One condition has to be imposed, if coeducation is not to entail any
dangers. The child must not be allowed to regard such education as
experimental, and as possibly dangerous. If the child were to be
enlightened with all sorts of warnings, dangers might ensue. It is
necessary that the child should regard coeducation as something
perfectly natural. In this connexion, the matter assumes a different
aspect, according as coeducation is undertaken from the outset, or only
after the children are already half-grown. From the latter course,
perils might sometimes arise, as Gertrud Baeumer rightly insists.[136]
From the earliest days of childhood onwards, coeducation should appear
to the child as a matter of course; only if this is not the case, may
the practice prove dangerous from the sexual standpoint, and especially
from the standpoint of sexual morality.

Here, of course, I make no attempt to offer a decisive opinion one way
or the other upon the disputed question of coeducation of the sexes. My
sole aim has been to show that certain of the objections commonly made
to coeducation, on the grounds with which we are especially concerned in
this book, do not bear examination.

Better reasons can be found for objecting to some other modes of
association on the part of children of the two sexes. The most important
of these are common dancing lessons and children's balls. These are not
so recent a development as is often assumed. More than a century ago,
Pockels,[137] the distinguished psychologist and educationalist,
objected strongly to dancing parties for children, which commonly
lasted, he tells us, from five o'clock in the afternoon till midnight,
and sometimes even on into the small hours of the morning. Beyond
question, the association of children in dances can by no means be
regarded as more innocuous than coeducation, all the more in view of the
fact that the children at such dances are often fairly old--towards the
end of the second period of childhood, or in the early years of the
period of youth. For my own part, the danger of children's balls appears
to me to affect, not so much the sphere of sexual morality, as that of
hygiene and general morality. As regards the danger to health, I have
known parents who were always complaining of the way in which their
children were overworked at school, and yet saw nothing wrong in these
same children going to dancing lessons on two evenings every week.

In conclusion, I will