This state of affairs is generally admitted, but there is no evidence that it was nature's original plan. On the contrary, there is reason to believe that the woman was meant to be quite as strong as the man; nature has ordained the hardest tasks for her, and has given her a wonderful equipment for them. Among primitive races the woman is fully the equal of the man in strength, his superior in endurance. Superior in endurance in certain respects she remains even under modern conditions, as dentists and surgeons bear testimony. But where has gone the vigor that she requires to meet the demands that life makes of her? Is it the schools and the teachers that are responsible for its loss?
I was moved anew to thought on the subject by seeing last June the Ivy-day procession of a woman's college and the next week the graduating exercises of a large high school. The college girls looked notably robust, sunburned as to cheeks and arms and hair, but attractive for their evident health. They seeemed far above the average American women in their physical vigor and did not lead one to believe that a college education makes invalids. The girls in the high-school class—the man beside me, himself the father of one of them, expressed their appearance adequately though bluntly when he said, "Those girls are a puny-looking lot." The characterization was true of that class; is it true of the average high-school girl? Consider the question for yourself as you see in June the graduates of your local high school. And those before you are the fittest who have survived; they are very few in number compared with those who have dropped by the way.
Ten years ago I read an unforgettable paper written by a high-school senior. She was a brilliant student who, maintaining the highest rank in her class, had done the preparation for Radcliffe, but had given up any hope of a college course because she was completely broken in health. Her essay was a scathing arraignment of our public-school course; I have been trying ever since to determine how far it was just.
Discussion of the health of the students in women's colleges is always a popular subject; has due attention been given to the physical condition of the young girls in the public schools? The public schools are of course immeasurably more important than the colleges. From the beginning of our national life great sacrifices have been made for the maintenance of our schools, sacrifices are still being made. They are expensive in money; in most of our towns no other appropriation is so large as that for education. They are also costly in the men and women that they use up, the teachers that they suck dry of health and strength and throw aside. The teachers seem to think that the work is worth their sacrifice; the tax-payers give ungrudgingly for their children. But if the physical vigor of the children or of a part of the children is one of the expenses of the public-school system, then popular education is costing too much.
