The Liberator (newspaper)/September 18, 1857/Health of School Girls

From the N. Y. Christian Inquirer.
Health of School Girls.

The Boston Courier talks sense and spirit in the remarks below. The whole system of education in America ought to be radically reformed of the following gross errors. First, treating children as solid intellect, and destitute either of bodies or moral natures, thus neglecting gymnastics, on one side, and heart-culture and conscience-culture on the other. Next, pampering a fond and foolish ambition for stars, garters, prizes, and titles, instead of appealing to the natural love of knowledge, virtue and the unforced competition of social life. Then separating the sexes after the monastic fashion, and putting boys in one pen and girls in another, as if they were wild beasts, and would devour each other. And, finally, driving this whole process of education at so fierce and Jehu-like a speed as to make what Providence designed should be a healthful and happy gradual growth, (as much as of the body,) a distressing nightmare of equations, declensions, and conjugations. Education in colleges and schools, as at present conducted, is death on the scholars, death on the teachers, and especially death on young girls. Have not victims enough been sacrificed to this modern Moloch? Will not, cannot parents, teachers, and our grave and reverend seignors who hold the helm of affairs, be persuaded to reform these notorious and deadly evils? But we must not forget our extract from the Courier, for the same remarks are applicable to the schools of New York in general, and all our great cities, and to our colleges, as well as to the Boston schools. In this sense, they are a disgrace to the nineteenth or any other century:—

‘We were present at the School Festival in Faneuil Hall on Tuesday last. We will whisper a confession into the ear of the public, that we have doubts and misgivings—growing with our growth and strengthening with our strength—as to the whole system of medals, Franklin and City; and as to the wisdom of selecting a few boys and girls out of a school for these conspicuous decorations, and leaving the rest unnoticed. We doubt whether the intellectual advantages, especially in the case of girls, are not counterbalanced by injurious moral influences; and even in an intellectual point of view, we question whether the effect be not to stimulate the quick and bright, who need it not, and to depress the slow and timid, who need encouragement. But for a Boston editor or a Boston man to hint any doubts upon the subject of the Franklin medals, is like speaking disrespectfully of the equator, or suggesting an inquiry whether the sun and moon are not beginning to break up a little, and show a failure in their faculties; and we therefore say what we have said timidly and deprecatingly.

‘But the scene at Faneuil Hall was no time or place for the indulgence of this questioning spirit, and we resolutely put it aside. It was delightful to see the happy faces of the children lighted up with the glow of success, and the happier faces of the parents, animated with a sweeter and deeper feeling still. It was pleasant to see the teachers, who looked as if they had earned their vacation, and meant to enjoy it. The hall, with its decorations and its flowers, was a cordial spectacle; the speeches were good; and though the singing of the children was not good—and not worth the time and trouble it costs, if it cannot be better—we were content not to criticise.

‘But there was one thing we noticed which did throw a little shadow over our thoughts. We stood on the platform, very near the boys and girls, as they passed by to receive a bouquet at the hands of the Mayor. We could not help observing that not one girl in ten had the air and look of good health. There were very many lovely countenances—lovely with an expression of intellect and goodness—but they were like fair flowers resting upon a fragile stalk. Narrow chests, round shoulders, meagre forms, pallid cheeks, were far too common. There was a general want in their movements of the buoyancy and vivacity of youth and childhood. The heat of the day and the nervous exhaustion of the occasion were to be taken into account, and due allowance should be made for them. But this was not the first time that we were forced to the conclusion that here in Boston, in the education of girls, the body is lamentably neglected. And it is a very great and serious neglect, the consequences of which will not end with the sufferers themselves. Of what use is it to learn all sorts of things during the first sixteen years of life, and to stuff the brain with all kinds of knowledge, if the price be a feeble or diseased body? A finely endowed mind shut up in a sickly body is like a bright light in a broken lantern, liable to be blown out by a puff of wind, or extinguished by a dash of rain. If the destiny of woman were to be put under a glass and looked at, like a flower, it would be of little consequence; but woman must take her part in performing the duties and sustaining the burdens of life. These young medal scholars, in due time, will marry men whose lot it is to earn their bread by some kind of toil, in which their wives must needs aid them. To this service they will bring an intelligent capacity and a conscientious purpose; but how far will these go, without health and the cheerful spirits which health gives? A sickly wife is no helpmate, but a hindermate. If we neglect the body, the body will have its revenge. And are we not doing this? Are we not throwing our whole educational force upon the brain? Is not a healthy city born and bred woman getting to be as rare as a black swan? And is it not time to reform this altogether? Is it not time to think something of the casket as well as the jewel—something of the lantern as well as the light?’