In all our towns there is a tendency toward “mixed schools.”  We rarely hear of the sexes being separated in a school after being once united; but we constantly hear of their being brought together after separation.  This union is commonly, but mistakenly, recommended as an advantage to the boys alone.  I once heard an accomplished teacher remonstrate against this change, when thus urged.  “Why should my girls be sacrificed,” she said, “to improve your boys?” Six months after, she had learned by experience.  “Why,” she asked, “did you rest the argument on so narrow a ground?  Since my school consisted half of boys, I find with surprise that the change has improved both sexes.  My girls are more ambitious, more obedient, and more ladylike.  I shall never distrust the policy of mixed schools again.”

What is true of the school is true of the family and of the state.  It is not good for man, or for woman, to be alone.  Granting the woman to be, on the whole, the more spiritually minded, it is still true that each sex needs the other.  When the rivet falls from a pair of scissors, we do not have than mended because either half can claim angelic superiority over the other half, but because it takes two halves to make a whole.

VICARIOUS HONORS

There is a story in circulation—­possibly without authority—­to the effect that a certain young lady has ascended so many Alps that she would have been chosen a member of the English Alpine Club but for her misfortune in respect to sex.  As a matter of personal recognition, however, and, as it were, of approximate courtesy, her dog, who has accompanied her in all her trips, and is not debased by sex, has been elected into the club.  She has therefore an opportunity for exercising in behalf of her dog that beautiful self-abnegation which is said to be a part of woman’s nature, impelling her always to prefer that her laurels should be worn by somebody else.

The dog probably made no objection to these vicarious honors; nor is any objection made by the young gentlemen who reply eloquently to the toast, “The Ladies,” at public dinners, or who kindly consent to be educated at masculine colleges on “scholarships” perhaps founded by women.  Those who receive the emoluments of these funds must reflect within themselves, occasionally, how grand a thing is this power of substitution given to women, and how pleasant are its occasional results to the substitute.  It is doubtless more blessed to give than to receive, but to receive without giving has also its pleasures.  Very likely the holder of the scholarship, and the orator who rises with his hand on his heart to “reply in behalf of the ladies,” may do their appointed work well; and so did the Alpine dog.  Yet, after all, but for the work done by his mistress, the dog would have won no more honor from the Alpine Club than if he had been a chamois.