THE CO-EDUCATION OF THE SEXES
The most important point in our programme of rational education, in
view of the intellectual condition of the country, and the feature
which was most likely to shock current prejudices and habits, was the
co-education of boys and girls.
The idea was not absolutely new in Spain. As a result of necessity and
of primitive conditions, there were villages in remote valleys and on
the mountains where some good-natured neighbour, or the priest or
sacristan, used to teach the catechism, and sometimes elementary
letters, to boys and girls in common. In fact, it is sometimes legally
authorised, or at least tolerated, by the State among small populations
which have not the means to pay both a master and mistress. In such
cases, either a master or mistress gives common lessons to boys and
girls, as I had myself seen in a village not far from Barcelona. In
towns and cities, however, mixed education was not recognised. One read
sometimes of the occurrence of it in foreign countries, but no one
proposed to adopt it in Spain, where such a proposal would have been
deemed an innovation of the most utopian character.
Knowing this, I refrained from making any public propaganda on the
subject, and confined myself to private discussion with individuals. We
asked every parent who wished to send a boy to the school if there were
girls in the family, and it was necessary to explain to each the
reasons for co-education. Wherever we did this, the result was
satisfactory. If we had announced our intention publicly, it would have
raised a storm of prejudice. There would have been a discussion in the
press, conventional feeling would have been aroused, and the fear of
“what people would say”—that paralysing obstacle to good
intentions—would have been stronger than reason. Our project would have
proved exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Whereas, proceeding as
we did, we were able to open with a sufficient number of boys and
girls, and the number steadily increased, as the Bulletin of the school
shows.
In my own mind, co-education was of vital importance. It was not merely
an indispensable condition of realising what I regard as the ideal
result of rational education; it was the ideal itself, initiating its
life in the Modern School, developing progressively without any form of
exclusion, inspiring a confidence of attaining our end. Natural
science, philosophy, and history unite in teaching, in face of all
prejudice to the contrary, that man and woman are two complementary
aspects of human nature, and the failure to recognise this essential
and important truth has had the most disastrous consequences.
In the second number of the Bulletin, therefore, I published a careful
vindication of my ideas:—
Mixed education (I said) is spreading among civilised nations. In
many places it has already had excellent results. The principle of
this new scheme of education is that children of both sexes shall
receive the same lessons; that their minds shall be developed,
their hearts purified, and their wills strengthened in precisely
the same manner; that the sexes shall be in touch with each other
from infancy, so that woman shall be, not in name only, but in
reality and truth, the companion of man.
A venerable institution which dominates the thoughts of our people
declares, at one of the most solemn moments of life, when, with
ceremonious pomp, man and woman are united in matrimony, that woman
is the companion of man. These are hollow words, void of sense,
without vital and rational significance in life, since what we
witness in the Christian Church, in Catholicism particularly, is
the exact opposite of this idea. Not long ago a Christian woman of
fine feeling and great sincerity complained bitterly of the moral
debasement which is put upon her sex in the bosom of the Church:
“It would be impious audacity for a woman to aspire in the Church
even to the position of the lowest sacristan.”
A man must suffer from ophthalmia of the mind not to see that,
under the inspiration of Christianity, the position of woman is no
better than it was under the ancient civilisations; it is, indeed,
worse, and has aggravating circumstances. It is a conspicuous fact
in our modern Christian society that, as a result and culmination
of our patriarchal development, the woman does not belong to
herself; she is neither more nor less than an adjunct of man,
subject constantly to his absolute dominion, bound to him—it may
be—by chains of gold. Man has made her a perpetual minor. Once this
was done, she was bound to experience one of two alternatives: man
either oppresses and silences her, or treats her as a child to be
coaxed—according to the mood of the master. If at length we note in
her some sign of the new spirit, if she begins to assert her will
and claim some share of independence, if she is passing, with
irritating slowness, from the state of slave to the condition of a
respected ward, she owes it to the redeeming spirit of science,
which is dominating the customs of races and the designs of our
social rulers.
The work of man for the greater happiness of the race has hitherto been
defective; in future it must be a joint action of the sexes; it is
incumbent on both man and woman, according to the point of view of
each. It is important to realise that, in face of the purposes of life,
man is neither inferior nor (as we affect to think) superior to woman.
They have different qualities, and no comparison is possible between
diverse things.
As many psychologists and sociologists observe, the human race displays
two fundamental aspects. Man typifies the dominion of thought and of
the progressive spirit; woman bears in her moral nature the
characteristic note of intense sentiment and of the conservative
spirit. But this view of the sexes gives no encouragement whatever to
the ideas of reactionaries. If the predominance of the conservative
element and of the emotions is ensured in woman by natural law, this
does not make her the less fitted to be the companion of man. She is
not prevented by the constitution of her nature from reflecting on
things of importance, nor is it necessary that she should use her mind
in contradiction to the teaching of science and absorb all kinds of
superstitions and fables. The possession of a conservative disposition
does not imply that one is bound to crystallise in a certain stage of
thought, or that one must be obsessed with prejudice in all that
relates to reality.
“To conserve” merely means “to retain,” to keep what has been given us,
or what we have ourselves produced. The author of The Religion of the
Future says, referring to woman in this respect: “The conservative
spirit may be applied to truth as well as to error; it all depends what
it is you conserve. If woman is instructed in philosophical and
scientific matters, her conservative power will be to the advantage,
not to the disadvantage, of progressive thought.”
On the other hand, it is pointed out that woman is emotional. She does
not selfishly keep to herself what she receives; she spreads abroad her
beliefs, her ideas, and all the good and evil that form her moral
treasures. She insists on sharing them with all those who are, by the
mysterious power of emotion, identified with her. With exquisite art,
with invariable unconsciousness, her whole moral physiognomy, her whole
soul, so to say, impresses itself on the soul of those she loves.
If the first ideas implanted in the mind of the child by the teacher
are germs of truth and of positive knowledge; if the teacher himself is
in touch with the scientific spirit of the time, the result will be
good from every point of view. But if a man be fed in the first stage
of his mental development with fables, errors, and all that is contrary
to the spirit of science, what can be expected of his future? When the
boy becomes a man he will be an obstacle to progress. The human
conscience is in infancy of the same natural texture as the bodily
organism; it is tender and pliant. It readily accepts what comes to it
from without. In the course of time this plasticity gives place to
rigidity; it loses its pliancy and becomes relatively fixed. From that
time the ideas communicated to it by the mother will be encrusted and
identified with the youth’s conscience.
The acid of the more rational ideas which the youth acquires by social
intercourse or private study may in cases relieve the mind of the
erroneous ideas implanted in childhood. But what is likely to be the
practical outcome of this transformation of the mind in the sphere of
conduct? We must not forget that in most cases the emotions associated
with the early ideas remain in the deeper folds of the heart. Hence it
is that we find in so many men such a flagrant and lamentable
antithesis between the thought and the deed, the intelligence and the
will; and this often leads to an eclipse of good conduct and a
paralysis of progress.
This primary sediment which we owe to our mothers is so tenacious and
enduring—it passes so intimately into the very marrow of our being—that
even energetic characters, which have effected a sincere reform of mind
and will, have the mortification of discovering this Jesuitical
element, derived from their mothers, when they turn to make an
inventory of their ideas.
Woman must not be restricted to the home. The sphere of her activity
must go out far beyond her home: it must extend to the very confines of
society. But in order to ensure a helpful result from her activity we
must not restrict the amount of knowledge we communicate to her; she
must learn, both in regard to quantity and quality, the same things as
man. When science enters the mind of woman it will direct her rich vein
of emotion, the characteristic element of her nature, the glad
harbinger of peace and happiness among men.
It has been said that woman represents continuity, and man represents
change: man is the individual, woman is the species. Change, however,
would be useless, fugitive, and inconstant, with no solid foundation of
reality, if the work of woman did not strengthen and consolidate the
achievements of man. The individual, as such, is the flower of a day, a
thing of ephemeral significance in life. Woman, who represents the
species, has the function of retaining within the species the elements
which improve its life, and to discharge this function adequately she
needs scientific instruction.
Humanity will advance more rapidly and confidently in the path of
progress and increase its resources a hundredfold if it combines the
ideas acquired by science with the emotional strength of woman. Ribot
observes that an idea is merely an idea, an act of intelligence,
incapable of producing or doing anything, unless it is accompanied by
an emotional state, a motive element. Hence it is conceived as a
scientific truth that, to the advantage of progress, an idea does not
long remain in a purely contemplative condition when it appears. This
is obviated by associating the idea with emotion and love, which do not
fail to convert it into vital action.
When will all this be accomplished? When shall we see the marriage of
ideas with the impassioned heart of woman? From that date we shall have
a moral matriarchate among civilised nations. Then, on the one hand,
humanity, considered in the home circle, will have the proper teacher
to direct the new generations in the sense of the ideal; and, on the
other hand, it will have an apostle and enthusiastic propagandist who
will impress the value of liberty on the minds of men and the need of
co-operation upon the peoples of the world.