Library Collections: Document: Full Text

On page 54 he says: --

"This growing period or formative epoch extends from birth to the age of twenty or twenty-five years. Its duration is shorter for a girl than for a boy. She ripens quicker than he. In the four years from fourteen to eighteen, she accomplishes an amount of cell change and growth which Nature does not require of a boy in less than twice that number of years. It is obvious that, to secure the best kind of growth during this period and the best development at the end of it, the waste of tissue produced by study, work, and fashion must not be so great that repair will only equal it. It is equally obvious that a girl, upon whom Nature for a limited period and for a definite purpose imposes so great a physiological task, will not have as much power left for the tasks of the school as the boy, of whom Nature requires less at the corresponding epoch. A margin must be left for growth. The repair must be greater and better than the waste."

Did it not occur to the Doctor's mind that "Nature," or the Creator, in making woman, took this state of things into account, and provided for it, by supplying the female organism at this period with a power of more rapid cell growth to meet this want, and that this same power would be needed by the woman when the great drain of reproducing the race was made upon her system? If such had not been the case, women would succumb at once to the great waste necessitated by child-bearing, and no mother would live to have a second child. But the Infinite Father knew how to make woman, so that under ordinary circumstances she could go on with her usual activities, and bear children without injury to her health, and often with an improvement of it. For, of our healthy women at sixty or seventy years of age, nearly all have been mothers, and most of them have had large families.

When the Doctor says, "Two considerations deserve to be mentioned in this connection: one is, that no organ or function in plant, animal, or human kind, can be properly regarded as a disability or source of weakness," -- he states a well-known fact; but when he attempts to show that one of the functions of woman is a great disability, and necessarily incapacitates her from the performance of usual duties two or three days out of every thirty, he directly contradicts his first statement. Healthy women are able to go on with their usual avocations at these times, and only feeble or sickly ones require the rest he speaks of. Those girls whose physical training has been such as to give them strong bodies develop naturally, and without suffering, just as boys do, and find no necessity for dropping all mental and physical labor two days in every month. Neither men nor women can overtax for a long time their mental or physical natures, and remain well. There is one law for both, and it is inflexible; but is it necessary for man to ask woman, or woman man, what either can bear without injury? Must not each be a law unto himself? Let women study physiology and thoroughly understand their own bodies, and they can be trusted to take care of them. Why the Doctor supposes it necessary to co-education that women should study like men, or should be obliged to stand for recitations, I cannot imagine. Are the rules of college inflexible, like the laws of the Medes and Persians? or are they made for the best good of the students? If a class sits during recitations, does it follow that their lessons will be less well learned? If a girl can get a lesson in an hour that requires a boy an hour and a half to learn, will it be necessary for her to study as many hours as the boy, to keep up with him? And does not every teacher of boys and girls know that girls, as a rule, take less time to commit their tasks than boys? By the Doctor's own showing, this is in analogy with the processes in their physical frames; for he says, "In the four years, from fourteen to eighteen, she accomplishes an amount of physiological cell change and growth which Nature does not require of a boy in less than twice that number of years." The trouble with the Doctor is, that he has a pet theory that women must not do mental or physical work during certain periods; and so he attributes all disease in women to failure in securing this rest, whether it be want of development of the ovaries, hemorrhages, or disease of the brain

But we would again thank him for his book, which is so suggestive that thinking women cannot read it without seeing the necessity for reformation in many ways of the false ideas and customs regarding woman's training, dressing, and living; and, having their attention called to them, it is to be hoped they will make an earnest effort to improve upon them.

X.

BY PROFESSOR BASCOM.

THE following is an extract from a paper read at the recent Massachusetts Teachers' Convention in Worcester: --

To the present point of composition in this paper, I had not had the opportunity of a full perusal of Dr. Clarke's work, entitled "Sex in Education." I wish, therefore, to add a few things directly bearing on it. The consideration chiefly dwelt on by Dr. Clarice, that of periodicity and continuity, respectively, in sexual development, is one of great importance, demanding earnest and thorough attention. His work is able, candid, and fair. It is not, however, fair in its actual practical bearing on coeducation. The impression is made by it that it presses peculiarly upon this point, and that its general conclusions, if admitted, are well-nigh fatal to it. This is not true, and is hardly the author's meaning.