CLASS OF 1871.
CLASS OF 1871.
Enteredingoodhealth14""fair"5""delicate"2
Of the fourteen “good,” thirteen graduated in as good health; one in much deteriorated health.
Of the five “fair,” all left improved, as did also the “two delicate.”
CLASS OF 1872.
CLASS OF 1872.
Enteredingoodhealth18""fair"9""delicate"1
Of the eighteen “good,” all left in as good or better health.
Of the nine “fair” all improved, and the one “delicate” had ceased to make that distinction necessary; she was promoted to “fair.”
CLASS OF 1873.
CLASS OF 1873.
Enteredingoodhealth19""fair"14""delicate"12
Of the nineteen “good,” fifteen left as well as theycame. Two took the course too young, and felt the undue strain in diminished general strength. Two deteriorated in health.
Of the fourteen “fair,” five left in essentially the same condition; nine improved.
Of the twelve “delicate,” five left in the same condition; seven improved.
It is scarcely necessary to say that every year the same old battles with bad habits in dress, diet, exercise, sleep, and work, have to be fought; but the enemies are not so numerous, and the allies of health and common sense are always gaining in numbers and strength; so the prospect for ultimate and complete victory improves. Perhaps the greatest obstacle that we find to the consummation of our scheme for intellectual training, is the pressure made by students, and even more strongly by their parents, to take the work while they are too young.
Fifteen is the minimum age at which any are admitted, even for the preparatory classes; but no girl of fifteen has the poise, thesettlednessof nerve and muscle and brain to enable her to bear uninjured the immense strain that the mere living in such a great family necessitates. It is almost impossible for any one who has not tried it to understand this; and parents listen with a polite, incredulous smile, when I explain why I think it unwise for their bright young daughters to attempt here the not difficult Latin, mathematics, etc., of the preparatory years. We—the parents and I—agree perfectly that the girls can do the work easily enough, but they, the parents, can not see the difference which is so clear to my mind—as, after these eight years, it could hardly help being—the difference that it will make to the girls whether they do the work in the small classes ofthe home school, and surrounded in their leisure hours with the freedom and repose of the accustomed family, or in the large classes that are here necessary, and amid the inevitable excitements, outside the recitation room, of a constant residence in a household of five hundred.
Again and again I have seen these young students, for, of course, they enter despite my protestations—everybody wants to see the folly of everything for himself—I have seen them succumb to the unwonted nervous tax within a few weeks; others bear up for months, many get through the year and go home to spend their summer vacation in bed—“Vassar victims” all, whose ghosts haunt the clinical records of doctors from Texas to Canada, from Maine to California, and whose influence makes, so far as it is felt, against woman's chances for liberal education; for these failures are counted as natural effects of study, of mental labor which the female organization cannot endure!
I have no doubt that, for a respectable minority of these fifteen-year-old girls, life here, with its absolute regularity of hygienic regimen, is less disadvantageous than the mixture of school and “society,” in which they would be permitted to dissipate their energies at home; but that does not alter the fact that the vital needs of immaturity, physical, mental, and moral; cannot be most wholesomely met amid conditions so artificial as must obtain in a great educational establishment.
With those who enter more advanced classes at an immature age—fortunately, they are very few—the case is still worse, for, in addition to the nervous tax to which I have alluded above, they attempt woman's work witha child's strength. The result is inevitable—a stunted, unsatisfactory womanhood, the penalty for the violating of Nature's law of slow, symmetrical development, is not to be escaped.
Dr. Clarke'sSex in Educationputs this point well, and perhaps the little book may be forgiven its coarseness and bad logic, if it succeeds in awakening the consciences of parents and teachers with regard to this phase of the school question, a phase which bears with equal pertinency upon a fair chance for boys and for girls.
When women begin at eighteen or twenty the earnest business of a collegiate course, for which they have slowly and thoroughly prepared while their physical organization was maturing in happy freedom, and when they give to this higher intellectual labor the strength and enthusiasm that are at that age of all the life preëminent and most perfectly balanced, then we shall know what educated woman is, and learn her possible capacities in all that makes for the noblest humanity.
I do not undervalue what Oberlin, Antioch, Mt. Holyoke, and other schools have accomplished for woman's higher education. I would not willingly be ranked second to any in according to them the esteem and honor which their work richly merits; and among Vassar's own Alumnæ are already many who give gracious promise of what may be hoped for, nay, fulfilled, when the good seed now sowing all over this broad land shall come to glad fruition.
Meanwhile, Vassar is doing what she can to promote the health and usefulness of American women, by giving to her students the wholesome stimulus of regular, organized activity, which has for its definite aim theirpreparation for the serious duties of life—duties which trained faculties carry with steady poise, growing strong under the burden, but which press with sad and crushing weight upon unaccustomed powers.
Alida C. Avery.
Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
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Of the men graduates of Antioch, 13½ per cent have died; of the women graduates, 9¾ per cent. This of course does not include the war mortality or accidental deaths.
Three of the men are confirmed invalids. No woman graduate is such.
Of the woman graduates, three-fourths are married, and four-fifths of those were, two years ago, mothers, the families varying from one to six children. Only one-half of the remaining fourth are graduates of longer standing than 1871.
It is proposed to make out statistics which shall show the comparative health of those women and men who have been here two years and upward, as it has been suggested that possibly only the stronger could bear the strain of the whole college course, and that the weaker ones dropped out by the way. It is perfectly safe now to assert that this is not the case.
Yellow Springs, Ohio.
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February6, 1874.
Dear Miss Brackett:
I gladly comply with your request to give you such information as I possess concerning the education of young girls in Germany. What I have to say is, however, more particularly applicable to the southern portions of that country.
Girls generally attend the public school from the age of six or seven to eleven, where they occupy themselves with the more elementary branches; afterwards they are placed in a seminary or “Institut,” in which they remain until sixteen or eighteen. The German girl of that age, if not a member of the titled aristocracy, is seldom taught at home, except in music, and perhaps in drawing; private instruction being indeed too expensive even for the best families; neither is she sent to a boarding-school, if a moderately good day-school is at all accessible.
In my school days neither Latin nor Greek were taught, and only the elementary branches of science; from reliable sources I hear that the present curriculum is nearly the same. But in all schools the girls were thoroughly drilled in German, French, Rhetoric, Composition, Arithmetic, History, and in the History of Literature. English and Italian were optional. The hours extended from nine till twelve, and from two to four or five, no other intermission being allowed—which seemed often rather hard. One and frequently two hours were spent in needlework, which time was utilizedin the practice of French and English conversation with an experienced teacher. The girls prepared their lessons at home, and recited sitting. Their attendance was expected to beuninterrupted, and was usually so, even through the critical period of development, except in cases of suffering and trouble, and these were not frequent. I remember but little complaint of headache and weariness—back-ache seemed unknown. And yet these girls worked hard, many of them very hard. Some began to teach when only sixteen, or even younger, and while still pursuing their own studies. They went out generally in every weather, and at all times, month in and month out.
Now, why did they not break down? Why do we find comparatively few invalids among the educated German girls and women? Are there no other causes at work than a somewhat different climate and, occasionally, a more phlegmatic temperament; or is it because the studies of the modern languages and history, the endless practising ofétudesand sonatas, the stooping wearily over some delicate embroidery, is less taxing to the nervous system than Latin and Greek, and the working out of algebraic problems? I am not prepared to say. But grant that a small part of the solution can be found in this difference, there are yet other and deeper causes at work. One of them is that the young German girl, while at school, makes study her sole business. She goes to no parties, visits no balls. She does not waste her hours of sleep or leisure in putting numberless ruffles on her garments, so as to surpass her mother in elegance, nor does she promenade up and down the avenues and flirt with young gentlemen. Her amusements are of the simplest. A walk, or an hour spent in a public garden in her mother'scompany; occasionally a concert or an opera, which never lasts later than nine or half-past nine; some holiday afternoon, a little gathering of young school-friends, to which gentlemen are not admitted; once or twice a year, perhaps, after she is fifteen, private theatricals or asoirée; where she appears in a simple dress, dances under her mother's care, and returns home at eleven o'clock. In this way she manages her strength and husbands her forces for study.
Another cause of her better health is the great physical care taken at the critical periods of the month; although, as I have previously said, she continues her studies during these days, if without suffering; I must add, that on the other hand she abstains from all physical exercise like gymnastics or dancing-lessons, protects herself most carefully against cold and wet, sleeps perhaps a little longer in the morning, and instead of taking a walk, lies down for an hour through the day. A party or ball at such a time would be looked upon by the mother with horror, and considered by the girl herself as a great impropriety. The care of her health is at all times, of importance to German women. I have, for instance, very rarely seen them walk in bitter-cold winter weather in a so-called cloak, which left the abdomen entirely unprotected.
A third cause of the German girl's being better able to work with impunity than her American sister during the years of development, which in South Germany begin at the age of fourteen, may be found in the simpler and much more sensible way in which she is brought up while still in early childhood. A German mother does not bedeck her little daughter of four or eight years with flounces and sashes half as heavy as herself, and thenshow her off in a parlor full of admiring friends; nor send her to a children's ball, where, with a young prodigy of the other sex, she imitates her elders in flirtation. Instead of coaxing the wilful darling into obedience by the promise of candy, utterly disregardful of future dyspepsia, she brings her to reason by more efficient, if less agreeable expedients. The child is encouraged to play with her dolls, and to find pleasure in flowers and child-like amusements, as long as possible. Thus she grows up with simple tastes, although a little awkward and shy.
And, on the other hand, the mother herself finds her chief pleasure at home, and does not dream of planning amusements for each night of the week, but keeps comparatively early hours, even in the city; takes a great deal of exercise in the open air, and thus remains generally strong and healthy after her nursery is well filled.
Now I do not say that the German education comes up to the ideal. Far from it, indeed! The German girl might, with profit, go more deeply into the wonderful mysteries of science, just as her American sister is supposed to do; counterbalance her somewhat too poetical tendencies by the severer pursuit of mathematics, and find delight in the beauties of Latin and Greek authors, if such should be her sincere desire. Nor can I see any objection to the pursuit of medical, and other higher intellectual studies, by the few whose enthusiasm and natural gifts fit them for it.
All this the German woman will safely accomplish, if she retains the simplicity of her manners and tastes, a quiet, undisturbed mind during the years of early youth, the while not forgetting to preserve the priceless gift of health.
That this desirable consummation will be better and more safely reached by an adequate separate education, which can take into account woman's peculiar physical organization when necessary, rather than by co-education, no one, I think, can predict. Thus far, the idea of co-education has not penetrated the German brain, and the German woman is too shy and modest to think of downright, decided competition with man.
Whether the radical changes in education now progressing in this country, and still in the future for Germany, will yield valuable fruit, and conduce to better the condition of women, it seems to me, experiment rather than theory, must show.
I am with sincere respect, yours truly,
Mrs. Ogden N. Rood.
341 East 15th Street, N. Y.
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There has recently appeared a collection of essays on the subject of girls' education, which, for the reason that it has excited so much attention, cannot here be passed by without special notice. It is seldom that any book arouses so much criticism, and, withal, so much earnest opposition as this has provoked, and seldom do the newspapers so generously open their columns to discussions so extended on the merits and demerits of any publication. The author is a physician of high repute in the city of Boston, Dr. E. H. Clarke. With regard to the criticisms on it, the general observation may be made, that where the writer is a man, praise is more generally bestowed than in those cases where a woman is the author, though there are very marked exceptions, the bitterest criticism of a large number in my possession being written by a man. Women, from their stand-point of women, very generally unite in disagreeing with its premises, and from their stand-point as reasoning beings, they are unable to accept its conclusions, the premises being granted. And these adverse criticisms, these indignant protests, are not solely from teachers, but also from mothers, from those who have never taught, and the most candid and dispassionateone of all, from a woman in no wise connected with schools, either public or private.
But even supposing that they were all from teachers, does that fact, except under a very narrow view of human nature, render them any the less valuable? Does one profession blind the eyes more than the other? Even in the narrowest view possible to the teacher, is it not for her interest that her pupils should be healthy? How can mental work be satisfactorily done without physical vigor? If it be objected here that some teachers are interested only in present results, unmindful of future consequences, I enter a counter statement that the same is true of some physicians, and bar the line of argument which would compare the poorest teachers with the best physicians.
The profession of teaching is not thus narrow in its views; is not so led by present and temporary motives. Its members are not working for glitter and show in the few years of school life; they do not aim at showy displays at the risk of permanent injury. They work not for to-day, but for all time and for eternity. Their greatest reward is in seeing the development of mind, the correction of false habits, the strengthening grasp of thought, and the growth of character. Are they any less desirous than the physician that the delicate instrument which puts the soul in communication with the external world, and by means of which it must be developed, be in perfect tune? Do they desire any less earnestly than he, that they may assist in forming from the effervescent girl-life of America a gracious womanhood, fully able to bear any strain which active life may bring, rejoicing to become in due time true wives and real mothers? Is the future of American women any less dear to the teaching profession than tothe medical profession? Do they “care less for human suffering and human life than the success of their theories?” Are not the teachers seeking truth as well as the physicians? Are not they, to use the simile of one able critic, also attentive at their watch-towers of science and experience? A woman who has been teaching for many years, and has been all the time associated with large numbers of growing girls; who has been intimately acquainted with their habits and their health; has held their confidence, and has watched them carefully day after day, not infrequently being called on for direct medical advice as well—has had an opportunity for acquiring a fund of practical knowledge on the subject which is available to no man, even though he be physician. It were well to be just. Let the teachers have credit at least for intelligence and honesty as well as the physicians.
Does any one assert that Dr. Clarke does not blame the teachers? We answer, as we shall show more fully in another place, that any reflection on what is known in technical language as the school “system” of any country, is a reflection on the teachers of those schools. If any one doubts the power of the teachers as a body to mould the internal arrangements and details of the schools, the school records of more than one city will furnish him with cases where the teachers have forced upon the committee and the schools, measures by them judged necessary, text-books of which they approved, and their candidates for vacant places, till their power and influence will appear no longer doubtful.
The book does not ostensibly on its title-page claim to be a work on co-education, but none the less is that the subject considered from first to last. In the preface,the author remarks in an apology for plainness of speech: “The nature of the subject which the Essay discusses, the general misapprehension both of the strong and weak points of the woman question,and the ignorance displayed by many, of what the co-education of the sexes really means, all forbid that ambiguity of language or euphemism of expression should be employed in the discussion.” The italics are ours, but the words are Dr. Clarke's; and unmistakably show that the main drift of the book is to stem and if possible to turn the tide of popular conviction which is opening our colleges, new and old, to students, without regard to sex.[54]
Again, the volume is divided into five parts, as follows, to quote the table of contents:
Introductory.Chiefly Physiological.Chiefly Clinical.Co-Education.The European Way.
Part I. asserts that there is a difference between men and women; accuses woman of neglecting the proper care of her body; demands her physical development as a woman—not forgetting, however, on page 24, to call attention to co-education as a great and threatening danger.
Part II. is, as it claims to be, physiological, and presents nothing new to the student.
Part III. contains an account of seven exceptional cases of diseased action which have come under the writer's observation; a few more from another physician, and ends with this sentence:
“The preceding physiological and pathological data naturallyopen the way to a consideration of the co-education of the sexes.” The italics, as before, are ours.
Part IV. considers the subject of co-education, already prejudged.
Part V. is merely of the nature of an appendix, which attempts to show that in Europe the whole matter of woman's health is carefully watched.
If the one object of the Essays is not to stay the spread of co-education, we confess ourselves unable to discover what it is. In this effort lies its only possible unity, itsprimum mobile, its one clearly defined object from beginning to end.
The argument reduced, may be fairly stated thus: Boys are capable of sustained and regular work; girls are not so capable—therefore they cannot be educated together (provided the standard is kept up to the standard best for boys) without injuring the girls.
Admit, then, for one moment, the premises, and grant that our boys and girls are to have separate institutions of learning. Every one sees, at one moment's reflection, that it would be impracticable to take any account of the occasional necessary absences from class recitation in the general arrangements of our school, composed only of girls. The programme must be arranged, even in that case, for regular work, and each individual, must takeher own time for absence, and must make up the class-work, which, of course, must go on during her absence, as best she may. The trouble still remains, unless, carrying out Dr. Clarke's argument to its only logical conclusion, we abolish class recitations entirely, and supply each girl pupil with her own particular governess, who can accommodate each day's work to the varying capacities of her pupil and herself. I repeat, that this is the only logical result possible, if we accept Dr. Clarke's premises and conclusions. We shall find in France a country where the girls have always been educated in this way, or in convent schools. But shall we find in France a country where the proportion of births to the number of nubile women is greater than in our own? And shall we find in France a country where the general type of the race is degenerating or improving? It will be replied that other causes are at work to produce the result in France. The statement is granted; but have we then sufficient grounds for asserting justly for America, that “to a large extent the present system of educating girls is the cause of their pallor and weakness,” or that “woman's neglect of her own organization, though not the sole explanation and cause of her many weaknesses,more than any single cause, adds to their number and intensifies their power?” (The italics are again ours.)
We return to our statement, that the governess system is the only system which can result as the logical outcome of the book in question. But this, America is not likely to accept. We ask, then, it being evident that in any school the regular work must go on, though two or three be absent, what difference it would make in the practical result, whether the sixty or seventy present wereall girls, or but half of them girls and half boys? Supposing that the President of a university were told, on the entrance of a student, that he would probably be absent twenty or thirty days during the entire scholastic year, and he were asked whether it would be possible for the youth to perform satisfactorily the work of his class under those conditions, does any one doubt what his answer would be? So far on the practical side of the question.
But when it is asserted that co-education is fatal to the health of our women, more is implied than appears on the surface; for, in reality, co-education and higher education for women are almost synonymous terms. If, at this moment, the gates of all the high schools and colleges open alike to both sexes, were closed to the girls, where, except at one honored institution, could they turn to obtain a really thorough and all-sided education—such an education as a young man would be satisfied with? And who will assert that even Vassar College is to be, for a moment, compared to Harvard and Yale in respect to its facilities for acquiring a rounded education? One may strike at co-education, and, at the same time, assert that he demands for woman the highest development of which she is capable—that he is only desirous of securing to her “a fair chance;” and yet he cannot deny that he deprives her of all chance, if his effort against co-education should succeed.
As has been said, all criticisms on schools and school systems are criticisms on the teachers, for it is they who constitute and determine the school. If pupils are made to stand during recitations, it is because the teachers of the school desire it; but in a somewhat large daily observation and intimate acquaintance with public schoolsof all grades, and in different sections of the Union,[55]I have yet to see any high or normal school, or, indeed, any oldest class in a grammar school, in which the pupils stand during recitation. In the lower grades they stand or sit, as the teacher requires. I should say that in a majority of cases they will be found standing, but, at the same time, it should be borne in mind that in the lower grades the recitations are much shorter, as a general rule not exceeding ten or fifteen minutes. In the older grades the pupil is almost universally expected to rise to answer his question, and sit as soon as it is answered. Leaving out the point of formal courtesy to the teacher—a matter not to be lightly treated in its far results on character—it is assumed, even in a physiological point of view, that the momentary change of position is better for bodies not yet matured than the constant sitting posture.
I would not for one moment be understood as asserting that much unreasonable work is not demanded of the pupils in the public schools of the country, or as defending the often excessive and unseasonable work. I most emphatically record my protest against the custom of public exhibitions, and the unnatural excitement which is oftentimes kept up to stimulate the susceptible thought-machine of the child and youth into abnormal activity.But these evils are not inseparable from mixed schools, nor do they belong exclusively to them. I have now in mind a school of girls, directed by women exclusively, where the girls have been for many days obliged to answer in writing in ninety minutes, twenty difficult questions, as an examination, three girls being allowed only one copy of questions between them, and their promotion to another class being dependent upon their success. Two or three of these examinations are being given in one session of five hours. But if the girls go home from that school-work every day with cold hands and feet, and a headache that keeps them on the sofa all the afternoon, it is not because they are doing regular work, nor are schools or systems in general to blame; the only persons to blame are the individual teachers who plan and carry out the barbarous and savage torture, and the parents, who take so little notice of what is going on, that they permit their daughters to continue such work. It is not the legitimate brain-work, but the nervous excitement, that breaks and kills. It is not work but worry that tires.
However, any words which lead to earnest discussion on the educational question are welcomed by all true educators, for Truth, which is the end and aim of their search, will never suffer in the conflict.
But, were the “old times” so much better than the present? In making the statement that they were, we are always apt to be misled by omitting two considerations of no light weight. The first is, that we draw our information and statistics now from a vastly wider area than in the “good old times,” and hence that our figures relating to crime and disease always appear disproportionately large. The railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the printing-press—effects and causes ofadvancing civilization—have practically enlarged our mental horizon, and death, disease, and crime appear in unnaturally large proportions. And yet, if it be true that among the first Anglo-Saxon generation born and reared on this side the Atlantic, it was common for the men to have often, two, three, and four wives, it seems that the causes of disease and death among the women were not inactive even then.
The second consideration referred to is this: As medical instruments multiply, diseases appear to multiply in exact proportion. With the advent of the ophthalmoscope, for instance, how innumerable and complicated appear the diseases of the eye. Are we justified in concluding, then, that in the “good old times” of our great-grandmothers—that idyllic time when women must have been at least free from the reproach that they, solely and unaided, were destroying the hopes of the race—that myopic, hypermetropic and astigmatic eyes were not in existence? Such a conclusion would be manifestly unfair. It seems impossible, in this view, to make any fair comparison of the health of women in the present, and in the past; that is, any comparison which will be sufficiently accurate for scientific purposes.
It were better, if we must have an idyllic realm somewhere, to posit it rather in the future than in the past, and to work with all the light we are able to secure towards its attainment. This working may, however, be done in two ways as regards education: we may state, first, and I think without fear of contradiction, that there is too much sickness among American women. We may then patiently and fully investigate all the habits of those women, and if we come to the conclusion that co-education or that over-study in amount or in manner isthe chief cause, we shall all give it up. We shall then seek and find some better way of securing for our girls an opportunity for the full development of every part of their organization, venturing, however, to add 'brain' to Dr. Clarke's list of “muscle, ovary, stomach, and nerve.”[56]
Secondly, we may assume in the first place the general statement that co-education is not desirable—is objectionable—that it must inevitably cause sickness if girls study regularly every day; and conclude that regular study is the chief cause of sickness among them.
And yet God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain at last, so that the man who runs may read, that he is no such bungler in his workmanship as to fashion the organism of a woman without giving her at the same time the corresponding strength. We have too much belief in him to believe that the power given to us is in such niggardly measure for our needs; that, in order to carry out perfectly the work of the organs most peculiarly our own, the regular action of the brain must be suspended. Not so. He who fits the shoulder to the burden; who, in planning the complex organism, not only made possible greatly increased size and strength whenever they should be needed, but even took thought also to provide for the return of the blood through capillary and vein from the artery which has been severed by the surgeon's knife, is not so forgetful of ends and means. If extra work is to be done by the organism of the woman, extra strength in exact proportion to the extra effort has been provided,
“Where there is power to doThat which is willed.”
“Where there is power to doThat which is willed.”
To God, the brain of a woman is as precious as the ovary and uterus, and as he did not make it impossible for her to think clearly when the uterus is in a congested state, so, reasoning analogically from the knowledge we have of him, no more did he design that the uterus should not be capable of healthy and normal action while the brain is occupied with a regular amount of exercise. Such is our creed.
We are more sure of Truth by the so-called deductive than by the so-called inductive ladder, and it was not without meaning that she was represented as dwelling at the bottom of a well, for she is more surely reached by descending to her abode from the so-called abstract, than by climbing with our feet on the slippery concrete. Nay, even though physical science still insists in words on holding on to 'facts' and the testimony of the senses, forgetful that any fact is after all only a “relative synthesis,” we find it in its latest researches rapidly approaching at both ends, things entirely out of the region of the senses; for, beginning with invisible and intangible atoms, which we are required to take on faith, and which are assuredly very abstract, we find it passing to the correlation of forces and modes of motion, which certainly are as abstract as atoms.
Shall we not be quite as safe then in attempting to solve the problem of “woman's sphere, by applying to it abstract principles of right and wrong,” as by seeking for it alone “in Physiology?” Woman is not merely a “cradle” and a grave, as she is assumed to be in the essay under consideration, and all attempts to settle the question of her sphere by considering her as such, are usually, and perhaps not unnaturally, found to excite indignation.
To apply the above statement: the women who are urging to-day the question of education are often accused of presenting education in the light of a quack medicine which is warranted to cure all troubles. And it is true that we do so present it, for the broader grows our experience of men and women, and the more deeply and widely we think, the more inevitably do we find this problem of education appearing before us, in whatever direction we turn. It is like the ducal palace in Carlsruhe, to which all the main streets of the city converge, and which meets one's eyes at every corner.
The question of woman's Dress, for instance, is never to be solved by approaching it from the outside. Earnest and vigorous writers may tell women what they ought to do, and we all know perfectly well that if the skirts of our dresses ended at the tops of our boots, and we were warmly clad beneath in the full trousers proposed years ago by Mrs. Bloomer, we could take much more exercise without fatigue, and should be saved much time and much annoyance. Who but a woman can appreciate the trouble of always being obliged to use one hand in carrying her skirts up long flights of stairs? Who but a woman knows the inconvenience of her long skirts in entering or leaving a carriage, or in a strong wind? Who but a woman knows that it is utterly impossible to take even a short walk on a rainy day, however well protected, without bringing into the house an amount of wet clothing which necessitates almost an entire change? And yet there is not the slightest chance of securing the physiologically needed reform by demonstrating these facts, simply because, below all this question of dress, there lies a deeper thing, of which dress is only the index—the question of Sex, and the relations resulting from it.
For whose admiration and attraction do our young women array themselves? To please whom do they leave off their flannels and attend evening entertainments in low-necked dresses, sweep the pavements with their ornately trimmed skirts, and wear thin boots which shall display to better advantage the well-turned foot? I desire not to have it understood for one moment that I am speaking lightly, or in terms of sweeping condemnation, of the underlying consciousness, of which the external dress is only an outward sign. The underlying impulse is an inevitable, is a true, pure, and womanly one; on it are based all institutions of civilization, for from it spring marriage, the Family, Society, and the State, and an evil tree cannot bring forth such fruit. It may, however, be over-stimulated, and the extravagancies of dress and manner which Broadway and Fifth Avenue, the opera, or any fashionable assembly of young people display in America, are universally and justly condemned by sober thought as falling only a few grades behind actual immodesty.
But if we would produce any reform of any consequence on the subject of external dress, we must do it, not by attacking the dress at all; it will never be accomplished in this way. So long as it is considered that woman's chief and only duty, the only object of her creation, in fact, is to minister to the comfort and happiness of man; so long as it is represented to her that she fulfills the ends of her being, only in the fact that she does this; so long as it is not fully and freely allowed that a woman owns herself, body and soul, in the same sense as that in which a man owns himself—just so much and no more—women will dress to please the taste of men, and will vie with each other to excite their attention, and secure their admiration. Teach a girl that her only destiny is to be only any kind of a wife and a mother, to preserve the race physically strong—keep this idea before her daily, and the more thoroughly she is convinced of it, the more conscientiously will she spend all her thought in seeking and using the only means which are then likely to help her to fulfill her so stated destiny.
But make her feel that she is a responsible being, accountable only to God and her own rational judgment for her actions; make her appreciate, as far as it is possible, the responsibility devolving upon her as an individual, as a member of society, as a citizen, as a reflection of the Creator in his self-determining Intelligence; give her such a mental training that she shall feel that she is capable of taking her life in her own hand, and the dress will take care of itself. I do not mean that she will adopt the so-called Bloomer costume, but she will let common sense, suitability, and a higher sense of beauty, more than at present, regulate her garments.
In other words, if we would reform even so external a matter as dress, we must ascend to the abstract principles of ethics and metaphysics which Dr. Clarke so lightly sets on one side; for all dress is only an index of education, and all education, to be education at all, must deduce every one of its principles at second hand from ethics and metaphysics. Again, Huxley and Agassiz may, as Dr. Clarke assumes (page 12), represent physiology; but will “Kant and Calvin, the Church and the Pope” all four of whom Dr. Clarke assumes to be of no importance in settling the question—fairly represent ethics and metaphysics? And yet, if we were limited to these sources for these sciences of sciences, perhaps we might as well return to Huxley and Agassiz, and allow physiology to settle the question of woman'ssphere for us, on the ground that she is merely so many material organs carefully contrived for only one special purpose, and that, the perpetuation of the race.
Just here, before reviewers shall have an opportunity for misinterpretation, may I pause to guard them against it and to call their especial attention to the word “only,” which has been so freely used above?
Why is it that the criticisms of so many women who see below the surface, ring with a womanly indignation? They are ready for rational argument, and for widely collected and digested statistics. One of these justly says in her criticism, that Dr. Clarke need not to have written to Germany to be informed of the care which a mother should exercise over the health of her daughter. That there are mothers in America who do not take this care, who are so occupied with other thoughts that they have no time to attend to their children, we sadly know; but some at least of us have had mothers who knew and did their duty, and who handed down to us, unimpaired the “traditions” which are well-known among women, but of which men generally, even fathers of grown-up daughters, have little knowledge, and some of them none.
With regard to “the European way,” however, I subjoin the following testimony from a German lady, now a mother, in answer to inquiries. She says:
“I was two years at school at Stuttgart, as a boarding pupil, at the close of which I made my examination in the highest class, No. 8, as it was called. When I entered the school, there were twenty boarding pupils; when I left, there were twenty-five; more than thirty were never admitted. Day-scholars were about four hundred. As to the regulations of the school concerning the pupilsduring the time to which you refer,there was only one general rule, that of being excused from the daily walk which we took from one to two hours every day. Only two pupils during my stay at school were excused from being present in their classes at that time, and this only because the physician had so ordered it. They were not kept in bed, but in the so-called sick-room, where they could read, write, etc., and must only keep very quiet.”
This testimony, as showing the regulations in one of the largest girls' schools in Germany, seems to me valuable, as the course pursued by any large school is the index of the public demand. As to the health of English women, I copy the following paragraph from a recently published book by an English woman,[57]which would seem to indicate that women, at least in England, are not so much superior to their American sisters:
“Women above actual want seldom suffer from extreme labor or from excessive indulgence, but they seldom enjoy their full vitality, either in exertion or in pleasure. Whether from this reason or not, their most frequent illnesses are those connected with deficient vitality, such as can keep them in lingering misery for years; affecting chiefly those organs whose activity is not immediately necessary to life. Not half the illness of this kind is under the care of a doctor. When he is consulted, it is, if possible, at second-hand, and he is very likely to hear only half the symptoms. * * * It is natural to point to the multitude of women under constant medical care, and the number of doctors whose practice lies chiefly among female patients. But if those could be countedwho are endeavoring to cure themselves by traditional remedies, by quack medicines, by advice at second-hand, by the use of means that have been recommended by some doctor to some other woman, they would outnumber the former ten-fold. And it must be remembered, that most of the first class belong also to the second, as often as they dare.”
This testimony as to the health of English women, as coming from a woman, is of course doubly valuable; and it comes, too, as a mere digression in the article from which it is quoted, the subject of which is “Feminine Knowledge.” It remains yet to be proved, it seems to us, that American women are, as a whole, suffering from more derangement of their peculiar functions than women of other countries. Do accurately compiled statistics from full and trustworthy sources, warrant us in asserting that American women are more unhealthy than European women, or are we only assuming the fact from their general external appearance—a criterion by no means a certain one? In the old story, the pail of water containing the living fish was, after all the discussion, found to weigh about as much as the pail with the dead one. Are we sure of our facts?
Or even if we are sure of these, even supposing that a mother of a large family here is not as strong as a mother of a large family in Germany for instance, we are in no wise warranted in concluding that the two were not as strong before marriage. The wear and tear of American life must be taken into consideration, and no one but an American housekeeper who has ever “kept house” on the other side of the water, can appreciate the immense relief from care and trouble which she has there experienced, and the dread with which she againreturns to the care of a house and the dealings with servants in America. It is not work, and not weakness, but annoyance and worry, that tire and drive women into nervous diseases. When we find the American and German mothers subjected to the same strain, and only the same strain, may we fairly judge of their comparative strength and health, and only then. Where are the statistics concerning German women resident in this country? There is a vast field of inquiry open on this subject yet; in fact, a “South-sea of discovery,” and till we are sure of our facts, it were well that we were cautious in our conclusions.
The times are gone by when the clergyman uttered the authoritative words of superior knowledge to an ignorant and unquestioning audience. Every clergyman preaches now to a congregation of critics, many of whom are his equals, sometimes his superiors, in general information, and who sit in judgment, more or less adequate, on the statements he may make. In the same manner, the days are past when the physician was the only one who understood anything of the structure and functions of the body, and whose prescriptions were written in an unknown tongue. It is undeniable that the majority, perhaps, of both men and women, are deplorably ignorant of their structure, and the operations of the delicate and exquisite machinery which they bear about with them; but there is also a large number who are not so ignorant, and who trace, with the genuine scientific interest, the phenomena of health and disease. The general diffusion of printed matter is rapidly diffusing knowledge in the department of medicine, as well as in that of theology. The elements of anatomy, physiology, and hygiene, are taught in all our high schools andacademies, and it is no uncommon sight to see a class of girls handling the bones of a human skeleton, or, unmindful of stained fingers, searching for the semi-lunar valves in an ox's heart, with as much delight and intelligent interest as that with which they examine the parts of a watch or the machinery of a locomotive; while they can sketch on the black-board, in a few minutes, the form and relative location of all the important organs of the body, and follow the course of the blood from left auricle back to left auricle again, and that of the food, from the teeth to the descendingvena cava. And with this basis for study already laid in school, as a part of the common education of a woman, the latest researches and discoveries of the wisest men and women are open to her as well as they are to the physician, and the census reports are at her hand; while, moreover, her knowledge of Latin and chemistry makes plain to her the nature of the remedies proposed in the prescription which she gives to the apothecary.
As a result of our American schools, we have such women now by the hundreds—I am not speaking of those belonging to the medical profession—and does not this question belong to them? As far as the records of experience go they are ready, nay, anxious to receive them, but they ask that these statistics shall be full in some particulars, where they always find them deficient.
This girl is sick? We do not want to know simply that she attended school, and studied and recited regularly; we want to know also the kind of food she eats, and how cooked, and the regularity of her meals. We want to know the state of ventilation in the school-room and her home; we want to know how many hours of sleep she has, how many parties she has attended, whatunderclothing she wears, the manner in which that underclothing is arranged, the weight of her ruffled and double box-plaited dress skirt, and its mode of support, the thickness of the shoes habitually worn, the position of the furnace register in the room, the kind of reading she is allowed to have, and her standing in her class as to thoroughness or superficiality, mental clearness or chaos.
We want also to know what proportion of the cases come from pampered, half-educated devotees of fashion, and what proportion from well-educated, hard-working women. When we have all these statistics, and not till then, shall we be in a condition to attempt a rational solution of the question, what it is that makes our American girls sick. While endeavoring to settle this problem, we shall not, however, forget the wise saying of Dr. O. W. Holmes, that the Anglo-Saxon race is not yet fully acclimated on this continent.
But the collection of just these statistics, so all-important, and the want of which makes all assertion of causes useless, is possible only to women. And, therefore, we venture to claim that this is a woman's question—that the women themselves are the only persons capable of dealing with it.[58]They are the only oneswho can and do know the facts in detail, and the facts being laid before them, can they not, with help, possibly decide quite intelligently as to causes? They desire any and all evidence that may be given, but do not they themselves constitute the only jurors competent to decide on the verdict? From the medical profession, we get a certain amount of observed statistics, necessarily questionable from the fact that a large number of women are not sick, are not good for nothing, are not childless, and, therefore, do not consult physicians; but the reasoning which shall judge and weigh the facts presented, assigning to each its proper value, and, discarding unessential elements, shall draw a just conclusion, is not limited to any profession.[59]
As has been before stated, out of the large number of criticisms which I have at hand, the men, generally, and seemingly without appreciation of its logical results, approve of what Dr. Clarke has said; the women of largest experience condemn, denying his premises, disproving his clinical evidence by adding other facts, and protesting against his conclusions.
The criticisms and the criticisms on criticisms would make already quite a volume, from which perhaps the principal lesson learned would be the correctness of Talleyrand's idea of the use of language, as many of them consist chiefly in the assertion that statements of the book which appeared perfectly clear to one mind as having a certain meaning, had in reality not that meaning at all; and the criticisms on adverse criticisms are apt to assert that Dr. Clarke has been accused of dishonesty by the previous critic, when the author is quite sure that no such accusation was expressed or intended. Most of the points made in the criticisms have been emphasized here.
The importance of the subject justifies the interest excited, and the final effect must be good. One result is marked; from all sections of the country, women heretofore knowing each other only by reputation, or not at all, are being bound together by a common interest in a sense never before known, and unknown girls in Western colleges are begging of women to plead for them that they be not deprived of their places. The result neednot be feared. The irresistible force of the world movement cannot be permanently checked. “The stars in their courses fought against Sisera,” and we would answer the girls with the words of Santa Theresa: