Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-01-29
OUR SCHOOL GIRLS.
Effects Of School Life and
Study On the Health.
A BOSTON PHYSICIANS VIEWS.

He Advocates Distribution of tile
Required Study Over a Longer
Period-Other Reforms.
At recent meeting Of the Boston
Homeopathic Medical Society, DIR. L.
A. Philips read a paper on ''The Rela-
tion of Public Schools to Health" in
which he said:
The fact that the health of large
and increasing proportion of the we'll
educated girls or young ladies OF the
present day is by some cause more OIL
less seriously impaired before the ne
cessary course of study is completed
is too evident and too generally recog.
nized to require proof or demonstra.
tion at my hands. To physicians,
however, this condition of things is
more decidedly apparent than to
others, and we find the effects in
many cases so serious as to render
the education of little practical value
or satisfaction, and to wholly unfit
the victim for the duties and enjoy
ments of life in any sphere, domestic
or otherwise. To assume that the
school life is in itself responsible for
all the ill-health developed during its
continuance would be obviously I'M
reasonable and absurd, but, after
eliminating all cases in which out
side conditions and influences unfav-
orable to health are or may be re-
sponsible, we still find very consid-
cradle number-too many to be
classed as exceptional cases-in which
serious and ofttimes lifelong injury
results, from the work required at
school.
1t has been assumed by some emf
nent scientists and physicians that
the long-continued close application
and the tax upon the mental and
nervous forces necessary to the re-
quirements of liberal education are
inconsistent with womeu's nature,
and must, therefore, prove destruc-
tive to natural, healthful conditions.
This l believe to be a false and I'M
warranted assumption. The cause of
injury to health lies neither in inabil-
ity on account OF sex nor the amount
of education, but in the methods or
manner in which it is obtained, and
more still in the utter disregard Of
physical conditions and physical de-
velopment. Up to twelve or thirteen
years Of age children are not gener-
ally, l think, required to do NOR
than is consistent with health, and
their leisure time is usually spent,
as it should be, in active physical ex-
ercise or rest and sleep; but from
the grammar school upward, increa-
ing with each step forward, stimula-
ting the children to the greatest pos
sible effort, cramning them with the
largest amount and greatest variety
OF material, less for any practical use
or value than for the periodical eX-
animation, seems to be the chief, ii
not the only aim. They are all treated
as so many pieces of clay, all to be
moulded to exactly the same size and
form, all to do and know exactly the
same things, and the prodigy in each
branch of study often hel up as the
standard by which all must be meas
ured. These, together with the in
fuence of am bition, combined to push
the classes, as a whole, up to the
highest possible speed. Ii in perfect
health, without interruption, this can
generally be endured, but. necessi-
tates an amount of work which leaves
very little time for anythi else.
| | have no doubt the work demanded
in almost any school can be done
without seriously overtaxing the
pupils, if they have perfect, uninter-
rupted health; but in this very con-
dition lies the difference between the
girls as class and the boys. At the
time the high pressure at school
begins to be applied, the girls are just
entering upon what is justly termed
"the first critical age'-the age of
puberty-when the child is being
transformed into the woman. Now,
not only physicians, but observ-
ant people generally, realize the
great nervous disturbances, the
inability to endure trials, and the me-
cessity for care and special regard for
health in every way, in women at the
second critical age. Very few recog-
nize these same conditions and needs
in the child, but they exist, neverthe
less, and the change and development
which nature is effecting demand
much nervous force and energy, and
| if these are exhausted or diverted by
any continuous and excessive mental
effort, imperfect or incomplete de-
velopment and arrangements of
functions essential to health will in
many instances result; hardly week
passes without bringing to my per-
| sonal observation one or more
cases of this kind. Not only is this
fact generally ignored by educators,
but because many physicians are i'm
perfect observers, who rarly, if ever.
take pains to learn the real condition
of their patients, much less the causes
remote and direct, only a portion of
the medical profession realize it, and
we find in this the secret of the pain,
the debility, the lifelong periodical
sufferings with which many Of these
girls find themselves afflicted in after
life. Girls demand modification OF
the infexible, continuous, high pres
sure system which may be endured,
perhaps, by most boys, as i'm.
pairament of health in a large pro-
portion of cases will otherwise result
In closing, DR.. Phillips said: In
offering some few suggestions for the
better protection of health in the
schools, would not for an instant
presume to advise or instruct the edu-
Gators how their work should be done !;
this is task for which they only are
competent, and one the great difficult