"Softies?"

In England a resolute band of males seceded from the National Union of Teachers, a few years ago, with the battle-cry : "More pay for men than for women." Feeling this to be rather specious, they later added : "Men teachers for boys," contending that the gentle influence of woman during a young hearty's formative years robbed him of his proper British hardihood, made him a "softie." Last year, Novelist H. G. Wells backed up this contention by notifying the U. S. that "coeducation in American universities is ruinous to youth and is 'sissifying.' "

Female teachers having continued to multiply in England during the . past year, a despatch from London last week stated that the seceding males (the National Association of Schoolmasters) had again aired their masculinity, pointing their resolution this time with a protest against the inspection of boys' physical training classes by women.

The larger, mixed body of the National Union of Teachers, meeting at the same time, scoffed: . . . Silly and unhealthy, the segregation of boys and girls in schools. . . . It is a principle which ought to be relegated to the madhouse -- a product of the War and pugnacious prancings."

Echoes were heard in the U. S. Said Miss Flora J. Cooke, mistress of the Francis W. Parker School (Chicago) : ". . . How can he [a boy] have sympathetic understanding of his wife and daughters if he has known only men in the course of his schooling? . . . I don't for one minute mean that we should have all women teachers . . . the ideal arrangement is to have both."

Stanley R. Yarnall, master of the Germantown Friends' School (Philadelphia), which is co-educational from kindergarten through high school : "The control of the boy does not depend on the sex of the teacher. It depends on the character. . . . We have discovered that, up to the fifth-grade age, women are better teachers for boys than men. There is one exception to be noted here. When our boys reach the fourth grade, we put them under men instructors for athletics."