MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 481 



ates less and arrives intuitively at a judgment quicker than a 

 man. She has, however, less mental energy and power of will 

 than a man. Being constitutionally different from a man, a 

 woman's physical and mental education, in order to bring out 

 her noblest and best qualities, should not be identical with that 

 of a man. I may here remark that co-education of the two sexes 

 in adult life has not proved a great success. Just as a woman 

 prefers a manly man and despises an effeminate man, so a man 

 is attracted to a womanly woman and is repelled by a mannish 

 woman; this is the natural consequence of sexual attraction and 

 should be duly borne in mind in the education of girls; the 

 feminine charms and graces should not be sacrificed lightly by 

 copying slavishly man's physical and mental development. 

 Still it is an acknowledged fact that social conditions prevent a 

 very large proportion of marriageable women from fulfilling the 

 natural functions of motherhood, and they have therefore only 

 to consider their own individual life and its preservation. Educa- 

 tion and intellectual development of women to enable them to 

 earn their own living and thus become efficient social units, will 

 not make them any less capable of becoming good mothers, pro- 

 vided there is in their training ample scope for natural physio- 

 logical development, and the normality of the reproductive 

 organs is not interfered with by too strenuous mental or 

 physical exercise. It is necessary to give a word of warning 

 against girls being pressed at schools by night work and com- 

 petitive examinations, just at the time when the reproductive 

 organs are commencing to function and exercise a profound 

 influence on the mind. Nor do I regard it as wise to overdo 

 sports and games at a period of life when important physio- 

 logical processes connected with the storage of energy and 

 nutrition are called for by Nature in the preparation of its 

 supreme effort of reproduction. Over-pressure at schools and 

 competitive examinations at puberty and early adolescence is 

 often due to the ambition of parents, but it not infrequently 

 leads to a nervous or mental breakdown, especially if the child 

 has an inborn neuropathic tendency. 



We have now seen that a healthy mind can only exist in a 

 healthy body ; and it is becoming widely recognised that the 

 essential feature of education should be to develop the inborn 

 physical and mental qualities that make for efficiency and thus to 

 prolong the period of individual productiveness and civic worth. 



