Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/11



HE authorities of many of our great coeducational universities have been of late much perplexed and depressed at the astonishing number of young women who insist on patronizing these institutions. Taken in moderation the coeducational young woman has succeeded in approving herself to a considerable majority of her instructors. But she has recently shown a disposition to outnumber the young men in her classes, and this is resented by certain of her mentors as an obvious impropriety. The occasion has been seized upon by reactionaries here and there to magnify the drawbacks of coeducation, and there can be no question that many members of the faculties of institutions committed to this system are restive under the extant conditions, and apprehensive for the future. A few, especially certain of those educated in eastern non-coeducational institutions or in foreign universities, are severely, not to say bitterly, critical in their attitude, and eager for anything so it be a change. We may therefore expect in the near future much experimentation, and more discussion, upon the coeducational program. As a symptom of the educational development of the country at large, the present agitation possesses an interest and significance quite beyond the limits of the regions immediately affected.

In order to see the present situation in its just perspective one must bear in mind the remarkable educational development which has occurred in recent years in those parts of the country where coeducation