Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/244

238 physical development. At best, if she is strong, does her work without worry and "normalizes her lunar month" promptly, she may stay in school without much danger provided she take her two days of rest periodically. I am inclined to believe that this is in all cases worth while until the end of the high-school course, although it is always impracticable to make general rules. A number of women who consider themselves perfectly well so far as sex weakness is concerned have told me that they believe their health due to their year of complete rest at puberty and that they did not find the need of monthly rest after the first years.

I am coming to be convinced, somewhat against my wish, that there are many cases when the girl ought to be taken out of school entirely for some months or for a year at the period of puberty. This course is supremely worth while if she shows irregularity of function or decreasing vitality, and it is at this time that there is profit in such an especial vacation.

I do not speak with ill-considered lightness of taking the girl out of school for a year. It is a serious matter to her at a time when she is likely to take all her life too seriously and when she should feel as free as possible from annoyance. She is naturally disturbed at leaving her class, especially if she is likely thereby to lose a grade. It is worth while to take considerable pains to minimize her distress. If she enjoys a pleasant visit out of town until the term is well under way, then returns to private lessons with her mother or some other wise teacher, lessons determined in time and length by her physical condition, she may endure her enforced vacation from public school without much fretting. The anxieties of this period ought to be borne for her as far as possible; that she should become anxious about her own health would defeat the very end in view. She can be assured that days out of school now are pretty sure to remove the necessity of days or weeks or months out of school later in her course. Similarly two days out of school every month the first year that she is in the high school in order that she may not suffer are really much better worth while than two days out of school the last of the course because she is not able to be present. These days of rest are not in the least incompatible with good work in school; a girl so cared for may be expected to accomplish more in a year than she who has no such restraint. Mothers protest again and again that such a custom is entirely incompatible with modern school demands, but I have never known a teacher to say that it was not quite practicable, and I have seen school work done under this regime to the entire satisfaction of all concerned. It is perhaps worth while to record here the questions of one grammar-school teacher—"Why will not mothers tell me when the critical period begins for their daughters? Many times I can determine for myself, but in general I could make things so much easier for the girls if I could only know when they need especial indulgence."