120

SEX IN EDUCATION.

sexes very much alike. The principle or con­dition peculiar to the female sex is the man­agement of the catamenial function, which, from the age of fourteen to nineteen, includes the building of the reproductive apparatus. This imposes upon women, and especially upon the young woman, a great care, a corre­sponding duty, and compensating privileges. There is only a feeble counterpart to it in the male organization ; and, in his moral constitu­tion, there cannot be found the fine instincts and quick perceptions that have their root in this mechanism, and correlate its functions. This lends to her development and to all her work a rythmical or periodical order, which must be recognized and obeyed. In this recognition of the clironometry of organic process, there is unquestionably great promise for the future ; for it is plain that the observ­ance of time in the motions of organic mole­cules is as certain and universal, if not as exact, as that of the heavenly bodies. * Pe­riodicity characterizes the female organization,

Body and Mind. Op. cit., p. 178.