Cody, William Frederick
ko'di, William Frederick (1846-), an American scout and showman, best known as "Buffalo Bill." He was born in Scott County, Iowa. The family moved to the vicinity of Fort Leavenworth, and here, while still a child, young Cody was employed by express companies to carry packages across country on horseback. He was hardly out of boyhood when he was employed as a government scout. He became distinguished as a fearless rider, a keen and skillful hunter, and an expert plainsman. Cody won the name of Buffalo Bill by contracting with the Kansas Pacific Railway Company to supply its laborers with buffalo meat. It is said that he killed over four thousand buffaloes during one season. In 1883 he succeeded in organizing the "Wild West Show," a scheme he had long cherished. He gathered a large number of Indians and cowboys, collected much valuable material, of which the famous "Deadwood Coach" is perhaps the best example, and presented an exhibition of early frontier life which became known the world over. Cody is the last of the six great scouts of America. The others are Boone, Carson, Crockett, Bridger and "Wild Bill."
Co-education of the Sexes. In the United States over 96 per cent of pupils enrolled in elementary schools are in mixed schools. In public secondary schools the per cent is slightly less, being about 95. The high schools where the sexes are separated are found principally in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans. The establishment of manual training high schools has increased slightly the proportion of pupils in separate schools. The large majority of women in colleges are in co-educational institutions. Excluding institutions of higher learning for women only, we have in the United States 68 per cent of such institutions co-educational.
In foreign countries we find a different state of affairs. In England 65 per cent of elementary pupils are in mixed schools, in Scotland 97 per cent, in Ireland 51 per cent. In France separate schools are the rule in elementary departments, but sentiment is gaining in favor of mixed schools. In the German States separate elementary schools for the sexes are maintained as far as practicable. In Italy segregation is almost universal. In Scandinavian countries conditions more nearly like those in the United States prevail. In England separate secondary schools are the rule, but highly successful experiments in co-education are being conducted in Keswick and Harpenden. In Germany the Grand Duchy of Baden has made extensive experiments in co-education in secondary schools and favorable reports are given out, but, generally speaking, segregation is the practice. Attempts are being made to bring the secondary schools for girls up to the efficiency and scope of schools of like grades for boys. As far as higher educational institutions in Europe are concerned, women are for the most part excluded. However, sentiment in favor of their admission seems to be gaining. Evidence of this is the increasing attention to subjects in which women especially are interested, such as domestic science and home and municipal sanitation.
To return to the United States, it may be observed that the number of girls in secondary schools is increasing at a much more rapid rate than the number of boys. The same may be said of higher institutions of learning, if we leave out of consideration the professional and technicological schools. Two reasons for co-education are chiefly responsible for its extent. It is more economical thus to educate. The belief in the justice of equal opportunities for the young regardless of sex also acts to increase the number of co-educational institutions. However, the latter cause for increasing co-educational institutions is also the basis for agitation for segregation of the sexes. It is contended that equal opportunity for each sex demands unequal education, or, at least, a different education for the sexes. What educates one may not educate another at all. If the sexes require different preparation in order that each may fulfil its function, then co-education may be injurious for either if it is adapted to the other. The main arguments for and against co-education are as follows.
The movement for segregation of sexes in secondary and higher institutions of learning assumes fundamental sex differences. It attempts to prevent an alleged fatal feminization of education due to the preponderance of girls in boys' schools, or even the presence of girls at all in such schools. It is feared that otherwise the tendency will be to emasculate education so that it may not be too rugged for girls. With the progress of civilization we have an increased differentiation of function, and this bears on the question of education. The docility of the girls may be inspiration to better manners on the part of the boy, but he loses virility. He may have too good manners. He should work off his natural brutality to a certain extent. The girl, too, loses some of the bloom of the maiden. Thus there is a loss on both sides of the distinctive characteristics of each sex.
Girls are superior in certain studies, language for example. Girls like the classification element in botany, while boys prefer studying the habitat of plants. Therefore, in all points in the curriculum, not only is there a difference of taste as to subjects but as to the carrying out of the instruction in each subject. G. Stanley Hall says: "When we look the facts squarely in the face, we find that constant association of the sexes tends to rub off a little of the charm which each normally feels for the other." From this point of view it is argued that co-education tends to lessen the probabilities of marriage.
On the side of co-education it is contended that the objections urged against the custom are valid as against the abuse of the system and not against co-education itself. Schools may be "feminized" by effeminate men more effectually than by womanly women. The choice of electives in secondary and higher institutions removes objections urged against boys and girls being educated in the same institution. Injuries to the health of girls are due to ignorance of simple hygienic laws, and may be avoided without segregation. Courteous manners are not evidences of loss of virility Ideals of conduct are not properly related to sex. The ruder forms of vice flourish under conditions obtaining in separate schools for men. In answer to the objections made by young men to the presence of young women in college classes, it is urged that young men thus objecting are the dissolute or the boorish. Referring to the question of marriage, David Starr Jordan says: "It is true, no doubt, that cultivated women are more exacting than are other women. They are less likely to marry for convenience, and they expect more of their husbands. For these same reasons their marriages are less likely to prove unhappy."
As education becomes more scientific it will become more differentiated. Larger opportunities will be given each one, boy or girl, young man or woman, by suiting the instruction to the needs of each. This will necessarily result in a large number of electives in any curriculum. There will always exist, however, a considerable portion of the course of study which may be educative to persons of both sexes. The co-association of the sexes seems to be the natural law of life at all its stages.--A. W. RANKIN, Professor of Education, University of Minnesota.
