PEDIATRICS Vol. 48 No. 2 August 1971, pp. 247
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow P3Rs: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when P3Rs are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My File Cabinet
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by C., T. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by C., T. E., Jr.

THE EVIL EFFECTS OF HIGHER EDUCATION FOR GIRLS— ACCORDING TO DR. S. WEIR MITCHELL

T. E. C. Jr. M.D.

During the latter half of the nineteenth century most physicians in this country were convinced that girls should not undergo the same rigorous scholastic programs as boys their age. The explanation usually given was that too much stimulation of the girl's brain would cause dire effects on the "female organs." The simplistic explanation went as follows: "The nutritive demands of the stimulated brain would jeopardize the nutritive needs of the girl's reproductive organs." This would cause not only disabling "female complaints" but bad health in general.

Dr. S. Weir Mitchell (1829-1914) vividly expressed the commonly-held view of the harmful effects of nineteenth century female education in these words:

"Worst of all, to my mind, most destructive in every way, is the American view of female education. The time taken for the more serious instruction of girls extends to the age of eighteen, and rarely over this. During these years, they are undergoing such organic development as renders them remarkably sensitive... To show more precisely how the growing girl is injured by the causes just mentioned (forced and continued study at the sexual epoch) would carry me upon subjects unfit for full discussion in these pages; but no thoughtful reader can be much at a loss as to my meaning... To-day the American woman is, to speak plainly, physically unfit for her duties as woman, and is, perhaps, of all civilized females, the least qualified to undertake those weightier tasks which tax so heavily the nervous system of man. She is not fairly up to what Nature asks for her as wife and mother.