[Footnote 1:  Witness Richardson’s heroine, who was “perfect mistress of the four rules of arithmetic"!]

I firmly believe—­and I am not alone in this opinion—­that as concerns the physical future of women they would do far better if the brain were very lightly tasked and the school hours but three or four a day until they reach the age of seventeen at least.  Anything, indeed, were better than loss of health; and if it be in any case a question of doubt, the school should be unhesitatingly abandoned or its hours lessened, as at least in part the source of very many of the nervous maladies with which our women are troubled.  I am almost ashamed to defend a position which is held by many competent physicians, but an intelligent friend, who has read this page, still asks me why it is that overwork of brain should be so serious an evil to women at the age of womanly development.  My best reply would be the experience and opinions of those of us who are called upon to see how many school-girls are suffering in health from confinement, want of exercise at the time of day when they most incline to it, bad ventilation,[1] and too steady occupation of mind.  At no other time of life is the nervous system so sensitive,—­so irritable, I might say,—­and at no other are abundant fresh air and exercise so important.  To show more precisely how the growing girl is injured by the causes just mentioned would lead me to speak of subjects unfit for full discussion in these pages, but no thoughtful reader can be much at a loss as to my meaning.

[Footnote 1:  In the city where this is written there is, so far as I know, not one private girls’ school in a building planned for a school-house.  As a consequence, we hear endless complaints from young ladies of overheated or chilly rooms.  If the teacher be old, the room is kept too warm; if she be young, and much afoot about her school, the apartment is apt to be cold.]

The following remarks I owe to the experience of a friend,[1] a woman, who kindly permits me to use them in full.  They complete what I have space to add as to the matter of education, and deserve to be read with care by every parent and by every one concerned in our public schools.

[Footnote 1:  Miss Pendleton.]

“There can be no question that the health of growing girls is overtaxed; but, in my opinion, this is a vice of the age, and not primarily of the schools.  I have found teachers more alive to it than parents or the general public.  Upon interrogating a class of forty girls, of ages varying from twelve to fourteen, I found that more than half the number were conscious of loss of sleep and nervous apprehension before examinations; but I discovered, upon further inquiry, that nearly one-half of this class received instruction in one or two branches outside of the school curriculum, with the intention of qualifying to become teachers.  I could get no information as to appetite or diet; all of the class, as the teacher informed me, being