826 The American Naturalist. [September, 
Experience shows that in classes composed of both sexes, order is 
more easily maintained ; boys are less disorderly and girls are less 
silly. The natural instinct for the respect of the other sex works won- 
ders in this, as in other relations of life. Hence many teachers and 
professors think highly of ecoéducation. If we consider the interests of 
the students rather than those of the teachers, however, a different 
conclusion is indicated, It is well-known that the rate of growth in its 
later years is widely different in the sexes; the female becoming mature 
several years earlier than the male. This fact is the simple explana- 
tion of the natural antagonism which exists between the sexes of iden- 
tical age during their “teens.” Neither finds its ideal in the other sex 
of its age, the young woman especially and naturally finding it in older 
men who are as mature as herself. In mixed classes she will often 
excel the boys and take the prizes, a consequence not only of her 
maturity, but also of her greater sensitiveness to the penalties of fail- 
ure. That women have, of later years,so often taken leading positions 
in competitive examinations is not necessarily an evidence of a corre- 
sponding superiority of intellectual endowment, but is often the 
natural result of the inequality of development between herself and her 
male competitors. We would, in fact, look for such a result as a 
necessary consequence of the conditions. 
The effect of this state of affairs is bad on both sexes. It leads to 
mistaken conclusions as to the relative capacities of the two, which may 
lead to disastrous results in after life. It is calculated to produce in a 
considerable class of boys a distaste for study, and a preference in after 
years for uneducated women. To this extent it retards rather than 
aids human progress. It is a fact that, in a number of coéducational 
schools, the girls largely outnumber the boys, since the latter fail to 
become interested in their studies, and prefer to leave school and go 
into business. Whether it induces in girls a contempt for the intel- 
lectual furniture of the opposite sex we are not in a position to say, but 
it has done a great deal towards confirming certain doctrinaires in 
their a priori belief in the intellectual equality of the sexes. 
It is alleged that there are moral reasons why coéducation is better 
than separate education, and this opinion is well-founded so far as it 
relates to the mutual benefits of association. But this association 
need not necessarily be in classes. A model institution would be one 
in which the classes should be separate, but association at other times 
easy. Such association could be obtained at meals and on other stated 
occasions, so as to represent as nearly as possible the family relation. 
