As for the rest, for the general economic advantages of the co-educational system to the community, I think I am prepared to go as far as almost anyone. I am even inclined to follow Miss M. Carey Thomas, the President of Bryn Mawr College, who attributes the industrial progress of the United States largely to the fact that the men of the country have such well-educated mothers. It seems to me a not unreasonable or extravagant suggestion. I am certainly of the opinion that the conversational fluency and mental alertness of the American woman, as well as in large measure her capacity for bearing her share in the civic labour, are largely the result of the fact that she has in most cases had precisely the same education as her brothers.
At present I believe that something more than one-half (56 per cent.) of the pupils in all the elementary and secondary schools, whether public or private, in the United States are girls; and that the system is permanently established cannot be questioned. What are known as the State universities, that is to say universities which are supported entirely, or almost entirely, by State grants, or by annual taxes ordered through State legislation, have from their first foundation been available for women students as well as for men. The citizens, who, as taxpayers, were contributing the funds required for the foundation and the maintenance of these institutions, took the ground, very naturally, that all who contributed should have the same rights in the educational advantages to be secured. It was impossible from the American point of view to deny to a man whose family circle included only daughters the university education, given at public expense, which was available for the family of sons.
Co-education had its beginning in most parts of the United States in the fact that in the frontier communities there were often not enough boy pupils to support a school nor was there enough money to maintain a separate school for girls; but what began experimentally and as a matter of necessity has long become an integral part of the American social system. So far from losing ground it is continually (and never more rapidly than in recent years) gaining in the Universities as well as in the schools, in private as well as public institutions.
But, as I said in first approaching the subject, the merits or demerits of co-education are not a topic which comes within the scope of this book. It was necessary to refer to it only as it impinged on the general question of the relation of the sexes.
FOOTNOTES:
[113:1] The English reader will find this explained at length in Mr. A. R. Colquhoun's work, Greater America.
[113:2] That Americans may understand more clearly what I mean and, so understanding, see that I speak without intention to offend, I quote from the list of "arrangements" in London for the forthcoming week, as given in to-day's London Times, those items which have a peculiarly cosmopolitan or extra-British character:
Friday—Pilgrims' Club, dinner to Lord Curzon of Kedleston, ex-Viceroy of India.
Saturday—Lyceum Club, dinner in honour of France to meet the French Ambassador and members of the Embassy, etc.