The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-09-21

and in the growth of the elective
system. The power of choice carries
the duty of choosing rightly. The
ability to choose has made man out
of the college boy, and transferred
college work from an alienation OF
tasks and play to its proper relation
to the business of life. Meanwhile
the old ideals have not risen in value.
If our colleges were to go back to
threshing the cutstraw of medieval
ism,-in other words to their work of
twenty years ago,-their professors
would speak to empty benches. In
those colleges which still cling to
those traditions these benches are
empty today, or filled only with
idlers. This to college is fate
worse than death.
The best education for a young
woman is surely not that which has
proved unfit for the young man. She
is an individual as we'll as he, and
her work gains as much as his by re-
lating it to her life. But an institu-
ton broad enough to meet the varied
needs of varied men can also meet
the varied needs of the varied women.
Intellectual training is the prime
function of the college. The intel
lectual needs of men and women are
not different in many important re-
spects. The special or professional
needs so far as they are different will
bring their own satisfaction. Those
who have had to do with the higher
training of women know that the Sc
verest demands can be met by them
as we'll as by men. There is no de-
mand for easy or "goody-goody"
courses of study for women except as
this demand has been made or en-
couraged by men.
There are of course certain average
differences between men and women
as students. Women have often
greater sympathy, greater readiness
of memory or apprehension, greater
fondness for technique. In the lang
uages and literature, often in mathe-
MATES and history, women are found
to excel. They lack, on the whole,
originality. They are not attracted
by unsolved problems, and in the in
ductive or ''inexact" sciences, they
seldom take the lead. In the tradi-
tional courses of study, traditional
for men, they are often very success
full. Not that these courses have a
special fitness for women, but that
women are more docile and less criti-
cal as to the purposes of education.
And to all these statements there are
many exceptions. In this, however,
those who have taught both men and
women must agree. The training of
women is just as serious and just as
important as the training of men, and
no training is adequate for either
which falls short of the best.
Third, shall women be taught in
the same classes as men? This is, it
seems to me, nota fundamental ques-
ton, but rather matter of TASTE. 1t
does no harm whatever to either men
or women to meet those of the other
sex in the same class-rooms. But if
they prefer not to do SO, let them do
otherwise. Considerable has been
said for and against the union in one
institution of technical schools and
schools of liberal arts. The techni-
cal character of scientific work is en-
phasized by its separation from gen.
eral culture. But | believe better
men are made where the two are not
separated. The devotees of culture
studies gain from the feeling of real
ity and utility cultivated by techni-
cal work. The technical students
gain from association with men and
influences whose aggregate tendency
is toward greater breadth of SYM
patty and higher point of view.
A woman's college is more or less
distinctly a technical school. In
most cases its purpose is distinctly
stated to be such. 1t is school of
training for the profession of woman
hood. 1t encourages womanliness OF
thought as something more or less
different from the plain thinking
which is often called manly.
The brightest work in women's
colleges is often accompanied by a
nervous strain as though the students
or teachers were fearful of falling
short of some expected standard.
They are often working toward ideals
set by others. The best work of men
is natural and unconscious, the norm
al product of the contact of the mind
with the problem in question. On
the whole. calmness and strength in