Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-06-22
Little Talks by
Beatrice Fairfax

Is the co-educational high school
responsible for the change in the re-
lations of the sexes?
ask the question in all humility;
don't know. Like the rest of the
world, am seeking light. We all
know women do not act in the least
as they did a generation ago; that
they have become the pursuers rath-
er than the pursued, and they are
not the least reticent over their new
role. On the contrary, they seem to
enjoy it immensely.
one horn of the controversy tosses
the revolution on the co-educational
nigh school, and the other tosses it
on Bernard Shaw and that terribly
revealing play of his, Man and
Super Man"
The most brilliant man of my ac-
qualntance is strong for the co-edu-
Cational high school. He says that
unconsciously it teaches a boy tact,
consideration for women, good man
ners, and deprives him of the in
nate savagery that claims him dur
ing those years.
He also says that the shame of
appearing stupid before girls causes
him to study and make him a better
scholar than he would If left entire
ly to the society of his own sex.
But the mothers who have boys in
the high schools say something like
I'VE don't want our boys deprived
OF their wholesome savagery-it's
the best thing in the world for them.
We object seriously to having them
turned into party-going, dancing men
while they are still in school. 1t in
terferes with their lessons and it
makes them sissies.'"
All Right in Lower Grades
These mothers agree that co-edu-
cation is the finest thing in the world
in the lower grades. but in the high
school 1t Is failure.
AS one of them said to me: There
is too much Co and too little educa-
ton as the result of putting young
people in the same class room at the
most susceptible period of their lives.
The case of the boys mothers
against the system is something like
this:
Girls are older than boys of the
same age. And the high school girl
OF sixteen or seventeen is Just bud
ding into very selfconscious young
person. She has begun to take a
keen interest in clothes, she wants
to go to parties, she wants admira-
ton and lastly-though perhaps she
is unconscious of this-she wants a
victim on whom to try the fifty-sev-
en- varieties of cuteness that she has
just acquired
I'm normal circumstances, she
would try out her fascinations on
older men whom she would meet
through ther brothers, or in her own
home and thaU uottI6 ba hatto, 49,
nared to receive the arrows than
the raw material on the other side
of the class room.
But there they are. poor infants
of scout age, and still alternating in
the wholesome savagery that nature
supplies for the proper DEVELOPMENT
of the male adolescent. They love
athletics, they love tramping, and to
go off into the woods and play atI
being a primitive man.
And nothing could be better for
boys than all of this cave business;
1t means that nature has taken them
in hand and is applying her own
methods to thicken their muscles |
their bones and generally |
toushen them up for the impending |
battle of life.
Amazons Take Them in Hand
But there, in the classroom, is |
the enemy with the fifty-seven va
rieties of cuteness and ready, in the |
interests of a killing, to try out any
of them.
THE young amazon looks over |
The lot and selects her victim. Per- |
haps she does not think very much |
of him-she may regret that he is |
not taller. that his cheeks are so !
nudgy. that his hands are not clean. |
that he is always munching some |
thing out of bag. But he is boy
and have you ever watched kit
ten play with a mouse?
"The campaign is opened. not in
school. but at the boys home" at
lonet that is the way it happered to
my boy, the mother continued. Diana
well call her that. began calling UP
my son on the telephone. At first
she wanted to know what the les
sons for the next day were-she had
left her paper in school.
"And II was amusing to see how
bored Bob was. What's the matter
with her and why don't she ask
someone else about her lessons"
Then. after three or four INQUIRIES
of this sort, there was a change.
the conversation ran:
That you. Bob; there's to he
little porch party at Florence Smiths
tonight. there's going to be straw
berry ice cream. and we're going to
turn on the phonograph and dance,
would you mind coming for me?"
Now my poor cave-boy cared
nothing about dancing or Diana, but
he is a slave to ice cream, so he
said he'd take her.
"He went as Diana's partner and
there he met other cave-boys, and
they stumbled, over each others
feet and felt uncomfortable and
awkward and the only bright spot
in the whole evening was the Ice
oream. Rut after while these
hobble- -de-hoys began to enjoy play
ing the carpet knight to the high