EDUCATION BY PERFUMES.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1789, 14 November 1879, Page 4

EDUCATION BY PERFUMES.

Some experiments of Dr. Piero Fabris, reported or invented by the “ New York Times,” may be commended to the notice of all enterprising philanthropists who burn for now spheres of usefulness. The Italian Professor is said (or imagined) to have noticed the remarkable effect which certain perfumes have on the human organisation, and to have determined to apply this fact to the purposes of education. Seventy-eight girls were subjected to different perfumes with various results. Musk produced amiability, lacgour, and a tendency to wear fine clothes—the latter, however, possibly innate. The specimens submitted to a rose test did not die of it “in aromatic pain,” as they should have done, but became prudish and unamiable —an unexpected result from the queen of flowers. Geranium produced decision of character; violet, gentleness and religious fervor ; patchouli, it need hardly be said, complete moral depravation. Why Dr. Fabris should have tried the last experiment, the results of which must have been evident to every person of observation and a cultivated nose, does not seem clear. His experiments, however (always on the authority of the “New York Times ”), may, we repeat, be commended to enterprising and philanthropic persons. Education by perfumes is perhaps not much more absurd than some other systems and nostrums which have had their day. Meanwhile we may point out that the story derives remarkable corroboration from a familiar nursery rhyme, which declares that little girls are made of “ sugar and spice,” Spice, it is needless to say, was used by our ancestors as a general term for perfumes, and the application of the latter to tho completion and development of feminine nature has a perfect grace of congruity. New York probobly does not cherish our old nursery rhymes, or the writer from whom we borrow would doubtless have noticed the coincidence.