"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.