SEX IN MIND AND IN EDUCATION. 199 



It is quite evident that many of those who are foremost in their 

 zeal for raising the education and social status of woman, have not 

 given proper consideration to the nature of her urganization, and to 

 the demands which its special functions make upon its strength. 

 These are matters which it is not easy to discuss out of a medical 

 journal ; but, in view of the importance of the subject at the present 

 stage of the question of female education, it becomes a duty to use 

 plainer language than would otherwise be fitting in a literary journal. 

 The gravity of the subject can hardly be exaggerated. Before sanc- 

 tioning the proposal to subject w^oman to a system of mental training 

 which has been framed and adapted for men, and under which they 

 have become what they are, it is needful to consider whether tljis can 

 be done without serious injury to her health and strength. It is not 

 enough to point to exceptional instances of women who have under- 

 gone such a training, and have proved their capacities when tried by 

 the same standard as men ; without doubt there are women who can, 

 and will, so distinguish themselves, if stimulus be applied and oppor- 

 tunity given ; the question is, whether they may not do it at a cost 

 which is too large a demand upon the resources of their nature. Is it 

 well for them to contend on equal terms with men for the goal of 

 man's ambition ? 



Let it be considered that the period of the real educational strain 

 will commence about the time when, by the development of the 

 sexual system, a great revolution takes place in the body and mind, 

 and an extraordinary expenditure of vital energy is made, and wall 

 continue through those years after puberty when, by the establish- 

 ment of periodical functions, a regularly recurring demand is made 

 upon the resources of a constitution that is going through the final 

 stages of its growth and development. The energy of a human body 

 being a definite and not inexhaustible quantity, can it bear, without 

 injury, an excessive mental drain as well as the natural physical 

 drain which is so great at that time ? Or, will the profit of the one 

 be to the detriment of the other ? It is a familiar experience that 

 a day of hard physical work renders a man incapable of hard mental 

 work, his available energy having been exhausted, i^or does it mat- 

 ter greatly by what channel the energy be expended ; if it be used 

 in one way it is not available for use in another. When Nature 

 spends in one direction, she must economize in another direction. 

 That the development of puberty does draw heavily upon tlie vital 

 resources of the female constitution, needs not to be pointed out to 

 those who know the nature of the important physiological changes 

 which then take place. In persons of delicate constitution who have 

 inherited a tendency to disease, and who have little vitality to spare, 

 the disease is apt to break out at that time; the new drain established 

 having depri's'ed the constitution of the vital energy necessary to 

 withstand the enemy that was lurking in it. The time of puberty 



