332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



types of young women created for us by the writers of genius, to whom 

 I referred in my first lecture. That type is physiologically, as well as 

 psychologically, true to nature. It is absolutely necessary as a com- 

 plement to the masculine type of mind. Both are incomplete by them- 

 selves. The world can not do without them both ; they correspond 

 to the bodily organization of each sex. Now, if the education process 

 for the female is to be just on the lines of that for the male, if the 

 mold into which the brain of each is to fit is to be the same type — and 

 there is no question of emasculating the male type — then, undoubt- 

 edly, in the result, we must expect to find a change in the female type 

 of mind. Very many competent observers' say that this is actually 

 very apparent in some of the school-girls of the present day. The un- 

 ceasing grind at book-knowledge, from thirteen to twenty, has actually 

 warped the woman's nature, and stunted some of her most character- 

 istic qualities. She is, no doubt, cultured, but then she is unsympa- 

 thetic ; learned, but not self-denying. The nameless graces and 

 charms of manner have not been evoked as much as they might have 

 been. Softness is deficient. It takes much to alter the female type 

 of mind, but a few generations of masculine education will go far to 

 make some change. If the main aims and ambitions of many women 

 are other than to be loved, admired, helped, and helpful, to be good 

 wives and mothers with quiverfuls of children, to be self-sacrificing, 

 and to be the centers of home-life, then those women will have under- 

 gone a change from the present feminine type of mind. But we must 

 comfort ourselves with Lord Bacon's reflection, that " Nature is often 

 hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished." 



American experience in the education of young women has been 

 very instructive. The natural intelligence, the form of government, 

 and the stimulating climate, have all united in making the standard of 

 education very high for women as well as for young men. The na- 

 tional hurry has tended to make them do much in as short a time as 

 possible too. In the Eastern States — especially Massachusetts — the 

 schools for girls have for many years been most highly elaborated. 

 At first the effects were not much noticed, or they were attributed to 

 the climate, or to the hurry of life, or to the national fondness for 

 pastry ; but soon the American physicians sounded the alarm about 

 the way the New England girls were being educated. They pointed 

 out that during education a high pressure was kept up in girls that no 

 constitutions could stand without risk. They pointed to the thinness 

 and the nervousness of American young women. Oliver Wendell 

 Holmes directed attention to the " American female constitution, 

 which collapses just in the middle third of life, and comes out vulcan- 

 ized India-rubber, if it happens to live through the period when health 

 and strength are most wanted." It was shown how small the fami- 

 lies of educated American native-born women were, as compared with 

 those of their German and English sisters, and with the Irish living 



