l
type of the race is degenerating or improving? It will be replied that
other causes are at work to produce the result in France. The statement
is granted; but have we then sufficient grounds for asserting justly for
America, that "to a large extent the present system of educating girls
is the cause of their pallor and weakness," or that "woman's neglect of
her own organization, though not the sole explanation and cause of her
many weaknesses, _more than any single cause_, adds to their number and
intensifies their power?" (The italics are again ours.)

We return to our statement, that the governess system is the only system
which can result as the logical outcome of the book in question. But
this, America is not likely to accept. We ask, then, it being evident
that in any school the regular work must go on, though two or three be
absent, what difference it would make in the practical result, whether
the sixty or seventy present were all girls, or but half of them girls
and half boys? Supposing that the President of a university were told,
on the entrance of a student, that he would probably be absent twenty or
thirty days during the entire scholastic year, and he were asked whether
it would be possible for the youth to perform satisfactorily the work of
his class under those conditions, does any one doubt what his answer
would be? So far on the practical side of the question.

But when it is asserted that co-education is fatal to the health of our
women, more is implied than appears on the surface; for, in reality,
co-education and higher education for women are almost synonymous terms.
If, at this moment, the gates of all the high schools and colleges open
alike to both sexes, were closed to the girls, where, except at one
honored institution, could they turn to obtain a really thorough and
all-sided education--such an education as a young man would be satisfied
with? And who will assert that even Vassar College is to be, for a
moment, compared to Harvard and Yale in respect to its facilities for
acquiring a rounded education? One may strike at co-education, and, at
the same time, assert that he demands for woman the highest development
of which she is capable--that he is only desirous of securing to her "a
fair chance;" and yet he cannot deny that he deprives her of all chance,
if his effort against co-education should succeed.

As has been said, all criticisms on schools and school systems are
criticisms on the t