We asked the head-master as to the practical working of co-education in a school of that kind. He appeared to believe in it, and gave us an excellent opportunity of learning how the boys and girls themselves regarded it. The upper school had to write for ten minutes on some given subject, and on this morning the one announced was “co-education.” We were afterwards allowed to look at the papers, and were very much interested by them. About half the pupils expressed no definite opinion at all--many saying that as they had never been to a school on any other plan, they could not judge of the relative merits of mixed or separate schools. The rest, however, had fully made up their minds, some for and some against. Those who defended the system did so on the grounds of the higher standard of work resulting from the rivalry between the boys and girls, and of the good influence each had on the other--the girls making the boys gentler, while the boys’ admiration of courage tended to render the girls braver. The objections brought against it were, however, almost more interesting. Several boys objected, because they said they had to work harder than in schools for boys only, while some of the girls who did not want to take the Harvard entrance examination disliked the course of study rendered necessary by it, and would have preferred to take other subjects. According to one boy, “girls have so much more time than boys (not playing so many games), and therefore can easily get their lessons perfect”; and another bewailed the fact that when optional extra work was given out by the teacher, “the girls always did it, and so got more marks.” A more valid objection, perhaps, was that the school had no reputation for athletics, or outdoor games, as the girls took no interest in them. How far this was really true in this particular case, we could not judge; but wherever we went, we were struck with the fact that American girls do not play or get enough exercise in the open air. This dislike to outdoor exercise and fondness for hot rooms (their rooms are kept ten to fifteen degrees higher in temperature than we consider healthy in England) are probably the chief causes of the delicacy and excitability of American women.