The record-union., 1896-04-19


have substituted the dogmatic teaching
of the hireling for the precept and ex-
ample of the mother. So much is this
the case and so impossible is it for
growing girls, exhausted by five or six
hours of school work and private study
to make themselves acquainted with
domestic economy, that 1t seems to Sir
James essential that high schools, If
they are faithfully to prepare their pu-
pills to become efficient wives and
mothers, should add housewifery. In all
its branches, to the present curriculum.
With brains like wrung Sponges and
we'll assured that there is nothing worth
knowing beyond the attachments of the
sixth form, high school girls rarely
leave the groove in which they find
themselves. 1t will not be denied that
home-reared girls read much more
widely than do high school girls. They
browse unconfined,' to quote Mrs Gas
kell, ION the wholesome pasturage of
English literature" while high school
girls are stan-f fed on condensed primers.
But it is not about educational ad-
vantages or drawbacks of high schools
he would chiefly speak, but about the
dangers to health which lie in the sys-
tenn. He has read a paper by distin-
guished authority on educational sub
jects, DR.. Emily Bryant, in which she
argues that it is impossible to overwork
girls, their inherent Incidence and friv-
olity being proofs against any stimulus
that can be applied to them. He would
answer DR.. Bryant that it is possible to
overwork horSes-witness splints, curb,
thoroughpin and back sinew, and surely
girls are not more obdurate than horses.
MENTAL ALTERATIONS.
1t is no uncommon event to hear over
worked school girls complain of their
distracted mental condition. The aber-
rations may be slight and go no further,
but now and again they advance into
that wild coma which cores ponds with
apathetic dementia. We also have
cyclones Of mania, or anti-cyclones of
melancholia, hurricanes of morbid i'm
pulses or the settled bad weather of
moral perversion. Among the common
est nervous disturbances he would men
ton sopor, or sleep, so deep and diff
cult to break as to be almost cataleptic
in it's nature, neuralgia, chorea and
there are other ailments and diseases
fostered by over pressure, chief of which
are anaemia and general delicacy
These conditions are likely to produce
bad compilations, shortness of sight and
loss Of hair and teeth. They are fatal
to womanly beauty. A single glance
at some high schools and the complex
ion of the girls in them convinces Sir
James that they are deficient in red
corpuscles however rich they may be in
blue stockings.
The anaemia encountered in high
school girls is sometimes due to the di-
rect action Of mental tension on the
blOod-forming apparatus, but it is some
times due also to the action of that ten
sion on the digestive functions. Large
numbers of high school girls suffer from
loss of appetite. They labor under a
gastric disorder now so common that it
might receive distinctive appellation
and be called anorexia scholastica. in
which the lessened flow of energy from
the exhausted nerve centers retard the
functions of all the abdominal viscera.
The ailments of girlhood which have
been ascribed to overpressure do not
them, but are apt to plant themselves
permanently in the system they have
infested, or to blossom into something
worse. The headachy girl is not un-
likely to grow into migrainous and in
valid woman, unlikely to attract the
admiration of a rational person of the
opposite sex and unfit for the duties of
wife and mother A voluminous
mental state may develop into epilepsy.
somnambulism may lead to hysteria.
insomnia may lay the foundation of in
sanity and anaemia at the growth
period may entail lifelong debility.
WOMEN AND CONSUMPTION.
Consumption is more fatal to males
than to females under five years of age;
but then change takes place, and from
nve TO ten 1t is more fatal to females,
while from ten to fifteen it is more than
twice as fatal to females than to males.
From fifteen to twenty the disease is
still much more common among females
than males. The distribution of NOR
tality is very important when viewed
in connection with the fact that the re-
ductiOn in the disease which is hap
PLY going on has been proportionately
less of late years amongst females. The
fact that there is special proclivity to
phthisis in girls from five to twenty
years of age suggests very pointedly
that one of the evils of overpressure in
them will be the propagation of
phthisis. The nervous erethism which
is characteristic of the growth period
in girlhood obviously much increases
the liability of the sex to phthisical dis
ease, and as overpressure aggravates
that nervous erethism it must still fur
ther increase that liability. The con-
nection between states of pulmonary
tuberculosis has not yet been clearly
defined, but this much may be taken
as established that nervous depression
and exhaustion alike open wide the
door for the invasion of the tubercle
bacillus.
The indoor life Of the girls, their Sc
dentary habits and the STOPPING posture
in which'they pass much of their time
brings their lungs into a state that is
favorable to tuberculous Infection
If it were our object to secure an
abundant harvest of phthisis, we could
not better set about it than byproviding
for general overpressure in schools for
girls. Keep large number of town
bred girls in a constant state of nerv-
Gus tension, SO as to abbreviate sleep
and impair appetite, deprive them as
much as possible of fresh air; insist on
their writing and poring over books for
prolonged periods, and scatter among
them few cases of tubercular disease.
and you will inevitably, in the fulrness
of time, have a rich growth of phthisis.
SUICIDE AMONG SCHOOLGIRLS.
The special proclivity of girls to dis
ease at the period of growth may be