[To THE EDITOR Or THE "SPICTLTOR.1 SIR, — Allow me to enter
a gentle protest against the conjunc- tion, by the writer of an article bearing the title " Co-education and Teaching by Women " in the Spectator of May 16th, of these phenomena of the educational world as if they were only two aspects of the same condition of things. I venture to assert that they have nothing whatever to do with one another, and that a thinker may (theoretically or practically) believe in co-education and yet have a profound distrust of the preponderance of women teachers. In my own report after my return from the Mosely Com- mission I felt compelled to remark, on the one hand, that " it is not straining a point to say that the preponderance of female teachers in the higher or secondary schools has an effeminating effect on the character of American boyhood" (p. 165). On the other hand, I felt "convinced" that "the camaraderie between the sexes by the system of co-education Is, on the whole, vastly beneficial to the American boy and girl
alike, and is largely corrective of (certainly in no way increases) the tinge of effeminacy which the preponderance of the woman teacher alluded to above is unhappily producing " (p. 167).
I hold no brief for co-education. I am a staunch believer in the advantages of our public-school training, though as an educationist I am not blind to the defects of our system. regard co-education as a very interesting experiment, and one which should be encouraged, not by faddists, but by thinking men, as supplying the cure for certain defects which our semi. monastic methods of government can hardly fail to bring to the notice of experienced teachers. I go no further, nor can I intrude on your columns to labour points of advantage and disadvantage in either system. But at least do not let us be unfair, and employ one and the same criticism on two absolutely distinct phenomena, as are the principle of co-education and the principle of employing a preponderance of women teachers.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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