i 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tance there is a group larger than either of these groups made up of 

 young women who are neither hopelessly flippant nor distressingly 

 utilitarian in their intellectual interests. Moreover, if the venue be 

 changed from the mere fact of sex to the possession of such character- 

 istics as have been described, it would require a buoyant and oblivious 

 nature to deny the counterpart of just such persons in the male portion 

 of any large undergraduate body. It is certainly a cheering thing to 

 think that no considerable number of young men in our colleges for the 

 male sex are ever guilty of frivolity in their attitude toward academic 

 opportunities. But such thinking has no special connection with fact, 

 and is of a speculative rather than of a scientific character. Nor are 

 there lacking in men's colleges those who toil unprofitably and over- 

 much to the end of attaining some mundane prize not wholly superior 

 to the school teacher's stipend. Even the women's colleges produce 

 these types. 



Coeducation is often charged with an insidious suppression of free- 

 dom of expression in the class room. Academische Freiheit is endan- 

 gered, therefore, by other enemies than college presidents and boards 

 of trustees. Some subjects are evidently ill qualified for discussion 

 in mixed classes. But it may be doubted whether the restrictions ema- 

 nating from this source have been unmixed evils. The meritricious 

 and obscene jests of literature, which some eminent scholars in men's 

 colleges delight to dwell upon, can perhaps be spared. Surely there is 

 no serious reason to fear that the male youth of the land will fail to 

 secure outside the class room all the really indispensable development 

 on this side of his appreciation for humor. In the fields of biology, 

 where embarrassments might be supposed most inevitable, the difficul- 

 ties have by no means proved so serious as anticipated. Nevertheless 

 it must be admitted without scruple that women cause some restraint 

 upon freedom of speech as charged in the indictment. 



Although we have had constantly in mind undergraduate condi- 

 tions, a word may be dropped in passing as regards the criticisms upon 

 graduate work. There is undoubtedly an almost universal willingness 

 among even the most acrimonious critics of coeducation that the few 

 women who desire it shall be allowed the best possible opportunities for 

 graduate work. The only exceptions are found among the small but 

 aggressive group of interesting pre-raphaelite dogmatists who would 

 do away with all collegiate education for women. There are plenty of 

 scholarly men who insist that women will never become investigators 

 of any consequence, but who admit their capacities for assimilation and 

 who feel that as there must under existing conditions be some women 

 teachers in both schools and colleges, it is desirable that they should 

 receive the most thorough possible discipline. Women must expect to 



