alamnæ, and by a somewhat close acquaintance with the working of the other systern at Boston and at Michigan universities. If there is anything to be learned by a study of the facts, and if any help can come from their discussion, this is the very moment when the subject should be taken up by such a body as yours, for at this moment the policy of Chicago and of Stanford universities is forming, and their relations toward their women students is not one of the least difficult of their problems.

Coeducation is an unqualified success at Michigan and at Boston. There has never been a moment's doubt as to its immediate, as well as its ultimate, triumph. The character of the young women has been high, their deportment ladylike, their scholarship fine. As far as I can learn, no case has arisen calling for severe discipline. Both professors and male students have been friendly and helpful, treating the women as an integral part of the student body. But coeducation has not been a complete success at Cornell. While most of the women have been everything that could be desired, a few have been frivolous and undignified, and, in the cases of two of them at least, severe disciplinary measures have been necessary. Some members of the faculty and many of the students have always been hostile to the system, and with some show of reason, it must be confessed. It would be absurd to assert that this difference in results at the three universities is due to mere accident, or that the women of New York are less high minded and serious than those of Michigan and Massachusetts. Let us rather seek for the cause in the different conditions existing at these institutions.

When the Sage building at Cornell was ready for use, it was named "Sage college for women," and the impression (now happily corrected) was given in the register that it was a separate institution, though connected with the university and receiving the benefit of its lectures, laboratories, and degrees. Its students were to be members of a family whose head should have careful supervision of the family life. This attractive but somewhat misleading notice brought its natural results. Parents sent girls to Sage college who would never have sent them to Cornell university, girls whose place was a boarding school, or, at best, a woman's college. It is the presence of a few such frivolous girls which has, I apprehend, caused even some of the friends of coeducation at Cornell to suspend judgment. With the character of college men so far below the ideal standard of true manliness as we find it every where, it must needs be that the woman who becomes the fellow student of such men must be much

above the average girl in strength and dignity, else not only will her own womanhood fare hard, but she will help to lower the intellectual and moral tone of the university. This necessity being granted, it follows that every coeducational institution should endeavor to attract to its classes only the very choicest of the women students, those whose fineness of moral fiber will prove an armor of defense against coarse natures and whose high intellectual aims will leave no time or desire for silliness and disorder. If a university "matronizes" its women, such women will come as need matronizing, and that class is fatal to the success of coeducation. Let such women be educated, by all means, but let them not be coeducated.

If Chicago and Stanford universities will take a lesson from the experience of institutions where the experiment has been tried, it will be well for them and for the women of the country.

COEDUCATION at Alfred univERSITY

Prof. D. A. Blakeslee - It is scarcely necessary at this time in this discussion for me to add any further remarks. The gentlemen and ladies who have preceded me have stolen nearly all of my thunder. The line of argument that I had thought to take has been used on three different occasions already this afternoon. Therefore it is hardly necessary, as I said at first, for me to repeat that. I may then more properly, perhaps, stand before you as a witness on the stand in respect to the operation of this idea in one locality. To avoid being put in a corner let me ask my own questions, so I shall be sure to be ready to answer them.

What was the extent of coeducation at Alfred? First, consistency. There is no sex in education. There is no sex in the human mind. Since the utterance that in heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage, it has been true and will be true that there is no sex in respect to the human mind. I am well aware of the strong arguments that have been offered this afternoon in respect to the peculiar qualities of the human mind; but I claim that the peculiarities of mind are as various among men themselves and among women themselves as between men and women, and therefore that the argument based on the foundation of sex is not strong in itself. Hence we took the ground, to be consistent, that we must offer the light to whosoever applies. When a person applied for admission in the university he was to be received provided he brought the requisite credentials.

Second, I would offer as our intent the same reason that was offered for the female college; a home. In the family which I know better than any other there is no boy, and I am perfectly well aware that there is a serious lack in many respects in that family on that account. I know also that if you are to have an ideal home you must have that home composed of such elements as make up the life of man, and Our inthat can not be secured unless you have in it both sexes. tent was to educate. There is a field for every school that has started in our great commonwealth. Those schools arose because there was a call for them. There is a call for every school founded, and it does not matter whether it is attended by boys or by girls. Our school was founded because there were young people in that locality growing up to take an active part in future activities. It follows thus that this school should educate those who belong to that sec tion, whether male or female.

COEDUCATION IN NORMAL SCHOOLS

Miss Mary F. Hyde- Since our normal schools were established for the specific purpose of training teachers, the wisdom of having coeducation in these schools must depend on this question, can we by this means secure better trained teachers? From a long experience in normal school work I am positive that coeducation in normal schools is best for the young men, best for the young women, best for the public schools, best for the state, but I will simply call attention to some of the advantages that coeducation in normal schools has for young women.

In the first place better work will be done by the students if there are mixed classes of young men and young women. The students in our normal schools are of mature and many age, class are in every teachers of several years' experience. Students of this age and experience gain quite as much from one another, both in the classroom and out of it, as they do from their teachers. Subjects brought before the class for discussion are looked at from different points of view, opinions are exchanged, and experiences compared. Thus a broader outlook is gained and an element of strength added to the work.

Then again, pupils in mixed schools not only do better, stronger work, but they receive better instruction. I do not mean that normal schools having mixed classes have better teachers than other schools where the two sexes are taught separately, but that the teachers in those schools will teach better. It is said that the

teacher makes the class, and this is true to a certain extent, but it is equally true that the class makes the teacher. Let a teacher, man or woman, enter a class of bright, enthusiastic, earnest young women, such as may be found in any of our normal schools, and he or she can not help doing good work, but let that same teacher enter a class made up not alone of young women but of young men as well, and he or she will do far better work.

All women teachers have an interest in coeducation in normal schools. It leads indirectly to a more just estimate of the value of their work as teachers, and to a readier recognition of it on the part of school officers. The number of school principals, school superintendents, school commissioners, and even in some place members of boards of education, who have had normal training is constantly increasing. These officials having themselves been intelligent coworkers with young women in the classroom, grappling together difficult problems and putting in practice the principles studied, will waste no time in debating the question whether a woman can teach in other than primary grades, but will welcome her to any position for which she is fitted.

MISSION OF THE COEDUCATIONAL ACADEMY

Prin. John Greene-I suppose it will not be entirely out of place if some of us count ourselves in the witness-box and give testimony.

I was trained for college in a boys' school, and took my college course in a boys' school. I think for me it was a misfortune that my preparatory course at least was not taken in a coeducational school. After beginning my teaching I was in a boys' school for three years; afterwards I was at the head of a coeducational school for seven years; and now I have the honor to represent what is known as a boys' school; but we have girls in it all the time.

To take up directly the subject named, I call your attention to this line of thought. They tell us that something like two thirds of the people have come to live in cities; but let us not forget the one third that do not. Let us remember that the boys and girls growing up in our rural districts have in them some of the best blood and brain to be found in this country. The lads who are growing up amid the green fields are in some sense the hope of the country. They are likely to grow up with the best constitutions, and, provided they have special opportunities set before them, they are likely to achieve great successes in the future, such as were at

tained by Lincoln and Garfield, and other men who have come from humble surroundings. If these boys and girls are to have the educational advantages which they need, they must go away from home. We can not have a thoroughly well equipped academy in every vil lage throughout the land. The next question is, How must the school be organized to which parents can be willing to send their boys and girls, and have them wholly out of their oversight? No parent would think of sending his boy or girl to a distant town to board with a family who are strangers; besides the town authorities do not want these outside pupils in their school. Therefore, the boy and the girl must be sent to the school that offers the nearest approach to the home. Every school should offer intellectual culture, of intellectual culture, of course; but it should also offer proper opportunities for social training. It ought to keep that which has been carefully imparted in a good home; or, as is most apt to be the case, the school should be prepared to give the social culture which the parents of this boy or girl did not have an opportunity to acquire in their young days, and which, therefore, their children must get when they go away to school, if they get it

at all.

The question comes, Can we afford, is there any prospect that this generation. or the next can afford, to build as many thoroughly equipped schools for boys, and as many more for girls as are needed for the suitable training of these young people, who must get their preparation for college and university away from home? I believe the question answers itself the moment it is asked.

If this generation or the next are to meet the needs of the boys and girls who are worthy of this training, they must do it by establishing coeducational academies, with competent faculties, composed of men and women of noble character. Therefore, it seems to me that whatever opinion there may be as to the merits of coeducation in college or university, there should be no doubt that coeducational academies are not only to be encouraged, but to be hoped for and prayed for in every section of our broad land.

EFFECT ON HEALTH OF HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN

Miss Florence M. Cushing, trustee, Vassar college - In tracing the progress of thought in this country along any special line, it is interesting to note how, in spite of the arguments of fanatics at the one extreme and fast-fossilizing conservatives at the other, the great common sense of the people finally asserts itself. We refer to