We see here again, as we shall see in many things, how powerless have been all other racial elements in the United States to modify the English character of the people. The weight of all those elements must be, and, so far as they have any weight, is directly against the American tendency to feminine predominance. All the Germans, all the Irish, all the Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, or other foreigners who are in the United States to-day or have ever come to the United States have not, as Germans, or Irish, or Frenchmen, contributed among them one particle, one smallest impulse, to the position which women hold in the life of the country to-day; rather has it been achieved in defiance of the instincts and ideas of each of those by the English spirit which works irrepressibly in the people. There could hardly be stronger testimony to the dominating quality of that spirit. One may approve of the conditions as they have been evolved; or one may not. One may be Feminist or anti-Feminist. But whether it be for good or evil, the position which women hold in the United States to-day they hold by virtue of the fact that the American people is Anglais—an English or Anglo-Saxon people.
And in spite of all the precautions that I have taken to make myself clear and to avoid offence, I feel that some word of explanation, lest I be misunderstood, is still needed. It is not here said that American men do not place woman on a higher plane than any Continental European people. I earnestly believe that both branches of the Anglo-Saxon stock do hold to a higher ideal of womanhood than some (and for all I know to the contrary, than all) of the peoples of Europe. What I am denying is that Americans have any greater reverence for women, any higher chivalrousness, than Englishmen. And this denial I make not with any desire to belittle the chivalry of American men but only in the endeavour to correct the popular American impression about Englishmen, which does not contribute to the promotion of that good-will which ought to exist between the peoples. I am not suggesting that Americans should think less of themselves, only that, with wider knowledge, they would think better of Englishmen.
And, on the subject of co-education, it seems that yet another word is needed, for since this chapter was put into type, it has had the advantage of being read by an American friend whose opinion on any subject must be valuable, and who has given especial attention to educational matters. He thinks it would be judicious that I should make it clearer than I have done that, in what I have said, I am not criticising the American co-educational system in any aspect save one. He writes:
"The essential purpose of the system of co-education which had been adopted, not only in the State universities supported by public funds, but in certain colleges of earlier date, such as Oberlin, in Ohio, and in comparatively recent institutions like Cornell University, of New York, is to secure for the women facilities for training and for intellectual development not less adequate than those provided for the men.
"It was contended that if any provision for higher education for women was to be made, it was only equitable, and in fact essential, that such provision should be of the best. It was not practicable with the resources available in new communities, to double up the machinery for college education, and if the women were not to be put off with instructors of a cheaper and poorer grade and with inadequate collections and laboratories, they must be admitted to a share of the service of the instructors, and in the use of the collections, of the great institutions.
"It is further contended by well-informed people that what they call a natural relation between the sexes, such as comes up in the competitive work of university life, so far from furthering, has the result of lessening the risk of immature sentiment and of undesirable flirtations. By the use of the college system, the advantages of these larger facilities can be secured to women, and have in fact been secured without any sacrifice of the separate life of the women students.
"In Columbia University, for instance (in New York City), the women students belong to Barnard College. This college is one of the seven colleges that constitute Columbia University: but it possesses a separate foundation and a faculty of its own. The women students have the advantage of the university collections and of a large number of the university lectures. The relation between the college and the university is in certain respects similar to that of Newnham and Girton with the University of Cambridge, with the essential difference that Barnard College constitutes, as stated, an integral part of the university, and that the Barnard students are entitled to secure their university degrees from A.B. to Ph.D."
From the above it is by no means certain that on the one point on which I have dwelt, his opinion coincides with mine; and the best explanation thereof that I can offer is that while he knows certain parts of the country and some institutions better than I, I know certain parts of the country and some institutions better than he. And we will "let it go at that."