The Savannah morning news., 1902-07-13

WORLD.

So far as my opinion goes. it seems
- me that coeducation is heir to every
,ossible objection, and without sin
-le virtue to redeem it, / do not say
his because 1 disapprove of the high
ar education for women. On the con-
.rary. 1 believe that in giving every
4 ona every particle of knowledge and
4 every bit of light they are capable OF
.ocsiving. and l believe that this par
ticularly belongs to women because
.bav are the mothers and form the
character of the human race.
believe. says Dorothy Dix in the
New orleans Picayune that the aver
age girl is capable of taking just as
GOOD an education as the average boy
and should be given just as good a
nance. and that when more girls are
college bred and have learned to take
. broader view of life, we shall have
fsver brainless dolls, whose interest
never rises above the bargain counter
and scurrilous gossip about their
neighbors; that we shall have fewer
Incompetent wives whose housekeep-
ING runs their husbands into debt and
dvspepsia, and fewer criminal moth
ers. killing their children, mentally,
morally and physically through ignor-
anee and neglect, but there is no rea-
son why any girl should not obtain
This knowledge in a girls school.
If there were no good girls schools
and no possibility of starting one,
there would be reason for women to
break into the mems colleges, for
which they are not adapted, and where
thev are not wanted, but thank heav
on men have no monopoly on learn
ing There are already a number OF
women's colleges whose curriculum
. COMPARES favorably with that of the
more advanced mems universities, and
4 if the Minerva of the future desires
TO drink still deeper of the Plerian
snring there is no bar to the estab-
ishment of female schools that shall
4 he complete compendium of universal
II knowledge, alive and dead
One of the chief objections to CO.
81 education is that it throws boys and
Fl girls together at the most romantic
a and impressionable time of their lives,
n with the result that most coeducational
institutions become merely matrimo-
NAL bureaus. Callow youths and un-
sophisticated maidens reading love
n poetry together in their literature
u course. or associated in the bon COM
N aradie of school life, easily imagine
y themselves in love, and rush into mat
rimony that brings them untold mis-
Al cry. Not infrequently a boy acquires
Il a marriage certificate and a diploma
u on the same day, and comes home
81 laden with a wife he has no earthly
way of supporting, and a girl student
returns to the bosom of her family
engaged to fellow student, of whom
"A her family knows nothing.
Every sane person ought to perceive
the needless danger they are subject
ing their sons and daughters. to by
sending them to a coeducational school,
Nowhere as we can all testify from
81 our own experience, are such violent
q friendships formed as at school, and
no other ties are so quickly broken. 1t
A is always a shock, in after life, to
meet the boy, or girl, who was your
81 Achates at school, for whom you fag-
q ged and served, and would have died,
and to find that you have forgotten
their name, but surely when boy can
Il entertain that sort of reverent worship
~ for another boy, or a girl for another
~ girl it is easy enough to see how two
VI sentimental young creatures can mis-
# take passing attraction for deathless
81 love, and plunge into marriage that
"a will mean lifelong disappointment for
Il them both. But there is ne sex in
brains" urge the advocates of coedu-
cation. That is true enough, but the
ordinary boy and girl are so little brain
and so much animal, it's hardly worth
taking that side of the question into
consideration. College life is full
enough of temptations at best for
young and untried souls, without
3 thrusting the complication Of sex I'M
necessarily into it,
Another objection to coeducation is
mat it doesn't give women the kind
q OF education they need. The mere
Il knowledge of text books does not con-
Fl stitute an education. In it's best and
n broadcast sense education is the enlight-
enment that enables us to live wisest
II and to best fulfill our duty to the world
and ourselves. Any education, / care
not what 1t be, that ignores womon's
spiritual side and that does not sweet
en- and broaden and make her more
gentle and lovable is a failure.
The education that women get in a
college where they must strain every
nerve to keep up with men does not do
this. Nobody ever yet came out of a
conflict without being hardened by it.,
and the woman who at college, or in
business. fights inch)by inch of her way
with men forever after bears the I'M
lovely scars of the battle upon her
heart and in her manner. She has been
sCorched by the white hot flame and
she Is branded for life. 1t is a fact,
OF which women may be proud, that
IN the colleges into which women have
oeen admitted, they have given good
account of themselves in the class
room, but the certificate of highest
mathematics that is bought with loss
Vi womanly grace is a bad bargain,
ana the woman who has bartered her
Ialth in the religion of her mother for
httle half baked philosophy has sold
"eI olrthright for a mess of pattage.
Inc inevitable tendency, too, in a CO.
educational college, is for the women
u initiate the men, not only in swag-
ger and freedom of department, but in
sports The coed. now has her field
uaV and in the recent accounts of the
commencement exercises we have been
"a privileged to read of Miss Susie Smith
nieaklng the record at hat-footed
Jumping and Miss Bessie Jones' mar
,elous performance over the hurdles,
~nu Miss Aramintha Brown winning
ne ne championship at putting the shot.
ne PHYSICIANS certificates were not
e "ppehded to these accounts, but it is
,1sy guessing that most of these fool
T n maldens have injured themselves
"A i NE by their idiotic desire to EMU
"le college men.
"a ~ all forms of feminine folly none is
,sehseless as women trying to make
a r men of themselves. There
81 ca certain things they cannot do, be-
Use they are not built that way and
81 sooner they recognize it the better.