The Education of American Girls Part 22

III. Chiefly Clinical.

IV. Co-Education.

V. The European Way.

Part I. a.s.serts 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 naturally _open the way to a consideration of the co-education of the s.e.xes._" 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, its _primum 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 inst.i.tutions 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 cla.s.s 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 take her own time for absence, and must make up the cla.s.s-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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.serting 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 were all 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.serted 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 s.e.xes, were closed to the girls, where, except at one honored inst.i.tution, 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 a.s.sert that even Va.s.sar 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, a.s.sert 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 const.i.tute 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 schools of all grades, and in different sections of the Union,[55] I have yet to see any high or normal school, or, indeed, any oldest cla.s.s 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 a.s.sumed, 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 a.s.serting 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 cla.s.s 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 of advancing 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 is the 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 a.s.sume 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 G.o.d 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 workmans.h.i.+p as to fas.h.i.+on 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 n.i.g.g.ardly 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 do That which is willed."

To G.o.d, 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 a.n.a.logically 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 a.s.suredly very abstract, we find it pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sumed 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 s.e.x, 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 inst.i.tutions 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 fas.h.i.+onable a.s.sembly 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 G.o.d 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 Aga.s.siz may, as Dr. Clarke a.s.sumes (page 12), represent physiology; but will "Kant and Calvin, the Church and the Pope" all four of whom Dr. Clarke a.s.sumes 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 Aga.s.siz, and allow physiology to settle the question of woman's sphere 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 cla.s.s, 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 pupils during 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 cla.s.ses 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 mult.i.tude of women under constant medical care, and the number of doctors whose practice lies chiefly among female patients. But if those could be counted who 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.serting that American women are more unhealthy than European women, or are we only a.s.suming 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 again returns 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 and academies, and it is no uncommon sight to see a cla.s.s 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 descending _vena 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, what underclothing 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 cla.s.s 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 a.s.sertion 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 ones who 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 const.i.tute 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, a.s.signing 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 princ.i.p.al lesson learned would be the correctness of Talleyrand's idea of the use of language, as many of them consist chiefly in the a.s.sertion 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 a.s.sert 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 need not 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: