of such correction by glasses as would have enabled them as workers to
compete on even terms with their fellows.

In a somewhat discursive fashion I have dwelt upon the mischief which is
pressing to-day upon our girls of every class in life. The doctor knows
how often and how earnestly he is called upon to remonstrate against
this growing evil. He is, of course, well enough aware that many sturdy
girls stand the strain, but he knows also that very many do not, and
that the brain, sick with multiplied studies and unwholesome home life,
plods on, doing poor work, until somebody wonders what is the matter
with that girl; or she is left to scramble through, or break down with
weak eyes, headaches, neuralgias, or what not. I am perfectly confident
that I shall be told here that girls ought to be able to study hard
between fourteen and eighteen years without injury, if boys can do it.
Practically, however, the boys of to-day are getting their toughest
education later and later in life, while girls leave school at the same
age as they did thirty years ago. It used to be common for boys to
enter college at fourteen: at present, eighteen is a usual age of
admission at Harvard or Yale. Now, let any one compare the scale of
studies for both sexes employed half a century ago with that of to-day.
He will find that its demands are vastly more exacting than they
were,--a difference fraught with no evil for men, who attack the graver
studies later in life, but most perilous for girls, who are still
expected to leave school at eighteen or earlier.[1]

[Footnote 1: Witness Richardson's heroine, who was "perfect mistress of
the four rules of arithmetic"!]

I firmly believe--and I am not alone in this opinion--that as concerns
the physical future of women they would do far better if the brain were