Sex in Education | Page 7

their relation to the subject matter of it will be obvious as we
proceed.
The sacred number, three, dominates the human frame. There is a
trinity in our anatomy. Three systems, to which all the organs are
directly or indirectly subsidiary, divide and control the body. First,
there is the nutritive system, composed of stomach, intestines, liver,
pancreas, glands, and vessels, by which food is elaborated, effete

matter removed, the blood manufactured, and the whole organization
nourished. This is the commissariat. Secondly, there is the nervous
system, which co-ordinates all the organs and functions; which enables
man to entertain relations with the world around him, and with his
fellows; and through which intellectual power is manifested, and
human thought and reason made possible. Thirdly, there is the
reproductive system, by which the race is continued, and its grasp on
the earth assured. The first two of these systems are alike in each sex.
They are so alike, that they require a similar training in each, and yield
in each a similar result. The machinery of them is the same. No scalpel
has disclosed any difference between a man's and a woman's liver. No
microscope has revealed any structure, fibre, or cell, in the brain of man
or woman, that is not common to both. No analysis or dynamometer
has discovered or measured any chemical action or nerve-force that
stamps either of these systems as male or female. From these
anatomical and physiological data alone, the inference is legitimate,
that intellectual power, the correlation and measure of cerebral
structure and metamorphosis, is capable of equal development in both
sexes. With regard to the reproductive system, the case is altogether
different. Woman, in the interest of the race, is dowered with a set of
organs peculiar to herself, whose complexity, delicacy, sympathies, and
force are among the marvels of creation. If properly nurtured and cared
for, they are a source of strength and power to her. If neglected and
mismanaged, they retaliate upon their possessor with weakness and
disease, as well of the mind as of the body. God was not in error, when,
after Eve's creation, he looked upon his work, and pronounced it good.
Let Eve take a wise care of the temple God made for her, and Adam of
the one made for him, and both will enter upon a career whose glory
and beauty no seer has foretold or poet sung.
Ever since the time of Hippocrates, woman has been physiologically
described as enjoying, and has always recognized herself as enjoying,
or at least as possessing, a tri-partite life. The first period extends from
birth to about the age of twelve or fifteen years; the second, from the
end of the first period to about the age of forty-five; and the third, from
the last boundary to the final passage into the unknown. The few years
that are necessary for the voyage from the first to the second period,

and those from the second to the third, are justly called critical ones.
Mothers are, or should be, wisely anxious about the first passage for
their daughters, and women are often unduly apprehensive about the
second passage for themselves. All this is obvious and known; and yet,
in our educational arrangements, little heed is paid to the fact, that the
first of these critical voyages is made during a girl's educational life,
and extends over a very considerable portion of it.
This brief statement only hints at the vital physiological truths it
contains: it does not disclose them. Let us look at some of them a
moment. Remember, that we are now concerned only with the first of
these passages, that from a girl's childhood to her maturity. In
childhood, boys and girls are very nearly alike. If they are natural, they
talk and romp, chase butterflies and climb fences, love and hate, with
an innocent abandon that is ignorant of sex. Yet even then the
difference is apparent to the observing. Inspired by the divine instinct
of motherhood, the girl that can only creep to her mother's knees will
caress a doll, that her tottling brother looks coldly upon. The infant
Achilles breaks the thin disguise of his gown and sleeves by dropping
the distaff, and grasping the sword. As maturity approaches, the sexes
diverge. An unmistakable difference marks the form and features of
each, and reveals the demand for a special training. This divergence,
however, is limited in its sweep and its duration. The difference exists
for a definite purpose, and goes only to a definite extent. The curves of
separation swell out as childhood recedes, like an ellipse, and, as old
age draws on, approach, till they unite like an ellipse again. In old age,
the second childhood, the difference of sex becomes of as little note as