Perhaps it should be mentioned in this connection, that, throughoutthis paper, education is not used in the limited and technical senseof intellectual or mental training alone. By saying there is a boy'sway of study and a girl's way of study, it is not asserted that theintellectual process which masters Juvenal, German, or chemistry, isdifferent for the two sexes. Education is here intended to includewhat its etymology indicates, the drawing out and development of everypart of the system; and this necessarily includes the whole manner oflife, physical and psychical, during the educational period."Education," says Worcester, "comprehends all that series ofinstruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten theunderstanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits, ofyouth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations." It hasbeen and is the misfortune of this country, and particularly of NewEngland, that education, stripped of this, its proper signification,has popularly stood for studying, without regard to the physicaltraining or no training that the schools afford. The cerebralprocesses by which the acquisition of knowledge is made are the samefor each sex; but the mode of life which gives the finest nurture tothe brain, and so enables those processes to yield their best result,is not the same for each sex. The best educational training for a boyis not the best for a girl, nor that for a girl best for a boy.
The delicate bloom, early but rapidly fading beauty, and singularpallor of American girls and women have almost passed into a proverb.The first observation of a European that lands upon our shores is,that our women are a feeble race; and, if he is a physiologicalobserver, he is sure to add, They will give birth to a feeble race,not of women only, but of men as well. "I never saw before so manypretty girls together," said Lady Amberley to the writer, after avisit to the public schools of Boston; and then added, "They alllooked sick." Circumstances have repeatedly carried me to Europe,where I am always surprised by the red blood that fills and colorsthe faces of ladies and peasant girls, reminding one of the canvas ofRubens and Murillo; and am always equally surprised on my return, bycrowds of pale, bloodless female faces, that suggest consumption,scrofula, anemia, and neuralgia. To a large extent, our present systemof educating girls is the cause of this palor and weakness. How ourschools, through their methods of education, contribute to thisunfortunate result, and how our colleges that have undertaken toeducate girls like boys, that is, in the same way, have succeeded inintensifying the evils of the schools, will be pointed out in anotherplace.
It has just been said that the educational methods of our schools andcolleges for girls are, to a large extent, the cause of "the thousandills" that beset American women. Let it be remembered that this is notasserting that such methods of education are the sole cause of femaleweaknesses, but only that they are one cause, and one of the mostimportant causes of it. An immense loss of female power may be fairlycharged to irrational cooking and indigestible diet. We live in thezone of perpetual pie and dough-nut; and our girls revel in thoseunassimilable abominations. Much also may be credited to artificialdeformities strapped to the spine, or piled on the head, much tocorsets and skirts, and as much to the omission of clothing where itis needed as to excess where the body does not require it; but, afterthe amplest allowance for these as causes of weakness, there remains alarge margin of disease unaccounted for. Those grievous maladies whichtorture a woman's earthly existence, called leucorrhoea, amenorrhoea,dysmenorrhoea, chronic and acute ovaritis, prolapsus uteri, hysteria,neuralgia, and the like, are indirectly affected by food, clothing,and exercise; they are directly and largely affected by the causesthat will be presently pointed out, and which arise from a neglect ofthe peculiarities of a woman's organization. The regimen of ourschools fosters this neglect. The regimen of a college arranged forboys, if imposed on girls, would foster it still more.
The scope of this paper does not permit the discussion of these othercauses of female weaknesses. Its object is to call attention to theerrors of physical training that have crept into, and twinedthemselves about, our ways of educating girls, both in public andprivate schools, and which now threaten to attain a largerdevelopment, and inflict a consequently greater injury, by theirintroduction into colleges and large seminaries of learning, that haveadopted, or are preparing to adopt, the co-education of the sexes.Even if there were space to do so, it would not be necessary todiscuss here the other causes alluded to. They are receiving theamplest attention elsewhere. The gifted authoress of "The Gates Ajar"has blown her trumpet with no uncertain sound, in explanation andadvocacy of a new-clothes philosophy, which her sisters will do wellto heed rather than to ridicule. It would be a blessing to the race,if some inspired prophet of clothes would appear, who should teachthe coming woman how, in pharmaceutical phrase, to fit, put on, wear,and take off her dress
The delicate bloom, early but rapidly fading beauty, and singularpallor of American girls and women have almost passed into a proverb.The first observation of a European that lands upon our shores is,that our women are a feeble race; and, if he is a physiologicalobserver, he is sure to add, They will give birth to a feeble race,not of women only, but of men as well. "I never saw before so manypretty girls together," said Lady Amberley to the writer, after avisit to the public schools of Boston; and then added, "They alllooked sick." Circumstances have repeatedly carried me to Europe,where I am always surprised by the red blood that fills and colorsthe faces of ladies and peasant girls, reminding one of the canvas ofRubens and Murillo; and am always equally surprised on my return, bycrowds of pale, bloodless female faces, that suggest consumption,scrofula, anemia, and neuralgia. To a large extent, our present systemof educating girls is the cause of this palor and weakness. How ourschools, through their methods of education, contribute to thisunfortunate result, and how our colleges that have undertaken toeducate girls like boys, that is, in the same way, have succeeded inintensifying the evils of the schools, will be pointed out in anotherplace.
It has just been said that the educational methods of our schools andcolleges for girls are, to a large extent, the cause of "the thousandills" that beset American women. Let it be remembered that this is notasserting that such methods of education are the sole cause of femaleweaknesses, but only that they are one cause, and one of the mostimportant causes of it. An immense loss of female power may be fairlycharged to irrational cooking and indigestible diet. We live in thezone of perpetual pie and dough-nut; and our girls revel in thoseunassimilable abominations. Much also may be credited to artificialdeformities strapped to the spine, or piled on the head, much tocorsets and skirts, and as much to the omission of clothing where itis needed as to excess where the body does not require it; but, afterthe amplest allowance for these as causes of weakness, there remains alarge margin of disease unaccounted for. Those grievous maladies whichtorture a woman's earthly existence, called leucorrhoea, amenorrhoea,dysmenorrhoea, chronic and acute ovaritis, prolapsus uteri, hysteria,neuralgia, and the like, are indirectly affected by food, clothing,and exercise; they are directly and largely affected by the causesthat will be presently pointed out, and which arise from a neglect ofthe peculiarities of a woman's organization. The regimen of ourschools fosters this neglect. The regimen of a college arranged forboys, if imposed on girls, would foster it still more.
The scope of this paper does not permit the discussion of these othercauses of female weaknesses. Its object is to call attention to theerrors of physical training that have crept into, and twinedthemselves about, our ways of educating girls, both in public andprivate schools, and which now threaten to attain a largerdevelopment, and inflict a consequently greater injury, by theirintroduction into colleges and large seminaries of learning, that haveadopted, or are preparing to adopt, the co-education of the sexes.Even if there were space to do so, it would not be necessary todiscuss here the other causes alluded to. They are receiving theamplest attention elsewhere. The gifted authoress of "The Gates Ajar"has blown her trumpet with no uncertain sound, in explanation andadvocacy of a new-clothes philosophy, which her sisters will do wellto heed rather than to ridicule. It would be a blessing to the race,if some inspired prophet of clothes would appear, who should teachthe coming woman how, in pharmaceutical phrase, to fit, put on, wear,and take off her dress
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