The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1909-04-08
A COED" PARADISE
IDEAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
TWO SEXES IN WISCONSIN.
The Male Undergraduates Are SO
Deferential to Their Feminine
Comrades as to Call Them "Wom-
en- Students"

en- Students"
Wisconsin is the paradise of the
co-ed-a fact indicated among other
things, in the deferential habit of
calling her, not coed, but woman
student. Days and days spent try
ing to track down the co-educational
problem, until seemed, even to my
self, to be the victim of an evil mind.
There is no co-edueation prob
| lem at Wisconsin. Members of the
faculty. and among them recent ar
rivals from Eastern universities. de-
clared this in so many words. To
the undergraduates-and | lived and
took most of my meals at different
fraternity houses-the only problem
with regard to the woman student
seemed to be how to get nearer or
next. For there is only one woman
to half a dozen men, and the most
approved use OF an idle hour appears
to be what is called "fussing."
The unrestrained social inter-
course natural to the West, has full
swing, and the result is, as always
in self-respecting community,
state of innocence which to any one
from highly chaperoned commun-
ity, seems little short OF Arcadan.
About a hundred of the young wom-
en- room and dine In Chadbourne
Hail. Another hundred live in So
rority houses. The rest live in their
own homes or board in student lodg-
ing houses--some of them in houses
partly occupied by men students
Until the present year there had
been no dean of women. The new
dean is trying, and with success, to
prevent men and women students
from living in the same houses.
The matter of chaperons is more
difficult. Each Of the sororities has
a matron, but she is largely a fig
urehead. She has not even a posi-
tion on the house committee. so that.
though she has responsibilities to the
university, she has little or no au-
thority over the students.
Buggy riding flourishes. One of
the undergraduates admitted to me
that 1t was not unusual for parties
Of two and three couples to drive
out to the several hotels on Lake
Mendoza for dinner. "I suppose"
he added, that that will seem to
you horribly crude" On the con-
trary, It seemed like the Golden Age
or like my own boyhood in the
Middle West. asked II a single
couple ever went on such an expe-
dition. He shook his head. The
girls own dignity, II not the tradi-
tions of the university, would forbid
this.
When / put the same question to
another undergraduate, he smiled
and said that occasionally couple
would go forth to dine in single
blessedness.
Yet am convinced that no serious
harm is done. Were engagements
common? By no means. Sometimes
gossiping souls would allege that a
couple were engaged-or, If not, they
ought to be. But no engagements
were announced, except in most
cases, as the immediate prelude to
student marriages, which are rare.
And this was wise, one informant
told me, for then if the young woman
went home and married a man in her
native town no one could prove that
she was unduly experienced, or that
the undergraduate had been Tilted.
And this leads to the only thing
approaching co-educational prob
lem. Though men and women are
OF much the same age, there is a rad
ic2l difference in their situation in
life.
The women are in a position to be
married but the men are not in a
position to be married, but the men
are not in a position to marry them.
as regards either age or worldly
goods.
The women, arriving from farm.
village or city, regard their life in
the university as social coming
out-their first and perhaps only
chance for real good time.