CO-EDUCATION.

The following violent attack upon Harvard will be read with interest even if without pleasure by our readers :

The Harvard Annex having been formally incorporated, is now in a position to receive endowments and bequests. It is not likely that many of these will be bestowed upon it while it remains the hybrid thing it is at present. It is not easy for people of practical sense to regard with patience the preposterous attitude of Harvard in relation to the annex. If it is willing to have any pedagogical relations whatever with women students, it ought to be willing to conduct them on the same terms that are granted by Oxford and Cambridge - universities that were venerable with years and honors before Harvard was born into a land which parades its radicalism and its intellectual progress. It is time that the hobbledehoy twaddle about the dangers of this co-education were stopped. It is not now an open question; Cambridge and Oxford settled it some time ago. At these universities young women live in their own "halls" under the guardianship of wise and good women of the highest social standing. They are taken to the lecture rooms by their matron guides, and when the lecture is over are taken back to the hall without any unpleasant or degrading consequences. The mere listening in the same room with young men to the eloquent and profound discourse of a professor has not been found demoralizing to either sex.

The English system involves no social meeting whatever with the male students, and the admirable results in the intellectual training of women, and the consequent improvement of the schools wherein many become teachers, have already been incalculable. In the face of the good so easily and smoothly accomplished, there is no whisper of disapproval or even satire in England. Harvard is wealthy, and could have well afforded to follow the dignified and liberal example of the English universities. Instead of that she has only permitted women students to halt at her back door, allowing her professors to assume burdens which she shirks herself. Women have as yet nothing to thank her for, though they have need to be grateful to those professors who "repeat to the women the instruction given to the students of the college in the different departments."

The English co-education which provides for the mental training in company of young men and women, and which excludes other personal association, is the system which for years the Tribune has heartily advocated. There may be a better co-educational system; but of this at least it is known that its advantages have been thoroughly proved. That it has no drawback whatever has also been proved - and proved, too, by authorities which no American college of high or low degree has a right to disregard. The sooner Harvard University admits women upon exactly the same terms with Oxford the better for her reputation for intelligence and usefulness. Meanwhile, if any generous person proposes to endow the annex, he may well consider the sweet reasonableness of waiting until the system is adjusted upon the principles of sound common sense. Instead of providing funds to pay the professors for their extra lectures, the just and wise course would be to endow a hall of residence, and let the university reward its instructors. - [N. Y. Tribune.