"WHERE ARE WOMEN GOING TO ? " •
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sun,--In the article signed Elizabeth Sloan Chesser, in your issue of February 26th, there occurred the following reference to the conditions of school life : " The present system of the separation of boys of the moneyed classes in great schools entirely under masculine direction is bad, as every mother will agree ; so, also, is the separation of girls under feminine domination."
Here there is some ambiguity. To comprehend what the writer has in mind it is necessary to distribute the idea of badness between : (a) the separation of pupils from those of the opposite sex ; and (b) unisexual direction or domination. Presumably the ideal of goodness should be conversely dis- tributed between (a) co-education, and (b) a mixed staff. Educational convention, however, in this country almost invariably places a man at the head of a mixed staff, so that a mixed staff would still leave untouched the implied evil of masculine control.
As head-mistress of a girls' secondary school, with a female staff, I am not prepared to admit that there would be any advantage in my yielding place to a head-master, or that male assistants would be any improvement on female. Even if one were to grant that certain benefits might be gained by the introduction of women in subordinate capacities on the staff of boys' boarding schools, is it feasible that men should accept correspondingly subordinate positions under feminine domination in girls' boarding schools ?
As to co-education : the mixture together of boys and girls is supposed to introduce on a larger scale the relations of members of the same family. But this it never does, nor ever can. Anybody who knows anything about mixed boarding schools must be aware of the necessity of imposing barriers and restrictions, not only as communication between pupils of the opposite sexes, but also as that between the men
and women on the staff itself.I am, Sir, &c., - -
ALEXANDRA FISHER.
Girls' County School, Bishop Auckland.
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