Utterly ignoring the facts of physiology, the laws and approximate dates
of human development, official regulations demand that at just such ages
as thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen large numbers of girls--and picked
girls--shall devote themselves to the strain of preparing for various
examinations, upon which much depends. Worry combines to work its
effects with those of excessive mental application, excessive use of the
eyes at short distances, and defective open-air amusement. The whole
examination system is of course to be condemned, but most especially
when its details are so devised as to press thus hardly upon girlhood at
this critical and most to be protected period. Many years ago Herbert
Spencer protested that we must acquaint ourselves with the laws of life,
since these underlie all the activities of living beings. The time is
now at hand when we shall discover that education is a problem in
applied biology, and that the so-called educator, whether he works
destruction from some Board of Education or elsewhere, who knows and
cares nothing about the laws of the life of the being with whom he
deals, is simply an ignorant and dangerous quack.
What has been said about the reaction against excess in the physical
education of girls applies very forcibly to excess in their mental
education. We are undoubtedly coming upon a period when more and more
will be heard of the injurious consequences of such ill-timed
preparation for stupid examinations as has been referred to; and there
will be not a few to sigh for the return to the bad old days which a
certain type of mind always calls good.
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