4. Intellectual results: Practical work; gardening, agriculture, carpentry, turning, locksmith's work, work in forge. Drawing, writing, elocution, music. Knowledge of literature and human nature, physics, mathematics and natural science.
5. General results: Strength of character, physique and intelligence; faculty of observation, imagination and judgment. Real value of practical work, artistic and scientific.
Measured by such a standard, the human value of a pupil takes quite another character to that judged by the results of examinations. By means of this standard, it is possible to predict with much more certainty what kind of man the child will become. There is no need to add that there are no examinations in these schools, for the whole life is a perpetual examination.
Samuel Smiles, in "Self Help" relates that Swift failed in his examinations, that James Watt (the discoverer of the motive power of steam), Stephenson and Newton were bad pupils, that an Edinburgh professor regarded Walter Scott as a dunce. [The same with Darwin, who says in his autobiography, "When I left the school I was, for my age, neither high nor low in it, and I believe that I was considered by all my masters and by my father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.">[ These examples of the way in which the school of tradition judges human mental value might be multiplied a hundredfold, but they will suffice, especially if we compare them with the future of the distinguished pupils of colleges in practical life. These facts are not due so much to later development, as to the disgust inspired by our system of education in reflective minds which refuse to be overloaded with a heap of dry things learnt by heart, undigested, often hardly comprehensible, or open to contradiction.
It is only on the basis of a just evaluation of man, from all points of view, that we can found a proper human selection.
Coeducation.—It is now beginning to be understood that the coeducation of the two sexes in schools, not only does no harm, but is very advantageous, both from the sexual and the moral points of view. In the universities it is already established. In children's schools and many primary schools it has always existed. It is especially the authorities of secondary schools who have raised opposition.
In the secondary schools in Holland and Italy, as well as in some Swiss gymnasiums, coeducation has been introduced without the least inconvenience; on the contrary, it has led to the best results.
A native of Finland, Miss Maikki Friberg, has lately made an appeal in favor of coeducation based on the excellent results obtained in her country. Some feared that sexual excitement would result; but this is an error, for the custom of daily co-existence of the sexes diminishes the sexual appetite. The forbidden fruit loses its charm as soon as it appears no longer to be forbidden!
It is unnecessary to say that it is not intended that girls and boys should sleep in the same dormitories, nor bathe together in the costume of Adam and Eve! Our remarks do not apply to boarding-schools, but to coeducation in public schools.
When we speak of coeducation, we generally meet with the argument that the nature and vocation of women differ from those of men, and that consequently their education ought to differ. To this I reply as follows: The external objects of the world, the branches of human knowledge, in fact the subjects for study and instruction, are the same for both sexes. It is, therefore, both a useless waste of forces and an injustice to organize an inferior education for women.