The Education of American Girls Part 8

We are often told that the health of women now is not as good as it was generations ago, and this has been repeated and repeated until everybody believes it.

A long time ago, I was walking through Broad street in company with John Collins Warren, when I alluded hastily to a severe attack of croup from which my little boy was suffering, and said, impatiently, that it seemed as if all my care might secure for him as happy a babyhood as that of the little things whose frozen heels were at that moment hitting the curbstone.

"You do not ask how many of these children die," replied my friend, "and if your boy had been born down here, he would not have lived six months." We are apt to ignore the large cla.s.s of existing facts of this same kind.

Civilization has done so much for human health that the invalids who once died, survive; nay, they do more, they marry, and bring into the world other invalids, who need special care; and, whereas, in the old time, out of a family of twelve, five or six would die in infancy with a persistency worthy of a better cause, the whole twelve would be saved by modern science; and not only that, but enter into the statistics which are intended to show how much worse off we are now than the typical men and women of the past.

A few years ago I watched beside the death-bed of a woman who was the only child of an only child of an only child. I mean that for three generations the mother had died of consumption after the birth of her first-born, and in the first instance was herself the sole survivor of a large family. When my friend was born, it was said at first that she could not live, but her father was a physician, and his care in the first place, and removal from a country to a city life in the second, conquered fate.

She did live, she married, and became the mother of ten healthy children, all of whom survive, and died herself at the ripe age of seventy-three.

It is difficult to write upon this subject, because there are no proper statistics. During the seventy-five years that succeeded the settlement of New England, the record of deaths was very imperfectly kept in many places, but no one who gives much time to genealogical research can fail to be impressed with the short lives of the women, and the large number of children who died at birth or soon after.

In those days, the "survival of the fittest" was the rule, and if that survivor happened to live to a good old age, no one inquired about those who did not.

I allude to these facts, as I have done before, not because I think them of much importance, but because it is desirable to set them against the equally undigested facts of general invalidism which have been so persistently pressed of late.

I do not believe in this general invalidism, so far as it concerns women especially. I believe that in no country, in any age, was life ever so reckless, and so carelessly dissipated as it is in America to-day. In Sybaris itself, in Corinth, and in Paris, only a few wealthy people could indulge in the irregular lives which the unexampled prosperity of this country opens to the great bulk of the population.

I am amazed when I see it stated that "length of time cannot transform the st.u.r.dy German fraulein into the fragile American girl." The influence of climate does this in one generation for our Irish and German population. Standing in the mills at Lawrence, the pale faces and constant cough of the operatives will attest these words to any competent observer. During the past three years I have parted with three satisfactory Irish servants, who were in the incipient stages of consumption. I dismissed them because no influence of mine could persuade them to retire early, wear waterproof shoes, or thick and warm clothing.

In a singular preface to the fifth edition of a work which has lately occupied the public mind the author says:

"When a remission or intermission is necessary, the parent must decide what part of education shall be remitted or omitted, the walk, the ball, the school, or all of these."--"No one can doubt which will interfere most with Nature's laws, four hours' dancing or four hours'

studying."--"In these pages the relation of s.e.x to mature life is not discussed."

It is necessary to state at the outset, that this preface does not in the least represent the book as it naturally strikes the reader. Women may read carelessly, as they have been accused of doing in this instance, but when hundreds of women, writing from all parts of the country, in private and in public, and without concert with each other, all testify to the same impression received, it is impossible that the carelessness of numbers should always feel the same bias.

It is quite certain that four hours of dancing is far more injurious to a delicate girl than four hours of steady study: why, then, in considering the education of girls, does the author steadily avoid all cases where dancing, late hours, and bad food, have been known to interfere with health?

What satisfaction can any girl find in the fact, that the period of mature life is not covered by the statements in this volume? The period of a working life is included in the years between fourteen and nineteen, and as matters now are, society life is nearly ended at twenty. If the beginning of brain-work were deferred till a girl were jaded with dissipation, how much could be accomplished in season for self-support? Schools vary in varying localities, and since women are hereafter to be elected on every school committee, it is reasonable to suppose that unwise pressure from that source will soon cease.

All figures of speech are misleading, but it is quite fair to meet the statement that we must not train oaks and anemones in the same way, by retorting that that is precisely what G.o.d does.

He gives to different plants different powers of appropriation, sets them in precisely the same circ.u.mstances, and leaves them.

The st.u.r.dy oak, that centuries of storm have beaten into firmness, which fits it to encounter the fiercest blows of the wave; the stately pine, which is to tower as main-mast when the gale is at its height, stand serried or single on the mountain's peak. At their feet nestles the wind-flower, quite as confident of its destiny, although no sun is moderated, no shower abated for its tender sake. It is protected by the very way in which it is made, by its very loneliness, pregnant as that is with the charm of sweetness and color. So might it be with woman!

Private schools in our large cities cannot be said to overwork their pupils. Fifty years ago, when my mother was educated, far more was required of girls at school than was ever possible in my day. Thirty years ago, when my school education ended, far more was possible to me than has ever been required of my daughter. It is the uniform testimony of teachers, that girls now study less, that the hours of recitation are fewer, and that dilatoriness and absences are far more frequently excused than was once the case.

At the most fas.h.i.+onable, and also the best conducted school in Boston fifty years ago, my mother was allowed no study time in school, and committed thirty pages of history as a daily lesson. For myself, at a time when we were pursuing languages and the higher mathematics, we took a whole canto of Dante three times a week, and were required to give an explanation of every historical allusion. I had no study time in school; but neither my mother, nor myself, nor any girls in my cla.s.s, were in the least injured by anything required of us. During the whole of our school life, we "thought and understood" as children, and very reluctant we were to "put away childish things." We rose for a bath and walk before a seven o'clock breakfast, nine o'clock found us at school, and we returned to a two o'clock dinner. In the afternoon we walked, or rode on horseback, or studied together for an hour. We took tea at six or half past six o'clock, and the curfew ringing at nine found us preparing for bed. We had no time for unsuitable reading, and none of the cares or dissipations of maidenhood perplexed our straight forward way.

If we could secure this simplicity for our children, we should have small reason to be anxious about their health.

What, then, are the drawbacks to a teacher's efforts to-day? If girls are not studying too hard and too much, what are they doing which stands in the way of a true education, taking the word in the broadest sense?

The teacher's first obstacle lies in the superficial character of the American mind. We have scarcely one in the country capable of being a hard student. The whole nation repels the idea of drudgery of any sort, and the most conscientious teacher has to contend against a home influence, which, working at right angles with her own, hardly allows any n.o.ble effort.

Next to this is inherited tendency: from fathers fevered with restless mercantile speculation, or tossed between "bulls and bears" in Wall street, or who allow themselves to indulge in practices which their daughters are supposed never to know, girls inherit an "abnormal development of the nervous system," and every fibre in their bodies feels the "twist in the nerves."

From mothers of large families, overworn with house-work themselves, or, still worse, fretted by the impossibility of keeping a home comfortable, aided only by unwilling and half-trained servants, girls inherit a depressed and morbid tendency to call life "hard."

The spirit of the age is also against them. They do not have the help which comes from a trusting religious spirit. The "Conflict of the Ages"

has penetrated to the heart of almost every household, and care is too seldom taken to save that love of G.o.d and trust in his Fatherly care, upon which the comfort and happiness of the young so much depend. It seems to me that very few parents realize this. If a girl has a loving mother, it is not enough. She needs, still farther, the consciousness of that sustaining Power which holds both her and the universe in its embrace. If she has not a loving mother, how can she endure life without this support?

But let us suppose that the teacher has met and vanquished these difficulties--she has enemies still at hand that our ancestors never knew. The girls whom she teaches live in high houses, piled storey upon storey, so that three or four flights of stairs come between them and the open air--between them and healthful play. The crowd of people who go annually to Europe, and bring home its follies instead of its charms, have succeeded in changing our simple midday meal into a dinner of many courses, eaten under the gaslight. At this meal the young girl finds food very different from the roast mutton, and bread and b.u.t.ter eaten daily by her English sister at the same age. She has tea and coffee at other meals, and probably a gla.s.s of wine at this, especially if she is thought to be studying hard. In the afternoon, she has no longer simple, happy life in the open air. Although her ear be so deficient that she may hammer all the afternoon over an exercise that she will not recognize when she hears it well played at a concert the same evening, she is kept at her instrument as if all her salvation of body and soul lay in the keys of the piano.

The irritability which bad habits, bad food, and the want of fresh air develop, needs the counterpoise of a fresh excitement--so a German, the opera, or a tragedy, occupies her evening hours. Three or four days in the week, at least, she is up till midnight, and rises just in time to get to school at nine. She never stands in the cool evening air to see the red sun sink below the hills; she misses the holy calm of the early morning, which falls upon a flushed and heated life as its dews fall on the flowers. Dissipation, either mental or physical, crowds every cranny of her life. Parents object to every lesson out of school, so the whole period of preparation and recitation is pressed into the school-hours.

Her dress is wholly unsuited to health; and when I say this, I wish to be understood as saying nothing in favor of bloomers or any other special dress. An intelligent woman can decide for herself and her children as to what need of change there is in her dress; and many of us have worn for half a century clothes that were loose, well adjusted, and healthful, without drawing attention to any peculiarity. Nor must there be any tyrannical dictation on this subject. Some of us prefer to rest our clothes upon our shoulders; some of us are only comfortable when they depend upon the hips. It cannot be denied that the heavily-weighted skirts now in vogue are uncleanly and unwholesome, even when worn short; and while school-girls elaborate, friz, powder, and puff their hair like their elders, and trim their dresses to such excess, it will be impossible for them to find time for consecutive study. Every separate curl, lace, or fold, becomes a separate cause of worry; and "worry" lies at the bottom of American degeneracy, male and female.

Every heart in this country came to a sudden pause the other day, when the name of Aga.s.siz was moaned out by the funeral-bells of Cambridge.

Who ever worked harder than he? "Without haste, yet without rest," his summer's recreation became the hardest work of the world; but in his life an ever-flowing cheerfulness, and a genial welcome for any honest soul, showed the healthfulness of his busy walk. If anything shortened his three-score and ten years, it was the care and anxiety which insufficient appropriation and political indifference or chicanery crowded into his later life.

The scholar, young or old, must keep a calm and well-poised mind. Let our mothers consider whether this is possible to children upon whom the follies of mature life are crowded in infancy.

If in idle moments the children of this generation take up a book, it is no longer a simple Bible story, or a calm cla.s.sic of the English tongue, but the novels of Miss Braddon, Mrs. Southworth, or Mrs. Wood wake them into a premature life of the imagination and the senses. Before they are six years old they hold weddings for their dolls, enact love scenes in their tableaux, or go to theatrical exhibitions as stimulating as the "Black Crook," if less offensive to the taste. The skating parties and gymnastics are also fruitful sources of ill-health. The girl prepares herself for the former by inflating and over-heating her skirts over the register in the hall-floor; a few minutes' exercise chills the hot drapery--what wonder that a morbid bodily sensitiveness follows the insane exposure? No thoughtful person can watch a cla.s.s of gymnasts, without seeing how extreme and unnatural are many of the att.i.tudes a.s.sumed, especially for women. What would be thought of making bread or sweeping floors, if these compelled such att.i.tudes, or brought about such fatigue?

The sleep of these exhausted pupils is often broken, by what has been wittily called a "panorama on the brain," in which the worries, excitements, dissipations of the day, are incessantly repeated, and they rise late, more wearied than they went to bed.

In spite of eminent authority to the contrary, mothers observe that it is their sons who require the largest allowance of sleep, and who keep the morning meal waiting; but if the growing girl cannot sleep, she should be compelled to lie in bed the proper number of hours, and it is obvious, that sleep like that I have described is no refreshment, and furnishes no opportunity for repair of tissue.

"I want to borrow a book, doctor," said a patient the other day to a famous specialist. "Any book upon my shelves, madam," was the reply, "except those which concern the diseases of women," and the lady turned disappointed away.

It behooves all those who have the care of children of both s.e.xes, to bear their possible futures silently in mind; but all talk to them, or before them, all reading upon physiological subjects, during the period of development, should be forbidden, for the reasons that dictated the answer of the specialist; children should be instructed long before the developing period. I cannot tell what might be possible if we had to deal with girls in a normal state of health; but the girls and women of to-day are encouraged to a morbid consciousness of s.e.x; and I believe, that all that relates to personal care should be ordered by those who are the natural guardians of the young, without unnecessary explanation or caution. When development begins, special treatment is required; not according to the s.e.x so much as according to the individual; and no parent or teacher can dictate to another on general grounds. That school or family is an absolute failure which does not allow a margin large enough and loose enough for all possible contingencies, as regards boys or girls.

If any one thinks the picture of youthful life which I have drawn an exaggerated one, let him read the books commonly published, descriptive of child-life, and once convinced, he will not wonder that the "number of invalid girls is such as to excite the gravest alarm." From all the cares imposed by dress, and from much of the weakness deduced from furnaces and high-storeyed houses, boys are exempted by their habits and general custom. If it is thought by any one that the boys of to-day are stronger than the girls, let them be subjected to the same regimen, and the result fairly reported. Let their steps be clogged by skirts, embroidered or plaited into death warrants; let them be kept at the piano or running up and down stairs when they should be in bed or at play; let them read sentimental novels or worse, and hang over the furnaces, instead of frolicking in the open air. We shall understand better, when this experiment is once tried, that G.o.d makes boy and girl alike healthy; but that social folly has, from the very first, set the girl at a disadvantage.

Do sisters "imitate brothers in persistent work everywhere?" Nay, it is not the brothers whom they imitate, but their own steadfast, G.o.d-implanted instincts, which they thus attempt to work out. Girls cannot do two things well at a time. Then let them resign the life of fas.h.i.+on, excitement and folly, and give themselves to study, fresh air and an obedient life in a well-disciplined home. Every teacher of to-day will tell them, that those girls who go most regularly to school are healthier than those who lead desultory lives, and that among the students of any one school or college, the healthiest are generally those who work the hardest.

This is as true of boys as of girls. It is not the "honor man" who breaks down at college, but he who leads an irregular and idle life. It is true, for the very simple reason, that hard study is incompatible for any length of time, or in other than very exceptional cases, with luxurious habits, over-eating or drinking, late hours, or excessive dissipation.

In this recent work it has been stated, that all schools are adjusted to meet the requirements of men; and in quoting a case which was wholly imaginary, so far as its supposed connection with Va.s.sar College was concerned, the author goes on to say:

"The pupil's account of her regimen there, was so nearly that of a boy's regimen, that it would puzzle a physiologist to determine from that alone, whether the subject of it were male or female." Of course, these words are intended to express disapprobation, and carry a doubt as to the fitness of Va.s.sar College to educate girls. Nothing could be more unjust or preposterous than the conclusions likely to be deduced from this statement.

We are told that from fourteen to nineteen, no girl must be encouraged to persistent effort in study, or anything else. Now, the laws of life are absolute, and if proper habits of study have not been formed by the age of nineteen, they never can be formed in this life; the girl who gives only an intermittent attention to study up to her twentieth year, is prevented by all the influences about her from "intermitting" the press of her social duties, so I will not deny that it was the happiest surprise of my life when the first four years of Va.s.sar College showed me that there were still hundreds of girls willing to come to Poughkeepsie, after they were eighteen years old, and shut themselves out of the world for four years, abandoning gayeties of all sorts, the German, the opera, and the parade, that they might fit themselves for the duties of their future life.

The debt of this country to Matthew Va.s.sar's memory can hardly be exaggerated. In eight years of steady work, the college has contrived to exert an influence that is felt in all parts of the United States and of Canada. This is an educational influence in the broadest sense; it pertains to dress, habits, manners, regularity of life, and sleep; the proper preparation and serving of food, physical exercise, physiological care, safe and healthful study, and the highest womanly standards in all respects.

The college has received delicate pupils, whom she has sent out four years after, strong and well; and it is the rule, that the health of the cla.s.ses steadily improves from the Freshman to the Senior year.

Va.s.sar has been fortunate in retaining its resident physician throughout the whole eight years of its existence, and if the Faculty were to grow careless, the parents, educated by what she has been accustomed to give, would demand the care that their children need.

The pupils of Va.s.sar belong to no special cla.s.s in society, and are drawn from varied localities. When the college opened, she had upon her Faculty three women whose peers it would be hard to find, for excellence of character, refinement of feeling, delicacy of manner, attainment in science, and a quiet elegance of dress. Of these, one is now gathered to a wider sphere of usefulness, so we speak of Hannah Lyman by name, as a woman whose equal most of the students would never have seen, if good fortune had not taken them to Va.s.sar. The first pupils of Va.s.sar were thoughtful women, who had been long prepared for its expected opening.

They appreciated at once the lofty influence of these examples, and the reverent respect they always showed was impressed upon every succeeding cla.s.s. These teachers were in every detail of their lives, what intelligent, modest, and cultivated women should be.

As to dress, so far as example and counsel could do it, the pupils were taught simplicity.