_ of their lives, and break down
_after the excitement of school-life has passed away_. For _sexual
reasons_ they cannot compete with boys, whose out-door habits still
further increase the difference in their favor. If it was a question
of school-teachers instead of school-girls, the list would be long of
young women whose health of mind has become bankrupt by a
_continuation_ of the mental strain commenced at school. Any method of
relief in our school-system to these over-susceptible minds should be
welcomed, even at the cost of the intellectual supremacy of woman in
the next generation."[17]

The fact which Dr. Fisher alludes to, that many girls break down not
during but _after_ the excitement of school or college life, is an
important one, and is apt to be overlooked. The process by which the
development of the reproductive system is arrested, or degeneration of
brain and nerve-tissue set a going, is an insidious one. At its
beginning, and for a long time after it is well on in its progress, it
would not be recognized by the superficial observer. A class of girls
might, and often do, graduate from our schools, higher seminaries,
and colleges, that appear to be well and strong at the time of their
graduation, but whose development has already been checked, and whose
health is on the verge of giving way. Their teachers have known
nothing of the amenorrhoea, menorrhagia, dysmenorrhoea, or leucorrhoea
which the pupils have sedulously concealed and disregarded; and the
cunning devices of dress have covered up all external evidences of
defect; and so, on graduation day, they are pointed out by their
instructors to admiring committees as rosy specimens of both physical
and intellectual education. A closer inspection by competent experts
would reveal the secret weakness which the labor of life that they are
about to enter upon too late discloses.

The testimony of Dr. Anstie of London, as to the gravity of the evils
incurred by the sort of erroneous education we are considering, is
decided and valuable. He says, "For, be it remembered, the epoch of
sexual development is one in which an enormous addition is being made
to the expenditure of vital energy; besides the continuous processes
of growth of the tissues and organs generally, the sexual apparatus,
with its nervous supply, is making _by its development heavy demands_
upon the nutritive powers of the organism; and it is scarcely possible
but that portions of the nervous