The Education of American Girls | Page 9

of the inferior muscle-cells
demands food before sleeping. It is no merely fashionable custom
which calls the dancers at an evening entertainment to the loaded
supper-table, as those of my readers who have attended the so-called
cold-water Sociables will bear me witness. It may be seriously
questioned whether the regulation which forbade any refreshment
except cold water was not, like many other unthinking, economical
plans, really no economy at all. Instead of one pantry's furnishing food
to the famished dancers, this was furnished for each one at home, from
her own mother's private stores, and as the members of the Sociables
met at each other's houses in order, the total result of expenditure to
each family, at the close of the winter, was probably the same as it

would have been, had each family furnished, on one evening, a
moderate entertainment of the same sort to the bankrupt systems.
Fashion is often wiser than we think her, especially when at parties for
the "German" she prescribes a cup of beef-tea as the regulation
refreshment.
A long, rapid walk in the evening, as we all know, will produce the
same effect. We return, and remark that we are hungry, merely
meaning that we have received polite official notice that our physical
bank account has been overdrawn. If we do not pay any attention to this
notification, we shall surely in time be passed from adversary to judge,
and from judge to officer, and finally be cast literally into a prison from
which, unlike some of our city prisons, we shall not escape till we have
paid the uttermost farthing. Then we shall be likely to receive from the
kindly friend whom we summon to visit us, wise and good advice, on
the extravagance of spending so much. But might not the advice be
possibly quite as useful if delivered in this wise: "Why don't you earn
more, and make larger deposits." The force of weakness compels us to
stop spending our muscle cells; the kind friend, as far as is possible,
puts a stop to the expenditure of nerve cells, and draws on the funds
derived from the Cinchona forests of South America and the iron
mountains of Missouri, to make new deposits on our account; and when
the matter is thus doubly settled for us by nature and science, we go on
our way rejoicing, only to repeat the same insane folly. But it is not
good for one's credit to overdraw too frequently her bank account; and
there may come a time when suspension means bankruptcy, and when
all the kindness and skill of all our friends can be no longer of any avail.
Is it not our own fault, and shall we not so educate our girls that they
shall not fall into it, since they comprehend its unreason?
We are undoubtedly creatures of habit; but we oftener apply the word
to our mental and moral than to our physical nature, and wrongly.
When regular and constant demands are made upon any organ of the
body, the body, as it were, falls into the habit of laying in enough force
in that particular department for that particular purpose, as the scientific
steward at Vassar lays in for each day so many pounds of beef or
mutton, because he can rely with certainty on its consumption. If in any

case the demand is, for any reason, slackened, there is a surplus of
energy which must find a vent, or render its possessor very
uncomfortable. Need mothers be reminded of how very troublesome
the little girl becomes in a short school vacation, or during the first days
of a long one? Or need teachers be told that it is only a loss of time in
the end, to assign at the commencement of the September term lessons
of the same length as those which were learned with no difficulty in
June? There is a decided inertia in the bodily functions, and time is
required for a sudden change. Inconvenience in such a case will be sure
to arise, unless the surplus force be instantly directed into other and
unobjectionable channels.
If the reverse takes place, and the demand be suddenly increased, the
result is weakness, debility, and finally disease; though precisely the
same amount of work might have been done, not only with safety but
with positive advantage, provided the increase of the demand had been
gradual.
Is there any country in the world equal to America in the irregularity
and spasmodic nature of the demands which society makes upon its
women? Are there any girls in the world so ready to rush headlong into
all kinds of exercise, mental or physical, which may be recommended
to them, as our American girls? It is a pity that, to balance our greater
amount