CHIEFLY PHYSIOLOGICAL.
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the fact, that the first of these critical voyages is made during a girl’s educational life, and extends over a very considerable portion of it.
This brief statement only hints at the vital physiological truths it contains: it does not disclose them. Let us look at some of them a moment. Remember, that we are now concerned only with the first of these passages, that from a girl’s childhood to her maturity. In childhood, boys and girls are very nearly alike. If they are natural, they talk and romp, chase butterflies and climb fences, love and hate, with an innocent abandon that is ignorant of sex. Yet even then the difference is apparent to the observing. Inspired by the divine instinct of motherhood, the girl that can only creep to her mother’s knees will caress a doll, that her tottling brother looks coldly upon. The infant Achilles breaks the thin disguise of his gown and sleeves by dropping the distaff, and grasping the sword. As maturity approaches, the sexes diverge. An unmistakable difference marks the form and