CO-EDUCATION.

Thames Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 10191, 14 January 1907, Page 1

CO-EDUCATION.

Co-eduoartioaii is genienal thriough'oiut. the colony, but it is only lately that we hajvie applied-the-eyatemi .to our' own local publib schools. Curiously ' enough! co-educaitAon, which is regarded as at piobiem of dteiep diemoomtic significance, is. just now prominently 'before the Englis'li public, and the diverse ©pinions held and expressed ■ will illustrate .th& undeveloped condition of educational science 1. The fact is that ooi-eduaatiom, lite "all other vital educational qu'estiioocts 1 involves our whole philosophy of life. To present a few acl^ antpgesi, or ai few of t'hle dimcTiltiesi, conneoted with) educta.t----j ing boys 'amd giirlsi tbgathea 1, settles nothing. The question remains—How will it affect tihie foundaitiioins 1 of our society? Profefeso/r 1 Eiarl Barnes oontributes an interestinig article on, tLe subject, to a recent numb'ef of the Daily Telegraph!, based largely .u,|'Oii -hist own personal experience and ol ?ervation in "America. .He points «;vt_ thlat in Amerioa tlhe pracitiioe of ioo-edu-ca'tioai is SO 1 ■ widespread! fchait. while, during tho-'pasb thirty yearsi h!e haw attended every kind of ■stohool, fror.i tile uuolassified country school to Hhe university, and has taught im evwy grade of thbss schools, from iNew York" bo San Francisco, he has never spent a> -day in schools where 'hie was not. \w>rking side by aide with girls nndwomen. And yet. tlie couditi m las not come a<b'outi through! any dire?i •belief in the desirability of teac^inirj boys and girls together- It has resulted, from ■ecobomde needs: amd) from d'eaniocratic beliefs. The original colonists ware too poor and' tocn scatterpd to. maintain separate schools!, and sothe boys, and giirils were taught to- t geither, just as they still are in out- ', lying parts! of tlile British Islands. ' After 1840 America rapidly grew rich; -day high schools were estaV'itih- 1 ed, and the girls Went to them with their brothers. 'By the time the children were 1& everyone had grown accustomed! to sice tiliein to^e^her 1, and, j 'beginning wifhi MiioMgam- University i in. 1870, the-4pioii"s of "the larger- colleges and tuniversities Avere- - forced open for syomien. "'?. his was not be- , ciaiusia educaitional people thought- it i desirable; in fa<jt.,. neii,rly-. all prQffSr' sioa's opposied it-; lii"it v tlic ' tSxriaying-* | parents demanded: it. America's ex- ■ tretne 'belief im hlumani equality 'macli. Vv eduaafcibn '<if women ineviliable^-' r.utl eioonomia domditions put them in c lioolsi with! .'boys." It is signifijint. ll.aib higher 00-educaition, in any iai"2*3 way, 'begami juab after the completion of the warl whidhl freed the slaves. The Aimlerican experience has. been much j like that of Walesi, amd all wer Eng- j • land the enormous dost of an advancing State edudaibioni a.nd the gtiowth of a B'oa/rd 1 school democracy, inevi'tatole after 1870, and now expressing itself im Labour andi iSojoialißt movements, maikiei—in the lopanion of Professor Barnes —'general co-eduoation for 1 England! probable in the future. The new diemocracy, 'he argues, will insist .on edeuication for women, and no nation can afford 1 a double equipmient of miodiern, costly sohoolhiauses and teachers. , i