On Rediscovering the Difference

Until recent years most American parochial schools have maintained strict sexual segregation. The boys and girls joined chiefly on ceremonial occasions, assemblies and graduations. Even the playground was divided into male and female territories. The one occasion when the regimen broke down was the carefully supervised dances, where young couples made their way chastely around the floor of the gym under the watchful eyes of nuns. Any unseemly body contact brought a swift reprimand: “Leave six inches for the Holy Ghost.”

There is no room for the Holy Ghost any longer at most of our schools. The bodies and minds rub together from the earliest years on through to graduate study. The result is perfectly predictable. Sexual activity occurs at an increasingly younger age. In communities where the family cannot impose discipline, illegitimate children are common. Classrooms become an intensely sexual arena, where girls and boys perform for the attention of the other sex, and where unintellectual males quickly come to view school books as a menace to manhood.

About the Author

George Gilder

Mr. Gilder is a founder of the Discovery Institute, a venture capitalist, and the author of 15 books, including The Israel Test.

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Until recent years most American parochial schools have maintained strict sexual segregation. The boys and girls joined chiefly on ceremonial occasions, assemblies and graduations. Even the playground was divided into male and female territories. The one occasion when the regimen broke down was the carefully supervised dances, where young couples made their way chastely around the floor of the gym under the watchful eyes of nuns. Any unseemly body contact brought a swift reprimand: “Leave six inches for the Holy Ghost.”

There is no room for the Holy Ghost any longer at most of our schools. The bodies and minds rub together from the earliest years on through to graduate study. The result is perfectly predictable. Sexual activity occurs at an increasingly younger age. In communities where the family cannot impose discipline, illegitimate children are common. Classrooms become an intensely sexual arena, where girls and boys perform for the attention of the other sex, and where unintellectual males quickly come to view school books as a menace to manhood.