Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1878-04-19
Woman and Study.

sFrancisP ower Cobb, in Contemporary Review.
We have heard a 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 daughters
OF women who have never used their
brains may not have inherited rather
soft and tender organs of cogitatiOn to
start with. | am no enthusiast for ex-
cessive 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 supervise the educa-
ton of girls | should be rather inclined
to say, like the hero of "Locksley Hail."
They shall ride and they shall run.
Leap the rainbows of the brooks,
Not with blinded eyesight pouring over miser-
able books.
But OF one thing | am sure, and that is,
that for one woman whose health is in
Jured by excessive study THAT is, by
study itself, not the baneful anxiety of
examinations supcradded to study },
there are hundreds whose health is de-
Perforated by want of wholesome mental
exercise. Sometimes the vaculty 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., lis the best
means of preventing and counteracting
an undue development of the emotional
nature. The extravagances Of magma
ton and feeling engendered in an idle
brain have much to do with the i'll
health Of girls" Another observer, an
eminent teacher, says, i am persuaded,
and my experience has been confirmed
by experienced physicians, that the
want of wholesome occupation lies at
the root Of the languid debility of which
we hear 50 much, after girls have left
school And another, the principal of
one Of the largest colleges for women in
England, adds, There is no doubt what
ever, that sound study is an eminent ad-
vantage to young women's health; pro-
vided, OF course, that the general laws
of health be attended to at the same
time.
Let have larger interests and
noblcr pursuits, and their affections will
become not less strong and deep, but
less sickly, 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 fcverish spirits, the causelcss
depressions, and all the long train of
symptoms which belong to Protean-
formed hysteria, and open the way to
madness on n side and sin on the
other.
At last, after the follies Of luxury and
fashion have gone on in a sort of cres-
ccndo like the descent Of Nathek into
the Hall Of Eblis. till we seem nearly to
have reached the bottom, a voice of
warning is heard. 1t has pealed across
the Atlantic, and been re-echoed on the
shores of England with a cordiality of
response which our men of science do
not give TO American notions" "Wo
man, beware!' it cries. Beware. You
are on the brink of destruction! You
have hitherto been engaged only in
crushing your waists; 10Y you are at
tempting to crush your minds! You
have been dancing nearly all night in
the foul air of bathrooms; now you are
beginning to spend your mornings in
study! You have been necessarily slim
ulating your emotions with concerts and
operas, with French plays and French
novels; now yoa are eXerting your I'M
Outstanding to learn Greek and solve
propositions in Euclid! Beware, oh be-
ware! Science ~pronounces that the wo-
man who-Stn}ies-i lost.