THE REACTION FROM COEDUCATION. u 



long established, and the pressure toward the obviously practical is 

 inevitably far greater. The astonishing development of technological 

 schools in western universities affords striking confirmation of this last 

 named tendency a tendency by the way which finds a counterpart in 

 the rapid growth of the so-called scientific schools in great eastern 

 universities. 



The final explanation which some misogynists would offer for the 

 predominance of women in English courses, i. e., that English litera- 

 ture is ordinarily the easiest of college courses unhappily proves too 

 much. Such statistics as are available tend to show that were this 

 generally conceded, women would rarely preponderate in such classes. 

 On the whole, therefore, it seems probable that although the taste for 

 literature is more largely developed in the women of our coeducational 

 colleges, while the taste for exact science is largely the property of the 

 men, the factor which has produced the most extreme and anomalous 

 conditions of sex segregation, is, especially as regards the men, profes- 

 sional, economic and social in character. Moreover, that which passes 

 as native taste is itself often a mere expression of social and domestic 

 pressure, emphasizing with relentless insistence certain interests as 

 sexually appropriate or practically valuable. 



Opinions are somewhat divergent touching the desirability of this 

 educational situation. The instructors of the classes largely dedicated 

 to women are sometimes a trifle violent in the expression of their 

 views. The instructors of the men's sections are, on the other hand, 

 generally complacent. The unbiased spectator is perplexed and baffled. 

 Evidently the advantages and disadvantages of these extreme cases 

 must be weighed in terms of the general educational effects of the sys- 

 tem as indicated by its results throughout these institutions as a whole. 

 It is necessary, therefore, to review briefly the current criticisms upon 

 the system, most of which, be it said, are hallowed by age, and many 

 of which are evidently trivial. 



A warning hand must be held out at this point against the amiable 

 and ubiquitous inconsequentialist who insists on confusing the problem 

 of coeducation with the problem of the higher education of women. The 

 two are indeed connected, but by no means identical. Collegiate 

 coeducation as a system assumes as a premise that women are to 

 receive collegiate education, if they so desire, and a study of the 

 curricula of women's colleges indicates that women generally wish to 

 pursue those branches offered in the colleges for men. The coeduca- 

 tional problem is not, however, fundamentally one of curricula. It is 

 a problem of determining the conditions under which men and women 

 shall study in any curriculum whatsoever. 



The criticisms of the present day upon coeducation dealing in part 



