. Even though unrestrained up to the time she attends
school, the girl then enters upon the long career of physical repression
which characterizes her training. Parents, teachers, neighbors, and
schoolmates often seem to conspire to curb all the natural impulses upon
which her health and rounded development depend.

Aside from the reproductive organs, the physical mechanism of the girl is
much like that of the boy. There is no peculiarity in the structure of the
reproductive organs to prohibit vigorous activity. The development and
health of these organs and their ligamentous supports are dependent
primarily upon the quality and free circulation of the blood, both of
which are preeminently the result of fresh air and exercise. If the
muscular system in general is well developed, there is no reason why the
muscular and ligamentous structure of the reproductive organs should not
be equally well developed. To insure their proper development, exercise is
essential.

A questionnaire answered by girls at the University of Oregon shows that,
with few exceptions, plays and games were not indulged in throughout the
high-school period and systematic playing ceased for the majority in the
seventh and eighth grades. This custom prevails throughout the country.
Just at the time when a girl needs abundant and free open-air play to
develop the muscles, train endurance of the heart, and increase the
capacity of the lungs, she omits it altogether. This is one of the chief
factors in the anaemias and poor circulation common in that period. The
derangement in the blood results in digestive disturbances and loss of
appetite, followed by headache and lassitude which further disincline the
girl for activity. Add to this the nervous strain incident to endeavors to
carry on a successful social career, the nerve tension resulting from the
unhygienic clothing assumed at this time, the lack of the steadying
influence of home responsibilities, and we have ample cause for the
nervous, high-strung girl who is becoming so common that we are in danger
of regarding her as the normal girl.

So greatly has the school curriculum encroached upon the home that the
girl has no longer time to share its responsibilities, nor is there longer
time for the family reading-circle, or music, or games for the maintenance
of the unity and fellowship of the home. This condition cannot but react
unfavorably upon the nervous system. If the brain is not rested and the
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