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12 " INSANITY; ITS CAUSE AND CURE.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
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While an over-worked brain , the excitement of speculation , and tlie pressure 1 men of of tiie bus middle iness , accounts and higher immediatel ranks , the y for lives mental of the women disease
are among given up to an aimlessness equally perilous . To go to the root vating of the matter as possible j the nurture . Their and education hysical development of most women is uncared are as ener for - ,
if not positively retarded . p A species of hot-house culture is forced upon the mind ; a certain circle of accomplishments must
be mastered , whether a girl has taste for them or no . If she shows little natural aptitude for any particular study , and much
natural disinclination to pursue it , so much the worse for her , the drill is increasedthe deficiency of nature must be supplied
, by art . "With little or no ear for music , and a consequent hearty hatred or loathing for the preliminary labor by which its practice
must be acquired , she must sit with aching back and vacant brain drumming for hours over the piano , in a way sufficient to drive
to distraction all within reach of the discord , and which gives her unfoxtunate musical governess a succession of sick head-aches ,
while powers of observation which would have been , to their owner at leasta source of inimite pleasure , are lying uncultivated ,
, and defraud a judgment wanting * only exercise to reach a healthy development . Still more urgent the case may be ; even that of an
ill-constituted roind calling for the utmost care in the training of the moral and the culture of the qualities of thought in order
to powers its , doubtful -balance . Yet the same curriculum of acpreserve _lishment is deemed necessary for alland that _ciuaiculum is
such comp a crowded one , that sense and morals are , very often left to take care of themselves . At the same time emulation is encouraged _^ and
a system of stimulation applied which has the most painful effect on excitable temperamentsand such a temperament the girl ' s whole
training tends to induce . , Having gone through this course of treatment , the young lady comes out perhaps with a more delicate bloom
and a more lady-like air than if she had been allowed fox the last few years a freer use of her limbs and a more solid diet for her mind .
Having come out , her life is passed between two extremes ,, the extreme of excitement in the season devoted to societythe extreme
, of aimlessness in the season of seclusion . It must be borne in mind that this is not meant to be a description of the average ladies
of Engiand . It is faithful to the class it portrays , faithful to a system which is too generally pursued , but there are thousands
of mothers of our middle and _hig-her ranks who give their girls the most careful and judicious training ; thousands more who mingle
with _tlie system we have described just enough of the leaven of \ common sense and religion to neutralise its worst effects ; and j
thousands more who have got the length of seeing its evils , without _\ exactlseeing their out of _tliem . There are enough of the I
y way latter , and of the still unreserved upholders of tlie present . s ystem , I
to call for and justify an earnest appeal in behalf of a better system f
12 " Insanity; Its Cause And Cure.
12 _" _INSANITY ; ITS CAUSE AND CURE .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1859, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091859/page/12/
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