:>88 MEDICAL SECTION 



New York. To save the baby's life there must be, 

 first, an attitude toward life that makes the woman 

 willing to reproduce ; second, normal development 

 of the reproductive system, including- the breasts ; 

 third, positive knowledge that will help her to 

 preserve the child's life after it is born. 



To get at the relationship of the education of girls 

 to infant survival we must know in a large number 



o 



of cases a concerted study, if you will the effect 

 of various kinds of schools on the developing 

 reproductive system. 



I wish to call attention to the widespread and 

 absolute indifference as to the effect of education 

 on the reproductive life of the girl, even in relation 

 to the establishment of a reasonably normal menstrua- 

 tion. A personal experience of one and a half years 

 as physician in a mail-order house employing 4,000 

 girls, all common school graduates, led me to suspect 

 that the girl as she comes from the school presents 

 a vast amount of inefficiency due to menstrual dis- 

 turbance. Whether this was due to school conditions, 

 or to her life in the home, I could not at that time 

 determine. I have since ascertained that we have 

 no data on which we can eliminate the evil effect 

 of the school, but we can all cite individual instances 

 of criminal indifference. 



It became necessary, in a small town, to investigate 

 a high school in which a serious moral condition 

 existed. The principal, an intellectual woman, felt 

 helpless to cope with the situation. In trying to get 

 at the difficulty I questioned her as to the effect of 

 the education she was dealing out, not only on the 

 reproductive life but on the general health of the girls. 

 About these points she knew absolutely nothing ; she 

 said, " Some of them were pretty pale their last year." 

 Nor is this woman an exception ; physical educators, 

 even, are mostly asleep. They think if they excuse 

 the girl from the gymnasium floor during the actual 



