Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1878-02-27
Women and Study.

Francess Power Cobbs, IN Contemporary Review
We have heard great deal of late
of the danger to woman's health of
over mental strain Or intellectual labor.
| do not say there is never danger in this
direction, that girls never study too
much or too early, or that the daugh-
ters of women who have never used
their brains may not have inherited
rather soft and tender organs OF cogita-
ton to start with. | am no enthusiast
for excessive book-learning for either
women or men, though in books read
and books written have found some of
the chief pleasures of a happy life
Perhaps if it were my duty to super
wise the education Of girls l should be
rather inclined to say, like the hero of
e Locksley Hail.
They shall ride and they shall run,
Leap the rainbows of the brooks
Not with blinded eyesight pouring over miserable
books.
But of one thing am sure, and that is,
that for one woman whose health is in.
jnred by excessive study, (that is, by
study itself, not the baneful anxiety Of
examinations superaded to study
there are hundreds whose health is de-
Perforated by want eff wholesome men
tai exercise. Sometimes the vacuity in
the brains of girls simply leaves them
dull and spiritless More often into
those swept and empty chambers of their
skulls enter small imps of evil omen
"The exercise of the intellectual pow
ers," says an able nj. D., sis the best
means Of preventing and counteracting
an undue development of the emotional
nature. The extravagances Of imagi-
nation and feeling engendered in an
idle brain have much to do with the i'll
health of girls" Another observer, an
eminent teacher, says, 81 am persuad-
ed, and my experience has been con-
firmed by experienced physicians, that
the want of wholesale occupation lies
at the root of the languid debility, of
which we hear SO much, after girls have
left schools? p And another, the prin-
cipal of one of the largest colleges for
women in England adds, There is no
doubt whatever, that sound study is an
eminent advantage to young women's
health; provided, Of course, that the
general laws of health be attended to at
the same time"
Let women have larger interests and
nobler pursuits, and their affections will
become, not less strong and deep, but
less slckly, less craving for demonstra-
tive tenderness in return, less variable
in their manifestations. Let women
have sOunder mental culture, and their
emotions-so long exclusively fostered
will return to the calmness Of health,
and we shall hear no more of the inter-
mittent feverish spirits, the causeless
depressions, and all the long train of
symptoms which belong to Protean-
formed hysteria, and open the way to
madness on one side and sin on the
other.
At last, after the foliies of luxury and
fashion have gone on in sort of cresce1a-
do like the descent of Vathek into the
Hall of Eblis, till we seem nearly to
have reached the bottom. voice of
warning is heard 1t has pealed across
the Atlantic. and been re-echoed on the
shores of England with cordiality of
response which our men of science do
not give to American notions"
" Women, bewarep it cries. "Be-
ware you are on the brink OF destruc-
ton! You have hitherto been engaged
only in crushing your waists; now you
are attempting to cultivate only your
minds You have been dancing near
ly all night in the foul air of ball rooms:
now you are beginning to spend your
mornings in study You have been
incess ntly stimulating your emotions
with concerts and operas, with French
plays and French novels; now you are
exerting your understanding to learn
Greek and solve propositions in Euclid
Beware, Oh beware! Science pronoun-
ces that the woman who a,dies-is
lost |" EeaH