20 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



difficulties which may develop in coeducational institutions from these 

 or similar sources. In any event women have in the century just past 

 shown a disposition to lead, rather than to follow, in the furtherance 

 of social reforms. Meantime it is clear that the urban coeducational 

 university is exposed in larger degree than its rural neighbor to the 

 perplexities mentioned. 



It becomes increasingly evident as one surveys the situation that 

 the antagonistic views of coeducation which are at present so conspicu- 

 ous do not rest upon any radical disagreement as to the facts in the 

 case, but depend almost solely upon the educational ideals and the 

 social creeds which are applied in interpreting the facts. Much of the 

 current discussion of the system is rendered futile by the obliviousness 

 of the protagonists to this obvious consideration. If the life and spirit 

 of Oxford or of Yale or of Harvard constitute one's sole standard of 

 educational excellence, then the average coeducational institution will 

 indeed seem a desolate waste. If one's ideal of social salvation for 

 young women involves matrimony as its only god, and the chaperone 

 as his prophet, then the coeducational regime must generally be con- 

 demned as a pagan system marking a barbarian stage of culture. 

 Needless to say, such standards exist tacitly or explicitly in the 

 minds of many cultured men and women who sincerely believe coedu- 

 cation to be a vulgarizing retrograde influence in both social and intel- 

 lectual life. It is ridiculous to pretend that the coeducational univer- 

 sity can meet satisfactorily the demands laid upon it by such standards. 

 This is not tantamount to admitting that the best coeducational insti- 

 tutions can not cope successfully at any point with Oxonian excellen- 

 cies, much less is it equivalent to denying the possibility of developing 

 refined and noble men and women under coeducational surroundings. 

 But it is an admission of nay an insistence upon the fact that the 

 only standards by which coeducation can pretend to be justified and by 

 which it can be justly judged, are those intrinsic to the social and 

 economic conditions which have produced it, and of which it is an 

 integral part. 



One may feel toward these conditions contempt, distrust, hatred 

 what one will but one must take them into account if he will pass 

 intelligent judgment upon coeducation. One may deplore the fact 

 sincerely, as every lover of established order does, but he can not gain- 

 say that the development of American social and economic life is 

 rapidly carrying increasing numbers of women out of the beaten path 

 of the domestic treadmill with its everlasting insistence upon the inci- 

 dent of sex into fields where social service is gauged by other standards 

 than those of child-bearing, house-keeping and adorning pink teas. 

 Efficiency is certain to be the touchstone by which women are tried 



