The Education of American Girls | Page 8

attended school. It is not so evident that, since her
earliest childhood, she has been fed on improper food, at irregular
hours, and that the processes by which the poisonous dead matter is
removed from the system, have been irregularly carried on. His
questions put on these topics are put in a general way, and answered in

the same, with, perhaps, a worse than foolish mock-modesty to prompt
the reply. He does the best that he can, but he cannot help stumbling, if
he is required to walk in the dark. This false shame of which I speak, on
this matter, seems to be a folly peculiarly American, and I am quite
sure that it is not so common now as it was twenty years ago, though
there are still many American women who would choose to run the risk
of making themselves sick rather than to tread the folly out under a
pure womanly scorn. This is also a matter which belongs to education.
One great trouble with our American girls, and one which can be
remedied by us, though we cannot remedy the climate, is not that their
brains are overworked, but that their bodies generally, including brain,
are underfed. I do not mean that they do not eat enough in bulk, though
that is often the case, but that they do not take in enough of the
chemical elements which they must have to build up the system. Their
food is not sufficiently nutritious, and the energy of the digestive
organs is wasted in working upon material which, if it does not irritate
and inflame, is at least of no economic value, and is simply rejected by
the system; or, worse still, in default of better, it is absorbed, and the
whole blood becomes poisoned. Sometimes our girls do not eat often
enough. For instance, a girl who, after tea, has been obliged to employ
her brain in unusually hard work, might probably be helped by eating
some nourishing food before sleep. If she do not, the result will not
infrequently be that she will awake tired and languid; she will sit idly at
the breakfast table, play with her knife and fork, and feel only disgust at
the food provided. She may soon suffer from, if she does not complain
of, back-ache and other attendant troubles, the simple result of
weakness. It is only Micawber's old statement over again: "Annual
income, twenty pounds, annual expenditure, twenty pounds, ought, and
six; result--Misery."
After a long course of this kind, the physician is summoned, and the
girl is forbidden to study. But it seldom occurs to any one that if 5 - 8 =
-3, the two may be made equal just as easily by adding the three to the
five as by subtracting it from the eight, i.e., although we, as a nation,
are supposed to be, at least, more conversant with arithmetic than with
any branch of school study, though we do know that 8 > 5, we do not

see that 5 + 3 = 8, and so we try to cancel the offending -3 by
diminishing the 8. But would not the other process be quite as rational?
Physical life is only a simple balance of forces, the expenditure and
nourishment corresponding exactly to demand and supply in the
Science of Political Economy.[2] They tend continually to level
themselves. Have we not the right to decide in which way the leveling
shall be effected--the equation be formed? This is a simple solution of
the difficulty. I suggest that this experiment be tried: let the girl study
her extra time in the evening, if she desires, only being cautious that
she do not infringe upon her sleep hours; then give her a supper of
bread and butter and cold meat, and send her to bed. If her digestive
organs are in good state, she will very possibly sleep a sound and
dreamless sleep, and rise refreshed in the morning, with a good appetite
for her breakfast. By this simple hygienic remedy, aching backs may
not only be prevented, they may be gradually cured. I am stating actual
facts. If the evening be spent in conversation, or mere lounging over
books, the supper will not be needed, and will prove, if taken, only a
burden; but if, as has already been said, it be spent in actual brain-work,
the tremendous and unusual strain on the whole nervous system,
occasioned by the destruction of nerve-cells, must be made good, or
those organs most intimately connected with the nervous system and
the sources of life, will be sure to suffer. It must, however, be repeated
here, if we would secure the good results desired, that the supper must
be of nourishing, not of stimulating food.
Even the destruction, through exercise,