Sex in Education Part 5

A German lady, who was educated in the schools of Dantzic, Prussia, afforded information, which, as far as it went, confirmed the above.

Three customs, or habits, which exert a great influence upon the health and development of girls, appear from Dr. Hagen's letter to make a part of the German female educational regimen. The first is, that girls leave school at about the age of fifteen or sixteen, that is, as soon as the epoch of rapid s.e.xual development arrives. It appears, moreover, that during this epoch, or the greater part of it, a German girl's education is carried on at home, by means of lectures or private arrangements. These, of course, are not as inflexible as the rigid rules of a technical school, and admit of easy adjustment to the periodical demands of the female const.i.tution. The second is the traditional motherly supervision and careful regimen of the catamenial week. Evidently the notion that a boy's education and a girl's education should be the same, and that the same means the boy's, has not yet penetrated the German mind. This has not yet evolved the idea of the identical education of the s.e.xes. It appears that in Germany, schools, studies, parties, walks, rides, dances, and the like, are not allowed to displace or derange the demands of Nature. The female organization is respected. The third custom is, that German school-girls are not invited to parties at all. "All this comes after the school," says Dr. Hagen. The brain is not worked by day in the labor of study, and tried by night with the excitement of the ball.

Pleasant recreation for children of both s.e.xes, and abundance of it, is provided for them, all over Germany,--is regarded as necessity for them,--is made a part of their daily life; but then it is open-air, oxygen-surrounding, blood-making, health-giving, innocent recreation; not gas, furnaces, low necks, spinal trails, the civilized representatives of caudal appendages, and late hours.

Desirous of obtaining, if possible, a more exact notion than even a physician could give of the German, traditional method of managing the catamenial function for the first few years after its appearance, I made inquiries of a German lady, now a mother, whose family name holds an honored place, both in German diplomacy and science, and who has enjoyed corresponding opportunities for an experimental acquaintance with the German regimen of female education. The following is her reply. For obvious reasons, the name of the writer is not given. She has been much in this country as well as in Germany; a fact that explains the knowledge of American customs that her letter exhibits.

MY DEAR DOCTOR,--I have great pleasure in answering your inquiries in regard to the course, which, to my knowledge, German mothers adopt with their daughters at the catamenial period. As soon as a girl attains maturity in this respect, which is seldom before the age of sixteen, she is ordered to observe complete rest; not only rest of the body, but rest of the mind. Many mothers oblige their daughters to remain in bed for three days, if they are at all delicate in health; but even those who are physically very strong are obliged to abstain from study, to remain in their rooms for three days, and keep perfectly quiet. During the whole of each period, they are not allowed to run, walk much, ride, skate, or dance.

In fact, entire repose is strictly enforced in every well-regulated household and school. A German girl would consider the idea of going to a party at such times as simply preposterous; and the difference that exists in this respect in America is wholly unintelligible to them.

As a general rule, a married woman in Germany, even after she has had many children, is as strong and healthy, if not more so, than when she was a girl. In America, with a few exceptions, it appears to be the reverse; and, I have no doubt, it is owing to the want of care on the part of girls at this particular time, and to the neglect of their mothers to enforce proper rules in this most important matter.

It has seemed to me, often, that the difference in the education of girls in America and in Germany, as regards their physical training, is, that in America it is marked by a great degree of recklessness; while in Germany, the erring, if it can be called erring, is on the side of anxious, extreme caution. Therefore beautiful American girls fade rapidly; while the German girls, who do not possess the same natural advantages, do possess, as a rule, good, permanent health, which goes hand-in-hand with happiness and enjoyment of life.

Believe me, Very truly yours, ---- ----.

JUNE 21, 1873.

This letter confirms the statement of Dr. Hagen, and shows that the educational and social regimen of a German school-girl is widely different from that of her American sister. Perhaps, as is intimated above, the German way, which is probably the European way also, may err on the side of too great confinement and caution; and that a medium between that and the recklessness of the American way would yield a better result than either one of them.

German peasant girls and women work in the field and shop with and like men. None who have seen their stout and brawny arms can doubt the force with which they wield the hoe and axe. I once saw, in the streets of Coblentz, a woman and a donkey yoked to the same cart, while a man, with a whip in his hand, drove the team. The bystanders did not seem to look upon the moving group as if it were an unusual spectacle. The donkey appeared to be the most intelligent and refined of the three. The sight symbolized the physical force and infamous degradation of the lower cla.s.ses of women in Europe. The urgent problem of modern civilization is how to retain this force, and get rid of the degradation. Physiology declares that the solution of it will only be possible when the education of girls is made appropriate to their organization. A German girl, yoked with a donkey and dragging a cart, is an exhibition of monstrous muscular and aborted brain development. An American girl, yoked with a dictionary, and laboring with the catamenia, is an exhibition of monstrous brain and aborted ovarian development.

The investigations incident to the preparation of this monograph have suggested a number of subjects kindred to the one of which it treats, that ought to be discussed from the physiological standpoint in the interest of sound education. Some, and perhaps the most important, of them are the relation of the male organization, so far as it is different from the female, to the labor of education and of life; the comparative influence of crowding studies, that is of excessive brain activity, upon the cerebral metamorphosis of the two s.e.xes; the influence of study, or brain activity, upon sleep, and through sleep, or the want of it, upon nutrition and development; and, most important of all, the true relation of education to the just and harmonious development of every part, both of the male and female organization, in which the rightful control of the cerebral ganglia over the whole system and all its functions shall be a.s.sured in each s.e.x, and thus each be enabled to obtain the largest possible amount of intellectual and spiritual power. The discussion of these subjects at the present time would largely exceed the natural limits of this essay. They can only be suggested now, with the hope that other and abler observers may be induced to examine and discuss them.

In conclusion, let us remember that physiology confirms the hope of the race by a.s.serting that the loftiest heights of intellectual and spiritual vision and force are free to each s.e.x, and accessible by each; but adds that each must climb in its own way, and accept its own limitations, and, when this is done, promises that each will find the doing of it, not to weaken or diminish, but to develop power.

Physiology condemns the identical, and pleads for the appropriate education of the s.e.xes, so that boys may become men, and girls women, and both have a fair chance to do and become their best.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] Bits of Talk. By H.H. Pp. 71-75.

[37] House and Home Papers. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. P. 205.