CODRUS, in Greek legend, the last king of Athens. According to the story, it was prophesied at the time of the Dorian invasion of Peloponnesus (c. 1068 B.C.) that only the death of their king at the enemy’s hands could ensure victory to the Athenians. Devoting himself to his country, Codrus, in the disguise of a peasant, made his way into the enemy’s camp, and provoked a quarrel with some Dorian soldiers. He fell, and the Dorians, on discovering that Codrus had been slain, retreated homeward, despairing of success. No one being thought worthy to succeed Codrus, the title of king was abolished, and that of archon (q.v.) substituted for it.
See Lycurgus, Leocr. xx. [=84-87]; Justin ii. 6; Vell. Pat. i. 2; Grote, Hist. of Greece, pt. i. ch. 18; Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, i.
CODY, WILLIAM FREDERICK (1846– ), American scout and showman, known under the name of “Buffalo Bill,” was born in 1846 in Scott county, Iowa. He first became known as one of the riders of the “Pony Express,” a mail service established in the spring of 1860 by the Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Company to carry the mails overland from Saint Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, a distance of 1950 m., by means of relays of ponies, each rider being expected to cover about 75 m. daily. Owing to the wildness of the country and the hostility of the Indians, both the riders and the station-keepers led lives of great hardship and danger. The “Pony Express” was discontinued in 1861 upon the completion of the Pacific Telegraph company’s line, and young Cody became a scout and guide for the United States army. In 1863 he formally enlisted in the 7th regiment of Kansas cavalry, in which he served until the close of the Civil War. In 1867 he made a contract with the Kansas Pacific railway to furnish its employees with buffalo meat while the line was being extended through the wilderness, and his name of “Buffalo Bill” was given him from this circumstance. In 1868–1872 he was again an army scout and guide, serving against the Sioux and Cheyennes; and in 1872 was a member of the Nebraska house of representatives. During the Sioux-Cheyenne War of 1876 he served in the 5th United States Cavalry, and at the battle of Indian Creek killed the Cheyenne chief Yellow Hand in single combat. In 1883 he organized his “Wild West Show,” a spectacular performance on a large scale, his first European tour taking place in 1887. In the Nebraska national guard he again served against the Sioux in 1890–1891.
CO-EDUCATION, the term applied to the instruction and training of boys and girls, or of young people of both sexes, in the same school or institution, in the same classes and through the same courses of study. Examples of the thoroughgoing application of this principle can be found in every grade of education from the elementary school to the university. But the term “Co-education” is sometimes used in a wider sense, in order to include cases in which boys and girls, or young men and young women of university age, are admitted to membership of the same school or college but receive instruction wholly or in part in separate classes and in different subjects. Other variable factors in co-educational systems are the extent to which men and women are mixed on the teaching staff, and the freedom of intercourse permitted between pupils of the two sexes in class, in games and in other activities of school life. In another form of combined education (preferred by Comte, Système de politique positive, iv. 266), pupils of the two sexes are taught successively by the same teacher. By the English Board of Education, a distinction is drawn between mixed schools and dual schools. “Mixed schools” are those in which, for most subjects of the curriculum, boys and girls are taught together by the same teachers: in “dual schools” there are separate boys’ and girls’ departments under a single principal, but with separate entrances, classrooms and playgrounds for the two sexes.
History.—Co-education in early times was occasional and sporadic. For example, women were admitted by Plato to the inner circle of the Academy on terms of equality with men. The educational endowments of Teos provided that the professors of literature should teach both boys and girls. It is uncertain whether the Roman schools in classical times were attended by both sexes. A tombstone found at Capua represents a schoolmaster with a boy on one side and a girl on the other. Probably co-education was practised in country districts for economical reasons; and also in the home schools organized by wealthier families (Wilkins, Roman Education, pp. 42-43). At Charles the Great’s Palace School at Aachen (A.D. 782 onwards), Alcuin taught together the young princes and their sisters, as well as grown men and women. The Humanists of the Renaissance made the full development of personality a chief aim of education, and held up literary accomplishment as a desirable mark of personal distinction both for men and women. This led to the scholarly education of girls along with boys in the home schools of some great families. Thus, at Mantua (1423 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 west, co-education was strongly preferred in elementary and secondary schools and in universities on the further ground that it was believed to be more in accordance with the democratic principle of equal educational opportunity for the two sexes.
It should be added, however, that the leaven of Pestalozzi’s thought has worked powerfully both in Europe and America in favour of the idea of co-education. His view was that all educational institutions should, as far as possible, be modelled upon the analogy of the family and of the home. At Stanz (1798–1799) he educated together in one household boys and girls ranging in age from five to fifteen. At Burgdorf (1799–1804) his work was in part co-educational. At Yverdun (1804–1825) Pestalozzi established a school for girls close to his school for boys. The girls received instruction from some of the masters of the boys’ school, and girls and boys met at evening worship, in short excursions and at other times.
In England, the Society of Friends have been the pioneers of co-education in boarding schools, both for younger children and for pupils up to fifteen or sixteen years of age. The practice of the society, though not exclusively co-educational, has long been favourable to co-education, either in its complete or restricted form, as being more in harmony with the conditions
