Hall's discussion on same-sex education really interested me because I went to an all girls high school. For me, the experience was horrible, I don't feel as though I learned any better or any worse then I did in middle school when I had boys in my class. Hall's arguments stem from gender roles. He states that boys should be in a school where they learn how to be strong leaders with a knowledge of sex education, but that they should not be in school with girls so that they are not distracted by sex and girls. For girls, they should be in a separate school because it is their role as girls to make sure their menstrual cycle becomes regular and to prepare for motherhood and marriage.
The irony of Hall's arguments made me laugh. Same-sex schools are better so that boys aren't distracted by girls and so that girls can prepare to become proper women. Well, in my school girls were just plain promiscuous. My sophomore year there were four pregnant seniors, by graduation I knew for sure that at least three girls in my class had had abortions and at least three gave birth within a year of graduation. My same-sex school definitely prepared girls for motherhood, but not necessarily in the way Hall was implying (at least I don't think so).
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It seems Hall didn't do the proper empirical studies of gender separated education but based his opinion on "theory". No wonder he liked Freud enough to be the one who introduced Freud to the USA.
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