Volume 1

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    517/896 (page 53)
    that he does do so, for under existing circumstances school is so pitted against school, so much of a teacher's success depends on the pushing forward of his pupils, that he can hardly help him- self. Is there not some degree of truth in the statement that now-a-days the pupil is being made for the school, not the school for the pupil? If it is so, the establishment of brain health suffers. A great deal has been said and written of late about the over- working of girls and young women in schools and colleges, and my friend Dr Clouston lias come forward as the champion of health and ignorance for woman. I cannot help thinking that he has over stated the position of matters, that he has based his opinions more on the observation of isolated cases than on the general condition of highly educated women, that he has mistaken the wail of the one for the murmur of the many. No doubt a certain number of young women suffer and break down whilst studying; but this does not necessarily imply that study is the cause of the break down. Is it certain that their systems would not have given way had they been employed in offices or shops or even in domestic service % We doctors often see young girls coming up from the country to domestic service, who are well fed and well cared for, and who notwithstanding from some inherent weakness of constitution suffer from the very same train of symptoms as the young woman who applies herself to study. And even although a certain proportion of young women do suffer from study, is that a reason why the majority of the sex should be debarred from the benefits of higher education % Look- ing at the question from an evolutional point of view, may we not almost assume that, at the outset of a new departure, a few must suffer % The wide spread higher education of women is a new departure ; custom and fashion have shut women off from its prosecution for centuries. If we accept to any extent the theory of evolution we must conclude that the organ which has been neglected for so long may suffer when stress is suddenly put on it; but we may also assume that a very few generations will evolve a power of reception and assimilation in the brain of