The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1886. HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2417, 5 October 1886, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1886. HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.

Thb Preaidout of the British Medical Association recently delivered an address on the Higher education of women, As summarised by a Southern contemporary " Dr. Moore declares the higher education of women seriously injures their health and hinders them from the discharge of the important duties of life, ■ And then, he adds, no training will enable themselves to do what their sons might have done, ut Bacou'f! mother (intellectual m she was) could not have produced the' Novum Organum,'" but she, and she alone, ho holds, could have been the mother of Bacon, Tho Professor then goes on to quotb from a number of authorities statements as to tho evils likely to be wrought on the female frame by educational !" over-pressure," Mr Horbert Spencer is especially quoted as to the physiological effects produced on women by mental labor carried to excess. A number of other eminent writers are equally'emphatic as to the dangers of /cultivating, the mental faculties »t the expense ol the physical powers. What Dr. Moore studiously refrains from dwelling on, however, is the fact tint they explicitly warn ug against the danger of overpressure in eithtr sex—that they tell us of boya who become anißmic. stunted, and even imbecile, as well as of girls afflicted : with persistent head-aches' ?nd flat-chested." ■ The aspect of the subject which Dr

Moore apparently nusaea, is the ques tiijn - whether; menial development would nipt necessarily be allied with b measure of physical advancement, The reason why Imrd study tells upon women is that their present physical stamina is a low one. If women as a rule enjoyed fine bodily health, it might be injudicious to tamper with it by a Bevere mental training, hut it is a matter o( notoriety that their physical health is only on a par with their mental development, As a race they allow the rule of fashion to almost entirely supersede the dictates of health. They are consequently always in a poition of antagonism to the simple natural conditions under which fino health and good physical developm?nt are alone attainable. They prefer to be white faced rather than rosycheokod, to eat dainty rather than wholesome food, to wear ornamental I'Atlier than comfortable clothing, and to indulge in enervating rather than invigorating occupations. They gre AOastantly at war with nature's laws, and aie ever suffering in the contest. Tho same may be said with a great amount of truth of men as well as of women, hut not, perhaps, to a similar oxtent. It is a fact that the latter can stand a severer mental and physical strain than women, ana this suggests the consideration that mental and physical developmen tgo hand in hand together. The opinion which wo require from an emmint authority like Dr Moore is not whether mental Btudy will deteriorate the present debilitated physical female frame, but whether a woman who. onjoys line physical health, and who lives in harmony with sanitary i 'rules, can undergo mental development ..without physical suffering. If the women of our race are mere, bundles of very indifferent nerves the fault lies in their training and habits and not in their nature; • We cannot but believe that the higher education of women must be instrumental in leading up to the physical reform and thai any. real improvement in their physical condition must arise from their eyes being o|>oned and intelligences awakened to the evils which effect their bodily condition. To such an awakening higher education will bring them slowly but, surely, aud if there is one branch of it more than another which, ir> the interest of both sexes it is desirable that they should make a speciality, it is medical science. Both in America and at home in England picked women have qualified themselves for useful ar.d profitable modical careers and have displayed the capacity of the sex for mastering the profundities of medical schools. We' fancy these picked women have not succumbed to physical ill health, but would rather expect to find among them physical types corresponding to their higher mental development,