and her
womanly, "clear, and dignified statement, destroys all the false halo
with which the youthful fancy is so prone to surround the process of
reproduction, and, at this time, the fancy is very active with relation
to whatever pertains to it."

I do not for one moment forget that I am speaking of physical education.
The physical consequences of mistakes on this point are decided. By the
continual dwelling of the imagination on this subject--of the
imagination, I say, for there can be no thought where there is no
clearness--the blood is diverted to these organs, and hence, "the brain
and spinal cord, which develop so rapidly at this period, are not led to
a proper strength. The easily-moulded material is perverted to the
newly-aroused reproductive organs," and the preternatural activity thus
produced is physical disease.

But more than this: I should be fairly accused of quitting the physical
for the moral side of education here, if it were not that I am now upon
ground, where, more than on any other, body and soul, matter and spirit,
touch each other, and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to draw
the dividing line. The inter-action of the two upon each other here
becomes so rapid and intense, that one scarcely knows the relation of
cause and effect. I repeat--more than this: The patched and medley
knowledge of the young girl to whom her mother does not speak, comes to
her garbled and confused, the sacred seal of modesty torn off, soiled
with the touch of vulgar hands, defaced by the coarse jests of polite
society, its sanctity forever missed. The temple has been invaded, its
white floors trodden by feet from muddy alleys, the gods thrown down. Is
not the temple as much ruined when this profanation has been
accomplished, as if the walls had fallen? I will not be misunderstood as
doubting, for one moment, the purity of soul of American girls as a
whole; but I assert, that the result of which I have spoken is terribly
common in our large cities, and that it is much more likely to be common
in America than in any other country, from the effect of our climate,
our free institutions, and the almost universal diffusion of printed
matter.

The remedy lies alone in the hands of the mother, and, where a girl is
away from her mother, in the hands of her woman guardian, whoever she
may be. When our women are better educated, there will be less prudery
and more real modesty.[11] When the minds of our girls and women ar