Litchfield enquirer., 1878-01-10
Dr. Jacobi on Separate Education.

Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi is a very high au-
 thority on all physiological matters; but like
 all eminent specialists, from Huxley down
 ward, she is sometimes tempted to speak with
 equal emphasis when she goes little beyond the ground where she is especially strong. ! What has been, for instance, her experience as to the practical workings of co-educatlon that should Justify her in speaking of special authority ast6 it's moral results, in this wayT But a more important reason for separate education consists in the desirableness of pro- longing, as late as possible the first unconscious ness of sex. At this age, the stimolous de- rived from co-education, acting upon imper- feet organization, is liable to be other than in- tellectual.-liable to excite emotions equally ridiculous and painful from their prematurity, and therefore to increase the very danger most to be averted from this period of ife,-the ex- cessive development of the emotional functions and organs of the nervous system"
 Now do not claim for myself the slightest authority on the matters of physiology she treats: but have been studying the moral in- fiuences of co-education ever since can re- member. This study began in my own exper- lence at boys boarding school, where was for five years day scholar and was constant lv impressed by the greater purity of mind, on all sexual matters, of the boys who lived at home, in the constant society of their sisters and their girlish friends. Next observed pre- cise1y the same thing in similar boarding school where taught as usher. Almost ever since, have been more or less connected wi the public schools, in different places, occasion ally studying the separate, always the co-edu- cational method. During this time 1 have seen the method of co-education steadils gain ing on the other system; and have in two dill erent cities seen the separate schools changed to mixed schools, without the slightest subse- ouent public desire that the original schools should be restored This Ihaveseen done un- der the eye of parents, clergymen and school committees, all deeply interested in the result, and unanimous so far as l can see, in approv- ing it. This public school experience has now covered an experience of nearly thirty years And the public experience of the community as whole is far greater than this, for the old ''acadegnies'' of New England were nearly all co-educational, and are generally unchanged at this day.
 The general result of all this observation IS diametrically opposite to Dr. Jacobi's opinion and goes to this effect She wishes to ''pro- long the first unconsciousness of sex Ii the way to prolong this is separation, it is clear that the Deity when he settled the solitary in families would have settled all the boys under one roof and all the girls under another: The way to make children Unconscious ot sex until the proper IlIIlc IS LO lcI uOJ huu girls be together The way to develop nor bid consciousness is to separate them. Make the walls impossible and all the strengtho of cu- riosity is poured into the desire to get on the other side. Make the intercourse an every day matter and there is only healthful relation. 'Premature emotions," whether sensual or sentimental, occur in some temperaments very carly: but nothing is so sure in my judgment to make them uorbid as to give them no out let but the imagination.
 Fla niiarity disenchants, if based on grolnts of practical or intellectual companionship, remote alike from sense or sentiment. Brothers and sisters do not fall in lovo with each other nor do even adopted brothers and sisters. At least this last is very rare, showing that it is not the power of blood which produ:. ces sexual indifference, but the familiarity ot habit. have often been amused by obsery- ing, among the girls of certain High School, the greater interest inspired by the boys ot the private school over the way, than by the boys of their own school whose playground was equally under observation. They say at Ann Arbor that the young men of the university do not pay so much attention, in society, to the young women of the university, as to those with whom they do not recite mathematics; though these university young women are found by other young men quite as attractive as the rest This is as might be expected. It
 is separation, not society, that develops the emotional functions "-Col. Hlgginson.