Sweet girl graduates
Sir: I should like to extend my congratula- tions to Mr P. J. Wilde (Letters, 30 May) following his unprecedented success in offer- ing, in Mr Jackson's view (Letters, 7 June), one intelligent comment. Its validity, of course, is unquestionable, though its rele- vance (it's that word again) to my argument (Letters, 30 May) unfortunately escapes me. If the more enlightened readers will bear with me, 1 shall take a brief moment to clarify the points Mr Jackson raised.
The fact that promiscuity already exists, and will continue to exist, whether or not one has co-educational colleges is, to say the least, hardly a convincing argument in response to my suggestion that academic progress is not entirely unrelated to per- sonal standards of morality. (For Mr Jack- son's benefit, this is embodied in my com- ment on the taxpayer's possible attitude to co-education.) The existence of promiscuity is no justification for its encouragement.
Again, I fail to see the reasoning in Mr Jackson's statement that I cannot possibly point out the inaccuracies in his argument without giving a fool-proof solution myself. I was merely stating that he was not con- sidering all aspects of the problem. Indeed, I entirely agree with an earlier correspond- ent when he says that Mr Jackson is arguing from a particular ground (quicksand, per- haps?). There are more sides to the prob- lem than he envisages.
For example, from the practical point of view, extensive co-education would lead to an excess of women graduates, with a con- sequent wastage of the country's money, owing to the limited number of career- minded women. Of course, this presupposes the retention of the institution of marriage; though, judging by the vehemence of Mr Jackson's attitude to promiscuity, who knows what might happen when the Jack- sonian revolution comes?
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