The analogies have been much overstrained that exist between the menstrual epoch of an adolescent girl and the pregnancy of an adult woman. They are illustrations of a general physiological law that in some cases might be called a caprice of nature, in virtue of which the rudiments of a process that is to be effected at a future epoch are sketched out during an epoch already existing. The afflux of blood to the uterus during the rupture of the ovisac, cannot be shown to be useful by any effort of teleological physiologists. It predicts, however, the afflux that will be necessary at a future pregnancy, in precisely the same way as the growth of the lungs in the foetus predicts the future necessity for respiration, or the formation of ovules in the ovaries of the newborn girl, predicts the future necessity of a reproductive apparatus. But to impose on the girl the precautions necessary to the mother, is one way to enfeeble and prematurely age her. In the same way is the child enfeebled by premature considerations in regard to sex that do not yet exist, and the adult woman so often treated as old as soon as she has borne children, which should be a proof not of age, but of maturity.

From the preceding considerations we may, we think, conclude:

1st. That unless the brain and spinal cord had been already exhausted or on the point of exhaustion previous to the menstrual crisis, this alone would be insufficient to exhaust them.

2d. That the degree of exhaustion in the cerebro-spinal system, necessary to determine vaso-motor paralysis, is very great, and much transcends that likely to be induced by the mental exertion required in the ordinary curriculum of a girl's school.

3d. That therefore, when vaso-motor paralysis, as indicated by uterine haemorrhage, has occurred apparently in consequence of such mental exertion, it is really due to some other conditions existing with this.

Of these we have already insisted upon two—sedentary position and deficiency of physical exercise.

Authors have less frequently analyzed the effects of another circumstance so often accompanying the intellectual exertions of school life, namely, the morbid emotional excitement that is incident either to the period of adolescence or to the injudicious educational regime. To precisely appreciate these effects, it will be necessary to push a little further the analysis already commenced, of the mode of activity exhibited by different portions of the brain during the evolution of thought or of emotion.

Among all the obscurities that overhang this subject, a few facts are, nevertheless, demonstrated. The first that concerns us is the existence of the vaso-motor centre, whose situation and functions have been already described. The second is the localization of the function of thought in the circumvolutions of gray matter on the surface of the cerebral hemispheres—fact that we have already assumed to be sufficiently demonstrated. The third class of facts include those, also insisted upon, that indicate a peculiar influence of the emotions upon the circulation and the vaso-motor nerves. In some cases these are stimulated, and the blood-vessels spasmodically contract, the cheek pales, the hands and feet grow cold, chills creep down the back—even nausea may occur from interference with the circulation of the brain; or else the cheek flushes, the temples throb, the heart beats more rapidly, when, from temporary paralysis of these same nerves, the blood-vessels are suddenly dilated.

These phenomena indicate that either the anatomical seat or the mode of generation of emotion, is in closer connection with the cerebral vaso-motor centre than is the seat of ideas.

From this positive stand-point we may be permitted to cautiously venture a little further, in the direction of a theory for the precise localization of the organs of emotion.

It is well known that at the base of the brain are collected certain masses of nervous matter, that constitute nervous centres or cerebral ganglia, that are in very intimate connection, on the one hand, with nerves of special sense, as the optic[42] and olfactory,[43] on the other with nerves of general sensation and motion.[44] To this intricate part of the brain, these centres, converge the nerve-fibres collected in the spinal cord and medulla oblongata, and from them radiate other fibres that pursue a divergent course, and finally terminate in the gray matter of the cerebral hemispheres. Thus, the brute impressions brought from the periphery of the body, are conveyed to special foci of concentration, thence to be transmitted to the gray matter at the surface of the brain, and become material for thought. Conversely, impulses generated in the nerve-cells devoted to the elaboration of thought, pass through these same intermediate stations before they acquire sufficient consistency to affect the motor-nerves, and, through them, the muscular osseous apparatus of the body. Before a sensory impression can become a thought, or a voluntary impulse express itself by motion, each must be converged toward these centres, whence it afterwards radiates, along divergent fibres, directed now above, to the surface of the brain, now below, on a longer course, to the surface of the body.

Luys has suggested, therefore, that these intermediate stations of cerebral organs constitute peculiar centres in which crude nervous impressions sustain a primary elaboration before passing to the surface of the brain. Further, that the generation of emotions, which differs in so many respects from that of ideas, is especially connected with these centres as distinguished from the cerebral hemispheres lying above them. This idea is based on the following facts:

1st. The nervous masses in question are well developed in animals in whom the cerebral hemispheres, or organs of intellection, are comparatively rudimentary; and in these same animals, while little or no capacity for abstract reasoning exists, the instincts and feelings attain individuality and intensity.

2d. The emotions stand in much closer relation to sensation and movement, than do the operations of thought. The latter, indeed, necessitate immobility, and, if sufficiently intense, diminish the power of sensation; they seem to indicate a concentration of nervous action upon organs unconnected with motility or sensibility. On the contrary, movements of some kind are the first result of emotions, of which each is expressed by a characteristic gesture, and these increase in violence with the intensity of the feeling. A powerful emotion, as well as an absorbing thought, may, it is true, annihilate or transform sensation; but this is explicable by the fact that the strongest emotions are excited by ideas. Hence, on the hypothesis, the impression radiating downwards to the emotional centres from the cerebral hemispheres, would counteract a sensory impression radiating upwards from them, by a literal interference analogous to that observed in opposing waves of sound. But as the direction of the impression generating emotion coincides with that of the motor impulses, the latter would not be counteracted, but reinforced.

3d. Conversely, sensations of various kinds, transmitted to these centres from different parts of the body, are as effective as ideas in generating or modifying emotional conditions—often, indeed, much more so. The hypochondria of the ancients, the dyspeptic melancholia of the moderns, the infinite varieties of hysterical sensibility, are all well-known illustrations of this undisputed fact. The elastic consciousness of well-being that emboldens the volition of certain individuals, as distinguished from the timid apprehensiveness that constantly depresses the powers of others, is connected, not with any view of external conditions appreciable by the intellect, but with a vast multitude of vague bodily sensations, of which each alone fails to make a distinct impression upon consciousness.

4th. An impression made on one part of the sympathetic system is easily communicated to another, and to the ganglionic masses of the visceral plexuses, already described. Hence the rapid effect of many emotions upon the processes of digestion; hence the epigastric response to the emotion of fear, which led Bichat to localize this feeling in the solar plexus lying behind the stomach. In a precisely similar manner may the effect of emotion be distributed to the ganglionic nerves of the kidneys, uterus, and ovaries, leading to the flow of urine that terminates a paroxysm of hysteria, often suppressing menstruation, by contraction of uterine blood vessels, or causing an excess of menstrual haemorrhage, from an excessive excitement of the ovarian nerves during the menstrual crisis. None of these effects are observed after a simple act of thinking, unattended by emotion.

5th. Probably on account of such an influence upon the vaso-motor nerves, the blood vessels, and, consequently, the processes of nutrition, the evolution of emotions is attended with much greater fatigue than is that of thought. The fatigue that may follow a prolonged intellectual operation is, moreover, distinctly localized in the head, and exists in various degrees, from simple inability for further attention, to decided sensation of weariness, or even pain. But the fatigue experienced after excessive emotion, especially if this be of a depressing character and accompanied by tears (which imply vaso-motor paralysis in the lachrymal glands), is generalized all over the body, and is, moreover, very much more often followed by headache, or by symptoms of cerebral congestion or anemia, than is the act of thinking, except in persons morbidly predisposed. When nervous exhaustion is observed after prolonged mental effort, one of two other conditions, or both, has nearly always co-existed, namely, deficiency of physical exercise, or presence of active emotion, as, ardent ambitions or harassing anxieties. In a few cases, the mental effort itself, by the afflux of blood determined to the brain, or the excessive activity imposed upon its elements, becomes an efficient cause of disease. But in these cases there is either an original imperfection in the organization of the nerve tissues, or the mental effort has been of that exceptionally intense nature of which none but a few minds are capable. Finally, in these cases, the resulting disease is seated in the brain or spinal column.

This latter remark is of great importance for our purpose; for it tends to show that diseases produced elsewhere within the range of the ganglionic system of nerves—as the menstrual haemorrhage, that we are especially considering—must be due to some other nervous act than that of thought.

From the foregoing considerations, we believe, may be again inferred, first, that the radical difference which exists between the cerebral operations that result in thought, and those that accompany the evolution of emotion, probably depends upon the fact, that in the former central nervous action remains more or less localized on the surface of the cerebral hemispheres, while, in the latter, the great ganglia lying at the base of the brain, and hence nearer the vaso-motor centre, are called into play; second, that the effects of such action are more rapidly generalized throughout the nervous system, and, by causing the dilatation of the blood-vessels in the manner described, exhaust the central nervous system in a twofold manner, by a disturbance of its circulation, and by a direct depression of its nutrition, when the modifications of the circulation exaggerate the nutrition elsewhere. Repeated excitement and consecutive paralysis of the vaso-motor nerves, therefore, serve as the most efficient means of draining off the force of the cerebro-spinal nervous system. And it has been seen, that a depression of its power is followed by an exaggerated and irregular activity of the ganglionic system, to which are due most of the phenomena observed in hysteria and in ordinarily nervous women. These are in many respects different from those observed in men suffering from so-called nervous debility, for the reason, that in them the ganglionic system of nerves is less prominent, and its irregularities of action therefore less marked, when the control exercised by the cerebro-spinal system has been diminished. If the vaso-motor centre of the brain is only influenced when the ganglia at the base are called into activity, and if their activity coincides with emotion, and not with thought, whose organ is much more remote, in the cerebral hemispheres, it should follow that emotion, and not thought, should most easily influence the vaso-motor centre, and be followed by peculiar modifications of the ganglionic system and of the circulation. This supposition is confirmed by the occurrence of many vaso-motor phenomena that commonly follow emotion, but are rarely observed after even prolonged thought. It is not, therefore, stimulation of the intellect, but excitement of the feelings, that can be shown from physiological data to have an injurious effect upon the vaso-motor nerves of the uterus, or the ganglionic nerves of the ovaries, or, in other words, can be concerned in the production of uterine haemorrhage. To be just, however, it must be admitted, that still another view is possible. For it might be affirmed: first, that in women communication of impressions between different parts of the nervous system was so rapid, that the limitation of activity to a particular part of the brain was impossible; in other words, that the distinction between thought and emotion was effaced, because any action set up at the surface of the cerebral hemispheres, invariably called the emotional centres into play; or, second, it might be said, that the original organization of the cerebral tissues in women was so imperfect, that a slight amount of activity was sufficient to exhaust them, and hence become a cause of haemorrhage by the mechanism previously described.

Neither of these assertions is made by Dr. Clarke, but it is certain that one or both of them might be made in regard to a large number of women. To these, however, severe intellectual exertion would be injurious, not only if performed during the week of menstruation, but if performed at all. Nervous excitement during the inter-menstrual period, is quite as likely to be followed by pain or excessive haemorrhage at the next menstruation, as if it had been sustained at the critical epoch itself. Nature generally provides for a portion of this contingency, by rendering such women little capable of mental exertion, and little ambitious for it. But, though they be kept in the most complete intellectual quiescence, the condition of these unfortunates is scarcely improved. Withdrawn from the serene and powerful movement of intellectual life, they are left to all the agitations of their ganglionic nerves; impressions, unfelt by others, raise storms of feeling in them, that actually ravage their nervous system; efforts that but slightly fatigue stronger organizations, are completely exhausting to theirs; health, indeed, is only possible to them while they may be sheltered from exposure, saved from exertion, and carefully screened from excitement and shock.

The method, therefore, suggested by Dr. Clarke for enabling young girls to master Latin and Greek without sacrifice of their health, seems to us to be addressed to the wrong element in the group of supposed causes. In the cases related by Dr. Clarke, there is nothing to show that the menorrhagia was occasioned by study during the week of menstruation, rather than during the three weeks that preceded it. Nor that even then, the true cause of disease was to be found in the intellectual exertion of mastering the school text-books, rather than in the moral excitement due to competition, haste, and cramming, or the close confinement necessitated by prolonged school hours, and unhealthy sedentary habits out of school.

The complexity of causation in such instances may be well illustrated by the following case, that I select on account of its great resemblance to the type described by Dr. Clarke.

A young girl of sixteen consulted me on account of menstrual haemorrhage so excessive as to induce complete exhaustion, bordering upon syncope. She had menstruated for two years—during the first, in quite a normal manner—but during the second, had become subject to these menorrhagic accidents, since residence at boarding-school. It would have been easy to decide that the disturbance was directly due to the severity of the mental efforts exacted by the regime of the school. But on further inquiry it appeared: first, that the mother of the girl had always been subject to menorrhagia, and it is well known that this often occurs exclusively as the result of hereditary predisposition. Second, that just before the entrance to school, and the disturbance of menstruation, the girl had been living in a malarial district, and had suffered from malarial infection, which is again a frequent cause of menorrhagia. Third, that the studies pursued at school were unusually rudimentary for a girl of sixteen, and indeed, below the natural capacity of her intelligence, had this been properly trained. But the hours of study were so ill-arranged, that the pupils were kept over their books, or at the piano, nearly all day, and even in the intervals allowed for recreation, no exercise was enforced. It was therefore frequently neglected, and the girl, with hereditary predisposition to menorrhagia, increased by malarial infection, and also by certain rheumatic tendencies, was allowed to expend upon elementary text-books an amount of time, attention, and nervous energy, that would have been deemed excessive for the most valuable intellectual pursuits.

All physicians are aware of the frequent dependence of menorrhagia upon anemia, not only acquired, but congenital. The existence of anemia, or of an imperfect elaboration of the blood and vascular system, previous to the occurrence of the first menstruation, is a possible condition of menstrual disorder that must always be very carefully eliminated before any other cause be assigned. It is, moreover, extremely frequent. Others exist, but are more rare—as peculiar congenital predisposition to haemorrhages, with or without true hemophilia[45].

With such causes (anemia, rheumatism, malarial infection, hereditary predisposition), the observance of rest during the menstrual week would be quite ineffectual so long as the regime of the other three weeks remain uselessly unhygienic. If the menstrual crisis finds the uterine blood-vessels already deprived of tonicity through nervous exhaustion or other cause, haemorrhage is as likely to occur as if that tonicity were only exhausted at the epoch of menstruation. In the cases described by Dr. Clarke, the cure was effected, when at all, not by an intermittence of study, which does not seem to have been tried, but by its complete cessation, together with that of all the conditions by which it was accompanied.

Again, therefore, it may be said, that wherever such intermittence is not superfluous, it would be inadequate for the purpose for which it is designed.

But this conclusion may seem to be much more severe, and, to those interested in the education of girls, much more disagreeable than that formulated by Dr. Clarke. We firmly believe, however, that truth never can be disagreeable when it is really understood in all its bearings and all its consequences, and conversely, that any proposition framed with a view to supposed desirableness rather than veracity, is almost certain to lead in the end to consequences quite undesirable. We will not, therefore, try to decide whether it may be more agreeable to believe that the health of adolescent girls requires general and permanent supervision, or that all responsibility may be discharged by confining them to a sofa and a novel for one week out of every four; to believe that a certain number of women, as of men, are always unfit for intellectual exertion, or that all women are inevitably rendered so unfit during one quarter of their lives at times unknown to outsiders, and which, therefore, may be at any time; to believe that the increased delicacy of women in civilized societies depends on a cultivated predominance of their ganglionic nervous system and emotional functions, or on the excessive stimulus of the cerebro-spinal system and on intellectual cultivation.

More useful than such discussion is the consideration of the methods that might be proposed, instead of that suggested by Dr. Clarke in the third proposition we have formulated from his book. Dr. Clarke's method is to provide regular intermittences in the education of girls, "conceding to Nature her moderate but inexorable demand for rest, during one week out of four." The method that we believe to be suggested by the foregoing considerations would be more complex, but, we think, at once more effectual and less inconvenient. It may be stated in the following formula: "Secure the predominance of the cerebro-spinal system over the activity of the ganglionic." Since the activity of the cerebro-spinal system may be roughly[46] divided into a twofold direction, intellectual and muscular, this predominance is to be secured by assiduous cultivation of the intellect as compared with the emotions, and of the muscles of the limbs as compared with the muscular fibre of the blood-vessels. In other words, the evil effects of school competition, and of the emotional excitement natural to adolescence, are to be combated by a larger, wider, slower, and more complete intellectual education than at present falls to the lot of either boys or girls. And the dangers incident to the development of new activity in the ganglionic nervous system by the functions of the ovaries, the dangers of irregular circulation, vaso-motor spasm and paralysis, are to be averted by systematic physical exercise, that shall stimulate the spinal nerves, quicken the external circulation, and favor the development of muscles at the moment that their activity threatens to be overpowered.

The effect of systematic training on the spinal nervous system, and on the bones and muscles dependent upon it, has been often enough described. Far less attention has been given to the equally positive development that can be secured for the brain, under the influence of prolonged and systematic exercise of its functions. An immense increase of functional capacity is possible, even without marked anatomical alteration; but even this is observed under circumstances that seem to indicate that it is rather the effect than the cause of changes in function. Retzius (Muller's Archives, 1845, p. 89[47]) observes that the female cranium varies in size much more than the male: "Female crania of the higher and middle classes are in general much smaller relatively than is the case among the peasants, a fact which probably depends on the different mode of life and occupation. The skull of the Norway female peasants is as large and strong as that of the men." Welcker himself makes a somewhat analogous observation in regard to the crania of different races, the differences between the sexes being more marked in proportion to the civilization of the race—that is, to the degree of specialization of education, and mental occupation. He gives the following table:

CRANIAL CAPACITY.

WOMAN. MAN.

Asiatic Caucasian 1 1.27. European 1 1.17. Mongols 1 1.13. Malays 1 1.08. Americans 1 1.08. Negroes 1 1.07.

Besides the prominent fact upon which Welcker insists, this table indicates two others. First, that the anatomical difference in the higher races is too little to explain the general difference in intellectual achievement really observed between the two sexes of these races. Second, that the difference is not in precise proportion to the maximum intelligence attained by the race, but to the social inferiority and subjection of the women; for the Asiatics (Hindoos) stand highest on the scale, the Europeans only second; and the excess of the first over the second, in regard to the point in question, is greater than the excess of the Europeans over the other races named.

The general fact that, beyond certain well-defined limits, the activity of the cerebro-spinal system and its relative predominance over the ganglionic, is to be determined dynamically rather than anatomically, is insisted upon by Laycock (Med. Times and Gaz., 1862). This writer observes that the large, slowly-nourished brain of a lymphatic man, frequently evolves much less intellectual force than does the smaller, perhaps more compact, brain of another, in whom the circulation is more active, and the nutrition probably more elaborate.

These facts, and many others that might be quoted, are pertinent to our subject, on account of the influence exercised over the ganglionic centres by the development and functional activity of those of thought. Stimulation of the cerebral hemispheres is one of the most powerful means of counteracting paralysis of the vaso-motor centre, with all its consequences. Habitual activity of these centres—implying, psychologically, habitual activity of thought, physiologically, a more active local circulation—is therefore the best method at our disposal for permanently counteracting tendencies to irregular action in this centre, in the emotional ganglia lying in its vicinity, and in the vaso-motor nerves dependent upon it.

A method of such general supervision does not in itself forbid the co-education of girls and boys; for from this more general point of view, the health of the latter during adolescence really requires precisely the same precautions as that of the former. Attention is less frequently drawn to the precautions required in the case of boys, mainly because such precautions are more frequently observed in regard to them. But besides, girls arrive at the period of adolescence already enervated by the senseless training of their childhood, on which distinctions of sex have been obtruded long before they are established by nature. Finally, since peculiarities relating to the sexual organs are inherited, if at all, from the parent of the same sex,[48] the germs of uterine diseases acquired by mothers too frequently exist in daughters, ready to be developed at the earliest opportunity.

As a matter of fact, therefore, the existing generation of girls, especially in New England, too often possess a delicacy of organization greater than that of their brothers, and demanding a special supervision and watchfulness, best bestowed when they are educated apart. For the reasons already detailed at length, we think that such supervision does not necessitate periodical intermittence of study, except in special cases, that constitute a decided minority among the whole. It does necessitate, however, the more difficult task of providing for adequate rest and exercise during every day of the month. It necessitates a more rational system of study, a more profound training, a more intelligent view of the real character of intellectual life, and of the exercises required to develop it. It necessitates a concentration of intellectual effort into four or six hours out of the twenty-four, instead of a useless diffusion of intellectual peddling over ten or twelve. It necessitates an extension of the term of years allowed for education, and the giving up the fashionable notion that a girl is to be "finished" at seventeen or eighteen, while her brother continues to pursue his studies until twenty-two or twenty-five. It necessitates, finally, the most careful individual adjustment to each different case; and to all its peculiarities, mental, moral, and physical—quite as frequently, therefore, necessitates the education of girls apart from one another as apart from boys.

But this necessity is not permanent. Dr. Clarke himself admits that if the one precaution upon which he insists be observed during the first years of adolescence, it will become unnecessary when the constitution is formed. But neither Dr. Clarke nor his reviewers seem to see that this admission annihilates the only objection made by him to the co-education of the sexes. For that is especially demanded as the only means by which women may be enabled to enjoy a technically superior education, as distinguished from the primary and secondary, and such education does not begin until eighteen. A university education is too expensive to be duplicated in any state; it moreover represents the collective intellectual force of society, and as such cannot rationally be cut in two. Indeed, as such, cannot logically exclude women from men's schools, which are thereby left as imperfect and incomplete as would be the new universities to be constructed exclusively for women. During the neutral period of childhood, girls and boys should be educated together, because, as sex does not, properly speaking, exist, it is absurd to base any distinctions upon it, and the attempt, like all absurdities, is liable to lead to really disastrous consequences. During the period of adolescence or of the formation of sex, it is well to establish a separate education, during which the character of each may be defined and consolidated. This separation is needed by the moral and the physical training rather than by the intellectual. Were it, as is usually assumed, necessary for boys to exercise and for girls to sit still, the need of separation would be much less than it is, for the boys could be sent to the gymnasium while the girls remained in the school room. But systematic exercise is even more necessary for the latter than for the former, because they are likely to take it spontaneously. These exercises must differ in kind and in intensity from those performed by boys, and for this and other reasons, are best pursued alone.

The moral differentiation of the sexes requires separate education, for analogous reasons. Moral differences, though less marked than physical, are more so than intellectual, and any system of education that might be supposed to efface these, would be an injury to society, that requires, not uniformity, but increasing complexity, by means of increasing variety of character among its members. Thus the education of adolescent girls should include certain training in the care of children, and other duties that either permanently, or for the time being, must fall to them and not to boys. But a more important moral reason for separate education consists in the desirability of prolonging as late as possible, the first unconsciousness of sex. At this age the stimulus derived from co-education, acting upon imperfect organizations, is liable to be other than intellectual—liable to excite emotions equally ridiculous and painful from their pre-maturity, and therefore to increase the very danger most to be averted from this period of life—the excessive development of the emotional functions and organs of the nervous system.

But, by the age of eighteen, the reasons against the co-education of the sexes have ceased to exist, and imperative reasons in its favor have come into play. The first we have already indicated. Unless the education of girls be continued beyond the conventional retiring-point of eighteen, and unless they be permitted access to the State Universities, they cannot participate in the highest intellectual education of the race. This cannot be carried on by private teachers, in isolated classes, under uncontrolled authorities. It must be public, national, supreme—for it represents the collective intellectual force of the nation; it is the work of society, and fits for society; and the social influences presiding over its instruction are as important as is the technical knowledge conveyed in its system. Only the best minds should be employed in its service, and in any State these are not sufficiently numerous for the wants of indefinitely multiplied schools.

But, further, if girls may be educated, and better educated, apart from boys, it is scarcely possible to give women an intellectual training apart from men, certainly in the present generation. What may be lost to men by exclusion from the intellectual companionship of women, may perhaps be beyond the scope of our present subject to inquire. But the loss sustained by women, who, shut up in female academies, attempt, or pretend to make the attempt, to obtain a "college education," is conspicuous beyond possibility of cavil. The same peculiarities that render women, as a rule, less original, are justly said to make them more receptive, more malleable, more exquisitely adjustable to the least variation of external circumstance, or difference in the intellectual calibre of their associates or masters. Their own intellects are quickened to activity or repressed into torpor, by influences that would have little effect upon the less impressionable, more self-poised minds of men. These facts, upon which great emphasis has often been laid, should only lead to one inference, namely, that the education and intellectual capacity of women is likely to remain at the point, or advance to the degree at which men may consider it desirable for it to exist; if, therefore, certain conditions are seen to favor this advancement to an extraordinary degree, and others to retard it in a manner as extraordinary; if, in addition to results already achieved by the increased education of women, others far greater may be foreseen, when that education shall have become really equal to that now accessible to men; it becomes imperative to concede the conditions in question, unless some equally imperative counter indication can be shown to exist. Reasons of an entirely different order exist, we think, in the fact that at this age the sexes naturally seek each other's society, as much as they avoided it before. It is difficult to see why this tendency requires to be counteracted, except on some monastic principle that is an unconscious "survival" from the middle ages. Thwarting this tendency leads often to immorality in the one sex—to languor, and mental, moral, and physical debility in the other.

Dr. Clarke places his counter indication almost exclusively in the supposed necessity for a periodical intermittence in the intellectual work of women, that could not, therefore, be brought into harmony with that of men. But, as we have seen, Dr. Clarke himself admits that such necessity is scarcely imperative except under the age of eighteen or nineteen, and the period of study for which co-education is really desirable, indeed, necessary, does not begin until that age. Moreover, Dr. Clarke draws his examples, not from students who have been educated at mixed schools, but from those who have attended ordinary girls' boarding-schools; so that no proof is adduced of any special influence of co-education, unless the general statement that "co-education is intellectually a success, physically a failure," can be considered as such proof, which we do not believe. Since, according to Dr. Clarke's own argument, the argument does not apply to the particular point of controversy upon which it has been made to bear with most force, it is superfluous to return to our own reasonings, whereby we believe to have shown that the dangers signalized, though they exist, menace the minority and not the majority; that they are then attributable, not to mental exertion, but to the coincidences of mental exertion as at present conducted; that they are to be averted, not by a single manoeuvre, but by a general system of training, that should include, instead of excluding, special attention to intellectual development; that the results of such training would remain, after the consolidation of the physical health and the termination of the period of growth had rendered further training unnecessary; whereas, the peculiar precaution suggested by Dr. Clarke, would rather tend to create a habit of body that would persist throughout life, to immense inconvenience.

MARY PUTNAM JACOBI.

110 West Thirty-fourth street, New York.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] The development of reproductive cells in special glandular apparatus at the period of puberty, is evidently not peculiar to one sex, but is a physiological fact necessarily common to both. The peculiarity in the female consists in the greater degree of periodicity in the complete development of such cells, in the periodical congestions of a secondary organ, the uterus, and in the loss of blood effected by these.

[34] Thus Herbert Spencer remarks that the mental development of women must be arrested earlier than that of men, in order to leave a margin for reproduction.

[35] Absence of menstruation.

[36] Excessive menstrual hemorrhage.

[37] I use the term efficient in a technical sense, as meaning all-sufficient to produce the given effect, without the intervention of any other cause.

[38] "Menorrhagic chlorosis" of Trousseau.

[39] For it is known that vaso-motor paralysis is not of itself sufficient to induce haemorrhage, unless the tension of the blood-current be coincidently raised. See Bouchard, Pathogenie des Haemorrhagies.

[40] The "uterine epistaxis" of malignant fevers are evidently foreign to our subject, as also the haemorrhages of subinvolution, or of the menopause. The haemorrhages from anemia are, on the other hand, so frequent, as to explain the majority of such cases as Dr. Clarke's.

[41] Meadows observes: "It is not the ovary which is an appendix to the uterus, but the uterus which is an appendix to the ovary."

[42] Corpora quadrigemina.

[43] Corpora striata.

[44] Thalami optici and corpora striata.

[45] Hereditary disease, dependent on an imperfect development of blood vessels, and characterized by a remarkable tendency to bleed from any blood-vessel that accident may have opened. This disease is nearly confined to men, but the women in the same families often suffer from profuse menstruation.

[46] For we purposely leave out of sight innumerable facts in regard to its influence on nutrition, temperature, etc.

[47] Quoted by Welcker, Untersuchungen ueber den Wachsthuum und Bau des Menschlichen Schaedels. Halle, 1862.

[48] Lucas. Traite de l'heredite.



UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

"Recognizing the equality of both sexes to the highest educational advantages," for four years the doors of the University of Michigan have been "open to all students."

"The University is organized in three departments, as follows: the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts; the Department of Medicine and Surgery; the Department of Law. Each department has its Faculty of Instruction, who are charged with its special management."

Eager to avail themselves of the advantages here offered in such a "broad, generous, and hospitable spirit," a number of women from different parts of the country have matriculated, and are or have been pursuing studies in common with students of the other sex.

During the four years three women have graduated from the Literary Department, four from the Law, and twenty-one from the Medical. At the present time there are in the first department above mentioned, fifty women; in the second, five; and in the third, thirty-eight.

Of those in the Law and Medical Departments I can say comparatively little. The general impression is, that they have endured the work quite as well as the men; and it is a fact, that a number of the women who entered the Medical Department, with four lectures per day to attend, and all the work of the laboratory and dissecting-room to perform, have steadily improved in health from the time of entering until leaving; while those who were well at the beginning of their college work, have in no case suffered a deterioration of health from their intellectual labor. One of these women, Miss Emma Call, of Boston, graduated last year, the first in her class.

Thus far the women-graduates from this department have generally taken positions in their profession which they are filling with usefulness, if not with honor; and in which, as far as powers of endurance are concerned, they are showing themselves able to compete with male physicians. There seems to be an impression prevalent among them—and perhaps it is not peculiar to their sex alone—that the physician should be the physiological educator as well as the healer of the race, that his or her duty is to teach people how to use the "ounce of prevention" as well as the "pound of cure," and that, through the mutual labors of the two sexes, more than in any other way, is to be brought about the long-desired, and much-needed, health reform.

Although it may yet be too early to form an estimate of the effect of this system of "identical co-education" upon the health of the women who have graduated from this University, we believe that there has been only one case of protracted illness, and there is no reason for asserting that this was caused by intellectual labor—at least, in this institution, since the lady was here only six months—having taken her previous course elsewhere—and is a graduate from the Law Department.

Of those who have graduated from the Literary Department, we have positive information that as yet they have suffered no "penalties" from their "severe and long-continued mental labor," and they were, on graduating, as well as on entering. One woman who matriculated with the present senior class, took the whole course in three years, went forth in better health than when she entered, and is at present the principal of the High School at Mankato, Minn., while another is still prosecuting her studies, and contemplates taking a course of law.

In regard to those at present in the Literary Department, it is impossible to get at any statistics as to excused absences, which will show the average attendance of one sex as compared with that of the other, and from which inferences can be deduced in regard to the health of the women-students; for the university authorities—not having dreamed that there was a "new natural law" to be revealed, which should assert that the course of "identical co-education" is conducive to health and usefulness for the one sex, and to premature decay and the hospital or cemetery for the other—have not preserved the records of excused absences. The professors assert that non-attendance upon recitations, on account of ill-health, has been no greater on the part of the young women than of the young men, and that in many cases, the attendance of the former has been better than that of the latter; yet there is nothing, perhaps, except personal acquaintance and observation, which can reveal the true condition of the present health of the women of the Literary Department of Michigan University, and the manner in which it has been affected by the intellectual labors they have undergone.

In the present graduating class, there are eight women who have been, at all times during the college course, as well as an equal number of their classmates, or the same number of women in any pursuit in life. One of these, who is not only the 'picture of health,' but who is perfectly healthy, was only sixteen years of age when she entered. Two other young women, who have ranked with the first of their class in scholarship, and who have been in excellent health during the entire course, with the exception of slight illnesses in their freshman year—not caused by study—who are now among the most healthy of their class, have, in addition to their college work, nearly defrayed their expenses by teaching during the vacations, by giving private instruction after study hours, and by working in various other ways. They have not, in this fourth year of almost double duty, any lurking disease which threatens to impair or to destroy their usefulness in the future, and they are as strong, ambitious, and happy as when they entered.

One who entered the class in its sophomore year, and who intended to graduate with it, was obliged to withdraw on account of her health; but those who know her best cannot assert that this was caused, either directly or indirectly, by her intellectual labors, or that, under the same conditions, the same results would not have followed from any kind of work. She was, and had been for a long time before entering, in a very bad state of health, and was utterly unfit for study.

Thus far, the health record of the women of this class has compared favorably with that of the men, and there is, at the present time, no physiological reason why it should not thus continue even 'down to old age.'

The class of '75 had, on entering, eleven women. Of these, one has died, an apparently healthy girl, who passed from us in the second year of her college life, shortly after her return in the autumn. We do not know the cause of her sickness, but we do know that it was not the result of overtaxed mental powers, since it occurred but a little while after the long vacation of the summer, and the disease was one which had carried off a number of members of the same family in former years, viz., typhoid fever, alike unsparing of age, sex, or condition. With this exception, this class has been remarkably healthy, and with but a slight exception is, at the present time, perfectly so. Their attendance on recitations has been uniformly good, above the average of the classes, and they have done excellent work. Of these, two were sixteen years of age on entering, one was twenty, and the others varied in ages between sixteen and twenty. Concerning one of the former, President Angell had some misgivings when she entered, as she did not seem to be very strong; but she is now in her third year in the University, and her mother informed the president not long since that the health of her daughter had improved since she came to Ann Arbor, and that the nervous headaches by which she had been formerly troubled had entirely disappeared.

Among those who matriculated with the class of '76, were seventeen young women, two of whom were in poor health at the time, and physically unfit for work. One was ill for some time last winter with rheumatism, and compelled to suspend her labors, and the other was obliged to leave college. The former is now teaching, and will probably return, and the other has resumed her studies, but is far from being well. One of the number, who is from the Sandwich Islands, was sick four weeks with inflammation of the lungs; but her brother, who is one year in advance of her, was also sick in his freshman year with the same disease, the only difference being that she was ill four weeks, and he, seven.

As a class, the 'sophomore girls' are in even a better physical condition in the middle of this their second year, the hardest year of the course, than they were at the beginning of last year. One of them, with charming naivete asserts that she was 'miserable' when she entered, and her father sent her to the University to 'see if she wouldn't get well;' and she 'has been getting well ever since.'

The average attendance of the young women of this class upon recitations, is also fully equal to that of the young men, judging from the stand-point of the professors; and in the classical sections it has been better.

In the present Freshman class, there are also seventeen young women, most of whom are under twenty years of age; as also are most of those of the other classes on entering. Of those in this class there is little to be said, as they have been with us but a few months. They appear to be well and strong. Many of them are graduates from the high schools of the State, and a large proportion from the Ann Arbor High School. In regard to his graduates, Professor Perry, the Superintendent of Schools in this city, gives the following statistics in regard to sixteen young men and nine young women who graduated last year:

BOYS. GIRLS.

Attendance .96 .96. Scholarship .85 .88.

It is a fact that thus far the women of Michigan University have demonstrated a principle of Dr. Tappan's—a former president of the University—that brain-work is good for the health. If the seeds of future disease have been in some mysterious manner implanted in their systems, it is in no sense apparent except to the imaginations of those who are least acquainted with our girls. The points which I wish to establish are these: that their health has been as good as that of their classmates; that those who were in a proper condition on entering have in no respect suffered a deterioration of health from their intellectual work; that of those who were not in a proper condition for this or any other kind of work, and have been obliged to withdraw from college, there have been only two—a no larger per cent than the records of the young men would show; that although we have lost one by death, they have lost several; and that the ordinary brain-work required of the intelligent, ambitious students of Michigan University, if they are prepared in all respects for it, is conducive to health. Too much attention cannot be given to the importance of a thorough preparation. With it, students who were not especially strong, have gone on with constantly improving health; without it, even the strongest have felt that the burdens imposed by their studies were heavy—and this is true of one sex as well as of the other.[49]

I quote also from the editorial of the college paper, which is conducted entirely by the young men, to give the view from another stand-point, where, in speaking of "college girls," the writer says: "They pertinaciously keep their health and strength in a way that is aggravating, and they persist in evincing a capability for close and continued mental labor, which, to the ordinary estimator of woman's brain-power, seems like pure willfulness. They have, with a generally noticeable peculiarity, disappointed the most oracular prognostications." The general verdict of those outside the university is, that "the girls are holding out remarkably well."

And perhaps it may be asked, "What are our habits of life?" Possibly the best reply may be given in the words of Hamerton, from Intellectual Life, where in speaking of Kant, he says: "In his manner of living he did not consult custom, but the needs of his individual nature." Thus is it here. Our healthiest girls are those who have come from healthful homes, from wise and judicious parents, who, having instilled into their minds the true principles of right living, have not hesitated to send them forth to the university where the experiment of co-education is being tried, feeling that they would adapt everything to the needs of their individual natures, and they are showing themselves to be so doing. Sometimes sisters come together, sometimes a brother and sister, and in a few instances the parents have come here to reside during the college course of their children.

But the habits of the young women are generally regular. They indulge in little party-going, or dissipation; they have work to do, and to it they give their best strength. As a rule, they dress healthfully, are not ashamed to show that they can take a long breath without causing stitches to rip, or hooks to fly; they do not disdain dresses that are too short for street-sweeping; they have learned that the shoulders are better for sustaining the heavy skirts than the hips, and they are finding that, especially in this climate, healthful though it is, one must be prepared with suitable clothing for all the exigencies of the weather.

Their study-life is quiet and happy. Their rooms are in private houses, usually rented in suites of two, with plenty of light and ventilation, and with bright, pleasant furniture. The people with whom they live are very kind, and take a great interest in the young strangers who come among them. They board either with the family, or in clubs,—as most of the young men do, and with them; and somehow there is among them little of that false appetite for indigestible food, usually so prevalent among young women who are at a boarding-school, or living away from home.

There are no regularly prescribed study-hours, and there is no regularly prescribed exercise. Most of the young women have rooms some distance from University Hall, to which they are generally obliged to go two or three times a day, so that they, of necessity, have considerable walking—in which some of those here have shown remarkable powers of strength and endurance.

In fact, there is nothing prescribed for the student, except lessons; the only authority which the university assumes is intellectual authority, and nothing is compulsory except attendance upon recitations, and a proper attention to the prescribed work.

Perhaps the principal cause for the good health of the young women, and their ability to endure the work they have entered upon, is the fact that they have an aim in life beyond the mere fact of graduating from a great university; they believe that there is a future before them, in which they are to do a woman's work, in a manner all the nobler and better for the advantages of this higher education, and as they advance toward its opening portals, the step becomes firmer, the form more erect, the eye more radiant; they believe, also, that the divine call has come for woman to be something more than the clinging vine, or the nodding lily; that delicacy is a word of mockery when applied to health, a word of beauty when applied to cultivated perceptions, and refined tastes.

They enjoy their work; they have the confidence of their professors, the esteem of their classmates, and the love of one another. Their work is to them more attractive than the charms of society; their Greek and Latin more entertaining than the modern novel; their mathematics no more intricate than the fancy-work which used to be considered one of the necessary things in a woman's education; and most of them have minds of their own, with a good supply of common sense.

But perhaps, after all, little can be inferred for the future from the result of four years of co-education in Michigan University, from the intellectual and moral standing of the women who are at the present time students here, or from their physical well-being. We do not assert that there can be; we do not draw inferences, we present facts. We are fully aware that the problem of co-education is in the first stages of its solution; that it will require at least a generation to solve it fully; that faith is not fruition, nor belief, certainty in this experiment, any more than in any other; that while the women who are here at the present time are earnest, conscientious, and high-minded, those who come after them may be far different; and that even those who go forth in these first years may break down at the first stroke of future work, even as some of their brothers have done; but we do assert that, as far as Michigan University is concerned, educating a girl in a boy's way has thus far been proven to be better than any girl's way yet discovered, and there has appeared no reason why the good effects should not continue.

We are sometimes made to feel, in a manner intended to be humiliating, that we are trespassing upon ground foreign to our natures, in thus seeking the higher education in a domain which has hitherto belonged, almost exclusively, to man—but in all cases this has been done by those outside of our university; and while we know that they who thus speak and write are those who consider themselves the best friends to woman in the spheres to which they would limit her, we also know that all true friends of progress are friends to the highest culture of man or woman. We know, too, that for the manner in which we obey the dictates of our natures, implanted there by 'One who is mightier than we are,' we alone are accountable.

We know the barriers, real and fancied, which are supposed to stand in the way; the arduous toil upon which we enter, the responsibilities which we assume; but for all this, the woman of Michigan University goes forth brave, earnest, and loyal to the dictates of duty; she expects to do work in life as a woman whose womanliness has been but intensified and glorified by these four years of co-education; whose health shall be all that Nature intended it should be, and who will, in the truest sense possible, strive

"To make the world within her reach Somewhat the better for her living, And gladder for her human speech."

SARAH DIX HAMLIN.

Class of '74, University of Michigan.

FOOTNOTES:

[49] See President Angell's testimony in the Appendix.



MOUNT HOLYOKE.

The Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was opened in 1837. During the thirty-six years ending July 3, 1873, it has graduated one thousand four hundred and fifty-five young women.[50] Its founder aimed to provide a permanent institution, where the best advantages should be offered at a moderate expense, and whose entire culture should tend to produce, not only thorough students and skilful teachers, but earnest, efficient, Christian women. Accordingly, its course of study has always given prominence to the solid rather than to the showy, omitting mostly what are termed ornamental branches, and devoting the more time to studies which give mental discipline. There is no preparatory department. In order to enter, pupils are required to pass examination in English Grammar and Analysis, Modern Geography, History of the United States, Mental and Written Arithmetic, Elementary Algebra, Physical Geography, Latin Grammar and Latin Reader. The course of study was originally arranged for three years, but since 1862 requires four. No pupils are received under sixteen years of age, and none are admitted to the senior class under eighteen, while the majority are considerably older. The age at the time of graduating averages something over twenty-one years. None are received as day-scholars.

The amount of intellectual labor required is about six hours a day; that is, two recitations of forty-five minutes each, and four hours and a half spent in study. As a rule, only two studies are pursued at a time. There are but four recitation days in the week, a fifth being devoted to composition and general business. The day of recreation is Wednesday, an arrangement which is somewhat unusual, and might not be convenient for schools composed in part of day-scholars. Here, however, the holiday interposed in the middle of the week serves to lessen the danger of too protracted application to study, and makes the last two recitation days as easy as the first.

The health of the pupils is under the care of the lady physician residing in the family. She is assisted by a teacher who superintends the diet and nursing of invalids. Besides the frequent suggestions in regard to the care of health, which the Principal addresses to the school, special instructions are given by the physician to her classes in physiology. The pupils are particularly cautioned against exposure of health by insufficient protection of the person from cold or dampness, by running up or down stairs, or by sleeping in unventilated rooms. All are required to retire before ten P.M., and advised to choose an earlier hour as far as practicable. Daily out-door exercise, for at least half an hour, is required, except when inclement weather or ill-health may prevent. Light gymnastics are practised by all except individuals who have been permanently excused by the physician. All are directed, however, to abstain from gymnastics at certain periods, as well as from long walks, or severe physical exertion of any kind. It has not been found that regular and moderate study at such times is injurious to girls in ordinary health. The pupil is always excused from lessons if she finds herself unable to study, which of course may often be the case with those of delicate and excitable temperament, or unsound health.

It is generally known that the ordinary house-work of the seminary family is performed by the young ladies, under the supervision of the teachers and matrons. But so many erroneous ideas have prevailed in regard to the amount of labor required of each pupil, that it seems necessary here to repeat explanations often given before.

Each young lady spends, upon an average, one hour a day in domestic work. The length of time varies a little, according to the kind of work; the more laborious or less agreeable tasks being proportionately shorter than the light and easy ones. The time occupied varies thus from forty-five to seventy minutes a day. On the Sabbath, only about half an hour's work is required, while on Wednesday an additional half hour is necessary. Usually one keeps the same work for a term or more, unless some interference with recitations, or other personal reason, makes a change advisable. Pupils are excused from their domestic work whenever their health requires it, the place being temporarily supplied from a sort of reserve corps, who have no regular places of their own.

The benefit to the health, of having a little daily exercise in doing house-work, was one of several considerations in view of which this plan was originally adopted. This opinion is supported by long experience, and has also the sanction of high medical authority. Dr. Nathan Allen of Lowell remarks in his essay upon Physical Degeneracy, page 16; "No kind of exercise or work whatever is so well calculated to improve the constitution and health of females as domestic labor. By its lightness, repetition, and variety, it is peculiarly adapted to call into wholesome exercise all the muscles and organs of the body, producing an exuberance of health, vigor of frame, power of endurance, and elasticity of spirits; and to all these advantages are to be added the best possible domestic habits, and a sure and enduring foundation for the highest moral and intellectual culture."

Pupils often remark a decided improvement in their health under the combined influences of moderate and systematic mental labor, judicious exercise, both out of doors and within, and regular hours for eating and sleeping. It should not be forgotten, however, that among any three hundred girls, there will be many slight ailments in the course of a year, if not some cases of serious illness. Being at best inexperienced, as well as excitable and impulsive, girls are liable to expose their health in a thousand ways, notwithstanding all that careful mothers or teachers can do. Mere physical robustness is of far less account in carrying one through an extended course of study than prudence and good sense. Many a girl possessing these traits, though naturally delicate, has not only completed the Holyoke course with honor, but has found herself all the better able to meet the duties of more laborious years, on account of the systematic habits and practical efficiency acquired here. It is much better not to begin the course earlier than eighteen, on account of the greater maturity then to be expected, not only of the physical constitution, but also of the judgment, on which the preservation of health so largely depends.

The following statistics show the comparative longevity of graduates from Mount Holyoke Seminary, and from a number of colleges for young men. In each case they include a period of thirty years, closing generally with 1867, or within a year or two of that date. They were originally compiled early in 1868, and embraced all the classes which had then graduated at Mount Holyoke. The war mortality is excluded in every case where it was separately stated in the college Triennial, as indicated below.

GRADUATED. DECEASED. RATE PER CENT.

Mount Holyoke Seminary 1,213 126 10.39

Amherst 1,199 [51]135 11.26

Bowdoin 1,012 [51]120 11.85

Brown 972 120 12.34

Dartmouth 1,639 276 16.83

Harvard 2,326 [51]268 11.52

Williams 1,215 123 10.12

Yale 2,883 387 13.42

The following table shows what percentage of the graduates of each decade had died at the close of the thirty years.

MH = MT. HOLYOKE. AM = AMHERST. BO = BOWDOIN. BR = BROWN. DA = DARTMOUTH. HA = HARVARD. WI = WILLIAMS. YA = YALE.

MH. AM. BO. BR. DA. HA. WI. YA.

Graduated in First Decade 243 327 342 315 589 591 297 904

Deceased 54 71 71 69 153 123 49 201

Percentage 22.22 21.71 20.76 21.90 25.97 20.81 16.49 22.23

Graduated in Second Decade 447 391 281 306 524 777 435 943

Deceased 55 49 36 40 88 107 59 127 [52]

Percentage 12.30 12.53 12.81 13.07 16.79 13.77 13.56 13.46

Graduated in Third Decade 523 481 389 351 526 958 483 1,036

Deceased 17 15 13 11 35 38 15 59 [52] [52] [52]

Percentage 3.25 3.11 3.34 3.13 6.65 3.96 3.10 5.69

As these statistics were compiled immediately after the close of the period embraced, there must have been, in every case, some deaths not then ascertained, which subsequent Triennials include. For example, the Amherst Triennial of 1869 makes the number graduated during the thirty years ending in 1867, 1,203; deceased to that date, 152 (besides deaths in the war); percentage of mortality, 12.63. In like manner the record of Mount Holyoke, revised early in 1870, makes the number of deaths during the above period 139, and the rate per cent 11.46. This, however, does not materially affect the comparison, in regard to which it was remarked by Dr. Nathan Allen, in the Congregationalist of June 23, 1870, "This Seminary shows a better record than all the colleges except Williams." Dr. Edward Hitchcock, of Amherst, in the Springfield Republican of May 2, 1870, also says: "By these results we learn that it becomes those to be careful who state that all female schools are injurious to the health of their students. For here is one which, in attainments of scholarship, general discipline, and religious culture, has ranked among the highest, and yet its health-influence holds out better than in gentlemen's schools of kindred grade."

A lady physician formerly connected with this Seminary, speaking of customs of modern society which have impaired women's powers of endurance, remarks: "The most pernicious of these customs is certainly improper dress, viz., tight lacing, long and heavy skirts dragging from the hips, and the great weight of clothing upon the lower portion of the back; also, insufficient covering of the lower extremities." The present physician attributes perhaps the greater part of the ill-health from which young ladies suffer, to these errors in dress. Another fruitful source of evil, for which parents are largely responsible, is the supplying of school-girls with quantities of rich pastry, cakes and sweetmeats, which are eaten, of course, between meals, and often just before going to bed. In one instance a young lady, previously in perfect health, in the course of two years made herself a confirmed dyspeptic, simply by indulging night after night in the indigestible dainties with which she was constantly supplied from home. This is her own view of the matter in looking back.

The following words from the two lady physicians who have been longest connected with the Seminary, give the results of their professional experience there:

* * * * *

Extracts from the letter of Dr. (Belden) Taylor, formerly physician at Mt. Holyoke Seminary:

"In regard to regular study producing pain, haemorrhage or irregularity, I do not think these disturbances are caused so much by application to study as by want of care and prudence at the menstrual period, and of fresh air and exercise during the interval. * * * I think that labor, both mental and physical, should be diminished at the menstrual period, for at this time the ovaries and uterus are intensely engorged, and the nervous system is in an unusually excitable condition. Do not understand me that girls should be excused from all physical labor, but only that they should not undertake unusually hard work, and should avoid long walks, giving themselves as much rest as possible. * * * I do not think, however, that any of these things should debar a woman from pursuing a regular course of study, only let her exercise care and prudence at the menstrual period. It is not uncommon for this function to be arrested by any great change of circumstances, as when a girl leaves home and goes to school, where there is almost an entire change of habits. Many cases came under my observation while at the Seminary, among the junior class (first year), of suppression or irregularity for three or six months, all then proceeding regularly without medical interference. I think women suffering from ordinary female troubles are benefited by regular exercise; for a want of proper exercise affects injuriously the general health, thereby increasing the uterine disorder. If a girl with any great female trouble should enter the Seminary, her troubles would be increased, not from the regular work, but by going over the stairs."

Letter from Mrs. Arnold, of Milwaukee, formerly Dr. Homer, physician at Mt. Holyoke Seminary in 1860-64:

"A large number of cases of irregularity in the form of suppression, were always met with during the first year, especially the first months of that year. Often the health was not seriously affected, and the trouble would right itself or readily yield to mild remedies. Had this derangement been caused by hard study in the pursuance of a regular course, it would have been most common among pupils in advanced classes. The fact that it was not, shows that it must be accounted for in some other way. Neither do we need to look far. There is change of circumstances, of employments, of diet, of sleep; often of climate, many coming from a distance, and, more than all, coming from quiet homes to dwell in such a large family, where there is enough of novelty and excitement to keep them constantly interested—perhaps I should say absorbed—in new directions. It is common for change to produce like results elsewhere, as well as in school life, especially during the early years of womanhood. Again, those thus affected are quite as likely to be the dull or inattentive as the studious.

"Cases of excessive or painful menstruation were far less numerous, and had their origin also in other causes than hard study.

"As to the effect of regular brain-work upon those already suffering from diseases peculiar to the sex, I do not recall any cases where the mere matter of intellectual labor had any effect to increase the trouble. Other circumstances connected with school life might aggravate such complaints, e.g., much going over stairs, but a temperate application to study, even of the sterner kinds, by giving occupation to the mind, I consider highly beneficial.

"The great cause of diseases incidental only to the female sex is to be found in want of sensible, intelligent thought, and an unwillingness to act in accordance with the convictions such thought would bring. The follies and frivolities of fashionable life slay their thousands where hard study slays its one. Tight-lacing, I believe, was never more prevalent than at the present time, and its victims are a host. * * * This matter of dress, so difficult to be reformed, has a very large share in making women weak and helpless.

"Of course, it cannot be denied that many young women come out of school with broken health. Do not young men also? The fact that so many girls are enfeebled by the course pursued with them from their very infancy, easily accounts for their broken health, without attributing it at all to study. It cannot but be apparent to any one, that a feeble, sickly girl or boy is unfit to attempt a severe course of study. Again, girls are often in such a hurry to 'finish,' that they overdo, and suffer the consequences in after life.

"It has long been my opinion that we are in danger of pushing the 'graded school system' too far. There should be more latitude allowed, more optional studies in all our schools. The question may be asked, Does not this system bear equally upon boys and girls? If so, why do girls suffer more in health? I affirm, not because of the difference physically, but because the custom of society shuts the girl up in the house—to her books, if she is conscientious, and she is more likely to be so than her brother—while the boy is turned loose, to have just as good a time as if he were at the other end of his class. * * * When we attempt to compare the ability of the two sexes to endure the strain of continuous mental work, there are many circumstances to be considered, many things that are not as they should be. If women were trained from their infancy as they might be, and as they ought to be, there would be no need of arguing. But so long as the present fetters of fashion and custom are submitted to, the question will remain unsettled."

Such is the testimony from Mt. Holyoke.

MARY O. NUTTING.

South Hadley, Mass.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] According to the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1872, Packer Institute had graduated six hundred and twenty-eight women, and Canandaigua eight hundred. No other female institutions report more than six hundred, and only two others more than five hundred.

[51] Exclusive of war mortality.

[52] Exclusive of war mortality.



OBERLIN COLLEGE.

Dr Clarke's experience and success as a physician give him a right to speak, and that with the tone of authority. He has spoken, and in such clear and unmistakable words that all must hear, the startling truth, that American women are sickly women; that proofs of this fact are not confined to any class or condition, but that "everywhere, on the luxurious couches of Beacon Street, in the palaces of Fifth Avenue, among the classes of our private, common, and Normal schools, among the female graduates of our colleges, behind the counters of Washington Street, on Broadway, in our factories, workshops and homes," pale, weak women are the rule, and not the exception. This is the one permanent impression which the book makes. It is for this reason that we are thankful. It matters not that the presenting of this fact was not the author's main object. It matters still less, that he failed in his object; for, if his theory had been a true theory, and he had succeeded in convincing the world of its truthfulness, he would have benefited but a small class of our American people. Only a few women, comparatively, are found in our colleges and higher schools of learning.

Man often means one thing while God means another. Luther meant to reform the Roman Church—God meant to reform the world. Dr. Clarke meant, as he tells us in his preface, to excite discussion, and stimulate investigation, with regard to the relation of sex to education; but he has excited a discussion, and stimulated an investigation, that, unless Ephraim is wholly joined to his idols, will not stop until a reform has been wrought in our whole social system. Not only in our colleges and universities, but in our lower grades of schools; and—as he has taught us that the head is not all, but the body a good deal—in our food, in our times of downsitting and uprising, in our hours of retiring, in the ventilation of our churches, public halls and private homes. We are at last to understand, what it is so hard for an American to understand, that to wait is sometimes as much a duty as to work.

Dr. Clarke meant to prove, that co-education, in the popular signification of that term, for physiological reasons, is an impossibility. He succeeded, as he thinks, theoretically, but failed, as he confesses, practically, for the want of sufficient data. What he indirectly proved was of much more vital importance, because it affects the whole nation; that, for physiological reasons, American women, and consequently the American people, cannot live at this high-pressure rate, which means death. The universal interest which his book has awakened, the rapidly following reviews and criticisms, the numerous essays which have since been published, on the same and kindred subjects, show that thinking minds were already working their way to definite conclusions and expression on this now most important of all subjects—how to give back to the American woman the bloom and physical strength, the elasticity and fresh old age which are hers by the right of inheritance.

No one will deny Dr. Clarke's statement, that, with the best of opportunities, she does not in these respects compare favorably with her trans-Atlantic sisters. But we are not willing to admit that the strength of the German fraeulein and English damsel must be purchased at so great a sacrifice as the giving up of all systematic study, and consequently of all higher intellectual development.

The "sacred number three," which we are told "dominates the human frame," dominates also the whole being. There is the physical, the moral, and the mental; and we are not to cast such a reflection upon the Author of our being, as to suppose that the proper development of the one must be at the expense of the other. If God demands more of woman's physical nature than of man's, he has wisely provided for it, within that nature. Faith in his benevolence leads us to this conclusion. It is just as true, that where much will be required, much has been given, as that where much has been given, much will be required. When woman learns the laws which govern her physical nature, and has the courage to live in accordance with those laws, it will be found that she has strength to be a woman, a Christian and a scholar. It is just as true in her case as in man's, that proper brain activity stimulates physical activity.

There are many sickly girls to be found in our schools, but they are often sickly when they come to us; often, too, under the seeming garb of health, the seeds of disease are already germinating, and it is time, not study, which brings them to the surface.

When mothers are able to send us strong, healthy girls, with simple habits and unperverted tastes, we will return to them and the world strong, healthy women, fitted, physically and mentally, for woman's work.

It is continuous education, not co-education, which Dr. Clarke really condemns; but every teacher knows that continuity of effort is essential to sound mental development, and that this off-and-on method, which he seems to recommend, would destroy all order in the school, and make all work in the class-room impossible. If, then, his theory—that for physiological reasons girls cannot endure continuous study—is the true theory, not only our colleges and universities ought to remain closed against women, but all our schools for girls over fourteen years of age ought to be closed also, and the pupils sent home, to receive such instruction as they can from private teachers, at such times as their bodies can afford to lend time to their heads.

We say ought, and we mean what we say; for we are not "so professionally committed to a dangerous experiment" as to insist upon it, if once convinced that it is dangerous; neither are we "urgent reformers, who care less for human suffering and human life, than for the trial of a theory." Dr. Clarke believes, "if the causes which have brought about the present ill-health of American women continue for the next half century, and increase in the same ratio as they have for the last fifty years, that we shall cease to be an American people." We believe it, too; but we do not believe, as he does, that the chief causes of this ill-health are to be laid at the doors of our seminaries and colleges. We believe that more girls are benefited than are injured by the regimen of a well-regulated school, and our belief is founded upon years of observation. The number is not small, of girls, who have come to us pale, nervous and laboring under many of the ills of which Dr. Clarke speaks, to whom the regularity which must be observed in a large school, but, most of all, the stimulus of systematic brain-work upon the body, has proved most sanitary.

The mother of one young lady placed her under our care a year and a half ago, saying, as she did so: "My daughter has always been frail. I greatly fear she will not be able to endure regular school work. Send her home at any time, if convinced that her health suffers from school discipline." While her health has been steadily improving, she has been able to gain an enviable position in her class. One of her professors said that he had never heard more finished recitations than hers. This is only one instance, where we might give many, of the quickening influence of brain-work upon the body, and we have often heard the same testimony given by other teachers.

Of course, we do not claim that sick girls ought to study, any more than sick boys, or that there are, at the present time, as many girls who can endure hard study, either spasmodic or continuous, as boys. We accept the fact, that American women are sickly women; we only protest against the false theory that makes our higher schools responsible for the fact.

In Dr. Clarke's chapter upon co-education, we read that "this experiment"—meaning co-education—"has been tried in some of our western Colleges, but has not been tried long enough to show much more than its first-fruits, viz., its results while the students are in college; and of these, the only obvious ones are increased emulation, and intellectual development and attainments."

Wondering how long it must be tried before it ceases to be an experiment, we read on a few pages, when we are told that "two or three generations, at least, of the female college graduates of this sort of co-education, must come and go before any sufficient idea can be formed of the harvest it will yield." Is it not rather dangerous to wait two or three generations for the result of an experiment, when it affects so important a question as our national life? But what if the experiment has been already tried? What if we can show by actual figures that, in addition to the increased intellectual development and attainments, time has proved that there has also been physical strength "to stand the wear and tear of woman's work in life?" If we can have intellectual development and physical activity combined, is it not a thing to be devoutly wished? If there is any other conclusion to be truthfully reached, than the one which obliges a woman to feel that, for the good of the race, she must content her longings after knowledge with only a few crumbs from the rich banquet which is spread temptingly before her, why put her faith in the justice of God to such a test?

It is this conclusion, and conclusions like this, spoken in the tone of authority, which have sometimes made weak women "speak of their physical organization with half-smothered anathemas," and led them "to be ashamed of the temple" which an all-loving, and, let us also add, an all-wise Father, has built for them.

If, in the place of this conclusion, against which all a woman's instincts rebel, we may truthfully teach her that there is no antagonism between her body and her brain, and that, for the good of the race, she ought systematically to develop both, we remove all stumbling blocks from her way, we lighten her burdens, we make her brave to endure, because our teachings correspond with all her preconceived ideas of justice and benevolence.

It was this view of the subject, rather than any belief in the modern theories of woman's sphere, that led the founders of Oberlin College to open her doors to women. She has tried the experiment for nearly two generations. Her last annual catalogue contained the names of over one hundred students, whose fathers' or mothers' names can be found in some earlier catalogue. Let us see with what results; for these are the data which Dr. Clarke says we must have, before we can reach any definite conclusion.