The Illinois Schoolmaster
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570.5 XLS . Vie THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY TUS tpOK KtSTHlUL SURVEY I : : J, L'D V . -. The Schoolmaster. A yournal of Education, Literature, and News. Vol. 2. No. 13. JUNE, 1869. $1 00 A YEAR. DR. MUNSELL ON CO-EDUCATION. Waiving all preliminary definitions of terms, we remark, That no system of education can claim to be either philo. ARGUMENT DELIVERED BEFORE THE STATE TEACHERS' S'iphical or practical that is not based upon an adequate ASSOCIATION, AT TEORIA. comprehension : First—Of the nature of the being to be educated. Mr. Prcfidcnt, Ladir^ and Gcnthnnnn of the State Second—Of the sphere of action for which education is TcftcIiPi-s' Association designed to prepare the subject ; and. At tte iuvitatiun of your Executive Committee, I ap- Third—Of the relative economic advantages of the va- pear before you tliis afternoon to present to you the results rious systems by which the desired end is sought. of my persou;il experience and investigations in reference It is obvious, in the first place, that identity of nature, to tlie great problem of tbe co-educiition of the sexes, physical, mental and moral, indicates a priori, the propri- which now deservedly commands so large a share of the ety of identity of education ; and that diversity of nature consideration of thoughtFid minds. rationally demands diversity of culture. In the second While I constrained by clearest personal am my con- place, it is equally obviiais that the identity of the spheres victions, based upon years of actual trial of both the mixed of action in life, for which education is a preparative, de- education, to and separate systems of dissent from the po- mands identity of culture, and vice versa, that diversity of sitions friend, Dr. Edwards, I taken by my am not Quixotic aims in life demands diversity of education. These prin- enough to that I can stay the tide of imagine popular opin- ciples are so completely axiomatic and self-evident that dis- ion f(u- has been setting in,' in favor that years of the co- cussion is superfluous; we may, therefore, pass at once to education of the sexes : nor do I desire so to do, were it in inqtiire my power, until the experiment has been fully and fairly I. Into the identity or diversity of the male and the tested upon its merit. female mind. I trust that it is needless for me to add that I have not Here we are met by a simple, direct, and decisive ques- come to oppose, in any sense, the just claims of the dauah- tion—a true crperimenfum crm-is in this controversy, ters of our land to an education, as full, as comprehensive, namely : Is there anything in the mental or spiritual na- and as complete, :is that which is awarded to tlieir broth- ture of lumian beings corresponding to the distinction of ers or future husbands. yet have I Nor come to oppose sex in the phj'sical nature ? or stated more briefly, is there the new system, simply because it is new ; my tendencies sex in mind, as we know mind in this life, or is there not? are not naturally conservative ; in and fact, I was for years. This, the advocates of co-education must logically deny, outset of career as a teacher, in the my an enthusiastic ad- and this we luihesitatingly affirm. vocate of the system which personal experience, observa- The issue thus raised must be tested in the light of con- tion investigation constrain and me now to oppose as un- sciousness, reason and experience, and their decision, fairly pdiilosophical unwise. and rendered, must be final. question, as conceive it, The I and propose to discuss it But reason, when interrogated, a jrriori, clearly teaches exclusively to education in our pertains colleges and uni- that relations so fundamental and so momentous as those of versities, and not at all to our common, (jur graded, or our sex must determine correspondingly diverse and comple- Normal Schools, nor yet to our academies and .seminaries mentary mental natures, developed in conformity with the of learning. In all of these the studies to be pursued are necessities of those physical relations, and must therefore lie foundation of all such as at the genuine education, and determine or produce correspondingly radical diversities in are, cousefjuently, cu any rational theory, eijually appro- the male and female minds. Admitting, therefore, all that priate to both sexes. The real question involves two com- the most radical advocate of woman's rights can claim, plementary and mutually dependent queries ; namely who condescends still to recognize the fact, that our moth- First men and women need precisely —Do identical edu- ers, sisters, wives and daughters are women, and not mere- cations ? and, ly ^nen in petticoats, the fact still remains unimpeached Secondly —If they do, are the best results attained by and unimpeachable. That the normal relations of husband co-education in our colleges and universities, or by the and wife—of father and mother—and of the man and the separate system? woman in legitimate society, demand a corresponding di- ai4'/rtO i,J ; — Thf. Schoolmaster. Xo. 13, June, 18GS. vereity in tboir intellectual, their eiuotioual. and their vol- might you ask me to compare the mountain pine, in its untary nature, u diversity wliicli it is the office of true edu. rugged strength, with the beautiful and fruitful olive tree, c;iti()n to tell you which excels. develop and strenj;tlien ; and not to obscure or ob. and literate. On the side of the .sensibilities and the moral nature, The testimony of consciousness, as it is developed in the the diversities between the male and the female mind are individual man and woman, abundantly confii'ms the opin- so marked and obtrusive that it were idle and impertinent ion as do the teachings of reason, and fully justilics the ar- to stop to enumerate them here, did time permit. He tifice attributed, by an old oriental tradition, to King- Solo- who doubts needs only to consult the comparative registers mon, who when called upon to distinguish between the of our churches and prisons, of our Temperance lodges boys and girls in a group of little children all habited and our bar-rooms, in order to find ample demonstrations of alike, ordered a basket of doll-b:ibies. on the one hand, and the diverse mental developments of the sexes, in the .sphere one of hobby-horses on the other, to be brought in, where- of the sensibilities and the moral nature. upon every girl seized a baby, and every buy mounted a There would seem, then, to be no escape from the con- horse, and the riddle was solved. clusion that there is a radical diversity—not inequality While enthusiastic theorizers affirm the identity in all of mental development in the man and the woman, corres- respects, of male and female mind, none more readily than ponding to their sexual relations', or, in other words, that themselves recognize the fact that certain forms of mental there is sex in mind. One striking fact of p.syehologic development are essentially masculine ; and that certain history, strongly confirming the views here presented, shoidd other correlative developments, are just as essentially fem- be noted, namely : where either a man or a woman strik- inine, or, if the term be preferred, womanly. I cannot ingly departs, in physical organization, from the normal consent to say essentially •lady-like," for God made woman type of his or her sex, and approximates to the type of the and taught man to love her, but I doubt that it were little opposite sex we instinctively look for, and expect a corres- less than sacrilege to ascribe to Him, the origin of our ponding variation and approximation in mental develop- modern ladyhood. There is a world of philosophy and of ment. argument in the spontaneous utterances of the common II. We pass to inquire into the normal identity and di- consciousness of humanity, but its testimony to the reality versity of their natural spheres of action in practical life. of the distinction we affirm between male and female miud Do reason, consciousness, and the experience of ages, is decisively marked by the scorn and disgust which it teach that the natural and rightful spheres of thought, ac- manifests towards a masculine woman and a womanish man. tivity and labor of the man and the woman—the brother Time does not permit us to enter iiito any accurate psy- and sister—the husband and wife—are identical or diverse? chological analysis of the radical points of diti'ercnco be- In answer to this query, it would seem that the wildest tween the male and female minds; a few of the more pat- theorizcr must concede that their phj-sioal organisms, their ent may, however, be indicated. mental aptitudes, and their natural tastes, alike fit them for di- On the side of the intellect, it will be fmud that while verse, but ffljinplementary spheres of action. What those man excels in the strength, woman correspondingly excels several spheres arc. it matters not to the issue to-day to in the delicacy and perfection of her perceptive faculties. determine : we have to do simply with the fact, and that is In memory she equals him— in imagination, that most indisputable, that they are diverse, and not identical. The beautiful of all the faculties '• of mind, she excels- him. In good old book tells the whole story where it says : And the logical or man.