The education of our girls

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Preface

The problems which are discussed In these pages are among the most Important with which the educationist, In theory and In practice, Is called to deal. While It Is universally acknowledged that the education of women should be as perfect as possible and should therefore be shaped In accordance with actual needs and based on the most Improved methods, It Is not so clear just how this education Is to be Imparted In such a way as to bring out in their full value and beauty the special endowments of woman.

Where such vital interests are at stake, variety of opinion is to be expected, and the most helpful means of reaching a final solution is found In the presentation and comparison of different views. Dr. Shields has done this In a pleasing and effectual manner by bringing forward In his book typical representatives of opposite schools of thought concerning coeducation. At the same time he t Preface

has furnished an object lesson in criticism and discussion which can not but prove helpful to the individual teacher in her study and to those gatherings of teachers at which educational problems are viewed in the light of a larger experience and reviewed from many standpoints.

The conclusion reached in this volume is plainly in favor of the higher education of women; but it is also higher education for women. In keeping with the principle that all education must consider not only the knowledge to be provided but also and primarily the needs and capacity of the developing mind, it is here claimed that woman can be most fully and most naturally educated only in a school or college for women. The alleged advantages of coeducation are more than outweighed by its disadvantages. As is well known, serious objection has been urged by recent authorities against the practice of teaching both sexes the same subjects by the same methods in the same institution. This argument is presented here in a manner at

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once forceful and intelligible; and It Is strengthened by considerations which the Catholic parent and teacher will be the first to appreciate.

This verdict, on the other hand, points clearly to certain practical aspects of our Catholic educational system. If it Is desirable that our girls should be educated In schools specially adapted to their needs and to their social functions in life. It Is equally desirable and necessary that these schools should be properly equipped for what they undertake. In other words, the most telling argument against coeducation must be found In the work done by schools exclusively for women. The superiority of such work is to be secured not so much by enriching the course of study and adding attractions of minor Importance as by preparing the teachers for their task. It Is no doubt a praiseworthy thing In any teacher that she should select as an occupation the training of other minds, even though the necessity of earning a livelihood and the prospect of a more advantageous situation later on should lo Preface

be of prime Importance to her. But quite beyond these motives Is that which Inspires the woman who takes up teaching as a religious duty to which her whole life Is consecrated. No better lesson In unselfish devotion to the cause of truth can be given than that which we find In our Catholic teaching communities. This accounts, I am convinced, for the eagerness with which the sisterhoods welcome each suggestion that holds out the promise of helping them to better work. And It explains, In large measure, the desire of Catholic parents to have their daughters trained by religious teachers wherever such training is available. The simplest justice, no less than educational wisdom, requires that the good-will and enthusiasm of our teachers should be recognized by those who are charged with the work of Catholic higher education ; and it is therefore gratifying to note that this recognition, in a very helpful form, comes from a professor in the Catholic University, and from one who is thoroughly acquainted with the needs and possibilities of our schools. As this volume is

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a proof of the Interest which Is taken at the University In all the departments of our educational system, It will doubtless turn the minds of our teachers toward the University as a source of Information and direction. By similar means and in view of similar conditions, some of the Catholic centers of learning In Europe have drawn Into closer contact with their university work the Religious who devote themselves to the education of women. The excellent results which are thus attained are visible In the growing efficiency of Catholic schools. Indeed, it Is becoming more and more evident that women with a religious vocation and the scientific training which only the University can give, are the Ideal teachers for our Catholic girls.

Toward such an ideal with its opportunities of earnest and effectual work in the cause of religion, the hearts of Catholic young women Impulsively turn. The more completely that ideal Is realized by our teaching communities, the brighter will be their prospect of securing cooperators In their work. The Divine call-

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ing to a life which means so much for the welfare of souls will be heard more clearly and followed more promptly. To the faithful teachers who are now striving for the betterment of their schools and to those Catholic young women who are seeking the path which the Master would have them pursue, I earnestly recommend this book, its reasoned-out conclusions and its useful suggestions.

J. Card. Gibbons.

Contents

PAGE

I Raising an Issue . . • i?

II Some Psychical Sex Characteristics . . . '33

Chapter I

My thirty winters in Minnesota had hardly prepared me for the trip to Chevy Chase last night. The underground trolley has its disadvantages after all. A light snow, that would not have affected travel in the Twin Cities, made progress through the Capital City a slow and difficult task. Even slight grades were rendered formidable by a lack of sand. The journey seemed interminable. The cars were not heated for zero weather, and when at last I rang the bell at Dunbarton Hall I was chilled to the very marrow of my bones. I was quite prepared to find the O'Briens alone, feeling that the weather which tried me so severely, in spite of my northern experience, would be sufficient to keep the other guests at home and I was agreeably surprised, therefore, on entering the library, to find a group of friends already assembled around the glowing grate. My arrival had evidently interrupted Miss Geddes in the midst of one of her tirades, for I had hardly got my toes up to the fender when, without urging from any one, she took up the thread of her interrupted discourse.

**As I was just saying, the whole movement for segregation is but another evidence of the rawness of Chicago exhibiting itself through its university. It is a recrudescence of the old barbaric instinct in man that has kept woman in bondage for thousands of years. Man has always shown himself impatient of every attempt made by woman to gain her rights. He grants suffrage to the illiterate, to the ex-convict, to the negro, and to the hordes of immigrants from Russia and southern Europe. The Italian and the Slav, who know nothing of our language or of our institutions, and care less for them, are privileged to vote or to sell their votes to those who wish to buy; but woman must not be given the ballot lest by its use she might gain her freedom! And now, when she is beginning to get an education that will equip her to gain an independent livelihood and to meet man in the economic world on equal terms, he is at once alarmed and cries out for segregation!

"That he considers woman less fit than himself to pursue the regular curriculum of the university is too absurd! Woman is by nature more susceptible of culture than man ; her instincts are finer, her sympathies are broader ; and, as for her intelligence, why, it is admitted by all those who are in a position to know that whenever she is given an equal opportunity she profits by it better than man! She is more studious and spends the time in reading and study that he spends on the ball field, or in his club, at the gambling table or over his cups. And then, besides, where else does man get what little intelligence he has except from his mother?"

The challenge was evidently leveled at Professor Shannon, who sat through it all with a perfectly blank face. I was wondering, as I think the others were, how he would meet it. The silence was beginning to be painful when he turned with a quiet smile to Dr. Studevan.

"I say, Studevan, this seems to be up to you. The whole question of woman's suffrage and of woman's rights resolves itself in last analysis into a problem of pedagogy. Shall we have coeducation or segregation? that is the question" — "that doth make cowards of us all," added Mr. O'Brien.

"No, Shannon," said Dr. Studevan seriously, "this is really a question of sociology rather than of pedagogy. These things are never settled by the promulgation of a priori principles or of scientific deductions. It is the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest in the social world, don't you know. These great fundamental forces will work out the solution in due time and then some of you brilliant sociologists will appear on the scene and make a reputation for originality by promulgating to the world what it shall have already discovered for itself."

"Oh, come now," replied Professor Shannon, "you are just trying to crawl out of a difficulty: Miss Geddes has taken Issue with views that you have often expressed where woman could not defend herself."

"Doctor," said Miss Ruth, "you surely would not be guilty of such an anachronism as that Involved In upholding In the beginning of the twentieth century the traditional inferiority of woman's intellect. Until recent years woman has had no opportunity to show her ability In the field of higher education. It is said, of course, that she lacks Initiative and self-reliance, but how could we expect this to be otherwise when we consider the treatment she has received through so many generations?"

"I don't expect It to be otherwise. Miss Ruth ; we are all largely what the environment of our ancestors has made us. However, history does not reveal woman to us In unbroken captivity: whenever her ability justified it, we find her governing man and leading him into new conquests, but the number of such women has been discouraglngly small."

"These were the few," replied Miss Ruth,

*'who rose above all difficulties and made opportunity. But to prove her ability we need not turn to the past to hunt up the record of the occasional woman who rose to great heights in the intellectual world; even in the short time since the universities have opened their doors to her she has amply proved her capacity. Just this afternoon I spent a delightful hour with 'Little Pilgrimages Among Women who have Written Famous Books.' The catalogue of literary celebrities given in that little book is of course very incomplete, but it is not wanting in inspiration to women with literary aspirations and it should furnish food for thought to those who are opposed to the higher education of women.

*'If we turn from the field of literature to the technical periodicals that record the growth of the various sciences, we shall find that the percentage of women's names in the list of contributors is increasing year by year. In the field of journalism, too, woman is winning for herself an honorable place in these latter days, and although she has but recently entered the learned professions, there are at present many women physicians doing excellent work, nor are the pulpit and the bar any longer strangers to her eloquence. Although the progressive State of Illinois has not yet seen fit to grant the franchise to woman, it would not be easy to find two men within her borders who have done better work in municipal reform than have Margaret Haley and Catherine Goggin. The statue of Frances Wlllard, erected by the State of Illinois, in Statuary Hall, attests its appreciation of her work In social reform.

"Moreover, It Is In your own field. Doctor, that women are particularly distinguishing themselves. Elementary education throughout the country has practically passed into woman's hands and she Is appearing In ever- Increasing numbers In high school and college faculties. There are few more Illuminating writers on present educational problems than Ella Flagg Young. But why proceed further ? In the face of such facts as these I find it difficult to understand how an intelligent, upto-date Professor of Pedagogy can oppose the higher education of women."

"But, my dear Madam, I assure you if you meant all that for me you are wasting your ammunition on an empty fort. I have never consciously been in the ranks of those who oppose the higher education of woman. Nothing, indeed, could be further from my thought. In the first place I suspect that I lack the courage to oppose anything that woman might seriously desire. I would not, you know, for anything in the world be considered ungallant. But seriously, I realize the full force of all that you have said and I am well aware that it would not be difficult for you to multiply arguments in support of the position you have taken — if it needs support. It is evident that woman is capable of higher education, and it seems to me equally evident that she is entitled to it. My opposition is not at all to the higher education of woman, but to coeducation, which I had supposed to be the thesis so eloquently defended by Miss Geddes."

"But, Doctor, is not this still an evasion? If woman is entitled to higher education — to as high an education as man — should she not take her place side by side with him in the great universities of our country?"

*'No, I do not consider it an evasion. While I most cordially agree to the proposition that there is no education too high or too good for woman, I am not at all convinced that she can best obtain this education side by side with man In the great universities of our country. Coeducation and higher education are two totally different questions, and the interests of woman no less than the interests of truth suffer by confusing them.

* 'Education implies the growth and development of all the faculties of mind and heart, but this surely does not mean the molding of unlike natures Into a superficial resemblance to each other. The higher education of woman can by no possibility mean the molding of her mental and moral life into the likeness of the mental and moral life of man. Even if this end were desirable it does not follow that it could be attained by subjecting man and woman to the same discipline. Personally, I believe neither in the desirability nor in the possibility of changing woman Into man's likeness — she is far too charming as she is.

"I find the advance of life to higher planes everywhere dependent upon differentiation of structure and specialization of function. A reversal of this process always means degeneracy. I see no reason for expecting that the laws which know no exception throughout all the realms of life should be reversed on the frontiers of the mental world. I am not led to question the wisdom of the Creator by the discovery that the mind and character of woman and of man are as different from each other as are their bodies. I think we shall find that the present high level of civilization is due in no small measure to the difference between the characters of man and woman. But this is trenching on the sociologist's field.

'*The Professor seems so rapt in blissful contemplation this evening that it would be cruel to ask him to expound to us his views and theories on the subject. However, the truth here is so elementary that I hardly see how any of us can fail to recognize it. What woman in her senses would willingly marry a man whose mental and moral life was built on feminine lines? and where is the man amongst us who would not gladly remain a bachelor all the days of his life rather than marry a masculine woman? The fact of the matter is both man and woman are incurably vain. No man's happiness is complete unless he has woman's admiration for his physical strength or for his intellectual prowess; nor is a woman's cup of happiness ever full without man's appreciation of her physical charms. To make man and woman alike, to give them like capacities, Hke needs and desires, would not only render them unattractive to each other, but it would in many other ways cause the wheels of progress to turn backward. Man and woman were designed by nature to be the complements of each other, not the duplicates."

*'That is always the way with you men,'* said Miss Geddes, "you would keep woman's intellect dwarfed that she might look up to you and admire you; you would keep her so weak that she must cling to you and feed your vanity; you would deprive her of an education that would necessarily give her her independence and enable her to see through your shallow pretenses to intellectuality."

"Softly, my dear Miss Geddes, softly. I have no intention of apologizing for the other gentlemen present, nor any wish to make a statement of their principles, but as far as I am concerned I wish to assure you that the stronger and the more intellectual and the more independent woman is, the better I like her. However, this is hardly the question under discussion; and, moreover, I have already said that I am in favor of the higher education of woman. Let me say again that I do not believe there is any education too high or too good for our mothers and our sisters, for our wives and our daughters — and our sweethearts. It is simply a question of what education is best for woman herself. If we are agreed in holding that men and women in their mental and moral unfolding, even from their earliest childhood, are entirely different from each other, it follows as an evident conclusion that it will require different training to develop the best that is in each." *'I don't know why I should agree to that statement," retorted Miss Geddes. "Why is woman so different from man, Fd like to know ? Does she not eat the same food and breathe the same air? Has she not the same desire for happiness, the same need of independence and freedom ? Is she not under the same necessity of conquering her environment and making it yield the boon for which all strive? This constant assertion of the unlikeness of man and woman is but a flimsy disguise of man's contempt for woman's intelligence. There is neither male nor female in the spiritual world, and if the mind and character of woman seem to differ from those of man it is because man has wronged her and kept her in bondage so long that she has grown weak and clinging and dependent. Give woman her freedom, and while her body will remain as God made it'* — "Not If she can help it," put in Miles O'Brien — "her mind will be emancipated and she will meet man on equal terms.

"It tries one's patience to meet men on every side calmly assuming their own Inherent superiority as If their souls were made of some superior, celestial clay! *0n what meat doth this our Caesar feed that he hath grown so great!'"

"My dear Miss Geddes, I do not blame you in the least for resenting that air of superiority that the Professor has been wearing all the evening. He sits there like a sphinx disdaining to vouchsafe a word of Illumination to any of us. I confess that he often aggravates me so that If It were not for my profession I would be inclined to try conclusions with him in another way. But I had always supposed that he had too much diplomacy to manifest this assumed superiority toward his lady friends."

"Well, I like that, when the fact of the matter Is Mr. O'Brien has tried half a dozen times to get a word in edgewise, and I have been simply perplexed as to how you were going to escape from the web of fallacies that you have woven around yourself. I suppose one should not expect consistency from a pedagog, but to be told that we should not have coeducation because man and woman are unlike mentally, and then to be told that they are unlike mentally because we do not want them to be alike is a little too much. Of course we would hardly expect a pedagog to know anything about history, but even the elementary knowledge of history that is common to all professions should have made him aware that coeducation Is a natural institution. The home Is the first great school. Smith with his seven girls has an opportunity to try segregation, but I do not think he appreciates it; and most people with families regard it as a decided advantage to have both boys and girls.

"There are a hundred other things that I have been waiting for an opportunity to say, but the Doctor has used up the whole evening ; and while I hate to break up this delightful company, I find it is past time for me to be starting for home."

"Just a moment, Professor," said Mrs. O'Brien, "Anna has some crackers and Roquefort and a cup of coffee to reenforce you against this cold evening; and you are to consider yourselves invited to the next meeting of the Crackers and Cheese Club on Friday evening, when the Professor, I am sure, will favor us with his views, and I know that Miles is just bursting with the pent-up desire to enlighten the rest of us."

Chapter II

"In the last meeting of this club," said Miles O'Brien, "Miss Geddes triumphantly vindicated woman's capacity and woman's claim to higher education, and we have all been waiting for you. Professor, to follow suit this evening, that we may see how you measure up beside her in your plea for coeducation for the male and female sexes."

"It is not fair to expect me to defend the cause of coeducation in this company. The Doctor aroused my curiosity the other evening; I wanted to see him extricate himself from his tangle of fallacies. It is one thing, however, to see through Dr. Studevan's fallacies and quite another to espouse the cause of coeducation, particularly in the present company, for many of you have given the subject more thought and study than I have. There are, however, a few obvious facts in favor of coeducation that do not seem to have impressed our pedagog.

"The family is the oldest of human institutions. It was the only school known to primitive man and the verdict of the ages has been decidedly in favor of mixed families. Whenever Divine Providence sees fit to bestow segregated families, no one seems to be particularly grateful. Man seldom successfully interferes with nature's plan and we should scarcely expect good results from the artificial separation of the sexes in our schools. The constant presence of the opposite sex is a natural stimulus for the development of many of the best traits of both boys and girls. Segregation has a long history back of it and the results can hardly be pointed to as evidence in favor of the plan. It is something like the maiming of the feet of the Chinese women or the disfigurement of the heads of the South American Indians. The placing of man's ideals above nature's laws is the folly Involved in each of these cases, and wherever this happens the one thing we may count upon with certainty is that nature will be avenged.

^'When the girl is excluded during all the years of her school life from the companionship of the opposite sex she grows weak and defenseless. The results of this procedure, however, were not so disastrous in the past as they are proving to be in the present. When, in the olden time, the girl left her convent home only to enter under the protection of the parental roof, where she was not allowed to meet men until her parents had selected a suitable husband for her, the defects of her education along the lines we are now considering were not so fatal. The economic changes of the past half century have driven woman from her old position. Steam and electricity have robbed her of domestic employment; and, at least as far as the masses of our city population are concerned, the girl is obliged on leaving school to seek employment In the shop and the factory and in the busy marts of trade. Woman must find for herself a new position and new employment, and this away from the protection of the home. Where her school training has left her unfit to meet these conditions disaster is the usual result. It is only the silly ranter who now lifts his voice against the new woman. To try to drive her back into her old position is as futile as it would be to inveigh against the waters of Niagara and expect as a result that they would return to the placid bosom of the Great Lakes.

"In view of these facts the segregation of the girl during her school life would seem to be the worst possible preparation for her successful struggle with the environment which she must enter the day she leaves school. If she is to succeed here she must be taught to rely upon herself; she must know man; she must know how to protect herself from him and how to compete with him successfully. The attempt to give her this equipment in a segregated school would seem to be as hopeless as the attempt to teach physics or chemistry or biology without the aid of a laboratory. It is worth remembering also that woman is not the only loser by the system of segregation. A study of our boarding schools where boys are huddled together away from woman's refining influence during the formative period of their lives shows a decided tendency to coarseness as the general result. The presence of the girls keeps the boys on their good behavior; it appeals to their unselfishness and to their chivalry and It develops many of the finer traits of character.

"The demand for coeducation, therefore, would seem to have back of it natural law and to be reenforced by present social and economic conditions."

"All this talk," said Mr. Eaton, "about woman's meeting man on equal terms is pure moonshine. She Is not now and she never was content to meet man on equal terms. She has always played the role of queen and still Insists on doing it. She has an unfair advantage of man as the case stands. When I reach the street car on my way home from my office, tired to death, and get on at the end of the line so as to secure a seat, we hardly go a block when a bevy of your Vomen competitors In the busy marts of trade,' who are crying out for the privilege of meeting man on equal terms, boards the car and straightway we men must relinquish our seats to our 'equals' and hang to a strap the rest of the way home ! We have been having altogether too much talk about wo^nan's rights; it seems to me high time that we heard something about man^s rights. Women are Invading our offices and driving men out of position after position by unfair competition; they compel men to contribute part of their support and then underbid them for every desirable position In sight. The equal terms that woman wants seem to be all the soft snaps with the homage of man thrown In. Man is old and hardened and is beginning to get used to his chains, but throwing girls In among a lot of young boys In our universities to take their thoughts away from their studies and to keep them dancing attendance on the fair sex and digging into the paternal exchequer to buy theater tickets and soda water and candy is carrying the joke a little too far.''

"Poor man, it's a pity about him," retorted Miss Geddes. "Crows will come home to roost, you know. Man naturally rebels when he is compelled to take a dose of his own medicine. Whose fault is it, Fd like to know, that woman supplies the demand for cheap labor? If there were any fairness in man he would see to it that the scale of wages was regulated by the quality and quantity of the work instead of by the sex of the worker. But of course this would deprive him of an excuse for inveighing against women and Chinamen as cheap laborers.

"And as for man hanging to the straps in the street cars, it serves him exactly right. If women were permitted to vote how long do you suppose the street-car companies would be allowed to bulldoze the public in this way ? They take good care to collect the fares and a few thousand dollars slipped into the hands of public servants secures them the privilege of packing human beings into the street cars like sardines.