Saturday, June 27, 2009

The Co-Education Of The Sexes

The Co-Education Of The Sexes
We have spoken of this in a previous part of this work as an experimentation, about the result of which we are not quite fully satisfied. The substantiation which has been submitted to the public is nearly all in its favor. We are still, however, not yet inclined to give it our unconditional advocacy ; there are many considerations of locality and custom which must " give us pause;" there are individual instances in which it (cannot be approved, and there are limits to mixed classes which must be amorphous. But of such importance as a practical question do we judge it, that we venture to insert an take out of some length from the last Annual Report of the Board of St. Louis Public Schools, written by the efficient administrator, Professor Willim T. Harris.
He remarks:-
" It is in agreement with the spirit of our institutions to treat women as self-governing beings, and as less in want of those external reproduction barriers that were built up in such cornucopia in past times. We give to youth of both sexes more constitutional rights or opportunities for self-control than are given in the old-world society. Each production takes a step in advance in this respect.
" Occasionally, as in San Francisco, there is a returning eddy which may be caused by the lopsided stipulation or society found on frontiers. Old cities, like New York and Boston, may move very slowly in this bearing, because of enormous expense required to change buildings and school-yards so as to adapt them to the wants of " mixed schools." In fact, the small size of school-yards in many cities renders this change next to impracticable. Western cities will take the lead in this matter and outstrip the East. Within fifteen years the schools of St. Louis have been entirely remodelled on this plan, and the results have proved so commendable that a few remarks may be ventured on the experience which they provide. I wish to speak of the effects on the school system itself and of the effects upon the individual pupils attending.
"I. Economy has been secured through the event, that the co-education of the sexes makes it possible to have better categorization and at the same time larger classes. Unless proper grading is interfered with, and pupils of widely different attainments brought together in the same classes, the disconnection of the sexes requires twice as many teachers to teach the same number of pupils. This remark applies, of Coures, predominantly to sparsely settled districts.
The item of economy is very significant, but is not to be compared with the other and greater advantages arising.
"While it is conceded by the opponents of co-education that primary schools may be mixed to advantage, they with one accord oppose the system for schools of a higher grade. Now, what is singular in our practice is the fact that our high school was the first experimentation on this plan for classes above the primary. Economy and better arrangement were the controlling reasons that initiated this research, and from the high school the system has crept down through all the transitional grades. What had been found practicable and satisfactory in the highest grades could not long be kept away from the lower ones.
" II. Discipline has improved continually with the adoption of mixed schools. Our change in St. Louis has been so gradual that we have been able to weigh with the utmost exactness every point of comparison between the two systems.
'• The mixing of the male and female departments of a school has always been followed by improvement in discipline ; not merely on the part of the boys, but on that of the girls as well. The rudeness and abandon which prevail among boys when separate, at once give place to self-restraint in the presence of girls. The prurient sentimentality engendered by educating girls apart from boys - it is manifested by a frivolous and silly bearing when such girls are brought into the society of the opposite sex - this disappears almost entirely in mixed schools. In its place a quiet self->n reigns. The consequence of this is a general prevalence of milder forms of discipline. Boys and girls originating - according to nature's plan - in the same family as brothers and sisters, their culture should be together, so that the social instincts be Saved from abnormal diseased action. The natural independence of each individual upon all the rest in society should not be prevented by isolating one sex from another during the most formative stages of growth.
" III. Instruction is also greatly improved. Where the sexes are separate, methods of instruction are unbalanced and gravitate continually towards extremes that may be called masculine and feminine. The masculine extreme is mechanical formalizing in its lowest shape, and the merely intellectual training on its highest side. The feminine extreme is the learning-by-rote system on the lower side, and the superfluity of sentiment in the higher activities. Each needs the other as a counter-check, and it is only through their union that educational methods attain comprehensiveness and do not foster one-sidedness in the pupil. We find here that mixed schools are noted for the prevalence of a certain healthy tone which schools on the separate system lack More rapid progress is the importance, and we find girls making wonderful advances even in mathematical studies. while boys seem to take hold of literature far better for the influence of the female portion of the class.
" IV. Individual development is, as already indicated, far more sound and healthy. It has been found that schools kept completely for girls or boys require a much more strict surveillance on the part of the teachers. The girls confined by themselves develop the sexual tension much earlier, their imagination being the reigning faculty, and not bridled by intercourse with society in its normal form. So it is with boys, on the other hand. Daily involvement in the class-room prevents this tension, and supplies its place by indifference. Each sex testing its strength with the other on an logical plane in the presence of the teacher - each one seeing the weakness and strength of the other - learns to esteem what is essential at its true value. Sudden likes and dislikes, capricious fancies and romantic ideals give way for sober judgments not easily deceived by mere externals. This is the basis of that ' quiet self-possession' before alluded to, and it forms the most striking mark of difference between the girls or boys educated in mixed schools and those educated in schools absolutely for one sex.
" That the sexual tension be residential as late as possible, and that all early love affairs be avoided, is the desideratum, and experience has shown that association of the sexes on the plane of intellectual contest is the safest course to secure this end."
These judicious remarks, by one who has long and attentively studied the problem under advantageous conditions, are so clear that we have few commentaries to make upon them. Of course there are certain branches of instruction to which they do not apply, but this is a question we do not enter upon in this relationship.
The point to which we wish to draw especial attention is what Professor Harris calls the " late development of the sexual tension," in children of both sexes who are allowed freely to intermingle in the pursuits of education.
Furthermore, as we have shown at the outset of this appeindx, that education itself is higher which develops the latent womanly instincts in boys, the inherent mannish traits in girls; which, in other words, tempers each sex with the best characteristics of the opposite sex.
Separation and isolation do not improve the morality nor elevate the culture, but the contrary. From the earliest years it is better that the sexes should meet in an unrestricted manner, that diffidence, false modesty, and spurious sentiment should be avoided, and that much of the intellec-tual and social training should be in common.
While this is true, it by no means follows that the social basis of children's society should be upon the same theories as that of adults.
No training is more disagreeable and more caculated to bring about intelligent maturity, in other words, to foster the very tension which it should be our aim to discourage, than to introduce into the thoughts and social life of children the sentiment of sexual love. Hence it was that we have said, on a previous page: "The growing custom of allowing very young people of both sexes to associate at parties, balls, dances, and similar amusements cannot be approved on the score of health. It is nearly certain to favor precocity."
Discussion about beaus and " girls," reference to the admiration of the opposite sex, teasing about early loves, and such subjects, on which too many parents delight to speak with their children, are painstakingly unwise.
While the ordinary communication of the family and the school is likely to bring about a condition of indifference, it is not to e trusted to alone. The minds of the young are too exci ible and too eager for novelties to be left to their own di retion. It is essential that they be unavailable with matters which will keep them away from seductive and insidious subjects.
The pursuit of the severer studies, such as mathematics, and the proper training of the physical powers, are what we must chiefly rely upon to accomplish this. "With these precautions, we need not fear the result of the freedom which in this country is constantly extending in reference to the relations of the sexes in daily life.
While these associations should be looked upon with approval, they should not be unrestricted. Even in our country, in which we boast of liberty and equality, there are distinctions in society which we do, and which we ought to observe.
It is better that children find their playmates and companions among those of their own social position, than with others less carefully nurtured. Hence the impropriety of trusting them too largely, as is often done, to the care of domestics and to the companionship of their children.

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