THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 105 



practices. This interference is resented by them, and this resentment 

 shows itself in the use of the offensive term 'coed' and of more offensive 

 words in vogue in more rowdyish places. I have not often heard the 

 term 'coed' used by gentlemen, at least without quotation marks. 

 Where it is prevalent, it is a sign that true coeducation that is, educa- 

 tion in terms of generous and welcome equality does not exist. I 

 have rarely found opposition to coeducation on the part of really serious 

 students. The majority are strongly in favor of it but the minority in 

 this as in many other cases makes the most noise. The rise of a student 

 movement against coeducation almost always accompanies a general 

 recrudesence of academic vulgarity. 



A little more worthy of respect as well as a little more potent is the 

 influence of the athletic spirit. In athletic matters, the young women 

 give very little assistance. They cannot play on the teams, they can 

 not yell, and they are rarely generous with their money in helping those 

 who can. A college of a thousand students, half women, counts for no 

 more athletically than one of five hundred, all men. It is vainly im- 

 agined that colleges are ranked by their athletic prowess, and that every 

 woman admitted keeps out a man, and this man a potential punter or 

 sprinter. There is not much truth in all of this, and if there were, it 

 is of no consequence. College athletics is in its essence by-play, most 

 worthy and valuable for many reasons, but nevertheless only an adjunct 

 to the real work of the college, which is education. If a phase of educa- 

 tion otherwise desirable interferes with athletics, so much the worse for 

 athletics. 



Of like grade is the feeling that men count for more than women, 

 because they are more likely to be heard from in after life. Therefore, 

 their education is of more importance, and the presence of women im- 

 pedes it. 



A certain adverse influence comes from the fact that the oldest and 

 wealthiest of our institutions are for men alone or for women alone. 

 These send out a body of alumni who know nothing of coeducation, 

 and who judge it with the positiveness of ignorance. Most men filled 

 with the time-honored traditions of Harvard and Yale, of which the 

 most permeating is that of Harvard's and Yale's infallibility, are 

 against coeducation on general principles. Similar influences in favor 

 of the separate education of women go out from the sister institutions 

 of the East. The methods of the experimenting, irreverent, idol-break- 

 ing West find no favor in their eyes. 



The only serious new argument against coeducation is that derived 

 from the fear of the adoption by universities of woman's standards of 

 art and science rather than those of men, the fear that amateurism 

 would take the place of specialization in our higher education. Women 



