Overpressure in education has as pernicious an effect on boys as it has on girls. That evil is got rid of by proper regulation of study, and, along with care in diet, &c., by means of a due amount of exercise and recreation. This gen eral rule is applicable to girls as well as to boys. The special objection in the case of girls is that the continuous mental application is not consistent with the special demands made upon a girl's energies at regularly re turning periods connected with her peculiar functions. That objection, we believe, is met by such provisions as have been already indi cated, which, however, as we have already said, can only be properly made in secondary schools and in colleges devoted exclusively to the female sex, and regulated with due regard to these functional peculiarities. In short, the objections that have been urged against the according of the highest education to girls do not strictly lie against the education itself, but against the system on which it has been con ducted. The arguments are not logically against giving the same education to girls as to boys, but against giving that education in the same way. We believe the difference in the testi mony that came from America at an early period in the movement for higher education, which was not in its favour, and the later testimony, when better methods had been devised, and which was in its favour, is simply due to that fact that the necessity for periodical relaxation had not been recognized at the early period, and was fully realized at the later. Thus one teacher, in giving evidence before the State Board of Massachusetts in 1874, said: "At cer tain periods I think that study with girls should wholly cease for some days. I refer to girls from twelve to twenty years of age. Anyone who has taught boys and girls—in separate schools, I mean—roust have noticed the greater proportionate irregularity of attendance of the latter, and as a parent he would know the reason and the necessity of cessation from work." An other says: "Could the custom of keeping girls between the ages of thirteen and nineteen out of school and at moderate rest during certain periods become established among us, a certain number might suffer restraint not absolutely demanded, but the general result would be an incalculable gain to the health, present and prospective, of the inhabitants of this common.
wealth." Dr. da Costa, of New York, main tains that "common sense and the teachings of physiology point iu the direction of lessening, as far as practicable, work at a time when the whole system is depressed." Dr. Cohran of the New York State Normal School has been " com pelled to the conclusion that the sexes cannot be educated on the same system with advantage, and that the physical disadvantages under which the female labours render it necessary that a system be devised so elastic, with so much optional work, that the female may rest, at least comparatively, as the occasion requires." Those parts of the opinions have been printed in italics, which show clearly that the objec tions taken are not to the higher education in itself, but to the difficulty of reconciling it with the periodical change in women, and that difficulty later methods have to a large extent overcome.
The conclusion of the whole matter seems to be, let girls have the same education as boys, and along with boys, if need be, up to the age of twelve years, overpressure being carefully avoided in the case of one as in the case of the other, a due amount of recreation and exercise being daily insisted on; after that age deny not to girls secondary and university education, but let it be conducted in institutions restricted to them, but as fully equipped and conducted by as able teachers and professors as similar institutions for boys, where, however, periodical variations in the amount and degree of mental effort can be arranged for in accordance with the periodical variations in the amount of energy than can be devoted to nervous activity, with proper regard to other requirements. By such means the world will be blessed with wise and cultured women, and will not be without vigorous wives and mothers, not less capable of the highest duties of womanhood because to the sweet instincts of nature they add the rich treasures of a cultured mind.