It is in imitation, doubtless, of the natural Mixed Types—which may be described as a normal deviation from The Normal—that the cult of the mannish woman is being cruelly and disastrously forced upon our latter-day girls and women; resulting in wholly deplorable developments.
The woman of natural Mixed-type is essentially womanly in aim and bent. She does womanly work with virile energy and masculine mental grip. But she never (or seldom) assumes male proclivities or adopts male habits; crazes to wear trousers, to ride astraddle, to smoke, spit, swear, stride, talk slang, or shoot living sentient creatures. Nor does she otherwise exchange the more highly-evolved and delicate morale and manners of woman for those of the male. In Art, in Literature, in Science; in Industry and Reform, her aims and work preserve the womanly mode and outlook.
II
In consequence of doctrine which, for several generations, has trained women to develop for their own uses the masculine potential belonging to sons, many of our present-day boys and girls are seen actually to have exchanged their natural sex-characteristics. Boys are born now, puny, neurotic, and effeminate; while girls are strong and male and masterful. And it is precisely in the families whereof the girls are strong and male and masterful, that the boys are weakly and effeminate; the degenerative lapse from The Normal expressing itself, in both sexes, in terms of abnormal characteristics of the other sex.
That at thirteen, girls now-a-days are taller and heavier than boys of the same age has been established by the Anthropometrical Committee of the British Association.
Dr. J. J. Heslop, after carefully observing the health and the physical growth of children in fourteen elementary schools belonging to the Stretford (Lancashire) Education Authority, has published a striking return of his investigations. The following table shows the average height and weight at this age:
| Height. | Weight. | |
| St. Matthew's Cornbrook Park St. Anne's Trafford Park Gorse Hill Seymour Park | Boys 4ft. 7¾in. Girls 4ft. 9in. Boys 4ft. 8½in. Girls 4ft. 10-1/3in. Boys 4ft. 7in. Girls 4ft. 9in. Boys 4ft. 7¾in. Girls 4ft. 9½in. Boys 4ft. 8½in. Girls 4ft. 10in. Boys 4ft. 8-2/3in. Girls 4ft. 10in. | 5st. 7¾lb. 5st. 10¾lb. 6st. 0lb. 6st. 5½lb. 5st. 3¾lb. 5st. 10½lb. 5st. 4lb. 5st. 8½lb. 5st. 10lb. 5st. 11lb. 5st. 0lb. 5st. 11lb. |
The most notable development among girls takes place between the eleventh and thirteenth years.