THE REACTION FROM COEDUCATION. 25 



mit, and whose tastes will dictate, a less hasty and slavish subserviency 

 to the demands of professional training, and a longer dalliance with 

 arts and letters. This disposition will be rapidly augmented by a wider 

 appreciation of the educational value of these subjects on the part of 

 the communities whence these young men come. Should these vari- 

 ous influences cooperate, there can be no question that the present 

 anomalous conditions would be extensively modified. At all events it 

 would set the tide of men back into the humanities. It seems im- 

 probable that women will find it tempting or profitable in the near 

 future to attempt extensively entrance upon law or technology or theol- 

 ogy. But many of the courses involved in preparation for these careers 

 will undoubtedly appeal to them in increasing measure. 



Far and away the most serious problem which coeducation has to 

 face is unquestionably that involved in maintaining proper social rela- 

 tions between the sexes, and this must, if solved permanently, gain 

 its solution from the action of public sentiment in the student body 

 itself. Faculty counsel and administrative suasion will do much, but 

 in the last analysis the suppression of unprofitable and excessive 

 social intercourse on the one hand, and the elimination of irrational 

 sex prejudice on the other, must be accomplished through the force of 

 sincere and enlightened student opinion. This is an altogether hope- 

 ful circumstance, although it points to a corrective which is neces- 

 sarily slow in development and susceptible of temporary error. To 

 distrust its final success is to repudiate the lesson of every liberalizing 

 step which has resulted in making the American college student so 

 completely his own master. Whether the method adopted will in- 

 volve the social ostracism of women which exists in a mild form at 

 several important coeducational universities, and in a pronounced form 

 at one, it is difficult to say. Certainly the result at this last institu- 

 tion should commend itself to many opponents of the system, for it 

 seems to have materially retarded the increase in the attendance of 

 women such as has been experienced by other coeducational colleges. 

 Evidently this method is calculated to correct only one form of excess 

 in the relations of the sexes. Stupid prejudice is not likely to die 

 under this treatment. Indeed, it will hardly die under any system, 

 for there will probably always be men as there are now, both among 

 faculty and students, who simply dislike personally to have women 

 about. This feeling is moreover warmly reciprocated by some women. 

 Such persons, if in coeducational institutions, should seize an early 

 opportunity to transfer the scene of their labors. Nothing can be 

 socially more unwholesome and more insidious in its effects upon per- 

 sonal dignity than life in a community where such forms of contempt 

 and antisocial sentiment are general and sincere. 



