FEMALE EDUCATION. 215 



disposed to set up as the skilled engineer of the human machine, and 

 the authoritative exponent of its proper treatment in all its depart- 

 ments, both when it is working rightly as well as when it goes 

 wrong. 



A careful study of the qualities and capacities of one's material is 

 the very first thing to be done before determining the wear and tear 

 to which it is to be subjected, or arranging the work it is to do. This 

 is a comparatively easy matter, when an ordinary machine is to be 

 made, however complicated. The iron and the steel of the locomotive 

 can be most accurately tested. Yet all prudent engineers allow an 

 enormous margin for casualties. The actual strain put on is not half 

 of what the machinery could really bear. Who would subject the 

 plates of a boiler to a pressure just up to their bursting-point ? Na- 

 ture in her mechanics usually makes much more allowance than engi- 

 neers do. The heart of an animal could send five times the amount 

 of blood that it has to propel at twice the rate of the normal blood- 

 current. The arterial pipes that contain and conduct the blood to the 

 extremities are of sufficient thickness and strength to resist five times 

 the pressure put on them day by day. The stomach in a healthy man 

 has usually the power of digesting twice or thrice the amount of food 

 really needed for nourishing the body. Woe betide the diners-out, if 

 it stopped short just at the point when enough for Nature's wants had 

 been digested ! This principle of having a reserve of spare power 

 beyond the ordinary daily needs, only to be called into operation on 

 rare and special occasions, is Nature's principle throughout the whole 

 region of life. She scatters seeds by the million where thousands only 

 can grow. 



There is a law of Nature, too, that lies at the very root of the prin- 

 ciples I am going to advocate to-night. It is this, that every living 

 being has from its birth a limit of growth and development in all direc- 

 tions beyond which it can not possibly go by any amount of forcing. 

 Man can not add one cubit to his stature. The blacksmith's arm can 

 not grow beyond a certain limit. The cricketer's quickness can not 

 be increased beyond this inexorable point. The thinker's effort can 

 not extend further than this fixed limit of brain-power in each man. 

 This limit is fixed at different points in each man in regard to his vari- 

 ous powers, but there is a limit beyond which you can not go in any 

 direction in each faculty and organ. 



The capacity for being educated or developed in youth, the recep- 

 tive capacity of each brain, is definitely fixed as to each brain of each 

 young man and woman. 



Then the important laws of hereditary transmission of weaknesses 

 and peculiarities and strong points must be studied and kept in mind, 

 so far as we know them, by the educator of youth. To hear some 

 persons talk, you would imagine that every youth and maid had a con- 

 stitution as free from faults and weak points, and as little liable to go 



