

E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Jeannie Howse, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) from
page images generously made available by the Home Economics Archive:
Research, Tradition and History, Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell
University (http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/)



Note: Images of the original pages are available through the
      Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History,
      Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University. See
      http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4765412



      +------------------------------------------------------------+
      | Transcriber's Notes:                                       |
      |                                                            |
      |    A number of obvious typographical errors have been      |
      |    corrected in this text. For a complete list, please     |
      |    see the end of this document.                           |
      |                                                            |
      |    This document has inconsistent hyphenation.             |
      |                                                            |
      |    Greek has been transliterated and marked with + marks   |
      |                                                            |
      +------------------------------------------------------------+





SEX IN EDUCATION;

Or, A Fair Chance for Girls.

by

EDWARD H. CLARKE, M.D.,

Member of the Massachusetts Medical Society;
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences;
Late Professor of Materia Medica in Harvard College,
Etc., Etc.







Boston:
James R. Osgood and Company,
(Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.)
1875.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
Edward H. Clarke,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington
Boston:
Stereotyped and Printed by Rand, Avery, & Co.




    "An American female constitution, which collapses just in the
    middle third of life, and comes out vulcanized India-rubber,
    if it happen to live through the period when health and
    strength are most wanted."
    OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: _Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_.


    "He reverenced and upheld, in every form in which it came
    before him, _womanhood_.... What a woman should demand is
    respect for her as she is a woman. Let her first lesson be,
    with sweet Susan Winstanley, _to reverence her sex_."
    CHARLES LAMB: _Essays of Elia_.


    "We trust that the time now approaches when man's condition
    shall be progressively improved by the force of reason and
    truth, when the brute part of nature shall be crushed, that
    the god-like spirit may unfold."
    GUIZOT: _History of Civilization_, I., 34.




CONTENTS.


PART I.

INTRODUCTORY                                              11

PART II.

CHIEFLY PHYSIOLOGICAL                                     31

PART III.

CHIEFLY CLINICAL                                          61

PART IV.

CO-EDUCATION                                             118

PART V.

THE EUROPEAN WAY                                         162




PREFACE.


About a year ago the author was honored by an invitation to address
the New-England Women's Club in Boston. He accepted the invitation,
and selected for his subject the relation of sex to the education of
women. The essay excited an unexpected amount of discussion. Brief
reports of it found their way into the public journals. Teachers and
others interested in the education of girls, in different parts of the
country, who read these reports, or heard of them, made inquiry, by
letter or otherwise, respecting it. Various and conflicting criticisms
were passed upon it. This manifestation of interest in a brief and
unstudied lecture to a small club appeared to the author to indicate a
general appreciation of the importance of the theme he had chosen,
compelled him to review carefully the statements he had made, and has
emboldened him to think that their publication in a more comprehensive
form, with added physiological details and clinical illustrations,
might contribute something, however little, to the cause of sound
education. Moreover, his own conviction, not only of the importance of
the subject, but of the soundness of the conclusions he has reached,
and of the necessity of bringing physiological facts and laws
prominently to the notice of all who are interested in education,
conspires with the interest excited by the theme of his lecture to
justify him in presenting these pages to the public. The leisure of
his last professional vacation has been devoted to their preparation.
The original address, with the exception of a few verbal alterations,
is incorporated into them.

Great plainness of speech will be observed throughout this essay. The
nature of the subject it discusses, the general misapprehension both
of the strong and weak points in the physiology of the woman question,
and the ignorance displayed by many, of what the co-education of the
sexes really means, all forbid that ambiguity of language or euphemism
of expression should be employed in the discussion. The subject is
treated solely from the standpoint of physiology. Technical terms
have been employed, only where their use is more exact or less
offensive than common ones.

If the publication of this brief memoir does nothing more than excite
discussion and stimulate investigation with regard to a matter of such
vital moment to the nation as the relation of sex to education, the
author will be amply repaid for the time and labor of its preparation.
No one can appreciate more than he its imperfections. Notwithstanding
these, he hopes a little good may be extracted from it, and so
commends it to the consideration of all who desire the _best_
education of the sexes.

  BOSTON, 18 ARLINGTON STREET, October, 1873.




PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.


The demand for a second edition of this book in little more than a
week after the publication of the first, indicates the interest which
the public take in the relation of Sex to Education, and justifies the
author in appealing to physiology and pathology for light upon the
vexed question of the appropriate education of girls. Excepting a few
