156
SEX IN EDUCATION.
Does any physician believe that it is good tor a growing girl to be so occupied seven or eight hours a day ? or that it is right for her to use her brains as long a time as the mechanic employs his muscles ? But this is only a part of the evil. The multiplicity of studies. the number of teachers, — each eager to get the most he can out of his pupil, — the severer drill of our day, and the greater intensity of application demanded, produce effects on the growing brain, which, in a vast number of cases, can be only disastrous. Even in girls of from fourteen to eighteen, such as crowd the normal school in Philadelphia, this sort of tension and this variety of study occasion an amount of ill-health which is sadly familiar to many physicians.” *
Experience teaches that a healthy and growing boy may spend six hours of force daily upon his studies, and leave sufficient margin for physical growth. A girl cannot spend more than four, or, in occasional in-
* Wear and Tear. Op. cit., p. 33-4.