important, but as belonging to a wider field, that of English composition in general. Here every intelligent teacher is assumed to be aware of the need of incessant vigilance and daily practise. For, naturally enough, even the most clearly apprehended thoughts can not find their way of themselves into language equally clear and precise. And yet much more than half the battle has been won, if it has come to be the pupil's fixt habit to look first for sharp outlines of thought. He has by that time banished the bugbear of a one and only correct translation, be it Bohn's or the teacher's, and is prepared to reproduce the ideas of the original in brief abstract, or again in ampler form, even before he has worked out a finished version.

Of course, this method, based upon phrase and clauseunits, meets the instant objection that, on first reading over a Latin sentence, a student often fails to mark off such units in his mind, seeing nothing but words, and finding his way slowly to a tentative and often incorrect grouping. But this is merely to admit one of the saddest defects of our elementary training. Not to see the woods for the trees, not to see the group for the words which compose it, suggests the need of looking well to the use we are making of our vision. Such myopia can surely be corrected, and by grammatical glasses too. But this can be done only by directing a large proportion of our grammar questions to the one end of recognition and identification of these larger units-an aim of infinitely more utility than the labelling and pigeon-holing of syntactical specimens.

Present failure in all these three directions is largely due to a depressing sense of wasted effort, of a desperately slow advance, even with the best intentions, since energies are so often dissipated. They are too commonly spent upon everything but the one essential-the power to read intelligently and appreciatively, without wild guessing on the one hand, or hair-splitting on the other, not to mention all the intermediate forms of wasted effort.

FRANK G. MOORE

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

VII

SEX IN MIND AND IN EDUCATION (I)

[The following article by Dr. Henry Maudsley, eminent alike as physician and physiologist, made a great impression on the reading public of England and America when it first appeared in the Fortnightly Review for April, 1874. It was reprinted and given wide circulation by Mr. C. W. Bardeen of Syracuse, N. Y., in his Series of School Room Classics, and is here reproduced with his permission. EDITOR.]

Those who view without prejudice, or with some sympathy, the movements for improving the higher education of women, and for throwing open to them fields of activity from which they are now excluded, have a hard matter of it sometimes to prevent a feeling of reaction being aroused in their minds by the arguments of the most eager of those who advocate the reform. Carried away by their zeal into an enthusiasm which borders on or reaches fanaticism, they seem positively to ignore the fact that there are significant differences between the sexes, arguing in effect as if it were nothing more than an affair of clothes, and to be resolved, in their indignation at woman's wrongs, to refuse her the simple rights of her sex. They would do better in the end if they would begin by realizing the fact that the male organization is one, and the female organization another, and that, let come what may in the way of assimilation of female and male education and labor, it will not be possible to transform a woman into a man. To the end of the chapter she will retain her special functions, and must have a special sphere of development and activity determined by the performance of those functions.

It is quite evident that many of those who are foremost in their zeal for raising the education and social status of woman, have not given proper consideration to the nature of her organization, and to the demands which its special func

tions make upon its strength. These are matters which it is not easy to discuss out of a medical journal; but, in view of the importance of the subject at the present stage of the question of female education, it becomes a duty to use plainer language than would otherwise be fitting in a literary journal. The gravity of the subject can hardly be exaggerated. Before sanctioning the proposal to subject woman to a system of mental training which has been framed and adapted for men, and under which they have become what they are, it is needful to consider whether this can be done without serious injury to her health and strength. It is not enough to point to exceptional instances of women who have undergone such a training, and have proved their capacities when tried by the same standard as men; without doubt there are women who can, and will, so distinguish themselves, if stimulus be applied and opportunity given; the question is, whether they may not do it at a cost which is too large a demand upon the resources of their nature. Is it well for them to contend on equal terms with men for the goal of man's ambition?

Let it be considered that the period of the real educational strain will commence about the time when, by the development of the sexual system, a great revolution takes place in the body and mind, and an extraordinary expenditure of vital energy is made, and will continue through those years after puberty when, by the establishment of periodical functions, a regularly recurring demand is made upon the resources of a constitution that is going through the final stages of its growth and development. The energy of a human body being a definite and not inexhaustible quantity, can it bear, without injury, an excessive mental drain as well as the natural physical drain which is so great at that time? Or, will the profit of the one be to the detriment of the other? It is a familiar experience that a day of hard physical work renders a man incapable of hard mental work, his available energy having been exhausted. Nor does it matter greatly by what channel the energy be expended; if it be used in one way it is not available for use in another. When Nature spends in one direction, she must economize in another direction. That the

development of puberty does draw heavily upon the vital resources of the female constitution, needs not to be pointed out to those who know the nature of the important physiological changes which then take place. In persons of delicate constitution who have inherited a tendency to disease, and who have little vitality to spare, the disease is apt to break out at that time; the new drain established having deprived the constitution of the vital energy necessary to withstand the enemy that was lurking in it. The time of puberty and the years following it are, therefore, justly acknowledged to be a critical time for the female organization. The real meaning of the physiological changes which constitute puberty is, that the woman is thereby fitted to conceive and bear children, and undergoes the bodily and mental changes that are connected with the development of the reproductive system. At each recurring period there are all the preparations for conception, and nothing is more necessary to the preservation of female health than that these changes should take place regularly and completely. It is true that many of them are destined to be fruitless so far as their essential purpose is concerned, but it would be a great mistake to suppose that on that account they might be omitted or accomplished incompletely, without harm to the general health. They are the expressions of the full physiological activity of the organism. Hence it is that the outbreak of disease is so often heralded, or accompanied, or followed by supression or irregularity of these functions. In all cases they make a great demand upon the physiological energy of the body: they are sensitive to its sufferings, however these be caused; and, when disordered, they aggravate the mischief that is going

on.

When we thus look the matter honestly in the face, it would seem plain that women are marked out by nature for very different offices in life from those of men, and that the healthy performance of her special functions renders it improbable she will succeed, and unwise for her to persevere, in running over the same course at the same pace with him. For such a race she is certainly weighted unfairly. Nor is it

a sufficient reply to this argument to allege, as is sometimes done, that there are many women who have not the opportunity of getting married or who do not aspire to bear children; for whether they care to be mothers or not, they can not dispense with those physiological functions of their nature that have reference to that aim, however much they might wish it, and they can not disregard them in the labor of life without injury to their health. They can not choose but to be women; can not rebel successfully against the tyranny of their organization, the complete development and function whereof must take place after its kind. This is not the expression of prejudice nor of false sentiment; it is the plain statement of a physiological fact. Surely, then, it is unwise to pass it by; first or last it must have its due weight in the determination of the problem of woman's education and mission; it is best to recognize it plainly, however we may conclude finally to deal with it.

It is sometimes said, however, that sexual difference ought not to have any place in the culture of the mind, and one hears it affirmed with an air of triumphant satisfaction that there is no sex in mental culture. This is a rash statement, which argues want of thought or insincerity of thought in those who make it. There is sex in mind as distinctly as there is sex in body; and, if the mind is to receive the best culture of which its nature is capable, regard must be had to the mental qualities which correlate differences of sex. To aim, by means of education and pursuits in life, to assimilate the female to the male mind, might well be pronounced as unwise and fruitless a labor as it would be to strive to assimilate the female to the male body by means of the same kind of physical training and by the adoption of the same pursuits. Without doubt there have been some striking instances of extraordinary women who have shown great mental power, and these may fairly be quoted as evidence in support of the right of women to the best mental culture; but it is another matter when they are adduced in support of the assertion that there is no sex in mind, and that a system of female education should be laid down on the same lines, follow the same