Let us suppose that circumstances make it seem proper to consider an
ambitious young woman's wish, and to let her go to a college for women.
We presume that she has average health. But let no prudent mother
suppose that in these collections of persons of one sex her child will
be watched as she has been at home. At no time will she more need the
vigilant insight of a mother, and yet this can only be had through
letters and in the holiday seasons. Nor can the mother always rely upon
the girl to put forward what may cause doubt as to her power to go on
with her work. I utterly distrust the statistics of these schools and
their graduates as to health, and my want of reliance arises out of the
fact that this whole question is in a condition which makes the
teachers, scholars, and graduates of such colleges antagonistic to
masculine disbelievers in a way and to a degree fatal to truth. I trust
far more what I hear from the women who have broken down under the
effort to do more than they were fit to do, for always, say what you
may, it is the man's standard of endurance which is set before them, and
up to which they try to live with all the energy which a woman's higher
sense of duty imposes upon the ambitious ones of her sex. I have often
asked myself what should be done to make sure that these schools shall
produce the minimum amount of evil; what can be done to avoid the
penalties inflicted by over-study and class competitions, and by the
emotional stimulus which women carry into all forms of work. Even if the
doctor says this girl is sound and strong, her early months of college
labor should be carefully watched. Above all, her eyes should be seen
to, because in my experience some unsuspected disorder of vision has
been fruitful of headaches and overstrain of brain, nor is it enough to
know that at the beginning her eyes are good. Extreme use often evolves
practical evils from visual difficulties at first so slight as to need
or seem to need no correction.