io POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in support of the correctness of this view is often proclaimed as con- 

 clusive; and ranged behind it is the authority of sundry notable 

 physiologists, psychologists, sociologists and gentlemen of fashion. The 

 contrary view in accordance with which women are allowed to possess 

 ideas, some of them even original, is supported by evidence almost as 

 intelligible and by partisans quite as eminent and quite as confident. 

 The fact seems to be that it is extremely difficult to demonstrate how 

 much of a woman's intellectual bent is due to the sexual bias of her 

 mind, and how much to the influences which surround her from cradle 

 to grave. It may be, for example, that literature is intrinsically 

 feminine in its character, and that exact science is dominantly mascu- 

 line. In the meantime it must certainly be granted that the conditions 

 environing many girls are from childhood on such as tend to cultivate 

 a mild but definite variety of sentimentalism. It has been suggested 

 that some of the methods of studying literature current in these days 

 tend also to sentimentalism, and so appeal to established habits of the 

 feminine mind, while repelling the masculine temper. Courses deal- 

 ing with the more emotional and esthetic forms of literary criticism 

 and appreciation must necessarily be exposed to some danger from this 

 source. Possibly a slight corrective and palliative for the excessive 

 cultivation of such courses by women might be found in a larger em- 

 phasis upon more masculine points of view. 



It seems improbable, however, that the relatively small number 

 of men in the courses in belles-lettres in coeducational institutions is 

 due in any considerable degree to this asserted fact regarding native 

 masculine tastes, nor in any indisposition on the part of the men to sit 

 in classes with women. For, as regards the second point, it must be 

 remembered that there are many courses in which both men and women 

 are well represented, and in which the ratio of the sexes to one another 

 has changed but little throughout considerable periods. This is true, 

 for example, of certain courses in history. The first point gains an 

 interesting side light from the observation that in several important 

 eastern institutions for men, where the modes of exposition and instruc- 

 tion in literature do not differ absolutely from those in vogue in west- 

 ern coeducational colleges, the attendance upon such courses shows in 

 recent years no extreme shrinkage, and, as regards certain courses in 

 English, even exhibits a marked development. The most obvious ex- 

 planation of this difference between the east and the west (over and 

 above the influence of the stimulating personality of certain success- 

 ful instructors) is unquestionably to be found in the social condi- 

 tions of which we have already spoken. The appreciation of the 

 educational value of literature is necessarily more circumscribed in 

 new and less wealthy communities than in those which have been 



