Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1884 — Girls and Hereditary Disease. [ARTICLE]

Girls and Hereditary Disease.

The educator has no means of knowing the constitution and hereditary weakness of his girls—that the motherof one died of consumption, that the father of another was insane, that neuialgia is hereditary in the family of a third, that one has been nervous, another had convulsions when a baby, another has been threatened with water in the head, etc. His own education and training have not taught him to notice or know the meaning of narrow chests, or great thinness, or stooping shoulders, or very big heads, or quick, jerky movements, or dilated pupils, or want of appetite, or headache, or irritability, or backache, or disinclination to bodily exertion. But all these things exist in abundance in every big school, and the girls handicapped m that way are set in competition with those who are strong and free from risks. It is the most nervous, excitable, and highly strung girls who throw themselves into the school competition most keenly. And they, of course, are just the more liable to be injured by it. All good observers say the intensity of feeling displayed in girls’ competition is greater than among lads, and that there is more apt to arise a personal animus. Girls don’t take a beating so quietly as boys. Their moral constitution, while in some ways stronger than that of boys, especially at that age, suffers more from any disturbing cause. The whole thing takes greater hold of them—is more real.— Popular Science.