1 882.] Editors' Table. 995 



There are some objections to coeducation, but they are more 

 than counterbalanced by the necessities of the case. It is true 

 that women attain maturity earlier than men ; hence they fre- 

 quently outstrip male students in college and university competi- 

 tion. Were the competition postponed a decade in the lives of 

 each, the results would generally be different. In fact, the objec- 

 tion is not a serious one, for the girls may be classed at school 

 with older boys, as they are to be with older men in later years. 

 If girls and women are to have university education, they must 

 share it with men, for there cannot be two sets of buildings and 

 two faculties for the two sexes, where one will do the work. 



A different class of objections is raised from the supposed risks 

 to propriety and morality incident to the association of the sexes 

 in a large educational institution. As university students are 

 generally supposed to be beyond the age of tutelage, these objec- 

 tions are not more applicable than to single women in other 

 walks of life. Those who have had a proper home education are 

 not likely to give ground of complaint, and those who have not 

 received such training, are not likely to do better by exclusion 

 from university education. On the contrary, such education must 

 give them a better knowledge of men and their relations to them. 

 And the more that is known of the facts of this question by both 

 sexes, the better. They will discover that there are boundaries 

 set by natural law, beyond which neither sex can pass without 

 suffering of body or mind ; and that in this, as in every other rela- 

 tion of life, " honesty is the best policy." 



Finally, women should have university education to open to 

 them additional avenues for obtaining a livelihood. Those who 

 oppose it are unwittingly sustaining the too large numbers of 

 prostitutes, incapable wives, and under-pa^id working women. — C. 

 The Atlantic Monthly for October has an excellent arti- 

 cle, by Mr. Hewett, on the administration of universities. It 

 shows what has long been obvious, that the existing American 

 system is a bad one, and that its faults are chiefly due to the fact 

 that the faculties have no share in the government of our great, 

 schools. Mr. Hewett points out the self-evident fact that the 

 persons best adapted for the management of educational institu- 

 tions, are practical educators, i. c, professors and teachers. We 

 hope that trustees and incorporators of our universities will more 

 and more see the necessity of selecting their new members from 

 this class, so that in time something more like the German sys- 

 tem may prevail in America. 



■ In criticising, in our last number, the determination of 



the Mammalia, said by Professor Whitney to have been found 

 accompanying the Calaveras skull, we do not wish to be under- 

 stood as doubting the determination of the age of the skull 

 itself. There is good reason for believing that skull to have been 

 buried at the period of the deposition of the gold-bearing gravel, 

 in which it is said to have been found. 



