lect, the
struggle with man is cruelly unequal and is to be avoided whenever it is
possible.

The colleges for women, such as Vassar, are nowadays more careful than
they were. Indeed, their machinery for guarding health while education
of a high class goes on is admirable. What they still lack is a correct
public feeling. The standard for health and endurance is too much that
which would be normal for young men, and the sentiment of these groups
of women is silently opposed to admitting that the feminine life has
necessities which do not cumber that of man. Thus the unwritten code
remains in a measure hostile to the accepted laws which are supposed to
rule.

As concerns our colleges for young men I have little to say. The cases I
see of breakdown among women between sixteen and nineteen who belong to
normal schools or female colleges are out of all proportion larger than
the number of like failures among young men of the same ages, and yet,
as I have hinted, the arrangements for watching the health of these
groups of women are usually better than such as the colleges for young
men provide. The system of professional guardianship at Johns Hopkins is
an admirable exception, and at some other institutions the physical
examination on matriculation becomes of the utmost value, when followed
up as it is in certain of these schools by compulsory physical training
and occasional re-examinations of the state of health.

I do not see why the whole matter could not in all colleges be
systematically made part of the examinations on entry upon studies. It
would at least point out to the thoughtful student his weak points, and
enable him to do his work and take his exercise with some regard to
consequences. I have over and over seen young men with weak hearts or
unsuspected valvular troubles who had suffered from having been allowed
to play foot-ball. Cases of cerebral trouble in students, due to the use
of defective eyes, are common, and I have known many valuable lives
among male and female students crippled hopelessly owing to the fact
that no college pre-examination of their state had taught them their
true condition, and that no one had pointed out to them the necessity
of such correction by glasses as would have enabled them as workers to
compete on even terms with their fellows.

In a somewhat discursive fashion I have dwelt upon the mischief which is
pressing to-day upon our girls of every class in life. The doctor knows