HYGIENE IN THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 529 



lectual world would, we believe, for the preceding reasons, be a most 

 injurious doctrine, and lead to disastrous results. Our text, the pupil- 

 teacher, is an example. A young girl, between the ages of fourteen 

 and twenty-one, the most anxious and important period in her whole 

 life, when her mental and physical constitution is undergoing devel- 

 opment, is put under a severe intellectual strain. She is irritated and 

 worried all day by teaching children, she is fatigued by hard study, 

 and is rendered constantly anxious by the frequently recurring exami- 

 nations on which her reputation, and it may be her living, depends. 

 Such a career does not as a rule break down the young man, but in a 

 large number of cases it completely unhinges the woman. She, in fact, 

 is compelled to perform the work of a man without having his organic 

 basis to depend on, and hence, as a consequence, her entire system 

 suffers. So it is with women who follow other pursuits requiring se- 

 vere mental application ; they age before their time, and finally suc- 

 cumb. It is true that men occasionally give way under the same 

 ordeal, but these are comparatively the exception, and this is as 

 often brought about by the assistance of other circumstances as by 

 work alone. It is also a fact that there are some women who, over- 

 coming all difficulties, have fully acquitted themselves of the high- 

 est mental exertions without injury, thus proving themselves to be 

 of masculine capacity. Whether for these the Church, the bar, and 

 physic are to throw oj^en their arms, I leave for others to decide ; 

 but that the majority of the sex would be benefited by a syste- 

 matic encouragement to follow learned professions and other la- 

 borious callings, would be, we think, physiologically and practically 

 an error. 



How unmarried women who require to earn their living are to do 

 so by the exercise of then- intellectual faculties, is one of the great 

 problems of the day, and by far too extensive a subject to discuss at 

 present. Our aim has been to point out that in controversies on the 

 question the medical aspect of the case is frequently lost sight of, and 

 it is forgotten that, in the competition for life, woman is the weaker 

 vessel, and liable to be broken when too roughly handled. Sage phi- 

 losophers may speculate what ages may effect by evolution, but, taking 

 woman as we find her, we believe that her welfare is to be consulted, 

 not by encouraging her to take an independent position in life and by 

 fostering a contempt for marriage, which is now the professed ten- 

 dency of the strong-minded young lady, but by educating her in such 

 a judicious and sensible manner as will make her a good wife, mother, 

 and useful member of society, which is unfortunately not the inclina- 

 tion of the present age. If this were more systematically carried out, 

 there would be fewer single women under the necessity of working 

 for their own living ; the outcry in behalf of these unappropriated 

 blessings would be modified, and on entering the marriage state, which 

 is the happiest as well as the healthiest condition, they would place 



TOL. XVI.— 34 



