The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-07-18
SCHOOL GIRLS.
The Effects of Over Pressure-Sound Adj
vice to Mothers and Fathers.

Inc EHeCIS OF over ITeSSure-SOunu iu-
vice to Mothers and Fathers.
A young girl of sixteen, of healthy
heritage, was brought into the consult
ing room of one of our Boston
physicians for a slight lateral curvature
of the spine She never had been sick;
she did not suffer from headaches or
any of the functional disturbances
sometimes seen in growing children.
Her growth had been rapid, and she
was pale, thin, and lacked the vigor of
health. An inquiry brought out the
fact that at her school she spent five
hours a day, besides five hours study
out of school hours, stimulated to extra
courses by ambition and the prospect of
promotion.
A growth of three inches in a year,
combined with ten hours daily nervous
strain, are component which will, as
certainly as the formula of plus 2
equals 4, produce an impairment OF
health, diminuton of force which,
coming in the growing years, is so
much taken from the eventual
sum total of vital energy. The
studies which we're the most of a
burden to this young girl were
Greek and Algebra and although the
parents, if forced to choose, would
agree that their daughters should forego
the pride of possessing a knowledge of
Greek, if that must be coupled with a
certain amount of physical misery, yet
nothing short of a dire necessity could
Justify the girl in falling behind her
class or the standard imposed by emu
lation.
Such experiences lead us to believe
that the root of the trouble is not so
much in the school system as in the
community itself, which, after all, Gre
ates the school system. With a certain
amount of elasticity of requirements and
an improved supervision of scholars.
much of the evil of advanced courses
and increasing stimulation could be
avoided, provided the home influence
were in the right direction. The i'll eff,
fects are seen chiefly among the girls;
for it is tacitly admitted that, books or
no books, boys will be boys" and the
boy is largely an animal; but the Amer
lean mother of the day not only wishes
to stamp out what there may be of the
animal in her daughter. to give her
conventional manners, but, in the view
of the lottery of American life.
to teach her to support herself
and also to shine socially as a possible
mistress of the White House; and all
this preparation is to be done during
the pre-matrimonial years Out-Of-
door sports are discouraged, and must
cal or intellectual pre- eminence CON
sidered desirable. Furthermore, among
the girls themselves in a certain num-
Der the desire for distinction, the innate
femininity, repressed by circumstances
from finding vent in cOquetry, prompts
to attracting attention and admiration
for profic ency as amateur musicians,
for rank at school, for winning prizes
in female colleges, for success in pro-
fessons. Such system of education
may produce, in some instances, good
results, and give us future George
EliOts, Maria Mitchells, Mary Somer-
villes, Putnam-Jacobis, etc, yet the
records of the nervous wards and the
lists of the nervous prostrationiSts show
that the success of a few individuals
has been bought for the public at the
price of many shattered lives of unsuc-
cessful imitators.
What in our community is especially
needed in regard TO women is the better
physical education Of girls. A mother
should be as much ashamed to bring up
tlat-chested. Ound-shouldered daugh-
ter, to be a candidate for the Adams or
other Nervine institutions, as if she
brought her up unable to read or write.
The introduction of any outdoor game
suitable for girls, and enjoyed by them,
as base ball is by boys, would be an in
calculable blessing, before which the
joys of Greek and the aspirations for
professional careers would be dust and
ashes to the coming generation of
mOthers and the prospective generation
of children.
a certain, and by no means small,
proportion of our young women seems
eo be going through the same craze
about mental forcing and professional
careers which afflicted our Young men
of previous generations, and which with
them was responsible for much i'll
health. Fortunately, a revival of
athletics and sports, the war, and
the development of more varied
industrial pursuits created revo-
luton in this. 1t is already a
long time since the dyspeptic. narrow
chested, pale-face, weak-eyed male be-
came an object of interest by becoming
bookworm. A knowledge of Greek
no longer condones a want of yigor and
vivacity in the male, andsve do not be-
lieve it is any more likely to in the
female. Those who run any risk of
health by pursuing advanced studies
had best not triie with the experiment.
The prophets of hygienic righteous
ness, as physicians have been termed,
should throw the weight of their in
tluence in favor of everything that inn
proves the physical development of
women. When they find the rate of
growth is excessive or accompanied by
an imperfect development in weight,
when the chest capacity is small and
the blood poor, they should prescribe
more out of doors and a postponement
of literary ambitions sunshine
and fewer books. A good practical
guide as to the physical condition in the
rough is the relative increase of growth
compared with the increase in weight.