The Daily News. TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1904. CO-EDUCATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 184, 9 August 1904, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1904. CO-EDUCATION.

" Co-Education " was the subject ofr a heated discussion at a meeting oi the United States National Educational Association, held at St. Louis last month. The custom oi 1 educating boys and girls together was condemned, as tending to race suicide, by Mr U. S. Hall, the president of the Clock University. " Coeducation and higher education have reduced the rate of both marriage and offspring," he declared. '■' Scarcely three-fourths of our male and only about ontnhalT oi our female graduates marry, and those who do so many late and have few cliildren." The separate school and college for girls were strongly advocated by Mr Hall. He said that his own experience and observations had convinced him that the high schools interfered with the laws of nature, in that a large percentage of the girls v*pj* taught to wish that they had been born boyi The manners of the girls were roughened, and they did not take pride in distinctively feminine qualities, or in the grace and charm of their young womanhood. He said that there wa,vS something wrong with a girl in the middle teens who was not gusshy and sentimental at times. The girls' colleges in universities train for self-support," he said, " and hold that if marriage comes it can best take care of itself. 1 urge the precise opposite. The bachelor woman, who, in Herbert Spencer's phrase, h a s developed individualism at the expense of genesis is a magnificent creature, but not made for wifehood or motherhood." Afgiainst this the President of another i«rgo American University urged that it was better to meet a life companion while doing class work than to trust to the chance acquaintance of the ball-room. His complaint was lets (hat the girl students became i.nfeininine than that they were too [ji'oiic to reciprocate the affection of the male students and marry young. "U'e don't want our boys and girls to fall in love-through propinquity," urged a professor. "Co-education encourages this, and love-making ought to be banished from the colleges." "The women in our college waste no time in languid sentiment and have no glittering gush," retorted another professor. " You might just as well separate the sexos in the church, theatre, or any other public place, as in the colleges." On the whole the opinion of the convention seemed to lean in the direction of supporting the co-educa-tion system. The old threadbare arguments of its opponents carry little weight with intelligent American teachers, ON THE FOURTH TAOE. Literature. County Council. i Theatre ltoyal. Church and State.