SEX IN MIND AND IN EDUCATION 207 



followed first by pallor, lassitude, debility, sleeplessness, headache, neu- 

 ralgia, and then by worse ills. The course of events is something in 

 this wise : The girl enters upon the hard work of school or college at 

 the ao"e of fifteen years or thereabouts, when the function of her sex has 

 perhaps been fairly established ; ambitious to stand high in class, she 

 pursues her studies with diligence, perseverance, constancy, allowing 

 herself no days of relaxation or rest out of the school-days, paying 

 no attention to the periodical tides of her organization, unheeding a 

 drain "that would make the stroke oar of the university crew falter." 

 For a time all seems to go well with her studies ; she triumphs over 

 male and female competitors, gains the front rank, and is stimulated 

 to continued exertions in order to hold it. But in the long-run Nature, 

 which cannot be ignored or defied with impunity, asserts its power; 

 excessive losses occur ; health fails, she becomes the victim of aches 

 and pains, is unable to go on with her work, and compelled to seek 

 medical advice. Restored to health by rest from work, a holiday at 

 the sea-side, and suitable treatment, she goes back to her studies, to 

 beo-in ao-ain the same course of unheedino^ work, until she has com- 

 pleted the curriculum, and leaves college a good scholar but a delicate 

 and ailing woman, whose future life is one of more or less suiFering. 

 For she does not easily regain the vital energy wliich was recklessly 

 sacrificed in the acquirement of learning ; the special functions which 

 have relation to her future offices as woman, and the full and perfect 

 accomplishment of which is essential to sexual completeness, have 

 been deranged at a critical time ; if she is subsequently married, she 

 is unfit for the best discharge of maternal functions, and is apt to 

 suffer from a variety of troublesome and serious disorders in connec- 

 tion with them. In some cases the brain and the nervous system 

 testify to the exhaustive efforts of undue labor, nervous and even men- 

 tal disorders declaring themselves. 



Such is a picture, painted by an experienced physician, of the 

 effects of subjecting young women to the method of education which 

 has been framed for young men. Startling as it is, there is nothing 

 in it which may not well be true to Nature. If it be an effect of exces- 

 sive and ill-regulated study to produce derangement of the functions 

 of the female organization, of which so far from there being an ante- 

 cedent improbability there is a great probability, then there can be 

 no question that all the subsequent ills mentioned are likely to follow. 

 The important physiological change which takes place at puberty, 

 accompanied, as it is, by so great a revolution in mind and body, and 

 by so large an expenditure of vital energy, may easily and quickly 

 overstep its healthy limits and pass into a pathological change, under 

 conditions of excessive stimulation, or in persons who are constitu- 

 tionally feeble and whose nerve-centres nre more unstable than natu- 

 ral ; and it is a familiar medical observation that many nervous dis- 

 orders of a minor kind, and even such serious disorders as chorea. 



