The Four Epochs of Womans Life | Page 4

its full weight. The muscular system has been developed together with the coordination of motion. The child has learned to use a language fairly well; she has developed an excellent memory and is most inquisitive and acquisitive.
Another method for undermining the healthy tone of the nervous system is the intricate dances taught very young children and then placing them on public exhibition, where they are wrought up to the highest pitch. From a purely medical standpoint, children under eight years of age should not be allowed to take dancing lessons. After this age a moderate amount of dancing in a well-ventilated room is good exercise.
Children's parties belong in the same category, and, on account of the injurious effects on the nervous system, should be tabooed. They are too exciting, and cause an overstimulation of the nervous system and a precocious childhood and puberty.
Instead of rearing an oversensitive hot - house plant that must be fragile in the extreme, strive to rear a sturdy plant that can hold its own amid the storms. The child should spend as much of its life as possible in the open air, and in the warm months live out-of-doors. City children should be taken to the seashore or country to spend several months every summer. Together with outdoor sports, gymnastics adapted to the age of the child should be begun early and continued throughout life. Good muscular development is attended with good digestion and a well-balanced nervous system.
Until after the twelfth year there should be absolutely no difference between the physical, mental, or industrial education of girls and boys. And, still further, they should be encouraged to have their sports together; this will improve the girls physically and broaden them mentally, and will do a great deal to take the rough edges off the boys. After this age it will be wise to allow slight barriers to grow up, without calling the attention of any one to the fact, that will cause the companionship to be less free and unrestrained.
Age for Going to School.-- Although the child may be allowed to go to kindergarten long before this time, it should not be allowed to enter the school-room before eight years of age. And from eight to twelve years, not more than four hours a day should be spent in study. After this time it may be put down more closely to intellectual work; but no more mental work should be required than will enable the girl to enter college at eighteen. And eighteen years of age is as young as any girl should be allowed to go to college; after this age the mind is more matured and acquires knowledge more easily than before, while the development of the body is less rapid. The physical system has become more stable. The literature indulged in by girls under eighteen years of age should be most carefully selected.
The Effect of the Study of the Scientific Branches.-- A knowledge of the laws of nature is essential to health; hence the necessity for the study of the natural sciences-- anatomy, physiology, chemistry, physics, and zoology. Aside from the intrinsic value of this knowledge, it is almost universally conceded that these studies develop the judgment; and no one will have the temerity to deny that a lack of judgment must undermine the health as well as the success and happiness of the individual.
Industrial Education.-- When it is considered how intimate are the relations between the physical and the psychic states, and how often the psychic condition leads to actual disease, and that often of the most incurable type, it needs no demonstration that a mental occupation which will take the woman out of herself is a physical necessity. Therefore when the girl has reached the subjective limit of her intellectual education,-- that is, when she has reached the limit of her capacity or taste,-- it is essential to her physical well-being that she should turn her attention to some industrial occupation. This may be housekeeping or any other occupation for which she has taste or talent. A healthy mental occupation is an absolute necessity to prevent the individual from becoming self-centered. And to become self-centered is the first step on the certain road to chronic invalidism.
A most important part of an education is the knowledge of how to procure the most perfect development of the body possible, and how to maintain the health. This has not been touched upon here, since the outlines for the general physical education have already been given in "Hygiene and Physical Culture for Women,"* and the present volume concerns itself only with the four critical epochs of woman's life.
* By Anna M. Galbraith, M. D.; published by Dodd, Mead & Co.
With this broad view of an education, as a means to procure the best physique