Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1867-02-23
oo.tpucAr1oN OF THE SEXES.

T
On this subject the California Teacher
has the following:
That the tendency of educating boys
and girls together is to excite improper
and impure thoughts, We deny. That
the standard of morality and propriety,
"a lower than in schools where the sexes
ara separated, we also deny. But there
.re others who desire o separation of
the sexes, not IN the ground Of the
temptation to immoral acts and practic-
az. hut on the plea Of the "proprieties."
They think it may be all well enough
for the boys, but then the association
tends to blunt the delicate sensibIlities
of the girls, and to make them rude
and masculine. Fashionable boarding
schools for young ladies allow no boys
about the premises; and the graduates
of these institutions are supposed to be
the very pink Of propriety. In answer
to this objection, we will consider some
of the mutual benefits resulting from
educating boys and girls together. The
presence of girls in a SHOOT room,
throws a strong, restraining influence
over boys. They are more attentive to
personal appearance, and neatness of
dress, they are moro refined in manner,
and careful in speech. They have high
er feelings of honor and manliness.-
They stand in wholesome dread of the
public opinion Of the girls, which frowns
down meanness, profanity, and vulgarity.
Boys have quite as high feelings of
honor as men. The restraining infu-
ence of girls over boys is the same Al
that of INT over men. Remove any
community Of men from the society Of
women, and what is the result? Does
it make them more refined in manner,
or purer in thought? In the early days
of California, throughout the mines,
there were no women what was the
social condition Of the thousands of
rough men let loose from the restraints
of society," We leave it for those who,
like US, have lived in such one-sided
society to answer. The presence
of an innocent girl is the angel which
drives from the mind Of the boy any i'm
pure thought, and seals his lips against
any vile words. The most debased boy
dare not be guilty Of an indecent action
or vulgar word in the presence of a high
minded girl, just as the basest man
shrinks abashed from the presence Of a
virtuous woman, or hides his depravity |
under the mask of honor and politeness.
We believe girls educated with boys
will grow up into womanhood with
stronger, purer, nobler, better developed
character, than if trained in seclusion.
They will be better capable of acting
and thinking for themselves. We
think that nowhere can they form better
ideas of true manhood than in the
public schools, where ambitious and
manly boys are their associates,
where mind is made the standard OF
position and where true merit
always commands respect and admira-
ton. Girls are stimulated to greater
mental efforts by the presence OF able
and ambitious boys. The surest way
to produce Economically diseased imagi-
nations and to sully the purity of the
female character is to shut out girls
from the society of hoys, and exclude
young ladies from the society Of young
men. 1t is a fact which young ladies
| themselves admit that in schools for
young ladies exclusively there is more
talk about the other sex, than in insti-
tutions where both sexes are educated
together. The young Miss with the
most romantic notions about love and
| marriage who would sooner elope with
a fine coat and q handsome face is not
the one who has been educated with
boys and young men, the sentimental
young Miss, brought up in some seclud-
ed seminary where men are the myths
of some fashionable novel, is far more
likely to be the simple victim. We be-
lieve in making the school room pleas
ant in throwing around itevery possible
charm. We think that education con-
sists in the development Of character
moro than in the study of text books.
We believe in throwing around boys
every refining, restraining and harmon
izing influence; in educating them to
regard the female character as some
thing pure and holy; in training them
to reverence ~womanhood. We believe
in teaching girls to respect manliness
and manhood. How can this be done
better than in a well regulated school
where boys and girls mutually educate
each other.