Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls by Edward Hammond Clarke
page 20 of 105 (19%)
page 20 of 105 (19%)
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nourished. This is the commissariat. Secondly, there is the nervous
system, which co-ordinates all the organs and functions; which enables man to entertain relations with the world around him, and with his fellows; and through which intellectual power is manifested, and human thought and reason made possible. Thirdly, there is the reproductive system, by which the race is continued, and its grasp on the earth assured. The first two of these systems are alike in each sex. They are so alike, that they require a similar training in each, and yield in each a similar result. The machinery of them is the same. No scalpel has disclosed any difference between a man's and a woman's liver. No microscope has revealed any structure, fibre, or cell, in the brain of man or woman, that is not common to both. No analysis or dynamometer has discovered or measured any chemical action or nerve-force that stamps either of these systems as male or female. From these anatomical and physiological data alone, the inference is legitimate, that intellectual power, the correlation and measure of cerebral structure and metamorphosis, is capable of equal development in both sexes. With regard to the reproductive system, the case is altogether different. Woman, in the interest of the race, is dowered with a set of organs peculiar to herself, whose complexity, delicacy, sympathies, and force are among the marvels of creation. If properly nurtured and cared for, they are a source of strength and power to her. If neglected and mismanaged, they retaliate upon their possessor with weakness and disease, as well of the mind as of the body. God was not in error, when, after Eve's creation, he looked upon his work, and pronounced it good. Let Eve take a wise care of the temple God made for her, and Adam of the one made for him, and both will enter upon a career whose glory and beauty no seer has foretold or poet sung. |
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