The Iola register., 1889-11-29
A ScHOOL.ROOM SPOOK.

A Bug-a-boo of the CO-education of the
Sexes-Senseless Objections Based Upon
the Improprieties of Literature.
Now that the higher education of
women is pretty we'll assured, there is a
disposition, especially among occasional
foreign observers, to find a new bugbear
in the way. This lies, says writer in
Harper's Bazaar, in the imagined diff
Guilty of teaching the sciences and the
classics to wonderland especially to
mixed classes of men and women-on
account of supposed improprieties to be
found in such studies. So far has this
been carried, that an eminent teacher
argued seriously against the establish
ment of the Girls High-school in Boston,
some years since, on the ground that
Greek literature was unfit for the perus-
al of girls. When it was pointed out in
turn that the Greek literature was in
general more dignified and free from i'm
proprieties than any great modern liter
ature, except, perhaps, the Spanish, and
that there was something absurd in ex-
Guiding girls from the knowledge of
Plato and Homer, and then turning
them loose among modern French nov
els. the objection subsidized. But as it
has lately been brought up again, espe-
cially in foreign criticisms on the great
co-educational universities of our West
ern States, it may be well to consider it
little farther.
The literature of the world is unfor-
tunately disfigured here and there by
great deal of improperly, the bequest
of coarse and sensual periods. This has
gradually yielded to various influences,
one chief cause being the greater partic-
ipation of women in literature; just as
conversation has been visibly refined by
the greater share taken by women in
social intercourse. There has been no
steady advance, for, as has been said,
the sense Of dignity and fitness among
the Greeks placed them beyond most of
the moderns. Among the classic Greek
authors there is but single one, a COM
edian, whose works are in large part un-
translatable; even these having nothing
in them that is seductive or insidious,
only what would at once disgust and re-
pei. Nevertheless all literatures have
some of this taint. How, then, shall
they be studied? They must be studied,
like all things else, by selection. Where
so little time can be given to any partic-
ular author, there is no reason why he
should not be viewed on his best side
instead of his worst: no reason why we
should bring into prominence the lines
which dying he might wish to blot. :"
We must also assume that young people
of decent training will gladly omit or
ignore, with little assistance, all that
is polluting; and that such persons will
indeed be spared many reprehensible al
lusions simply by ignorance Of their
meaning. Without the aid of all these
resources it is plain that Shakespeare
clubs would be impossible; and if youths
and maidens read and act Shakespeare
together all over the country, it is SIM
ply absurd to say they can not study
Plato and Virgil together. or even Ana
creon and Horace. The selection is more
easily made in these cases than in Chau-
Ger or Spencer or Shakespeare, and the
undesirable passages are more effectu-
ally veiled by the obscurity of foreign
tongue.
We must always bear in mind that it
Is youth in itself. and not the youth of
either sex only, which We are seeking
to protect. 1t was not the theory, even
of ancient education, that vice should
be revealed to boys while hidden from
girls. 1t was Juvenal, the most merci
less of satirists, who wrote that rever-
ence is due to youth (Maxima debetur
pueris reverentia), and the phrase has
become proverb. Horace, an equally
trenchant social critic, yet inscribes one
Of his finest odes to his young readers of
both sexes tVirginibus puerisque canto).
What poet writes for maids and boys
may not maids and boys read, and even
read together? 1t is not a question
of vast and exhaustive knowledge,
searching every thing. omitting
nothing; our modern life gives no time
for that, except to professional special
lists. But there is no reason why the
very limited amount for which ordinary
students have time. in their study of
any literature or history. should not be
kept within ground that is safe, even
for their innocence.
The question of co-education may
sometimes present practical difficulties,
but they will rarely lie in the direction
of perplexities in the recitation-room.
Those who have taught mixed classes,
even in medical schools, almost always
testify that they have found the embar-
rassment in this direction far less than
they expected; and it is absurd to say
that if surmounted in medicine, these
obstacles will afford any perceptible in
convenience in Greek or botany. IL
they do, it will be because of the want
of tact or of propriety in the instructor;
and here we come to what is, am con-
fident, positive advantage in lecturing
to Joint classes or in teaching them. III
any study really brings students on
dangerous ground, the presence of young
women will guard a coarse-minded
teacher against himself, and he will be
constrained into propriety. Every one
acquainted with our large training
schools and colleges knows that there
are here and there teachers, perhaps
eminent for scholarship, who can not
resist an indelicate illusion or a double
entendre in presence of their pupils,
when suggested by passage in liter
ature, or even by an aspect Of science.
1t is needful in the interest of human
progress that such instructors should be
either eliminated or reformed. They
are rare in this country, and, if the truth