Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-01
GRINDING OUT LIFE.
Shirley Dare's Warning to High School
Teachers and Professors. g
A HEADACHE MEANS SOMETHING.
The Producers of Our Foods Have Pushed
Prices Out of Reason. a
A CALL FOR SOME NEW ARTICLES
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPArcH.l

WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATcH.l
A girls headache may seem q slight
malaise to teacher used to the subjugation
of her own feelings, but it will not do to
tions out of order, and the way to harmon
ize physical relations is not to treat them as
if nothing was the matter. The headaches
of the schoolgirl have relation to the hys-
terical breaking down of mature woman
hood, and neglect of the early symptoms
makes it no easier to cure final derange-
ments
I can remember too well oppressive days
in school at the age of IL, when patient
lessons as in a dream, with weight pressing
on the brain and ache in every limb. The
proper course would have been to let her
curl up comfortably on lounge for a rest of
an hour or two, followed by a pleasant stroll
or drive in the sunshine, with glass of
lemonade or soda water as the digestion
might require, an evening without books
and an early, long, refreshing sleep to set
all right again.
NDULGENT MOTHERS ARE RIGHT
The indulgent mothers are nearer right
than the strict teachers, as long as the food
of children remains what it is. When the
system is oppressed with digestive injuries
steady tasking the brain is a sure way to
overthrow the nerves altogether. The harm
done young people by bad feeding and
strict schooling together has laid the train
for many a middle age of impaired useful
ness and invalidism. At boarding schools,
where the fare is of various degrees of un-
wholesome plainness, headaches and hys-
terics spring from two causes-indigestion
and want of fresh air.
A teacher in large boarding school for
young ladies used to jest over a pupil
whose appetite at table caused her neigh
bors serious alarm. It was the custom to
have hot raised biscuits twice a week for
supper, and this girl, after eating six one
evening, gave her teacher and doctor a very
bad night indeed. 1t never Sc med to enter
anybody's head that hot yeast biscuit was
the food above all others to cause morbid
appetite and bilious attacks. Yet the sup
per of hot biscuit and cheese, with honey
or preserve is one of the institutions of
boarding schools, and worse fare for grow
ing girls it would be hard to find.
DOCTORS AND COLLEGE PREsIpENra
The diet of schools and students every
will not have till the skill of the physician,
cook and gastronome combine in one per-
sor. Doctors are not SO far out of the way
when they ordain for i'll nourished rich
girls the least amount of study which will
be tolerated by school authorities They
see further into life than college presidents
and do their best to make the frail outfit of
strength last into the future.
If mothers and girls waste the best of this
in excitement and dissipation it is mis-
take, but to press study upon all this drain
of nerve is cruelty. The most that can
properly be expected of such girls is to
speak the truth, spell correctly, sing and
learn little accurately OF the few studies
essential as far as they can comfortably 60
Natures instinct for selfpreservation
prompts much of the shirking which tries
the souls of high minded teachers Let
them take this encouragement to heart and
make themselves allies of nature instead of
waging perpetual war upon her. Simplify
study to the last degree, shorten tasks till
they cannot be burdensome. Then insist
on recitations being letter perfect and the
pupils able to give good explanation of
what they learn, putting it at once to some
practical test as the only infallible way of
fixing it in mind. You will get better re-
suits than with your pressure systems and
train the mind to reason and hold what it
receives, which it cannot do with your
examining.
EFFORT SHOULD NOT BE sCATrERED.
The eminent Dr. Richardson, of London,
says that three or four studies are as much
as any boy ought to pursue at once, and it
Is quite enough for girls. Why should they
no. be nervous and hysteric when everything |
in their training tends to make them so? |
These effects show in the defacement of the |
fresh beauty of childhood, in the diaphanous |
paleness of delicate girls who grow peaked |
in weeks illness; in the pasty, pale sal |
lowness which freckles easily; in the bru
1ettes, who should be blooming like the |
rose, but instead have dark rings around the |
int, neither sallow nor bilious, spotted |
If color on lip and cheek.
And these girls are to be the mothers Of
men! No wonder their progeny have weak
hearts and nervous organizations too sensi-
i've to meet the strains Of life-men who
an neither bear poverty nor failure, but
0sing their money must end everything
With pistol shot. 1t is a gu ,stion whether
here is enough of such creatures to develop
soul in any of them. Leaving the girls
o candy and their chances between con-
teachers who hardly make allow
|uCc iCI puySlCbl ueSuS anu IOuu mOLQeI9 |
yho understand neither body nor mind, the
are for US older folks merits revision. One
f the worst things that ever happened to
mar the development of this country was
he rise in price of meats which happened
n the late war, and has been kept up ever
ince.
OUR BEEF COMES TOO HIGH.
1t took stout, beef eating Englishmen to
rage Cromwells revolution, and their
qually well fed descendants to raise our
wn. At the rate our people are physically
alling off it is doubtful if they will ever raise
pirit for active protest against the most
trocious burdens again. The best food for
ealth and strength is out of reach of the
reat body of people. Two pounds of the
est steak per day is not excessive for q
aboring man in an Office or on the streets
tho labors with brain or muscles But the