herefore, be brought into harmony with
that of men. But, as we have seen, Dr. Clarke himself admits that such
necessity is scarcely imperative except under the age of eighteen or
nineteen, and the period of study for which co-education is really
desirable, indeed, necessary, does not begin until that age. Moreover,
Dr. Clarke draws his examples, not from students who have been educated
at mixed schools, but from those who have attended ordinary girls'
boarding-schools; so that no proof is adduced of any special influence
of co-education, unless the general statement that "co-education is
intellectually a success, physically a failure," can be considered as
such proof, which we do not believe. Since, according to Dr. Clarke's
own argument, the argument does not apply to the particular point of
controversy upon which it has been made to bear with most force, it is
superfluous to return to our own reasonings, whereby we believe to have
shown that the dangers signalized, though they exist, menace the
minority and not the majority; that they are then attributable, not to
mental exertion, but to the coincidences of mental exertion as at
present conducted; that they are to be averted, not by a single
manoeuvre, but by a general system of training, that should include,
instead of excluding, special attention to intellectual development;
that the results of such training would remain, after the consolidation
of the physical health and the termination of the period of growth had
rendered further training unnecessary; whereas, the peculiar precaution
suggested by Dr. Clarke, would rather tend to create a habit of body
that would persist throughout life, to immense inconvenience.

MARY PUTNAM JACOBI.

110 West Thirty-fourth street, New York.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] The development of reproductive cells in special glandular
apparatus at the period of puberty, is evidently not peculiar to one
sex, but is a physiological fact necessarily common to both. The
peculiarity in the female consists in the _greater degree_ of
periodicity in the complete development of such cells, in the periodical
congestions of a secondary organ, the uterus, and in the loss of blood
effected by these.

[34] Thus Herbert Spencer remarks that the mental development of women
must be arrested earlier than that of men, in order to leave a margin
for reproduction.

[35] Absence of menstruation.

[36] Excessive menstrual hemorrhage.

[37] I use the term effi