A fatal an index of the uneducated state of the greatest amount of directive force that the world has ever seen. error is committed in education when this central truth is overlooked, as when one treats these manifestions as in themselves wrong, instead of recognizing their value, and bending the energies in their proper direction. If a missionary should begin his work by destroying in the mind of the savage all reverence for his own and only gods, he would have sawed off the branch on which he himself hoped to stand, and it were wise for him to make his escape from the country as soon as possible. SEXUAL EDUCATION. Up to the period of life at which the sexes diverge, that is, up to the time when the boy becomes a man and the girl a woman, the physical system pursues the even tenor of development, broken only by the two marked advances of the cutting of the first and second teeth. But now, the strength of the general system is supposed, in the counsels of the Creator, to have attained sufficient strength and firmness to be fully capable of assuming a new duty. In both sexes, organs up to this time quiescent, that is, as to any functional action, take on rapidly an independent life, assert their own character, and take up their peculiar work. Heretofore, all the physical development of the child has been for self alone; the gradual growth of each organism has pointed to nothing outside; each has been in a manner isolated. But now we have a foreshadowing of a nobler meaning to human life, for man is not to be alone, an isolated individual; he attains his highest significance only in relation to * others. I say it is supposed that by thirteen or fourteen years of steady educated growth, the system in both sexes has acquired strength enough to assume this last duty; and if this growth has been educated growth in both sexes, it does do so. I am considering, however, only the girls, and all that is said hereafter must be understood as applying specially to them. It makes its first trial of its newly acquired power, and, in a welltrained organism, such as we are thankful to know are yet found in our own country, it does do so with as little effort, with as little outer disturbance of the general system as is nanifested when the first new tooth cuts through the gum of the seven year old little girl. If it is asserted that such cases are rare, I can only answer that such is not the testimony of other women of large acquaintance, whom I have consulted; and that even if they were, the sufficient answer to the statement would be that cases of girls who have been physically thoroughly educated, are equally rare. No impression can be given to American women which will tend more directly towards producing the opposite result in our girls, than one which should lead them to believe thoroughly that this last period of development is necessarily a period of great physical or mental disturbance. American women "The change of character at this period is not by any means limited to the appearance of the sexual feelings and their sympathetic ideas; but when traced to its ultimate reach, will be found to extend to the highest feelings of mankind-social, moral, and even religious. In its lowest sphere, as a mere animal instinct, it is clear that the sexual appetite forces the most selfish person out of the little circle of self-feeling into a wider feeling of family sympathy, and a rudimentary moral feeling."-Maudsley, Body and Mind, 2d Edition, p. 31. have common sense enough to know that they must submit to the inevitable, but they have also common sense enough to fight against, and to conquer, what is not inevitable, provided it is not desirable; and if what I have said above could become the conviction of every American woman as thoroughly as it is that of some of them, we should in thirteen more years be able to prove it by innumerable cases. Every woman who knows it and acts upon the knowledge in educating her daughter, thereby becomes a benefactor to her country and her race. We all know that many a baby cuts all its first teeth without any trouble, noticeable nervous excitement, or derangement of any of the bodily functions. We know, also, that large numbers are sick; that large numbers die, showing, that where the organism is weak, it is unable to carry on the new and sudden process without over-action, since we have only a limited quantity of vital force. Over-action in one part, is inevitably underaction in another, and either is but another name for, and not the cause of, disease. We know that a larger proportion of children cut their second teeth without any disturbance, and this result was to be expected; the terrible, and yet most merciful hand of death, seven years before, had thinned the ranks by transplanting the weakest to a clime where the burden of the body is not a hindrance, and had left us only the strongest for the second trial. We know also, however, that many children do suffer from nervous irritability, and from weakness in other directions at this time. If it is the digestive or respiratory organs that manifest the strain, the child *Maudsley: Body and Mind, Am. Ed., p. for is tenderly cared for; if the over-action is in the nervous system, we wonder what possesses the child," and she, probably, is sent out of the room, or punished in some other way, in word or act. When the third and last especial and exceptional work takes place, we may expect the same results, and we find them. Up to seven years of age, however, the little girl's life has been comparatively a healthful one, at least as far as sleep is concerned. As far as clothing affects freedom of motion, she has also, probably, not suffered, though when she has walked in our chilly winter and damp spring air, she has had interposed between her body and the climatic influences only a defence of one thickness of cotton, while her brother has been carefully guarded by thickly woven woolen garments. But from seven to fourteen, the deteriorating causes in the average American family increase rapidly in intensity, in fact, much faster than the increase of the growing strength. The food remains nearly the same, though even this is not always the case, for the times at which it is taken often become somewhat more irregular, and its material more varied and innutritious; her hours of sleep are considerably curtailed, from different causes; her clothing, while not increasing in warmth and thickness, is drawn closer, and, in addition to this, the brain is set definitely to work in actual study. Is it not manifest, that while the demands upon the vital force have been increased, the supply of material has been decreased? If this have been the case, she arrives at the period when the third and last demand is to be made on her growing power, with not force enough to assume the additional work, and in consequence she shows signs of disease. And then, forgetting all the previous want of education, we either tacitly assume that God treats his children as Pharaoh treated the Israelites in his unreasonable demands, or, holding to our faith in him, we seize upon the first cause that presents itself to our startled vision. Because the education of the body has had for a long time, in our thought, an importance secondary to the education of the mind, we very naturally seize upon the latter as the cause of the evil, and remove the girl from school. One is here almost tempted to wish that the mind might be proved only a "mode of matter," if, by that means, the body might be raised up to the level of our mental horizon, and within the circle of our rational sympathy, for if we knew that matter and mind were the same, the matter of which our bodies are composed-might then secure a chance for respectful and rational attention. But there are here other considerations of immense importance which must not be overlooked, and it is to these that any rational treatment of the subject must turn its main attention. Besides laying the foundation of trouble at this time, in a neglect of proper physical education for thirteen years back, we have also taken pains to lay it in too great an attention to mental education for exactly the same number of years. It must not be forgotten that the little girl, as she looks out for the first time through her intelligence-lighted eyes, by taking notice of anything, while she lies in her mother's arms, looks out upon a vast and complicated world of civilization, of which she is entirely ignorant, and that, from the very fact that she is "the heir of all the ages," she has to make acquaintance with her inheritance. To the baby, the light, all sounds, its cradle, the room, its own moving fingers, its mother's face, are vast regions of unexplored knowledge. There is absolutely nothing, however small, |