CO-EDUCATION IN AMERICA..
(To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.1 SIR,—In your "News of the Week" under date of May 2nd you refer to some recent articles in the Times in which the writer criticises adversely the system of co-education pre- vailing in America, and suggests that it has an unfavourable effect on the youth of the United States. In view of the growing importance of the co-educational movement in England, I hope you will allow one who has been closely associated with the propaganda from the first to answer both the criticism and the suggestion.
Your writer says very truly that a system which fails to develop character fails in everything. And since something like five-sixths of the children of America are at present trained in mixed schools, it will be a serious argument against co-education if we find that the mass of American lads are really deficient in those qualities of initiative, determination, " grit," which are summed up in the single admirable word character. But can the most blindly patriotic of Englishmen seriously maintain that young Americans are inferior in this direction to our own eons P Surely, Sir, the records both of busi- ness and sport in the two countries are an easy refutation of such an assertion. The idea that it will be necessary to "give points " to young men who have been educated side by side with girls is, in view of our experience, too ludicrous for words. And if co-education does not fail in cultivating the virtues which we, with singular inappropriateness, are wont to call Spartan, what shall we say of those gentler and more humane qualities to which the overrated Lacedaemonian, filthy and thievish, did not even pretend ? Few will venture to deny that in chivalrous respect and consideration for women Americans lead the world ; and in those parts of the States where mixed education is the rule, the general level of morality is honourably high.
Unhappily, co-education is constantly condemned on the strength of hearsay evidence and second-hand opinions. Against such I will content myself with placing the deliberate official judgment of America as expressed in a circular issued by the United States Bureau of Education :—" Co-education of the sexes is preferred because it is natural, following the ordinary structure of the family and of society ; customary, being in harmony with the habits and sentiments of everyday life, and of the laws of the State ; impartial, affording one sex the same opportunity for culture that the other enjoys ; economical, using the school funds to the best advantage ; convenient, both for superintendent and teachers, in assigning, grading, teaching, and discipline; beneficial, to the minds, morals, habits, and development of the pupils." And if to the above emphatic pronouncement be added the favourable opinion expressed by the members of our own Mosely Com- mission, after examining the methods and results of the mixed system in America, I venture to think that the most exacting critic must admit that the general success of the system has been proved. Of the above Mosel), Commission a prominent member was Dr. Gray of Bradfield, who told us at Queen's Hall not long ago the reasons which led to his conversion, and has given practical proof of its sincerity by becoming a director of St. George's, our new co-educational public school.
That the great preponderance of women teachers in the schools of the United States is a serious defect no believer in co-education is likely to deny. But the circumstance is due to causes peculiar to the States, more especially the great attractions of a business career, deterring men from adopting the less lucrative teaching profession. But the mixed schools recently started in England—Harpenden, Bedales, King Alfred's School, and others—are all presided over by a. Head-Master, and the two sexes are evenly • represented on their staffs. That women should have their due share in the government of the schools in which their children are to be
trained is not only just, but in the highest degree expedient. Their assistance cannot be dispensed with if our sons and daughters are to receive an education worthy of the name. Boys and girls can be drilled, disciplined, and furnished with varying amounts of entirely useless knowledge in separate schools, and by teachers of their own sex exclusively. To educate, you must bring them together.—I am, Sir, &c., [We deal in another column with the whole subject dis- cussed by our correspondent. We may note here, however, that the evidence upon which we rely is American evidence. The writer in the World's Work is an American expert, and not a man prejudiced by being brought up to the European tradition.—En. Spectator.]
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