read with care by every parent and by every one concerned in our public
schools.

[Footnote 1: Miss Pendleton.]

"There can be no question that the health of growing girls is overtaxed;
but, in my opinion, this is a vice of the age, and not primarily of the
schools. I have found teachers more alive to it than parents or the
general public. Upon interrogating a class of forty girls, of ages
varying from twelve to fourteen, I found that more than half the number
were conscious of loss of sleep and nervous apprehension before
examinations; but I discovered, upon further inquiry, that nearly
one-half of this class received instruction in one or two branches
outside of the school curriculum, with the intention of qualifying to
become teachers. I could get no information as to appetite or diet; all
of the class, as the teacher informed me, being ashamed to give
information on questions of the table. In the opinion of this teacher,
nervousness and sleeplessness are somewhat due to studies and in-door
social amusements in addition to regular school work; but chiefly to
ignorance in the home as to the simplest rules of healthy living. Nearly
all the girls in this class drink a cup of tea before leaving home, eat
a sweet biscuit as they walk, hurried and late, to school, and nothing
else until they go home to their dinners at two o'clock. All their
brain-work in the school-room is done before eating any nourishing food.
The teacher realized the injurious effects of the present forcing
system, and suggested withdrawing the girls from school for one year
between the grammar- and high-school grades. When I asked whether a
better result would not be obtained by keeping the girls in school
during this additional year, but relieving the pressure of purely mental
work by the introduction throughout all the grades of branches in