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Page 20
If, from such general facts of observation, one turns to exact
comparisons, where quantities can be measured, the results are all the
same. Of students enrolled in classical departments of universities,
colleges and technical schools reporting to the United States Bureau of
Education, in 1910, 36.5% were women, while of those enrolled in general
science courses, but 17.2% were women. In 1,511 public and private high
schools and seminaries, reporting to the Bureau of Education in
1909-1910, a larger percentage of boys than of girls was enrolled in
algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, physical geography,
civil government and rhetoric, which is a scientific study of language.
A larger proportion of girls enrolled in Latin, French, German, English
literature and history, and there was a slightly greater enrollment of
girls in botany, zoology and physiology.
In the further discussion of this subject it will then be taken for
granted that in education, feminization means emphasis on languages,
literature and history, as opposed to mathematics, physics, chemistry
and civics. For the elementary schools we have no data capable of
reduction to figures, but general observation, backed by an examination
of courses of study and textbooks, will compel any one to say that in
twenty years we have made wonderful progress in reading, language,
stories, mythology, biography and history; while all our efforts to
bring nature work into vital relation with the schools have borne little
fruit. Our country schools need lessons in agriculture, and the children
should gain a deep sense of country life. But how can celibate young
women, longing toward the towns, give this? Any subjects well taught are
sure to be increasingly taught, and it takes no extended study to see
that our elementary schools are being feminized in the direction of
literature. This is the more striking when we remember that these twenty
years have been dominated, in the larger world, by scientific interests.
In the high schools and seminaries, we have fairly complete returns
showing the number of students enrolled in certain subjects since 1890.
The pupils taking Latin have increased 15%; French, 4%; German, 13%;
English literature has increased in ten years 7% (there is no record for
this subject before 1898); and European history, 27%. There has also
been an increase of 11% in algebra and 10% in geometry, probably partly
due to vocational need and to the emphasis laid on these subjects for
admission to college. But physics, in the twenty years under
consideration, has fallen off 7%; chemistry, 3%; physical geography, 5%;
physiology, 15%; and civics, 7%.[30] A careful study of these figures
must convince any fair-minded person that our school curriculum, even in
the secondary field, where women's control is least complete, is moving
rapidly in the direction of what we have called feminization.
[30] _Report of the United States Commissioner of Education_, 1910, Vol.
II, p. 1139.
The schools, too, must increasingly do something more than train the
intellect; and in all physical activity involuntary suggestion is very
powerful. Playgrounds are laboratories of conduct, and they should not
only give physical exercise, but should also furnish standards and
ideals. There can be no doubt that women are physically more restrained,
retiring, non-contesting, and graceful than men; but can dancing,
marching, and gymnastics take the place of more aggressive, direct and
violent contests in the training of boys? So in industries, women are
more given to conserving, arranging and beautifying, more given to
clerking and recording, while men are more creative, disbursing, more
given to mining, agriculture and commerce. Even granting equal
understanding and experience, the tradition of the race must count for
much; and it would seem that at every stage of growth, boys and girls
alike should feel the impulse to imitate men who have an instinct to
make and unmake, to trade and carry. It is no justification of existing
conditions to say that the men now in the teaching profession lack
these qualities; if they do, let us get rid of them and have real men.
And for purposes of political life, does it not seem strange to bring up
a generation of boys and girls who are to be the future citizens of a
democracy under the exclusive leadership of people who have never been
encouraged to think about political life nor allowed to participate in
it? Let us by all means enfranchise women; but even then they cannot
hope to quickly catch up with those who have some thousands of years the
start, even after allowing for the fact that girls inherit from both
father and mother.
Most of these differences which we have been discussing seem to rest in
the fact that women are more personal in their interests and judgments
than men are. This may be due to their education for thousands of years;
but that makes it no less true. Women certainly, in a great majority of
cases, are more interested in a case than in a constitution; in a man
than in a mission; in a poem that in a treatise; in equity than in law.
In a generation when everything is tending toward great aggregations,
consolidated industries, segregated wealth, and new syntheses of
knowledge, both boys and girls should have such training as will fit
them to play their part in these larger units.
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