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Ever since the time of Hippocrates, woman has been physiologically described as enjoying, and has always recognized herself as enjoying, or at least as possessing, a tri-partite life. The first period extends from birth to about the age of twelve or fifteen years; the second, from the end of the first period to about the age of forty-five; and the third, from the last boundary to the final passage into the unknown. The few years that are necessary for the voyage from the first to the second period, and those from the second to the third, are justly called critical ones. Mothers are, or should be, wisely anxious about the first passage for their daughters, and women are often unduly apprehensive about the second passage for themselves. All this is obvious and known; and yet, in our educational arrangements, little heed is paid to the fact, that the first of these critical voyages is made during a girl's educational life, and extends over a very considerable portion of it.

This brief statement only hints at the vital physiological truths it contains: it does not disclose them. Let us look at some of them a moment. Remember, that we are now concerned only with the first of these passages, that from a girl's childhood to her maturity. In childhood, boys and girls are very nearly alike. If they are natural, they talk and romp, chase butterflies and climb fences, love and hate, with an innocent abandon that is ignorant of sex. Yet even then the difference is apparent to the observing. Inspired by the divine instinct of motherhood, the girl that can only creep to her mother's knees will caress a doll, that her tottling brother looks coldly upon. The infant Achilles breaks the thin disguise of his gown and sleeves by dropping the distaff, and grasping the sword. As maturity approaches, the sexes diverge. An unmistakable difference marks the form and features of each, and reveals the demand for a special training. This divergence, however, is limited in its sweep and its duration. The difference exists for a definite purpose, and goes only to a definite extent. The curves of separation swell out as childhood recedes, like an ellipse, and, as old age draws on, approach, till they unite like an ellipse again. In old age, the second childhood, the difference of sex becomes of as little note as it was during the first. At that period, the picture of the

"Lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
* * * * * * * * * *
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing,"

is faithful to either sex. Not as man or woman, but as a sexless being, does advanced age enter and pass the portals of what is called death.

During the first of these critical periods, when the divergence of the sexes becomes obvious to the most careless observer, the complicated apparatus peculiar to the female enters upon a condition of functional activity. "The ovaries, which constitute," says Dr. Dalton, "the 'essential parts' (3) of this apparatus, and certain accessory organs, are now rapidly developed." Previously they were inactive. During infancy and childhood all of them existed, or rather all the germs of them existed; but they were incapable of function. At this period they take on a process of rapid growth and development. Coincident with this process, indicating it, and essential to it, are the periodical phenomena which characterize woman's physique till she attains the third division of her tripartite life. The growth of this peculiar and marvellous apparatus, in the perfect development of which humanity has so large an interest, occurs during the few years of a girl's educational life. No such extraordinary task, calling for such rapid expenditure of force, building up such a delicate and extensive mechanism within the organism, -- a house within a house, an engine within an engine, -- is imposed upon the male physique at the same epoch. (4) The organization of the male grows steadily, gradually, and equally, from birth to maturity. The importance of having our methods of female education recognize this peculiar demand for growth, and of so adjusting themselves to it, as to allow a sufficient opportunity for the healthy development of the ovaries and their accessory organs, and for the establishment of their periodical functions, cannot be overestimated. Moreover, unless the work is accomplished at that period, unless the reproductive mechanism is built and put in good working order at that time, it is never perfectly accomplished afterwards. "It is not enough," says Dr. Charles West, the accomplished London physician, and lecturer on diseases of women, "it is not enough to take precautions till menstruation has for the first time occurred: the period for its return should, even in the healthiest girl, be watched for, and all previous precautions should be once more repeated; and this should be done again and again, until at length the habit of regular, healthy menstruation is established. If this be not accomplished during the first few years of womanhood, it will, in all probability, never be attained." (5) There have been instances, and I have seen such, of females in whom the special mechanism we are speaking of remained germinal, -- undeveloped. It seemed to have been aborted. They graduated from school or college excellent scholars, but with undeveloped ovaries. Later they married, and were sterile. (6)

(4) As might be expected, the mortality of girls is greater at this period than that of boys, an additional reason for imposing less labor on the former at that time. According to the authority of MM. Quetelet and Smits, the mortality of the two sexes is equal in childhood, or that of the male is greatest; but that of the female rises between the ages of fourteen and sixteen to 1.28 to one male death. For the next four years, it falls again to 1.05 females to one male death. -- Sur la Reproduction et la Mortalité de l'Homme. 8vo. Bruxelles.

(5) Lectures on Diseases of Women. Am. ed., p. 48.

(6) "Much less uncommon than the absence of either ovary is the persistence of both through the whole or greater part of life in the condition which they present in infancy and early childhood, with scarcely a trace of graafian vesicles in their tissue. This want of development of the ovaries is generally, though not invariably, associated with want of development of the uterus and other sexual organs; and I need not say that women in whom it exists are sterile." -- Lectures on the Diseases of Women, by Charles West, M.D. Am. ed., p. 37.