the kind of which we are speaking.
The blanched cheeks, hollow, expressionless eyes, and rough, pimply
skins of many school-girls are due to this cause alone. We do not mean
by this to intimate that every girl who has pimples upon her face is
guilty of secret vice; but this sin is undoubtedly a very frequent cause
of the unpleasant eruption which so often appears upon the foreheads
of both sexes. It would be very unjust, however, to charge a person
with the sin unless some further evidence than that of an eruption on
the face was afforded.

The inability to study, to apply themselves in any way except when
stimulated by something of a very exciting character, which many girls
exhibit, is in a large proportion of cases due to the practice of which
we are writing. Often enough the effects which are attributed to
overstudy are properly due to this debasing habit. We have little faith
in the great outcry made in certain quarters about the damaging effects
of study upon the health of young ladies. A far less worthy cause is
in many cases the true one, to which is attributable the decline in
health at a critical period when all the vital forces of the system
are necessarily called into action to introduce the activity of a new
function.

Hundreds of girls break down in health just as they are entering
womanhood. At from twelve to eighteen years of age the change naturally
occurs which transforms the girl into a woman by the development of
functions previously latent. This critical period is one through which
every girl in health ought to pass with scarcely any noticeable
disturbance; and if during the previous years of life the laws of health
were observed, there would seldom be any unusual degree of suffering
at this time. Those who have before this period been addicted to the
vile habit of which we are writing, will almost invariably show at this
time evidences of the injury which has been wrought. The unnatural
excitement of the organs before the period of puberty, lays the
foundation for life-long disease. When that critical epoch arrives,
the organs are found in a state of congestion often bordering on
inflammation. The increased congestion which naturally occurs at this
time in many cases is sufficient to excite most serious disease. Here
is the beginning of a great many of the special diseases which are the
bane and shame of the sex. Displacements of various sorts, congestions,
neuralgia of the ovaries, leucorrhoea,