Sex in Education

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Sex in Education

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sex in Education, by Edward H. Clarke
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Title: Sex in Education or, A Fair Chance for Girls
Author: Edward H. Clarke

Release Date: June 5, 2006 [eBook #18504]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+------------------------------------------------------------+ | 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