DR. CAROLINE HEDGER'S PAPER 289 



days of menstruation, their whole duty is done. 

 Unless they consider the girl as a whole, a possible 

 factor in evolution as well as an effective unit, their 

 work has only an environmental or economic value. 

 They do not conserve the life of the future child 

 unless they promote the development of the repro- 

 ductive system as well as that of the nervous and 

 muscular systems. 



In a study last year of 314 girls in the University 

 of Chicago, the following tables, taken from the 

 records of the Department of Physical Education, 

 show that 32 per cent, changed their type of menstru- 

 ation during the year under the stress of university 

 life. Miss Dudley, the Physical Director, who is 

 thoroughly awake on these problems, was able to 

 improve the type of only fourteen of these girls. 

 One of the interesting tables shows the relation ot 

 menstruation to constipation, and the possibility of the 

 control of constipation by physical education. The 

 women were, as you will see, largely from 17 to 21 

 years of age, an age at which we could expect some 

 stability of the menstrual function ; and yet over 

 one-fourth of them altered their type of menstrua- 

 tion in that one year, and very few improved. 



The period of reproductive development of the 

 girl coincides with school life, and if we force her into 

 school, we must undertake, as Margaret McMillan so 

 well points out, not to injure the material. 



From the point of view of possible motherhood 

 there seem to me to be three classes of girls in 

 schools. First, a small number of girls that are so 

 fine physically that no strain will hurt them. At the 

 other end of the scale occurs a group unfortunately 

 larger than that I have been describing, that by 

 inheritance, lack of nervous balance and acquired 

 infections should never reproduce. The aim of educa- 

 tion in this group should be economic efficiency. 



