, or happy affirmations of the man's views. I believe it is true that girls are less inclined to argue or discuss in class, but I cannot admit that it is because of fear for man. A more reasonable explanation is that they cannot perceive any usefulness in the long, heated arguments thrown noisily back and forth. But they are not backward in giving their candid views on paper.

As a fifth point against the subject, is given this reason that girls attending coeducational schools have weak post-graduate plans. They come to school for the associations they have with the men and their objectives are hazy, indefinite, and sometimes entirely lacking. But, truly now, that is no logical reason at all. That same type of girl is found in a segregated college as well.

She does not represent the majority. And at that, this accusation could apply to the men, too. There are some of them just as faltering and uncertain. Even though there is only a misty idea of what one wants to accomplish, one's likes and dislikes will guide into certain courses where the purposes are organized and put into shape. It is no crime to hesitate, for our whole future lives are involved in this decision.

Miss Dunbar asserts that coeducation is a failure. That nothing is gained on either side by the association of men and women and that the tragedy of it all is that they are not even interested enough to discuss it. She left this statement unexplained, and I can only contradict her or ask the question, Why should it be discussed where we are contented and progressive and successful? But as for discussion of the topic, no more nor popular subject for friendly debate can be found than this in our coeducation colleges. It is a subject of ten used."

She says that if coeducation is a success some finer human product should result from it than from segregation. Perhaps, we are too close to the beginning to realize how much good coeducation will accomplish in this direction. However, since its greater prevalence in the land, much false modesty has disappeared. We are franker, more sincere, our eyes look straight into yours and question; the coy, silly droop is old-fashioned and obsolete.

When I read Jessica B. Peixotto's article called the "Case for Coeducation" in which the affirmative view was taken, my last doubts were routed and I knew that just about whole heartedly she scattered my doubts. I did try, too, to be impartial despite the fact that I was a coed. She based her argument, her faith in coeducation, on two propositions, namely, that university life is a pattern of the society the student prepares to enter without, and secondly, secluded higher education no longer justifies itself.

Coeducation brings good scholarship, sound friendships and successful marriages. Goals, it seems to me, high enough to justify any

thing. There are three types of people who doubt the success of coeducation. They are the students who attended segregated colleges, idealists who fix their attention on one negative incident and "play it up" against the hundred good influences, and the third type is the mid-Victorian feminist whose mind has not kept up with the evolutions of time and who fails to see the good in anything termed "modern." These creatures state that the woman a man marries should be a mystery, something to be set on a pedestal. Coeducation spoils the "womanly" woman. Too easily, though, are pedestals tipped and the statues on them broken. The most mysterious woman is the one whose active, trained mind works always, whose thoughts advance with the times, whose worth-while ideas unfold daily like the petals of a rose.

To-day our world is different. In outside life, women are found in civil service, in responsible offices, in political, economical and social situations. Why then should they not be found mingling with men in school? It is only a miniature of life itself. We cannot hold to past standards when the life around has changed.

There is a different, second reason for having coeducation prevail. Endowments are needed now as ever to sustain separate women's colleges, and these are often meager and inadequate. Naturally there is an absence of equipment, and as a result, an absence of the best prepared professors. They feel that they must have the proper means for research which cannot be secured at these colleges, and they go to the large coeducational institutions where money is more plentiful. As a result women's colleges take both second-rate instructors and equipment. It is not difficult to see that the more economical plan is to combine the two and get the best of service all at once together. Inspection discovers men and women on the same committees for journalism, drama, debate, athletics, politics, charitable endeavors, club life, and others, and know that both sides are profiting by the association.

Segregation is the life of the cloister. Men and women develop in ignorance of each other and are filled with only morbid curiosity. Facing "temptation" in schools of coeducation is stronger than running away from it as is done in attending schools of segregation.

From an article in the "Nation," a letter to the editor, was taken this sentence:

"An educational institution is alike indifferent to public needs and recreant to its public trust when it denies to women, as women, the opportunities properly to prepare themselves for such important services." These important services tioned, of course, refer to the duties a woman is now expected to perform as mother, companion, voter, and citizen.

men

Even mystical, dreamy, far-away James M. Barrie with his whimsical, fanciful mind, has a very logical opinion on this subject. He says that education gives women a brighter outlook on life; association with men keeps them younger longer. They feel equal and confident. Men have less chance to take advantage because of their superior knowledge, for now the women are able to compete equally.

Charles A. Seldon, a man who has studied from many standpoints all the leading colleges of the country, both segregated and coeducational and who is qualified to judge speaks for the latter case in an article entitled "Sex and Higher Education." He remarks that from the association of men and women comes coöperation in everything; there are not so many differences to be overcome in later life. He lays the responsibility for success of coeducation to the atmosphere and set ideals created by the college presidents, deans, and professors. This is a new and true aspect. We look up to our instructors as guides, and therefore their opinions and influences can work for good or ill.

Mr. Seldon gives as an example of women's eagerness to learn, and as a result their right to equal education with men, the fact that in one-half a century they have done more with their educational opportunities than

men have in three centuries. This is shown by a much greater increase of woman attending colleges, in proportion than men.

Some say that women associating on an equal basis with man take on his characteristics and mannish desires, smothering and extinguishing a desire for marriage. Mating, however, is a natural impulse and will go on forever. Some kinds of girls with all the education in the world must marry, and others, who before were never meant for marriage and lived in broken-hearted and ashamed loneliness, will joyously follow a work congenial for which they are better adapted and leave more chance for those who wish to marry.

The question is asked, "Should there be a difference in the education of men and women?" Dr. Eliot says there should be a real, essential and wide difference, that education should provide for the different environments in which a man and woman live. But some women, as those in business positions, do have the same environments. Are we going to dictate the type of environment a woman must place herself in, and then draw out the course of study she should pursue for it? We do not so limit the men. Women must not be separated and educated according to the function they perform.

It

is too strict a restriction. They cannot pursue the careers they are more fit for. Instead of specialization for women, we should have versatility emphasized, give them a broader training. Each man and woman is entitled to the fullest individual development. Man does not say that he is laboring for posterity; he leaves that to the woman. But she, too, should be allowed equal intellectual development and pursuance of her desires with the man himself. Education is not solely preparation for labor. It is a preparation for life.

In the east, tradition has greater power and there are more women attending segregated colleges. But in the west where liberal movements have most often risen coeducational schools dominate.

The matter of going to school with men is not the problem at all. It is the ideas they gain while there, their objects for attending school and the ideals they draw from it. Colleges of all types are choosing the sociological view as their goal. They are trying to equip all students of both sexes for more effective participation in the fundamental activities of daily life. Sincerely, there can be no truer, more ideal way for men and women to learn the great processes of life and living than together.

T

HE system of whipping is still prevalent in our colleges and universities. The big boys and the rest are whipped to make them get their lessons. That is the way the teachers have of asserting their authority over those in their power. It is an old habit of theirs to which the students themselves have grown so accustomed that every time they go into a recitation room or go to an examination they actually expect to be whipped.

This whipping, now a method of educational practice, is nothing more or less than a slight modification of the physical whipping system which it has so lately superseded. We can remember hearing stories of country schools in the early days when it was necessary to have a teacher strong enough to whip the big boys. Now the teacher still has the notion that he must whip his students to maintain his own standing and therefore he lashes them into subservience with any little facts he happens to have in his possession. He makes them bow before his facts, without questioning the significance of them, learn them as he dictates them, and give them back on the examination paper as he likes to see them arranged. If they fail or refuse to submit, they are put out of the educational system.

They are whipped for what they do not know, not encouraged to improve what they do know which is the same principle as the old one of whipping them when they were naughty. Way back during the first part of the eighteenth century people were beginning to think that it would be better to notice the good qualities of children, and grown folks too, than to assume their inborn

depravity, and from then on there has been a constant progress toward believing the best of people, in putting the emphasis on the positive and good side and encouraging it, but after two hundred years this idea has not yet penetrated inside the college walls. The old-fashioned notions have prevailed, and whipping, as a policy, still goes on.

The assumption seems to be that the business of education is to correct the mistakes of the students and to help them overcome their elementary errors. Those students who make the most mistakes get the most attention: the regulations are made for them, and the marking system is devised for them. The stupider they are the oftener they meet the deans, and the more notice they receive from the committees composed of the leaders on the staff, and the lower their grades, the oftener they call upon their teachers for conference time.

No wonder there is nothing left for the good students. The assumption here is that they can shift for themselves, and of course they can. The marvel is that they come to college at all when there are no special plans for them and when they must submit to the regulations made especially for the stupid.

But it need not be so. And it would not require any outward revolution, but only one of point of view, to set things right side up. The changed attitude would lead to a changed policy. The good students should be on top with the interest centered in them and their possibilities.

The teacher would have to get over the idea that he is the whole show and can whip students into a form of learning like his own only of a lower sort. He is to realize that