Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-08-07
GRAND RAPIDS, WIS., THURSDAY AUGUST I 1913

gether, only by actual growth, side b,
side, during the formidable years q
youth and young manhood and woman
hood.
We make no trifing mistake wher
we build female colleges for our daugh-
ters and male colleges for our sons, and
shut each sex apart from the other while
the character is forming.
We say it is dangerous for them to
be educated together-yet we do not
think it dangerous for these youths,
who have no actual knowledge Of each
other, to marry to undertake to spend
half century together in the most
intimate and severe os relations. They
marry with ideal fancies of each other
the young woman believing that men
are always chivalrous, tn. young man
that women are perpetual sweetness,
and they have to go to school together
= good many years to get reasonable
understanding Of each other. While
young men in college are learning books
they should be learning to live while
they are getting mental discipline they
should also be getting adaptability of
character. While they are studying
the dead languages of Homer and Vir-
gil which they may have no occasion
to remember after they leave school,
they should also be familiariztng them
selves with the genius and character of
living, ever-present fact, Of no less a
fact than--Wonan, a fact more signifi-
cant to the young men of this nation
than all the Old Worlds tongues and
histories. 1t is said young men will
get suffi cient knowledge of this fact by
association with their mothers and sis
ters, at home, and with women in gen.
eral social life. But if it has proved a
benefit to meet women, on equal ground
in TIE home and society. might it not
be an increased benefit to meet them in
the recitation room in stern intellectual
struggle. Women have an intellectual
side to their natures, which it might
be we'll for young men to recognize.
The benefit would be great, if it were
only a dimunition of masculine con-
ceit, which is the bane of the masculine
character
1t is being found in Michigan Uni
versity, at Antioch, Oberlin, and where
ever young women have been admitted
in schools with young men that the
standard of scholarship is not lowered
by their presence, that they are quite
able to keep pace with their brothers
indeed am not sure, but our sons will
il the years coming have to make bet
ter use of their time and talel.ls to
keep undisputed the leadership which
they profess to deserve.
But claim that young women have
a right to demand for their O , sake
that they be educated not only as well
as their brothers, but Nth their broth
ers, that they may have the benefit Of
mental competition, and of that men
tai electricity which comes by the con-
tact of different minds
| do not care how excellent young
ladies school may be, how thorous its
training and how high the standard of
scholarship, it would be better for each
young lady there, to find herself meas
uring her intellect every day ly the
strong brains of superior ypun- men
good for her to be analyzing nIasculine
character, with which she must asso-
ciate all her life, while she analyses
problems and chemicals The educa-
tion which yolng women have in times
past received in our female schools has
been 50 superficial, Sc weak, 80 devoid
of the stimulus of purpose that it is
impossible to judge of wcman's posi-
bilities by the results Of these schools.
| have in mind a Female College
where we spent al hour each day, year
after year in listening to the sentimen-
tai twaddle of well-meaning, but mar
rowly developed woman, who told us
"now to behave;' how to be feminine
and polished in our speech and behav
ior. We then walked in procession
and brought up in front of the prim
faculty; made most graceful courtesies,
two by two, and then swept out Of the
presence of what was not feminine, but
effeninate How ridiculous would the
whole thing have revealed itself if
suddenly twenty stalwart students had
come in our midst. When young
lady who had graduated from this
schoo! found herself suddenly thrown
upon her own resources for support,
she found to her modification that she
did not know enough of Algebra or
Latin OR even of Arithmetic and Gram
mar to obtain position as teacher.
Prejudice and false ideas of what is
proper for women are stumbling blocks
in their pathway; but the great fact
stares us in the face that to have good
men and noble women we must follow
out Gods plan of permitting men and
women to educate each other by being
educated everywhere together.
The Western University of Penn
sylvania has great hopes of bequest
from MIR Thaw. I hope she may re-
ceive it, but I wish the same spirit
which haunted Vassar, which went
round the world with him, sayin1 ever.
in his ear, '.Do something for coaea,
may haunt our excellent townsman till
he will make his bequest only ON con-
dition that the doors of Western Uni