26
SEX IN EDV CATION.
of diseases that in later life yield torturing or fatal maladies. Every physician’s notebook affords copious illustrations of these statements. The number of them which the writer has seen prompted this imperfect essay upon a subject in which the public has a most vital interest, and with regard to which it acts with the courage of ignorance.
Two considerations deserve to be mentioned in this connection. One is, that no organ or function in plant, animal, or human kind, can he properly regarded as a disability or source of weakness. Through ignorance or misdirection, it may limit or enfeeble the animal or being that misguides it; but, rightly guided and developed, it is either in itself a source of power and grace to its parent stock, or a necessary stage in the development of larger grace and power. The female organization is no exception to this law ; nor are the particular set of organs and their functions with which this essay has to deal an exception to it. The periodical movements which characterize and influence woman’s structure foj