FEMALE EDUCATION. z^7 



one who hears me to keep in mind that the worst of such things are 

 the exception. No process of attempted educational stimulation will 

 do much harm to very many brains, fortunately as I think. Their in- 

 herent stability — which, by-the-way, parents and teachers will igno- 

 rantly call stupidity or want of application — sometimes preserves them 

 from being forced into work inconsistent with their bent and capacity. 

 Who does not know dozens of fine girls — capable, practical, intelligent, 

 affectionate, lively — who never could be made scholars of, and yet who 

 know more that will be useful to them than some of the first prize- 

 women ? They never ran any risk of suffering from over-education, 

 their only risk was badly ventilated school-rooms and want of scope 

 for play. It is very difficult, I know, to treat of the professional as- 

 pect of a question popularly without producing misconceptions. If a 

 case of consumption from ill-ventilated school-rooms is referred to, 

 many people jump to the conclusion that all girls are in danger of con- 

 sumption. Nothing could be more absurd. The fact is that, if we 

 and our families were thoroughly healthy in original constitution, the 

 educationalists and their present over-enthusiastic methods would not 

 hurt our daughters so very much, perhaps, at least permanently. Na- 

 ture would call a halt with sufficient distinctness before much harm 

 was done, and then the wondrous recuperative power of that time of 

 life would soon put matters right again. It is because few persons 

 nowadays have faultless constitutions, and few families are altogether 

 free from tendencies to some disease or other, that one needs to be 

 now more careful of the constitutions of the mothers of the next gen- 

 eration. 



The first bodily defect to which I shall refer, as the result of over- 

 stimulation of brain, is what we doctors call ancemia, or in other words 

 bloodlessness. The girls look pale about the lips, and have no rosy 

 cheeks. This is manifestly most common in school-girls. Any one 

 can see it. 



The next faulty bodily condition that may be caused by wrong 

 methods of education is that of stunted growth. I have seen girls, the 

 daughters of well-grown parents, who simply stopped growing too 

 soon. They are more or less dwarfish specimens of their kind, this be- 

 ing caused, as I believe, by the vital and nervous force being appro- 

 priated by the mental part of the brain in learning its tasks, and by the 

 conditions of life in the school-rooms not being good, the air bad, in- 

 sufficient play-hours, no play-ground, no play-room, no walking in the 

 fresh air and sunshine. I have seen other girls who grew tall enough, 

 but wouldn't fatten. They remained thin and scrawny. Now, this is 

 not what a woman should be at any age if it can be helped. 



The next condition sometimes produced is best described by the 

 word nervousness. That is a condition of mind and body in which 

 there is want of stability and fixity, undue excitability, bodily restless- 

 ness, want of solidity and calmness of constitution, ungrounded fears. 



