DePauw University - Mirage Yearbook (Greencastle, IN)

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Coedueation: it Larger Meanuigsn lk' l7R.XXClS ,lt 7llN hlCC1hlNNlfLl. PI't'SI.l71t'1lf Dt'Pt1zm' LTlI1iI'CI'Slif-X' k,1DQ,SQ,J YOUNG man recently wrote to the officelat De- Lx A lgauw to learn how he could get a coeducation. It 15 rather difhcult to know just what the young man 6 3 had in mind. Evidently he was not perpetrating a ci X7 joke, for his letter had all the marks of seriousness. f'K6j'Uf!'i Quite likely he had heard about DeI'auw as a co- educational school, and asked his question without thinking of what the word coeducation might mean. lVhat does coeclucation mean? Of course, we all know what it means as the word is ordinarily used,-the education of young men and women at the same institution, with the same courses open to each and the same classes open to each. lt is to the advantage of DePauw that it is a coeducational school in this customary sense of the word: the aim of the college is not merely to Ht men and women for the particular Fields which they are to occupy, but to give them a general, fundamental, cultural training, In a world where there are about as many women as men and about as many men as women, it would seem that the education of either men or women would be incomplete without an understanding. at least in a general way. of the problems of life from the standpoint both of man and woman. .-Xs a matter of fact, very careful observers have said that the general views of life which young people acquire in the coeducational school are apt to be much more helpful than the views which they obtain from the schools restricted to one sex or the other. Of course, there may be a great deal of the romantic in the relation of the young man and the young woman in college. but the romantic aspect is apt to be much healthier when the young man and young woman are meeting together day by day than when they meet only upon social occasions. The social meeting is hedged about by all sorts of convcutiiinalities, so that it is not possible for the young man clearly to understand the young woman or the young woman clearly to understand the young man if there is only a formal social meeting. In the coeducational school, on the other hand, the young man gets a chance to see the young woman in something else than a party dress, and with some manners other than her The young wonrm too frets to see the yonncf man . 5 f- -5 . 5 party manners. about as he is. He may look very handsome at 10:00 p. ni. at the formal society function. but he may be a complete tiunker at 10:00 a. m., and the young woman gets a chance to Find this out. If now it be said that one objection to coeducational schools is that so many marriages come from these schools, all we can say is that we do not know any other way in which young men and women can come to a just understanding of one another that is so commendable as meeting day by day in the class room. lt is not of coeducation, however, in this restricted sense that I wish to speak, Coeducation literally means something more than this: it means the education of people together, or in groups. Really this is the one true kind of education, To be sure, the scholar must have his moments when he withdraws to his study and to his laboratory. To be sure. there are some things that can only be

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found as men work as individuals. .Xfter all. however. we live in a world of persons. The results of the most secluded study are of value out in the world at large, and the man who is going to serve the world at large must have a sympathetic understanding of his fellows. XX'c used to hear a great deal said in praise of the self-made man. .X keen critic once remarked. however, that the trouble with the self-made tnan is that he is too apt to worship his maker. There is large force in this criticism. The man whose training has been away from his fellows docs not see things in true perspective. and his perspective fails simply because he judges too much by himself. lle does not go to the outer edge of the circle and look hack toward the center. ln college a man is not apt to remain self-centered for long. lf he does not sec his own faults speedily his fellow-students are apt to point them out for him. Une great advantage of the close fellowships that obtain at college. the close fellowships. for example, like the fellowships of fraternities and sororities. is to be found in this opportunity for mutual correction. .Xnyone who imagines that the Freshman or the Sophomore is a timid. shrinking, homesick Cfeilttlfe. quite likely has never known very much about Freshmen and Sophoniores in the flesh. .Xs a matter of actual fact. large numbers of students come to college thinking that they know a great deal. and one result of college training is to help them to see how little they know, Professors cannot always do this. because the newcomer is apt to think that he understands the problem as well as the professor. The needed corrective. however. is found in the actual contact with the fellow-students. The truth is that the scholar has to go out with the truth which he has learned from college, to apply that truth to the actual. work-a-day world. lle is poorly equipped for this task unless his associations at college have been of the intimate kind which enable him to understand pretty well just what sort of creatures human beings are. ,X cynic once said: .X college educa- tion has two advantages: tirst. it enables a man to put up a good bluff: and second, it enables him to see when one is being put up. uf course. if a man chooses to use the college education for the sake of learning how to befool people he can do so, but he has less chance of succeeding at that in college than almost anywhere else in the world. The contact with his fellows is so intimate and so close that they are apt to see through any attempt of the kind. XYhen the attempt is seen through the rebuke is meted out very swiftly. lint the matter goes farther. even. than this: even if we do not receive definite help through being with a mass of students we receive subtle and unconscious intiuences which mold ns when we do not suspect their presence. An engineer in charge of sur- veying on the western plains once said that his surveyors made very few mistakes in their calculations when they were working in groups. XVheu. however, the surveyors became widely separated the mistakes, strange to say, increased. This did not mean that the men corrected the mistakes of one another: it meant that the very fact that they were working together carried a sort of psychological atmosphere which kept them from the numerous mistakes that came when they were alone. However this may be with surveyors, it is certainly true in college that the very presence of others keeps students closer to the path of knowledge. Occasionally we are appalled at the opportunities for dissipation that come as large masses of students get together. and of course we must not min- imize the realitv of this danger. Over against this. however. must be put the fact that the social relation is a normal relation, and has its intinences upon the mental processes of the student. Some of the things about college life that the outsider least appreciates are really among the most valuable assets of the college. Take for example the sense of lnunor that is developed in the or- dinary college niau. This, of course, manifests itself at times in rather outlandish ways, but one trouble with the world is that so few people have a fully developed sense of lunnor. There are some arguments in this world that are logical enough as arguments: the only way to answer them is to laugh at them. There are some pretenses that look plausible enough from the standpoint of formal reason, hut they vanish into thin air as soon as somebody begins