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.
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