Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 61, 12 March 1878, Page 2

To the Editor op t/ie 'Evening Mail.' Sir, —lv view of building a now girls' school, will you allow me one word of respectful protest. Ifc is a mistake to separate the sexes : this appears to be the conclusion arrived at by the advanced educationalists of the age. The objections against mixed schools are generally sentimental, and not of a very healthy character as a rule, being a sentimentalism that run 3 counter to the order of nature. We should always suspect a philosophy that does violence to Dame Nature's arrangements. The venerable old lady may be capricious, but she is, as a rule, a safe guide. And the closer we tread in her footsteps in all our social and political arrangemeuts the more likely we are to go right. I hope this may not be deemed a very perilous statement. The argument against the admixture of boys and girls may be fairly and fully stated thus : —lt exerts a baneful influence over both sexes, more particularly over the girls ; that it deprives the girls of that modest and gentle trainiug which should form a prominent part of their education ; that from their association with the other sex they become bold and unwomanly ; and that it scatters seeds of immoral desires, which will have an unhappy influence on them through life. Unfortunately for this view, the facts are against it, and I think the philosophy also. I find the advantages of the mixed schools stated by the Rev. Matthias Goethe more concisely and better than I can hope to do as follows :—l. The boys having intercourse with the girls turn out more gentle, more modest, more graceful, more orderly : they will be found more desirous of honor. 2. The girls are kept from a false sentimentality ; they get rid of their bashf uluess j they learn to move more freely. 3. Everybody knows that in mixed society young people behave themselves more becomingly, and with far better grace; their conversation ou the one side is not so rude and unrestrained, on the other side less shallow and silly. The real ion ton, the really moral deportment, is mostly met where the sexes have intercourse with each other. Another high authority, " Harnisch," says : —" Long experience has taught me that-through the sexes being together while under tuition a foundation for morality is laid, the imagination of boys, and the longing of girls, are in reality diminished, modesty is far better cultivated than if both sexes be separated. * * * Every seclusion incites to evil." Madame Nicku for this reason advises brothers to bring their friends into the society of their sisters. In Saxe Weimar, some twenty years ago, a number of communities desired the Government to reintroduce the system of mixed schools ; " because the separation of the sexes had, in a most dangerous manner, given incitements to sensuality." To this all experiecce, 1 think, will be found to witness. Then as regards the educatioual advantages—they are all in favor of boys and girls being taught together. I will quote on this head from the report of the Rev. C. E. Johnstone, Inspector of schools, England. He says : —" The consideration of the cause of weak schools has led me to weigh the comparative merits of male and femsle teachers,

and incidentally the advantages of mixed aud separate education of the sexes. These questions have been often before me, but it is only now that I have been able to bring statistics to bear upon them. I determined to test what had before beeu only a general impression by an' accurate comparison of the results or examination. As each school, therefore, was visited, I made a record of the passes and failures in it, noticing carefully how many fell to each sex, and my assistant, Mr Mercer, has worked out for me from those records the calculations which I subjoin : —

This table, I venture to think, is instructive. It is here seen that the schools which stand highest are those taught by masters, and in which boys and girls are taught together. * * * The comparison does more than this. T will not say that it confirms, but at least it tends to support the theory that education may advauce most where boys and girls are taught together. The mixed schools under mistresses are the worst, but the mixed schools under masters are the best. The boys in them do better than the boys in a purely boys school; the girls in them do better than the girls in a purely girls school. And the couclusiou which I come to is —that the best form of education is that which is under the direction of a master, and in which boys and girls learn together. * * * ]y[av not the superiority of the schools in Germany, so much taked of, be owing to the fact that an earlier appreciation has there been shown of the relative merits of the two sexes. Of the elementary schools in that country, none, as I have been informed, are under female teachers." This testimony, which can be multiplied to any extent, I take to be about conclusive on the subject iv its two-fold aspect. I am, Sec, Alpha Beta.

•ol}3tlt "? 9 <P -q4t.ty >o »o 3 •g rj, - T - - 1 "- to to to OJ 00 O -H S M •SnrpuDvr <b >b 6 f 3 "OTIOUt T 1 <? 3 2 "WV § S 2 W o . C sci < ° SL o 9 T* 1 ?« H fl o 'SUT'Jt.TM « r- o K Mm • * -'^ I> «3 to o {S •Sutpca>T w « -* M ••• <■«■ OO 1^ J-. Ip . 43 p ci m £j i 2 .=! 6 in <?? h| o " w ° gi t- o o cJCC o w p m; tj ; o • •' 42 tn m 0 . tn"o 'o 1 : II 1^ «3^ oM $8 H 8 «!„ g sl »,! G.i • S^ z* 00 t^ (M i^ ci