an qualities--not sex qualities. Surely our boys are
sufficiently masculine, without needing a special education to make them
more so.
The error lies here. A strictly masculine world, proud of its own sex
and despising the other, seeing nothing in the world but sex, either
male or female, has "viewed with alarm" the steady and rapid growth of
humanness. Here, for instance, is a boy visibly tending to be an
artist, a musician, a scientific discoverer. Here is another boy not
particularly clever in any line, nor ambitious for any special work,
though he means in a general way to "succeed"; he is, however, a big,
husky fellow, a good fighter, mischievous as a monkey, and strong in the
virtues covered by the word "sportsmanship." This boy we call "a fine
manly fellow."
We are quite right. He is. He is distinctly and excessively male, at
the expense of his humanness. He may make a more prepotent sire than
the other, though even that is not certain; he may, and probably will,
appeal more strongly to the excessively feminine girl, who has even less
humanness than he; but he is not therefore a better citizen.
The advance of civilization calls for human qualities, in both men and
women. Our educational system is thwarted and hindered, not as Prof.
Wendell and his life would have us believe, by "feminization," but by an
overweening masculization.
Their position is a simple one. "We are men. Men are human beings. Women
are only women. This is a man's world. To get on in it you must do it
man-fashion--i.e., fight, and overcome the others. Being civilized, in
part, we must arrange a sort of 'civilized warfare,' and learn to play
the game, the old crude, fierce male game of combat, and we must educate
our boys thereto." No wonder education was denied to women. No wonder
their influence is dreaded by an ultra-masculine culture.
It will change the system in time. It will gradually establish an equal
place in life for the feminine characteristics, so long belittled and
derided, and give pre-eminent dignity to the human power.
Physical culture, for both boys and girls, will be part of such a
modified system. All things that both can do together will be accepted
as human; but what either boys or girls have to retire apart to practice
will be frankly called masculine and feminine, and not encouraged in
children.
The most important qualities are the human ones, and will be so named
and honored. Courage is a human quality, not
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