ed. There has been an
intelligent and honest difference among both trustees and
professors on this interesting question, and the diversity has
been complicated by the various grounds upon which the _pros_ and
_cons_ are maintained. There are those who advocate the admission
of girls to the University as a proper thing _per se_. Others
consent to it, because the University cannot give the desired
education separately. Others hold that girls should be admitted
because of their equal rights to a university education, although
their admission is very undesirable. Others oppose coeducation in
the abstract, conceding that girls should be as well educated as
boys, but insisting that they must be differently and therefore
separately educated. These draw a clear line between "equal" and
"similar" education, and hold that no university course of
studies can be laid out that will not present much of classical
literature and much of the mental, moral and natural sciences,
that cannot be studied and recited by boys and girls together,
without serious risk of lasting injury to both.

Would it not be better, all things considered, to abjure this kind
of classical literature, and instead of subjecting our sons to its
baneful influence, give them the refining, elevating companionship
of their sisters? If we would preserve the real modesty and purity
of our daughters, it is quite as important that we should pay some
attention to the delicacy and morality of the men with whom they
are to associate.

If a girl cannot read the classics with a young man without
contamination, how can she live with him in all the intimacies of
family life without a constant shock to her refined sensibilities?
So long as society considers that any man of known wealth is a fit
husband for our daughters, all this talk of the faculties and
trustees of our colleges about protecting woman's modesty is the
sheerest nonsense and hypocrisy. It is well to remember that these
professors and students have mothers, wives and sisters, and if man
is coarse and brutal, he invariably feels free to show his worst
passions at his own fireside. To warn women against coeducation is
to warn them against association with men in any relation
whatsoever.

FOOTNOTES:

[255] See Appendix.

[256] Carrie S. Burnham after long years of preparation and
persistent effort for admission to the bar o