A closer analogy than this, however, exists between these humanindividuals and the eunuchs of Oriental civilization. Except thesecretary of the treasury, in the cabinet of Candace, queen ofEthiopia, who was baptized by Philip and Narses, Justinian's general,none of that class have made any impression on the world's life, thathistory has recorded. It may be reasonably doubted if arresteddevelopment of the female reproductive system, producing a class ofagenes,[16] not epicenes, will yield a better result of intellectualand moral power in the nineteenth century, than the analogous class ofOrientals exhibited. Clinical illustrations of this type of arrestedgrowth might be given, but my pen refuses the ungracious task.
Another result of the present methods of educating girls, and onedifferent from any of the preceding, remains to be noticed. Schoolsand colleges, as we have seen, require girls to work their brains withfull force and sustained power, at the time when their organizationperiodically requires a portion of their force for the performance ofa periodical function, and a portion of their power for the buildingup of a peculiar, complicated, and important mechanism,--the enginewithin an engine. They are required to do two things equally well atthe same time. They are urged to meditate a lesson and drive a machinesimultaneously, and to do them both with all their force. Their organizations are expected to make good sound brains and nerves byworking over the humanities, the sciences, and the arts, and, at thesame time, to make good sound reproductive apparatuses, not onlywithout any especial attention to the latter, but while all availableforce is withdrawn from the latter and sent to the former. It is notmaterialism to say, that, as the brain is, so will thought be. Withoutdiscussing the French physiologist's dictum, that the brain secretesthought as the liver does bile, we may be sure, that without brainthere will be no thought. The quality of the latter depends on thequality of the former. The metamorphoses of brain manifest, measure,limit, enrich, and color thought. Brain tissue, including bothquantity and quality, correlates mental power. The brain ismanufactured from the blood; its quantity and quality are determinedby the quantity and quality of its blood supply. Blood is made fromfood; but it may be lost by careless hemorrhage, or poisoned bydeficient elimination. When frequently and largely lost or poisoned,as I have too frequent occasion to know it often is, it becomesimpoverished,--anemic. Then the brain suffers, and mental power islost. The steps are few and direct, from frequent loss of blood,impoverished blood, and abnormal brain and nerve metamorphosis, toloss of mental force and nerve disease. Ignorance or carelessnessleads to anemic blood, and that to an anemic mind. As the blood, sothe brain; as the brain, so the mind.
The cases which have hitherto been presented illustrate some of theevils which the reproductive system is apt to receive in consequenceof obvious derangement of its growth and functions. But it may, andoften does, happen that the catamenia are normally performed, and thatthe reproductive system is fairly made up during the educationalperiod. Then force is withdrawn from the brain and nerves andganglia. These are dwarfed or checked or arrested in theirdevelopment. In the process of waste and repair, of destructive andconstructive metamorphosis, by which brains as well as bones are builtup and consolidated, education often leaves insufficient margin forgrowth. Income derived from air, food, and sleep, which shouldlargely, may only moderately exceed expenditure upon study and work,and so leave but little surplus for growth in any direction; or, whatmore commonly occurs, the income which the brain receives is all spentupon study, and little or none upon its development, while that whichthe nutritive and reproductive systems receive is retained by them,and devoted to their own growth. When the school makes the same steadydemand for force from girls who are approaching puberty, ignoringNature's periodical demands, that it does from boys, who are notcalled upon for an equal effort, there must be failure somewhere.Generally either the reproductive system or the nervous systemsuffers. We have looked at several instances of the former sort offailure; let us now examine some of the latter.
Miss F---- was about twenty years old when she completed her technicaleducation. She inherited a nervous diathesis as well as a large dowerof intellectual and æsthetic graces. She was a good student, andconscientiously devoted all her time, with the exception of ordinaryvacations, to the labor of her education. She made herself mistress ofseveral languages, and accomplished in many ways. The catamenialfunction appeared normally, and, with the exception of occasionalslight attacks of menorrhagia, was normally performed during the wholeperiod of her education. She got on without any sort of seriousillness. There were few belonging to my clientele who required lessprofessional advice for the same period than she. With the ending ofher school life, when she should have been in good trim and wellequipped, physically as well as intellectually, for life's work,there commenced, without obvious cause, a long period of invalidism.It would be tedious to the reader, and useless for our presentpurpose, to detail the history and describe the protean shapes of hersufferings. With the exception of small breasts, the reproductivesystem was well developed. Repeated and careful examinations failed todetect any derangement of the uterine mechanism. Her symptoms allpointed to the nervous system as the _fons et origo mali_. Firstgeneral debility, that concealed but ubiquitous leader of innumerablearmies of weakness and ill, laid siege to her, and captured her. Thencame insomnia, that worried her nights for month after month, and madeher beg for opium, alcohol, chloral, bromides, any thing that wouldbring sleep. Neuralgia in every conceivable form tormented her, mostfrequently in her back, but often, also, in her head, sometimes in hersciatic nerves, sometimes setting up a tic douloureux, sometimescausing a fearful dysmenorrhoea and frequently making her head achefor days together. At other times hysteria got hold of her, and madeher fancy herself the victim of strange diseases. Mental effort of theslightest character distressed her, and she could not bear physicalexercise of any amount. This condition, or rather these varyingconditions, continued for some years. She followed a careful andsystematic regimen, and was rewarded by a slow and gradual return ofhealth and strength, when a sudden accident killed her, and terminatedher struggle with weakness and pain.
Words fail to convey the lesson of this case to others with any thinglike the force that the observation of it conveyed its moral to thoseabout Miss F----, and especially to the physician who watched hercareer through her educational life, and saw it lead to its logicalconclusion of invalidism and thence towards recovery, till life ended.When she finished school, as the phrase goes, she was considered to bewell. The principal of any seminary or head of any college, judgingby her looks alone, would not have hesitated to call her rosy andstrong. At that time the symptoms of failure which began to appearwere called signs of previous overwork. This was true, but not so muchin the sense of overwork as of erroneously-arranged work. While astudent, she wrought continuously,--just as much during eachcatamenial week as at other times. As a consequence, in hermetamorphosis of tissue, repair did little more than make up waste.There were constant demands of force for constant growth of the systemgenerally, equally constant demands of force for the labor ofeducation, and periodical demands of force for a periodical function.The regimen she followed did not permit all these demands to besatisfied, and the failure fell on the nervous system. Sheaccomplished intellectually a good deal, but not more than she mighthave done, and retained her health, had the order of her educationbeen a physiological one. It was not Latin, French, German,mathematics, or philosophy that undermined her nerves; nor was itbecause of any natural inferiority to boys that she failed; norbecause she undertook to master what women have no right to learn: shelost her health simply because she undertook to do her work in a boy'sway and not in a girl's way.
Let us learn the lesson of one more case. These details may betedious; but the justification of their presence here are theimportance of the subject they illustrate and elucidate, and thenecessity of acquiring a belief of the truth of the facts of femaleeducation.
Another result of the present methods of educating girls, and onedifferent from any of the preceding, remains to be noticed. Schoolsand colleges, as we have seen, require girls to work their brains withfull force and sustained power, at the time when their organizationperiodically requires a portion of their force for the performance ofa periodical function, and a portion of their power for the buildingup of a peculiar, complicated, and important mechanism,--the enginewithin an engine. They are required to do two things equally well atthe same time. They are urged to meditate a lesson and drive a machinesimultaneously, and to do them both with all their force. Their organizations are expected to make good sound brains and nerves byworking over the humanities, the sciences, and the arts, and, at thesame time, to make good sound reproductive apparatuses, not onlywithout any especial attention to the latter, but while all availableforce is withdrawn from the latter and sent to the former. It is notmaterialism to say, that, as the brain is, so will thought be. Withoutdiscussing the French physiologist's dictum, that the brain secretesthought as the liver does bile, we may be sure, that without brainthere will be no thought. The quality of the latter depends on thequality of the former. The metamorphoses of brain manifest, measure,limit, enrich, and color thought. Brain tissue, including bothquantity and quality, correlates mental power. The brain ismanufactured from the blood; its quantity and quality are determinedby the quantity and quality of its blood supply. Blood is made fromfood; but it may be lost by careless hemorrhage, or poisoned bydeficient elimination. When frequently and largely lost or poisoned,as I have too frequent occasion to know it often is, it becomesimpoverished,--anemic. Then the brain suffers, and mental power islost. The steps are few and direct, from frequent loss of blood,impoverished blood, and abnormal brain and nerve metamorphosis, toloss of mental force and nerve disease. Ignorance or carelessnessleads to anemic blood, and that to an anemic mind. As the blood, sothe brain; as the brain, so the mind.
The cases which have hitherto been presented illustrate some of theevils which the reproductive system is apt to receive in consequenceof obvious derangement of its growth and functions. But it may, andoften does, happen that the catamenia are normally performed, and thatthe reproductive system is fairly made up during the educationalperiod. Then force is withdrawn from the brain and nerves andganglia. These are dwarfed or checked or arrested in theirdevelopment. In the process of waste and repair, of destructive andconstructive metamorphosis, by which brains as well as bones are builtup and consolidated, education often leaves insufficient margin forgrowth. Income derived from air, food, and sleep, which shouldlargely, may only moderately exceed expenditure upon study and work,and so leave but little surplus for growth in any direction; or, whatmore commonly occurs, the income which the brain receives is all spentupon study, and little or none upon its development, while that whichthe nutritive and reproductive systems receive is retained by them,and devoted to their own growth. When the school makes the same steadydemand for force from girls who are approaching puberty, ignoringNature's periodical demands, that it does from boys, who are notcalled upon for an equal effort, there must be failure somewhere.Generally either the reproductive system or the nervous systemsuffers. We have looked at several instances of the former sort offailure; let us now examine some of the latter.
Miss F---- was about twenty years old when she completed her technicaleducation. She inherited a nervous diathesis as well as a large dowerof intellectual and æsthetic graces. She was a good student, andconscientiously devoted all her time, with the exception of ordinaryvacations, to the labor of her education. She made herself mistress ofseveral languages, and accomplished in many ways. The catamenialfunction appeared normally, and, with the exception of occasionalslight attacks of menorrhagia, was normally performed during the wholeperiod of her education. She got on without any sort of seriousillness. There were few belonging to my clientele who required lessprofessional advice for the same period than she. With the ending ofher school life, when she should have been in good trim and wellequipped, physically as well as intellectually, for life's work,there commenced, without obvious cause, a long period of invalidism.It would be tedious to the reader, and useless for our presentpurpose, to detail the history and describe the protean shapes of hersufferings. With the exception of small breasts, the reproductivesystem was well developed. Repeated and careful examinations failed todetect any derangement of the uterine mechanism. Her symptoms allpointed to the nervous system as the _fons et origo mali_. Firstgeneral debility, that concealed but ubiquitous leader of innumerablearmies of weakness and ill, laid siege to her, and captured her. Thencame insomnia, that worried her nights for month after month, and madeher beg for opium, alcohol, chloral, bromides, any thing that wouldbring sleep. Neuralgia in every conceivable form tormented her, mostfrequently in her back, but often, also, in her head, sometimes in hersciatic nerves, sometimes setting up a tic douloureux, sometimescausing a fearful dysmenorrhoea and frequently making her head achefor days together. At other times hysteria got hold of her, and madeher fancy herself the victim of strange diseases. Mental effort of theslightest character distressed her, and she could not bear physicalexercise of any amount. This condition, or rather these varyingconditions, continued for some years. She followed a careful andsystematic regimen, and was rewarded by a slow and gradual return ofhealth and strength, when a sudden accident killed her, and terminatedher struggle with weakness and pain.
Words fail to convey the lesson of this case to others with any thinglike the force that the observation of it conveyed its moral to thoseabout Miss F----, and especially to the physician who watched hercareer through her educational life, and saw it lead to its logicalconclusion of invalidism and thence towards recovery, till life ended.When she finished school, as the phrase goes, she was considered to bewell. The principal of any seminary or head of any college, judgingby her looks alone, would not have hesitated to call her rosy andstrong. At that time the symptoms of failure which began to appearwere called signs of previous overwork. This was true, but not so muchin the sense of overwork as of erroneously-arranged work. While astudent, she wrought continuously,--just as much during eachcatamenial week as at other times. As a consequence, in hermetamorphosis of tissue, repair did little more than make up waste.There were constant demands of force for constant growth of the systemgenerally, equally constant demands of force for the labor ofeducation, and periodical demands of force for a periodical function.The regimen she followed did not permit all these demands to besatisfied, and the failure fell on the nervous system. Sheaccomplished intellectually a good deal, but not more than she mighthave done, and retained her health, had the order of her educationbeen a physiological one. It was not Latin, French, German,mathematics, or philosophy that undermined her nerves; nor was itbecause of any natural inferiority to boys that she failed; norbecause she undertook to master what women have no right to learn: shelost her health simply because she undertook to do her work in a boy'sway and not in a girl's way.
Let us learn the lesson of one more case. These details may betedious; but the justification of their presence here are theimportance of the subject they illustrate and elucidate, and thenecessity of acquiring a belief of the truth of the facts of femaleeducation.
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