The least sign of
physical failure should ring a graver alarm, and make the mother insist,
at every cost, upon absence of lessons and reasonable repose. The matter
is simple, and I have no more to say.
I am dealing now so entirely with the moral and physical aspects of a
woman's life, and so distinctly from the medical point of view, that I
do not feel called upon to discuss, in all its aspects, the mooted
question of the values and the perils of the higher education. At one
time it was not open to women at all. Now it is within her reach. Our
girl is well, and has passed, happily, over her time of development.
Will the larger education which she so often craves subject her to risks
such as are not present to the man,--risks of broken health and of its
consequences? I wish to speak with care to the mother called upon to
decide this grave question. I most honestly believe that the woman is
the better in mind and morals for the larger training, better if she
marries, and far better and happier if it chances that she does not. If
we take the mass of girls, even of mature age, and give them the
training commonly given to men, they run, I think, grave risks of being
injured by it, and in larger proportion than do their brothers.
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