The Education of American Girls. Anna C. Brackett
might be raised up to the level of our mental horizon, and within the circle of our rational sympathy, for if we knew that matter and mind were the same, the matter of which our bodies are composed might then secure a chance for respectful and rational attention.
But there are here other considerations of immense importance which must not be overlooked, and it is to these that any rational treatment of the subject must turn its main attention. Besides laying the foundation of trouble at this time, in a neglect of proper physical education for thirteen years back, we have also taken pains to lay it in too great an attention to mental education for exactly the same number of years. It must not be forgotten that the little girl, as she looks out for the first time through her intelligence-lighted eyes, by taking notice of anything, while she lies in her mother's arms, looks out upon a vast and complicated world of civilization, of which she is entirely ignorant, and that, from the very fact that she is “the heir of all the ages,” she has to make acquaintance with her inheritance. To the baby, the light, all sounds, its cradle, the room, its own moving fingers, its mother's face, are vast regions of unexplored knowledge. There is absolutely nothing, however small, which is common or customary, and, as she grows older, to the three year old child even, a walk down one of our avenues, or the examination of a bureau drawer, is as exciting as a journey in a fairy palace. In fact, the whole world around her is merely one vast fairy palace, in which miracles are continually occurring, quite as astonishing and exciting as the appearance of the Genies at the rubbing of the wonderful lamp. And her world grows every day fuller and wider and more enchanting, just as the hazy cloud of the milky way unfolds and reveals itself to us under more and more powerful telescopes into star-dust, into myriads of distinct shining points, into stars and suns; and, under the telescopes of reasoning science, into worlds separated by distances so great, that “the imagination sinks exhausted,” and very properly. Now, if any one will recall the sensation with which she first looked through a powerful telescope at this sight, she will then understand the state in which the brain of the little girl lives, as a continual atmosphere, and she will have no need to ask herself whether it is needful or allowable to add much cause for activity to that brain, for, at least, the first seven years of its life.
If mothers could only go to walk themselves with their little girls more often, instead of sending their ignorant nurses, they would comprehend this more fully. The fact that they do not “want to be bothered” with the child, only shows that they are dimly conscious of the truth, though their action testifies that they do not appreciate its significance. It is not necessary to speak only of city life here, for a walk along a country road keeps the little three year old girl in a state of continual high excitement. Is there not the wonderful thistle-down to be blown away, and the flight of each silken-winged seed to be watched with anxious eyes? Are there not clusters of purple and white asters in unexpected places? Are not the steep and dangerous rocky precipices by the side of the way to be daringly scaled and slid down? Do not the geese live in this pasture, and the sheep and the one solitary pig in that? The raspberry vines droop their rosy fruit into her hand, the tall, big, golden-rods snap their stalks so unexpectedly when she bends them, while she finds herself unable to gather the slender grasses. Then there are such charming nooks for hiding, among the ferns and hazel-bushes, and the bits of mica glistening all along the road are each of a different size and shape, and must be carefully collected. The toad startles her as it leaps out of the road, the grasshoppers strike her face, and wonderful people drive by in wonderful machines, drawn by vast and wonderful animals. The amount of knowledge which an intelligent child will accumulate during seven weeks' stay in a quiet country town, alone can measure the amount of brain activity which has been carried on for that time; and yet we drive and force this activity from her earliest years, when we ought only to direct it. We exhibit her in her babyhood to crowds of admiring and exciting friends, we overwhelm her with an unreasonable number and variety of exciting toys, we tease her to repeat her little sayings for the amusement of grown people, and lastly, we send her to school to be still more excited, and to have vast additional fields of knowledge of a different kind open to her. The fact is, that no child is ready to go to school till she has had time enough allowed for the dazzling and exciting illumination which pervades the atmosphere of childhood, to
“die away
And fade into the light of common day.”
We send children to school—or rather we begin voluntarily to teach them, too early by several years, and the only result is that the brain is “too early overstrained, and in consequence of such precocious and excessive action, the foundation for a morbid excitation of the whole nervous system is laid in earliest childhood.” As far as the home-life fosters this over-activity, that is, before the time of school life, I think it will be readily acknowledged that this showing-off process is applied with greater force to girls than to boys. The boy is left more to his own devices, but the girl must be made to contribute more to the general amusement of the family, and she must learn “to make herself useful.” It is true that to be of service to others, in a rational sense, should be her ruling motive of action, but one may, perhaps, question whether such early expectation, in such ways, be not, at least, “penny wise and pound foolish.” To this cause may be attributed a great part of the failure in the health at the last special time of development.
As to the mental progress made, John Stuart Mill may, as he says, have entered life “a quarter of a century in advance of his contemporaries,” but was he a quarter of a century ahead of others of his own age when he left it? The question is at least suggestive of the truth.
But, with the development of the organs which are so indissolubly associated with the deepest feelings and with the mental powers, there is also a corresponding mental development. Not only does “the blood rush more vigorously, the muscular strength become more easily roused into activity, but an indefinable impulse takes possession of the whole being,” and a great excitation of the imagination also is perceivable. Just here, then, the educator recognizes a duty. This increased force, which we could not prevent if we would, and would not if we could, must be guided into rational channels—and here I have to speak of a branch of the subject which is not often considered. I mean the duty of the mother, who is in this department the proper educator, to speak earnestly, fully, and plainly to the girl of the mysterious process of reproduction. Rosenkranz[10] says, somewhere, that when any nation has advanced far enough in culture to inquire whether it is fit for freedom, the question is already answered; and in the same way, when a girl, in her thought, has arrived at the point of asking earnest questions on this subject, she is fit to be answered. But just here let me call attention to the infinite importance, in this part of education, of perfect confidence and freedom between mother and daughter, and to the equally important fact, that this confidence which does exist at the beginning of life, if once lost, can never fully be restored. If there is a shade of reserve on the part of the girl, it will manifest itself just here and now. Instead of seeking the information which she really desires, at its only proper source, at that source whence she would receive it pure, and invested with a feeling of reverence and sanctity, of which she could never divest herself, she seeks it elsewhere. She picks it up piece-meal in surreptitious and clandestine ways, as if it were some horrible mystery which must, from its very nature, be covered up from the light of day. She talks it over with her young companions in secrecy, and the charm of mystery keeps her thoughts unduly brooding upon the subject.
In old times, and even now, in other countries, the danger was not, is not, so great. Foreign girls have a much closer supervision exercised over them, and their life in the nursery is far less nerve-stimulating than that of American children. They do not ask questions so early as the American girl, and when they do, they have at hand not nearly so many sources of information. If this all-necessary love and confidence is unbroken, and if the mother have been so educated herself, that she recognizes the importance of the moment, and has the requisite knowledge, there is no danger at all. The occasion is seized, and her womanly, “clear, and dignified statement, destroys all the false halo with which the youthful fancy is so prone to surround the process of reproduction, and, at this time, the fancy is very active with relation to whatever pertains to it.”
I do not for one moment forget that I am speaking of physical education. The physical consequences of mistakes on this point are decided.