onwards), Vittorino da Feltre taught
Cecilia Gonzaga with her brothers and the other boy pupils at his
boarding-school; but there is no evidence that the latter was otherwise
co-educational. Luther and other Reformers urged that girls as well as
boys should be taught to read the Bible. Hence came the tendency to
co-education of boys and girls in some elementary schools in Protestant
lands. This tendency can be traced both in Scotland and in the northern
parts of England. It is believed that, in the early days of New England,
district schools in smaller American towns were open to boys and girls
alike, but that few girls advanced beyond reading and writing (Martin,
_Massachusetts Public School System_, p. 130). At Dorchester, Mass., it
was left to the discretion of the elders and schoolmen whether maids
should be taught with the boys or not; but in practice the girls seem to
have been educated apart. In 1602 the council of Ayr, Scotland, ordained
that the girls who were learning to read and write at the Grammar School
should be sent to the master of the Song School, "because it is not
seemly that sic lasses should be among the lads" (Grant, _History of the
Burgh and Parish Schools of Scotland_, p. 526 ff.). Meriden,
Connecticut, seems to have made common provision for the elementary
education of boys and girls in 1678. Northampton, Mass., did the same in
1680. Deerfield, Mass., in 1698 voted that "all families having children
either male or female between the ages of six and ten years shall pay by
the poll for their schooling"--presumably in the common school.

Thus the beginnings of co-education in its modern organized form may be
traced back partly to Scotland and partly to the United States. The
co-education of boys and girls, carried through in varying degrees of
completeness, was not uncommon in the old Endowed Schools of Scotland,
and became more frequent as increasing attention was given to the
education of girls. At the Dollar Institution, founded by John McNabb
for the benefit of the poor of the parish of Dollar and shire of
Clackmannan (date of will, 1800), boys and girls have been educated
together in certain classes since the beginning of the school in 1818.
In the eastern parts of the United States, where the Puritan tradition
also prevailed, co-education struck firm root, and spread chiefly for
reasons of convenience and economy (Dexter, _History of Education in
United States_, p. 430). But throughout the w