THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN.

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from the British Medical Association lately advised the members of the school board that many children are mentally or otherwise unfit for the ordinary course of study, but might be taught usefully on certain special lines. They contended that certain children of defective brain construction would, unless their deficiency were thus par­ticularly recognized and treated, grow up idle or vicious as a natural consequence. A solid industrial, as well as an intellectual training, is required for every boy and girl in order to fit them for their duties as citizens, and as a permanent guarantee against poverty and crime. If a boy or girl is not so educated as to be able to earn their own living, he or she is liable to become, directly or indirectly, a public charge. We are now ready to raise the question as to the right and duty of the citizens and the state in this matter. The state has a manifest right in the matter. It is clearly the right and duty to see that as far as possible this is done. To secure this, the hand needs to be trained as well as the brain. Thus the opportunity for an industrial training should be an integral and essential part in our school system. While the present system is retained in our schools, it will be simply impossible to impart to the children of the poor an education calculated to fit them mentally, morally and physically for the per­formance of their duties in life. They will elevate pecuniary considerations above those which are educational, and set up a false gage of efficiency in the minds of teachers, pupils, trustees and inspectors. “ This will raise a system of over-pressure or ‘ cram,’ which will be fatal to intelligent teaching.” Our education is too theoret­ical. Its object is to educate the mind without regard to the great hereafter of school life. What becomes of our sweet girl and boy graduates who are launched, year after year, upon the country? They go to swell the ranks of the unemployed who possess nothing but their education, and are more dangerous to society than those possessing less knowledge, because they are more discontented. We are forced to the conclu­sion that in the world of action the self-educated man and woman is the most success­ful. It is an undisputed fact that many of our most distinguished men and women have achieved wonders without education, technical or otherwise. A contempt for manual labor seems to be the natural outcome of the many acknowledged faults of our artificial social system. We can not deny that if our education does not attain the truth by developing the body and mind it is certainly at fault.

Physicians, especially lady physicians, have opportunities, and they have no holier duty than to use these opportunities wisely and gravely. “ By all means let them importune the public law to do all that it can do, and more than it ever has done, for the protection of the young.” But the remedy of this great evil will not come from legislation alone. The remedy will surely come through the cultivation of purity in thought, word and deed in the home, in the school, in the newspapers. A proper knowledge of physiology and anatomy is one of the hopes of a better state of things. These are essentially moral and religious questions. They arise in each individual when passion is strong and judgment and experience are weak. In other words, they arise in the human mind when it is in great danger of being misled by the body. By all means let public law be on the side of the weak and those that need its help. Let our streets be cleaned of their vile theatrical advertisements and literature that now disgraces our cities. Virtue is too important an element of health to be neg­lected. The publicity of sins against this virtue has all the evils of publicity and few of its advantages, and should not be so much as named among Christian people. This is the philosophy of Saint Paul, who devoted himself as none have done since to the cultivation of whatsoever is pure. Among the lower classes impurity is forced upon the people by the condition of their existence; but among the wealthier it is sought in its voluptuous and revolting forms; it implies the possession of money to command it. Acquired habits are often transmitted to the offspring. A disposition to unchas­tity is often inherited, hence the greater need of safeguards in our schools, or the acquired disposition may become second nature. If the evil is to be removed, some­thing must be done, or the conditions which fostered these will engender others. The poison and the antidote are side by side. The education of youth should be placed