334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



point of my argument is, that it is not founded on any basis of collated 

 statistical facts. I have said to you, " I and many other physicians 

 and physiologists have seen many undoubted instances of girls being 

 hurt by over-education under bad conditions," but we can not say that 

 out of every hundred girls such a percentage do suffer. We have not 

 the facts to enable us to do so. I hope such facts will be recorded in 

 the future, and may be all the more likely to be observed and recorded 

 through attention being directed to the matter. I am well aware, too, 

 that teachers are not most to blame for any bad results that are to 

 be attributed to the present system of over-educating girls. Parents 

 and the spirit of the time are more culpable than teachers. The lat- 

 ter are the public's servants, and must do the public's bidding. They 

 are expected to work " The Code " energetically, to earn large grants, 

 to make bricks without much straw in many cases, to turn out omnis- 

 cient governesses and teachers in a few short sessions. Parents cry 

 out to them about their children, " They are idle," if the whole evening 

 is not taken up with lesson-learning, or if the animal spirits are too 

 high or the holidays too long. I could tell some sad tales of brain 

 break-down in overworked teachers, male and female, if that were not 

 beyond the scope of this lecture. 



I went last July to see the examination and distribution of prizes in 

 a very large city school for young ladies. While the young girls there 

 were very many of them fresh in complexion and plump, I must say 

 that the majority of the girls above thirteen seemed to me jaded, and 

 pale, and unduly thin. I did not see a dozen pairs of rosy cheeks in a 

 hundred of them. To my eye, many of them bore very evident signs 

 of over-brain-work and deficient physical energy. They didn't look 

 joyous and full of animal glee, as girls at that age should look. Like 

 Dr. John Brown's terrier, " life was too full of seriousness " to them. 

 Two Sundays after, I was in a country kirk in the far north, where 

 naodern educational systems are as yet unknown, and I contrasted the 

 appearance of the farmers' daughters there with that of the prize-win- 

 ners in the city school. The difference was absolutely astounding. I 

 only wish I could convey the impression I received in both cases from 

 a critical doctor's survey of both sets of girls. If the one set exem- 

 plified health, robustness, organic happiness, strength, resistive power 

 against disease, and potential motherhood, then, beyond a doubt, the 

 other set did not fully do so. The question of the future is, How can 

 we get, or how much can we get of, the intelligence and book-culture 

 of the latter, combined with the health of the former ? The health 

 we must have, for it is requisite for the life of the race ; the culture 

 we must have in such degree as is consistent with the health. 



