1. Introductory.
  2. Chiefly Physiological.
  3. Chiefly Clinical.
  4. Co-Education.
  5. The European Way.

Part I. asserts that there is a difference between men and women; accuses woman of neglecting the proper care of her body; demands her physical development as a woman—not forgetting, however, on page 24, to call attention to co-education as a great and threatening danger.

Part II. is, as it claims to be, physiological, and presents nothing new to the student.

Part III. contains an account of seven exceptional cases of diseased action which have come under the writer's observation; a few more from another physician, and ends with this sentence:

“The preceding physiological and pathological data naturally open the way to a consideration of the co-education of the sexes.” The italics, as before, are ours.

Part IV. considers the subject of co-education, already prejudged.

Part V. is merely of the nature of an appendix, which attempts to show that in Europe the whole matter of woman's health is carefully watched.

If the one object of the Essays is not to stay the spread of co-education, we confess ourselves unable to discover what it is. In this effort lies its only possible unity, its primum mobile, its one clearly defined object from beginning to end.

The argument reduced, may be fairly stated thus: Boys are capable of sustained and regular work; girls are not so capable—therefore they cannot be educated together (provided the standard is kept up to the standard best for boys) without injuring the girls.

Admit, then, for one moment, the premises, and grant that our boys and girls are to have separate institutions of learning. Every one sees, at one moment's reflection, that it would be impracticable to take any account of the occasional necessary absences from class recitation in the general arrangements of our school, composed only of girls. The programme must be arranged, even in that case, for regular work, and each individual, must take her own time for absence, and must make up the class-work, which, of course, must go on during her absence, as best she may. The trouble still remains, unless, carrying out Dr. Clarke's argument to its only logical conclusion, we abolish class recitations entirely, and supply each girl pupil with her own particular governess, who can accommodate each day's work to the varying capacities of her pupil and herself. I repeat, that this is the only logical result possible, if we accept Dr. Clarke's premises and conclusions. We shall find in France a country where the girls have always been educated in this way, or in convent schools. But shall we find in France a country where the proportion of births to the number of nubile women is greater than in our own? And shall we find in France a country where the general type of the race is degenerating or improving? It will be replied that other causes are at work to produce the result in France. The statement is granted; but have we then sufficient grounds for asserting justly for America, that “to a large extent the present system of educating girls is the cause of their pallor and weakness,” or that “woman's neglect of her own organization, though not the sole explanation and cause of her many weaknesses, more than any single cause, adds to their number and intensifies their power?” (The italics are again ours.)