man. The mind--_per se_--is a variable and
disconcerting organ.

But admitting all this--certain generalizations, on the whole correct,
may be made from our experience with coeducation.

One of the first of these is that at the start the woman takes her
work more seriously than her masculine competitor. Fifty years ago
there was special reason for this. The few who in those early days
sought a man's education had something of the spirit of pioneers. They
had set themselves a lofty task: to prove themselves the equal of
man--to win privileges which they believed were maliciously denied
their sex. The spirit with which they attacked their studies was
illumined by the loftiness of their aim. The girl who enters college
nowadays has rarely the opportunity to be either pioneer or martyr.
She is doing what has come to be regarded as a matter of course.
Nevertheless, to-day as then, in the coeducational institution she is
more consciously on her mettle than the man.

Her attention, interest, respectfulness, docility, will be ahead of
his. It will at once be apparent that she carries the larger stock of
_untaught_ knowledge. In the classroom she will usually outstep him in
mathematics. It is an ideal subject for her, satisfying her talent
for order, for making things "come out right." Her memory will serve
her better. She can depend upon it to carry more exceptions to rules,
more fantastic irregular verbs, more dates, more lists of kings and
queens, battles and generals, and on the whole she will treat this
sort of impedimenta with more respect. She will know less of abstract
ideas, of philosophies and speculations. They will interest her less.
The chances are that she will be less skillful with microscope and
scalpel, though this is not certain. She will show less enthusiasm for
technical problems, for machinery and engineering; more for social
problems, particularly when it is a question of meeting them with
preventives or remedies. In the first two or three years after
entering college, she will almost invariably appear superior to the
men of her age, more grown up, more interested, surer of herself,
readier. Later you will find her on the whole less inclined to
experiment with her gifts, to feel her wings, to make unexpected
dashes into life. It begins to look as if he were the experimenter,
she the conservator. And by the time she is a senior, look out! The
chances are she will have less interest from now on with man's