tween the ages of nine and eighteen, to the following tests. Twelve very distinct objects were f?hown them, each for two seconds, which must then be im- mediately written down. Twelve very distinct noises were made out of sight; numbers of two 'fig- ures each were read; three-syllable words, which were names of familiar objects, ob- jects that suggested noises, words desig- nating touch, tem- perature, and muscle sensations, words de- scribing states of feel- ing, and names of abstract ideas also were given them. The above eight series of twelve each were all reproduced in writing, and showed that each kind of memory here tested increased with age, with some slight tendency to decline at or just before pu- berty, then to rise and to slightly de- cline after the six- teenth or seventeenth year. Memory for objects showed the greatest amount of increase during the year studied, and words for feeling next, although at all ages the latter was consid- erably below the former. Boys showed stronger memory for real impressions, and girls excelled for numbers and words. The differ- Numbers Visualized Words...Sound Concepts — o — „_ Feeling r Absti-axjt Ideas 11 10 4 3 .Jt— X- X y ,.
y / BOYS YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE ence of these two kinds of memory was less with girls than with boys. The greatest difference between the sexes lay between eleven and fourteen years. This seems, at eighteen or nineteen, to be slightly increased. '' This is especially great at the age of puberty." Children from nine to eleven Have but slight power of reproducing emotions, but this increases in the next few years very rapidly, as does that of the abstract words. Girls from nine to eleven deal better with words than with objects; boys slightly excel with objects. Illusions in reproducing words which mistake sense, sound, and rhythm, which is not infrequent with younger children, decline with age especially at puberty. Up to this period girls are most subject to these illusions, and afterward boys. The preceding tables, in which the ordinates represent the number of correct reproductions and the abscissas the age, are interesting.
Lobsien made tests similar to those of Netschajeff, ^ with modifi- cations for greater accuracy, upon 238 boys and 224 girls from nine to fourteen and a half years of age. The preceding tables show the development of the various kinds of memory for boys and girls: Boys.
AGE.
Objects.
Noises.
Number.
Visual Concepts.
Acoustic Concepts.
Touch Concepts.
Feeling Concepts.
Sound!.
Normal \ value.
Girls.
The table for boys shows in the fourteenth year a marked increase of memory for objects, noises, and feelings, especially as compared with the marked relative decline the preceding year, when there was a decided increase in visual concepts and senseless sounds. The INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION AND SCHOOL WORK twelfth year shows the greatest increase in number memory, acoustic impressions, touch, and feeUng. The tenth and eleventh years show marked increase of memory for objects and their names. Thus the increase in the strength of memory is by no means the same year by year, but progress focuses on some forms and others are neglected. Hence each type of memory shows an almost regular increase and decrease in relative strength.
The table for girls shows a marked increase of all memory forms about the twelfth year. This relative increase is exceeded only in the fourteenth year for visual concepts. The thirteenth year shows the greatest increase for sounds and a remarkable regression for objects in passing from the lowest to the next grade above.
In the accuracy of reproducing the order of impressions, girls much exceeded boys at all ages. For seen objects, their accuracy was twice that of boys, the boys excelling in order only in num- ber. In general, ability to reproduce a series of impressions increases and decreases with the power to reproduce in any order, but by no means in direct proportion to it. The effect of the last member in a series by a purely mechanical reproduction is best in boys. The range and energy of reproduction is far higher than ordered sequence. In general girls slightly exceed boys in recalling numbers, touch concepts, and sounds, and largely exceed in recalling feeling concepts, real things and visual concepts.
Colegrove^ tabulated returns from the early memories of 1,658 correspondents with 6,069 memories, from which he reached the con- clusions, represented in the following curves, for the earliest three memories of white males and females.
In the cuts on the following page, the heavy line represents the first memory, the broken the second, and the dotted the third. Age at the time of reporting is represented in distance to the right, and the age of the person at the time of the occurrence remembered is repre- sented by the distance upward. "There is a rise in all the curves at adolescence. This shows that, from the age of twelve to fifteen, boys do not recall so early memories as they do both before and after this period." This Colegrove ascribes to the fact that the present seems so large and rich. At any rate, "the earhest memories of boys at the age of fourteen average almost four years." His curves for girls show that the age of all the first three memories which they are able to recall is higher at fourteen than at any period before or after; that 1 Memory: An Inductive Study. By F. W. Colegrove. Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1900, p. 229. See also Individual Memories. Amer- ican Journal of Psychology, January, 1899, vol. 10, pp. 228-255.
YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE at seven and eight the average age of the first things recalled is nearly a year earlier than it is at fourteen. This means that at puberty there is a marked and characteristic obliteration of infantile memories which lapse to oblivion with augmented absorption in the present.
It was found that males have the greatest number of memories for protracted or repeated occurrences, for people, and clothing, topographical and logical matters; that females have better memories for novel occurrences or single impressions. Already at ten and BOYS 5 4 3 2 1 - /...• "■ ■■ ■• '' " > ^- ■— ■' ^ y ^ — ~ ', .- .^ -J •.
,.
y ,- ■' " ■- ._ .
/ .
— / *" .^ ,• ' ^ ^ \ x- V — ■— / — — / \ ^ ■^ __ __ ^ rf^ eleven motor memories begin to decrease for females and increase for males. At fourteen and fifteen, motor memories nearly culminate for males, but still further decline for females. The former show a marked decrease in memory for relatives and playmates and an in- crease for other persons. Sickness and accidents to self are remem- bered less by males and better by females, as are memories of fears. At eighteen and nineteen there is a marked and continued increase in the visual memories of each sex and the auditory memory of females. Memory for the activity of others increases for both, but far more strongly for males. Colegrove concludes from his data that "the period of adolescence is one of great psychical awakening. A wide range of memories is found at this time. From the fourteenth year INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION AND SCHOOL WORK with girls and the fifteenth with boys the auditory memories are strongly developed. At the dawn of adolescence the motor memory of voice nearly culminates, and they have fewer memories of sick- ness and accidents to self. During this time the memory of other persons and the activity of others is emphasized in case of both boys and girls. In general, at this period the special sensory mem- ories are numerous, and it is the golden age for motor memories. Now, too, the memories of high ideals, self-sacrifice, and self-forget- fulness are cherished. Wider interests than self and immediate friends become the objects of reflection and recollection."
After twenty there is a marked change in the memory content. The male acquires more and the female less visual and auditory memories. The memories of the female are more logical, and topo- graphical features increase. Memories of sickness and accidents to self decrease with the males and increase with the females, while in the case of both there is relative decline in the memories of sickness and accident to others. From all this it would appear that different memories culminate at different periods, and bear immediate rela- tion to the whole mental life of the period. While perhaps some of the finer analyses of Colegrove may invite further confirmation, his main results given above are not only suggestive, but rendered very plausible by his evidence.
Statistics based upon replies to the question as to whether pleasant or unpleasant experiences were best remembered, show that the former increase at eleven, rise rapidly at fourteen, and culminate at eighteen for males, and that the curve of painful memories follows the same course, although for both there is a drop at fifteen. For females, the pleasant memories increase rapidly from eleven to thirteen, decline a little at fourteen, rise again at sixteen, an,d culminate at seventeen, and the painful memories follow nearly the same course, only with a slight drop at fifteen. Thus, up to twenty- two for males, there is a marked preponderance of pleasant over painful memories, although the two rise and fall together. After thirty, unpleasant memories are but little recalled. For the Indians and negroes in this census, unpleasant memories play a far more and often preponderating role suggesting persecution and sad ex- periences. Different elements of the total content of memory come to prominence at different ages. He also found that the best re- membered years of life are sixteen to seventeen for males and fifteen for females, and that in general the adolescent period has more to do than any other in forming and furnishing the memory plexus, while the seventh and eighth years are most poorly remembered.
It is also known that many false memories insert themselves into YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE the texture of remembered experiences. One dreams a friend is dead and thinks she is till she is met one day in the street; or dreams of a fire and inquires about it in the morning; dreams of a present and searches the house for it next day; delays breakfast for a friend, who arrived the night before in a dream, to come down to breakfast; a child hunts for a bushel of pennies dreamed of, etc. These phan- toms falsify our memory most often, according to Dr. Colegrove, between sixteen and nineteen.
Mnemonic devices prompt children to change rings to keep ap- pointments, tie knots in the handkerchief, put shoes on the dressing- table, hide garments, associate faces with hoods, names with acts, things, or qualities they suggest; visualize, connect figures, letters with colors, etc. From a scrutiny of the original material, which I was kindly allowed to make, this appears to rise rapidly at puberty.
CHAPTER XI THE EDUCATION OP GIRLS Equal opportunities of higher education now open — Brings new dangers to women — Ineradicable sex differences begin at puberty, when the sexes should and do diverge — Different interests — Sex tension — Girls more mature than boys at the same age — Radical psj^chic and physio- logical differences between the sexes — The bachelor women — Need- ed reconstruction — Food — Sleep — Regimen — Manners — Religion — Regularity — The topics for a girls' curriculum — The eternal womanly.
The long battle of woman and her friends for equal educational and other opportunities is essentially won all along the line. Her academic achievements have forced conservative minds to admit that her intellect is not inferior to that of man. The old cloistral se- clusion and exclusion is forever gone and new ideals are arising. It has been a noble movement and is a necessary first stage of woman's emancipation. The caricatured maidens '* as beautiful as an angel but as silly as a goose," who come from the kitchen to the husband's study to ask how much is two times two, and are told it is four for a man and three for a woman, and go back with a happy '' Thank you, my dear ' '; those who love to be called baby, and appeal to instincts half parental in their lovers and husbands; those who find all the sphere they desire in a doll 's house, like Nora's, and are content to be men's pets; whose ideal is the clinging vine, and who take no interest in the field where their husbands struggle, will perhaps YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE soon survive only as a diminishing remainder. Mar- riages do still occur where woman's ignorance and helplessness seem to be the chief charm to men, and may be happy, but such eases are no farther from the present ideal and tendency on the one hand than on the other are those which consist in intellectual partnerships, in which there is no segregation of interests but which are devoted throughout to joint work or enjoyment.
A typical contemporary writer ^ thinks the question whether a girl shall receive a college education is very like the same question for boys. Even if the four K's, Kirche, Kinder, Kuchen, and Kleider (which may be translated by the four C's, Church, Children, Cooking, and Clothes), are her vocation, college may help her. The best training for a young woman is not the old college course that has proven unfit for young men. Most college men look forward to a professional training as few women do. The latter have often greater sympathy, readiness of memory, patience with technic, skill in literature and language, but lack originality, are not attracted by un- solved problems, are less motor-minded; but their training is just as serious and important as that of men. The best results are where the sexes are brought closer together, because their separation generally emphasizes for girls the technical training for the profession of womanhood. With girLs, literature and language take precedence over science: expression stands higher than action; the scholarship may be superior, but is not ef- fective; the educated woman '' is likely to master technic rather than art; method, rather than substance.
1 David Starr Jordan: The Higher Education of Women. Popular Science Monthly, December, 1902, vol. 62, pp. 97-107. See also my article on this subject in Munsey's Magazine, February, 1906, and President Jordan's reply in the March number, 1906.
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS She may know a good deal, but she can do nothing. ' ' In most separate colleges for women, old traditions are more prevalent than in colleges for men. In the annex system, she does not get the best of the institution. By the coeducation method, " young men are more earnest, better in manners and morals, and in all ways more civilized than under monastic conditions. The women do more work in a more natural way, with better per- spective and with saner incentives than when isolated from the influence of the society of men. There is less silliness and folly where a man is not a novelty. In coeducational institutions of high standards, frivo- lous conduct or scandals of any form are rarely known. The responsibility for decorum is thrown from the school to the woman, and the woman rises to the re- sponsibility." The character of college work has not been lowered but raised by coeducation, despite the fact that most of the new, small, weak colleges are coedu- cational. Social strain, Jordan thinks, is easily regu- lated, and the dormitory system is on the whole best, because the college atmosphere is highly prized. The reasons for the present reaction against coeducation are ascribed partly to the dislike of the idle boy to have girls excel him and see his failures, or because rowdyish tendencies are checked by the presence of women. Some think that girls do not help athletics; that men count for most because they are more apt to be heard from later; but the most serious new argument is the fear that woman's standards and amateurishness will take the place of specialization. Women take up higher educa- tion because they like it; men because their careers depend upon it. Hence their studies are more objec- tive and face the world as it is. In college the women do as well as men, but not in the university. The half- YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE educated woman as a social factor has produced many soft lecture courses and cheap books. This is an argu- ment for the higher education of the sex. Finally, Jordan insists that coeducation leads to marriage, and he believes that its best basis is common interest and intellectual friendship.
From the available data it seems, however, that the more scholastic the education of women, the fewer chil- dren and the harder, more dangerous, and more dreaded is parturition, and the less the ability to nurse children. Not intelligence, but education by present man-made ways, is inversely as fecundity. The sooner and the more clearly this is recognized as a universal rule, not, of course, without many notable and much vaunted ex- ceptions, the better for our civilization. For one, I plead with no whit less earnestness and conviction than any of the feminists, and indeed with more fervor be- cause on nearly all their grounds and also on others, for the higher education of women, and would welcome them to every opportunity available to men if they can not do better; but I would open to their election an- other education, which every competent judge would pronounce more favorable to motherhood, under the influence of female principals who do not publicly say that it is '' not desirable " that women students should study motherhood, because they do not know whether they will marry; who encourage them to elect '* no special subjects because they are women," and who think infant psychology '' foolish."
Various interesting experiments in coeducation are now being made in England.^ Some are whole-hearted 1 Coeducation. A series of essays by various authors, edited by Alice Woods, with an introduction by M. E. Sadler. Longmans, Green and THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS and encourage the girls to do almost everything that the boys do in both study and play. There are girl prefects; cricket teams are formed sometimes of both sexes, but often the sexes matched against each other; one play-yard, a dual staff of teachers, and friendships between the boys and girls are not tabooed, etc. In other schools the sexes meet perhaps in recitation only, have separate rooms for study, entrances, play-grounds, and their relations are otherwise restricted. The opin- ion of English writers generally favors coeducation up to about the beginning of the teens, and from there on views are more divided. It is admitted that, if there is a very great preponderance of either sex over the other, the latter is likely to lose its characteristic qualities, and something of this occurs where the average age of one sex is distinctly greater than that of the other. On the other hand, several urge that, where age and numbers are equal, each sex is more inclined to develop the best qualities peculiar to itself in the presence of the other.
Some girls are no doubt far fitter for boys' studies and men's careers than others. Coeducation, too, gen- erally means far more assimilation of girls' to boys' ways and work than conversely. ^lany people believe that girls either gain or are more affected by coeduca- tion, especially in the upper grades, than boys. It is interesting, however, to observe the differences that still persist. Certain games, like football and boxing, girls can not play; they do not fight; they are not flogged or caned as English boys are when their bad marks foot up beyond a certain aggregate; girls are more prone to cliques; their punishments must be in appeals to school sentiment, to which they are exceedingly sensi- tive; it is hard for them to bear defeat in games with YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE the same dignity and unruffled temper as boys; it is harder for them to accept the school standards of honor that condemn the tell-tale as a sneak, although they soon learn this. They may be a little in danger of being roughened by boyish ways and especially by the crude and unique language, almost a dialect in itself, preva- lent among schoolboys. Girls are far more prone to overdo; boys are persistingly lazy and idle. Girls are content to sit and have the subject-matter pumped into them by recitations, etc., and to merely accept, while boys are more inspired by being told to do things and make tests and experiments. In this, girls are often quite at sea. One writer speaks of a certain feminine obliquity, but hastens to say that girls in these schools soon accept its code of honor. It is urged, too, that in singing classes the voices of each sex are better in quality for the presence of the other. In many topics of all kinds boys and girls are interested in different aspects of the same theme, and therefore the work is broadened. In manual training, girls excel in all ar- tistic work; boys, in carpentry. Girls can be made not only less noxiously sentimental and impulsive, but their conduct tends to become more thoughtful; they can be made to feel responsibility for bestowing their praise aright and thus influencing the tone of the school. Calamitous as it would be for the education of boys beyond a certain age to be entrusted entirely or chiefly to women, it would be less so for that of girls to be given entirely to men. Perhaps the great women teachers, whose life and work have made them a power with girls comparable to that of Arnold and Thring with boys, are dying out. Very likely economic mo- tives are too dominant for this problem to be settled on its merits only. Finally, several writers mention the THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS increased healthfulness of moral tone. The vices that infest boys' schools, which Arnold thought a quantity constantly changing with every class, are diminished. Healthful thoughts of sex, less subterranean and base imaginings on the one hand, and less gushy senti- mentality on the other, are favored. For either sex to be a copy of the other is to be weakened, and each comes normally to respect more and to prefer its own sex.
Not to pursue this subject further here, it is probable that many of the causes for the facts set forth are very different and some of them almost diametrically op- posite in the two sexes. Hard as it is per se, it is after all a comparatively easy matter to educate boys. They are less peculiarly responsive in mental tone to the physical and psychic environment, tend more strongly and early to special interests, and react more vigor- ously against the obnoxious elements of their surround- ings. This is truest of the higher education, and more so in proportion as the tendencies of the age are toward special and vocational training. Woman, as we saw, in every fiber of her soul and body is a more generic creature than man, nearer to the race, and demands more and more with advancing age an education that is essentially liberal and humanistic. This is progress- ively hard when the sexes differentiate in the higher grades. Moreover, nature decrees that with advancing civilization the sexes shall not approximate, but differ- entiate, and we shall probably be obliged to carry sex distinctions, at least of method, into many if not most of the topics of the higher education. Now that woman has by general consent attained the right to the best that man has, she must seek a training that fits her own nature as well or better. So long as she strives YOUTH: ITS EDUCATION, REGIMEN, AND HYGIENE to be manlike she will be inferior and a pinchbeck imi- tation, but she must develop a new sphere that shall be like the rich field of the cloth of gold for the best instincts of her nature.