Obedient to the American educational maxim, that boys' schools and girls' schools are one, and that the one is the boys' school, thefemale schools have copied the methods which have grown out of therequirements of the male organization. Schools for girls have beenmodelled after schools for boys. Were it not for differences of dressand figure, it would be impossible, even for an expert, after visitinga high school for boys and one for girls, to tell which was arrangedfor the male and which for the female organization. Our girls'schools, whether public or private, have imposed upon their pupils aboy's regimen; and it is now proposed, in some quarters, to carry thisprinciple still farther, by burdening girls, after they leave school,with a quadrennium of masculine college regimen. And so girls are tolearn the alphabet in college, as they have learned it in thegrammar-school, just as boys do. This is grounded upon the suppositionthat sustained regularity of action and attendance may be as safelyrequired of a girl as of a boy; that there is no physical necessityfor periodically relieving her from walking, standing, reciting, orstudying; that the chapel-bell may call her, as well as him, to adaily morning walk, with a standing prayer at the end of it,regardless of the danger that such exercises, by deranging the tidesof her organization, may add to her piety at the expense of herblood; that she may work her brain over mathematics, botany,chemistry, German, and the like, with equal and sustained force onevery day of the month, and so safely divert blood from thereproductive apparatus to the head; in short, that she, like herbrother, develops health and strength, blood and nerve, intellect andlife, by a regular, uninterrupted, and sustained course of work. Allthis is not justified, either by experience or physiology. Thegardener may plant, if he choose, the lily and the rose, the oak andthe vine, within the same enclosure; let the same soil nourish them,the same air visit them, and the same sunshine warm and cheer them;still, he trains each of them with a separate art, warding from eachits peculiar dangers, developing within each its peculiar powers, andteaching each to put forth to the utmost its divine and peculiar giftsof strength and beauty. Girls lose health, strength, blood, and nerve,by a regimen that ignores the periodical tides and reproductiveapparatus of their organization. The mothers and instructors, thehomes and schools, of our country's daughters, would profit byoccasionally reading the old Levitical law. The race has not yet quiteoutgrown the physiology of Moses.
Co-education, then, signifies in common acceptation identicalco-education. This identity of training is what many at the presentday seem to be praying for and working for. Appropriate education ofthe two sexes, carried as far as possible, is a consummation mostdevoutly to be desired; identical education of the two sexes is acrime before God and humanity, that physiology protests against, andthat experience weeps over. Because the education of boys has met withtolerable success, hitherto,--but only tolerable it must beconfessed,--in developing them into men, there are those who wouldmake girls grow into women by the same process. Because a gardener hasnursed an acorn till it grew into an oak, they would have him cradle agrape in the same soil and way, and make it a vine. Identicaleducation, or identical co-education, of the sexes defrauds one sex orthe other, or perhaps both. It defies the Roman maxim, whichphysiology has fully justified, _mens sana in corpore sano_. Thesustained regimen, regular recitation, erect posture, daily walk,persistent exercise, and unintermitted labor that toughens a boy, andmakes a man of him, can only be partially applied to a girl. Theregimen of intermittance, periodicity of exercise and rest, workthree-fourths of each month, and remission, if not abstinence, theother fourth, physiological interchange of the erect and recliningposture, care of the reproductive system that is the cradle of therace, all this, that toughens a girl and makes a woman of her, willemasculate a lad. A combination of the two methods of education, acompromise between them, would probably yield an average result,excluding the best of both. It would give a fair chance neither to aboy nor a girl. Of all compromises, such a physiological one is theworst. It cultivates mediocrity, and cheats the future of itsrightful legacy of lofty manhood and womanhood. It emasculates boys,stunts girls; makes semi-eunuchs of one sex, and agenes of the other.
The error which has led to the identical education of the two sexes,and which prophecies their identical co-education in colleges anduniversities, is not confined to technical education. It permeatessociety. It is found in the home, the workshop, the factory, and inall the ramifications of social life. The identity of boys and girls,of men and women, is practically asserted out of the school as much asin it, and it is theoretically proclaimed from the pulpit and therostrum. Woman seems to be looking up to man and his development, asthe goal and ideal of womanhood. The new gospel of female developmentglorifies what she possesses in common with him, and tramples underher feet, as a source of weakness and badge of inferiority, themechanism and functions peculiar to herself. In consequence of thiswide-spread error, largely the result of physiological ignorance,girls are almost universally trained in masculine methods of livingand working as well as of studying. The notion is practically foundeverywhere, that boys and girls are one, and that the boys make theone. Girls, young ladies, to use the polite phrase, who are aboutleaving or have left school for society, dissipation, or self-culture,rarely permit any of Nature's periodical demands to interfere withtheir morning calls, or evening promenades, or midnight dancing, orsober study. Even the home draws the sacred mantle of modesty soclosely over the reproductive function as not only to cover but tosmother it. Sisters imitate brothers in persistent work at all times.Female clerks in stores strive to emulate the males by unremittinglabor, seeking to develop feminine force by masculine methods. Femaleoperatives of all sorts, in factories and elsewhere, labor in the sameway; and, when the day is done, are as likely to dance half the night,regardless of any pressure upon them of a peculiar function, as theirfashionable sisters in the polite world. All unite in pushing thehateful thing out of sight and out of mind; and all are punished bysimilar weakness, degeneration, and disease.
There are two reasons why female operatives of all sorts are likely tosuffer less, and actually do suffer less, from such persistent work,than female students; why Jane in the factory can work more steadilywith the loom, than Jane in college with the dictionary; why the girlwho makes the bed can safely work more steadily the whole yearthrough, than her little mistress of sixteen who goes to school. Thefirst reason is, that the female operative, of whatever sort, has, asa rule, passed through the first critical epoch of woman's life: shehas got fairly by it. In her case, as a rule, unfortunately there aretoo many exceptions to it, the catamenia have been established; thefunction is in good running order; the reproductive apparatus--theengine within an engine--has been constructed, and she will not becalled upon to furnish force for building it again. The femalestudent, on the contrary, has got these tasks before her, and mustperform them while getting her education; for the period of femalesexual development coincides with the educational period. The samefive years of life must be given to both tasks. After the function isnormally established, and the apparatus made, woman can labor mentallyor physically, or both, with very much greater persistence andintensity, than during the age of development. She still retains thetype of periodicity; and her best work, both as to quality and amount,is accomplished when the order of her labor partakes of the rhythmicorder of her constitution. Still the fact remains, that she can domore than before; her fibre has acquired toughness; the system isconsolidated; its fountains are less easily stirred. It should bementioned in this connection, what has been previously adverted to,that the toughness and power of after life are largely in proportionto the normality of sexual development. If there is error then, theorganization never fully recovers. This is an additional motive for astrict physiological regimen during a girl's student life, and, justso far, an argument against the identical co-education of the sexes.The second reason why female operatives are less likely to suffer, andactually do suffer less, than school-girls, from persistent workstraight through the year, is because the former work their brainsless. To use the language of Herbert Spencer, "That antagonism betweenbody and brain which we see in those, who, pushing brain-activity toan extreme, enfeeble their bodies,"[25] does not often exist in femaleoperatives, any more than in male. On the contrary, they belong to theclass of those who, in the words of the same author, by "pushingbodily activity to an extreme, make their brains inert."[26] Hencethey have stronger bodies, a reproductive apparatus more normallyconstructed, and a catamenial function less readily disturbed byeffort, than their student sisters, who are not only younger thanthey, but are trained to push "brain-activity to an extreme." Givegirls a fair chance for physical development at school, and they willbe able in after life, with reasonable care of themselves, to answerthe demands that may be made upon them.
Co-education, then, signifies in common acceptation identicalco-education. This identity of training is what many at the presentday seem to be praying for and working for. Appropriate education ofthe two sexes, carried as far as possible, is a consummation mostdevoutly to be desired; identical education of the two sexes is acrime before God and humanity, that physiology protests against, andthat experience weeps over. Because the education of boys has met withtolerable success, hitherto,--but only tolerable it must beconfessed,--in developing them into men, there are those who wouldmake girls grow into women by the same process. Because a gardener hasnursed an acorn till it grew into an oak, they would have him cradle agrape in the same soil and way, and make it a vine. Identicaleducation, or identical co-education, of the sexes defrauds one sex orthe other, or perhaps both. It defies the Roman maxim, whichphysiology has fully justified, _mens sana in corpore sano_. Thesustained regimen, regular recitation, erect posture, daily walk,persistent exercise, and unintermitted labor that toughens a boy, andmakes a man of him, can only be partially applied to a girl. Theregimen of intermittance, periodicity of exercise and rest, workthree-fourths of each month, and remission, if not abstinence, theother fourth, physiological interchange of the erect and recliningposture, care of the reproductive system that is the cradle of therace, all this, that toughens a girl and makes a woman of her, willemasculate a lad. A combination of the two methods of education, acompromise between them, would probably yield an average result,excluding the best of both. It would give a fair chance neither to aboy nor a girl. Of all compromises, such a physiological one is theworst. It cultivates mediocrity, and cheats the future of itsrightful legacy of lofty manhood and womanhood. It emasculates boys,stunts girls; makes semi-eunuchs of one sex, and agenes of the other.
The error which has led to the identical education of the two sexes,and which prophecies their identical co-education in colleges anduniversities, is not confined to technical education. It permeatessociety. It is found in the home, the workshop, the factory, and inall the ramifications of social life. The identity of boys and girls,of men and women, is practically asserted out of the school as much asin it, and it is theoretically proclaimed from the pulpit and therostrum. Woman seems to be looking up to man and his development, asthe goal and ideal of womanhood. The new gospel of female developmentglorifies what she possesses in common with him, and tramples underher feet, as a source of weakness and badge of inferiority, themechanism and functions peculiar to herself. In consequence of thiswide-spread error, largely the result of physiological ignorance,girls are almost universally trained in masculine methods of livingand working as well as of studying. The notion is practically foundeverywhere, that boys and girls are one, and that the boys make theone. Girls, young ladies, to use the polite phrase, who are aboutleaving or have left school for society, dissipation, or self-culture,rarely permit any of Nature's periodical demands to interfere withtheir morning calls, or evening promenades, or midnight dancing, orsober study. Even the home draws the sacred mantle of modesty soclosely over the reproductive function as not only to cover but tosmother it. Sisters imitate brothers in persistent work at all times.Female clerks in stores strive to emulate the males by unremittinglabor, seeking to develop feminine force by masculine methods. Femaleoperatives of all sorts, in factories and elsewhere, labor in the sameway; and, when the day is done, are as likely to dance half the night,regardless of any pressure upon them of a peculiar function, as theirfashionable sisters in the polite world. All unite in pushing thehateful thing out of sight and out of mind; and all are punished bysimilar weakness, degeneration, and disease.
There are two reasons why female operatives of all sorts are likely tosuffer less, and actually do suffer less, from such persistent work,than female students; why Jane in the factory can work more steadilywith the loom, than Jane in college with the dictionary; why the girlwho makes the bed can safely work more steadily the whole yearthrough, than her little mistress of sixteen who goes to school. Thefirst reason is, that the female operative, of whatever sort, has, asa rule, passed through the first critical epoch of woman's life: shehas got fairly by it. In her case, as a rule, unfortunately there aretoo many exceptions to it, the catamenia have been established; thefunction is in good running order; the reproductive apparatus--theengine within an engine--has been constructed, and she will not becalled upon to furnish force for building it again. The femalestudent, on the contrary, has got these tasks before her, and mustperform them while getting her education; for the period of femalesexual development coincides with the educational period. The samefive years of life must be given to both tasks. After the function isnormally established, and the apparatus made, woman can labor mentallyor physically, or both, with very much greater persistence andintensity, than during the age of development. She still retains thetype of periodicity; and her best work, both as to quality and amount,is accomplished when the order of her labor partakes of the rhythmicorder of her constitution. Still the fact remains, that she can domore than before; her fibre has acquired toughness; the system isconsolidated; its fountains are less easily stirred. It should bementioned in this connection, what has been previously adverted to,that the toughness and power of after life are largely in proportionto the normality of sexual development. If there is error then, theorganization never fully recovers. This is an additional motive for astrict physiological regimen during a girl's student life, and, justso far, an argument against the identical co-education of the sexes.The second reason why female operatives are less likely to suffer, andactually do suffer less, than school-girls, from persistent workstraight through the year, is because the former work their brainsless. To use the language of Herbert Spencer, "That antagonism betweenbody and brain which we see in those, who, pushing brain-activity toan extreme, enfeeble their bodies,"[25] does not often exist in femaleoperatives, any more than in male. On the contrary, they belong to theclass of those who, in the words of the same author, by "pushingbodily activity to an extreme, make their brains inert."[26] Hencethey have stronger bodies, a reproductive apparatus more normallyconstructed, and a catamenial function less readily disturbed byeffort, than their student sisters, who are not only younger thanthey, but are trained to push "brain-activity to an extreme." Givegirls a fair chance for physical development at school, and they willbe able in after life, with reasonable care of themselves, to answerthe demands that may be made upon them.
No comments:
Post a Comment