CO-EDUCATION.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18456, 10 August 1925, Page 10

CO-EDUCATION.

STUDY OF AMERICAN METHODS. INFLUENCE OF SEX. In America co-education is now accepted as an established institution. Public education is a State and not a National service in this country; each Stato lias its own laws governing education (writes Sir A. Maurice Low in the "Morning Post")- "With exception hfero and there, practically aU the public elementary schools aremixea schools, children of both sexes sitting sido by side in the same class rooms and reoeiving the same lnstniction. In the secondary or high schools the sanie system exists; but there are eer ! tain elective or optional courses, ihe | bovs naturally go in for engineering, advanced mathematics, manual training, and similar stiidies; the home economic courses are taken almost exclusively by the girls. The pubhc bchoo is open to everyone, the children 01 the rich as well as the poor, attendance is compulsory, unless the child is privately instructed: tne nob maivs eon may. and often does, m years touch elbows on the school bench 'with the daughter of his father s cook, and this mixing of the young of all classes is considered to be in accordance with democratic ideas and an antidote to "aristocracy."

The Private School. In the private schools, both elementary and stecondary, the co-ed\icational system exists, but not quite to tne same degree as in the public schools. The private school admitedly is for tn& rich or the well to do, a certain amount of exclusiveness is desirea; and aa many of the best known secondary schools both for boys and girls are boarding schools, segregation, of tt© sexes is necessary. In "the private day schools it is not considered objectionable for boys and girls, usually drawn from the same social circle, to sit in the same clasa room and receive the same instruction and play the same games. . They come together again at the university or ' college. Nearly all the State universities and other institutions for higher learning are. Co-educational, some of them having Special courses for each sex. There are colleges exclusively for women as there , are for men j some of the universities intended originally for male education now have colleges for women as an adjur.ct; but, speaking broadly, co-education is one of tne marked features of American education. .

Advantages Weighed. Prom this it might be inferred that as the advantages or disadvantages of bringing the young of both sexes into the close communion of the class room and the. playground have been closely studied, the advantages of co-education must more than outweigh its .possible disadvantage, the subject is no longer open to discussion and the system is generally, accepted. This ■ inference, however, would not be correct. It Is true that most of the leading American educators approve the system, but there are many persons who believe it is as harmful to boys and young men as it is injurious to girls and young womenl The of these persons is that the boy is feminised and the girl becomes masculine, which is. not serious because that phase is not lasting as a rule; the detrimental effects are seen when, tho'boy is of an age to have V vague and-perhaps unconscious sense of sex,, and the girl is beginning to have a dim but unformed knowledge of the' attraction the girl has for

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