It should be
mentioned in this connection, what has been previously adverted to,
that the toughness and power of after life are largely in proportion
to the normality of sexual development. If there is error then, the
organization never fully recovers. This is an additional motive for a
strict physiological regimen during a girl's student life, and, just
so far, an argument against the identical co-education of the sexes.
The second reason why female operatives are less likely to suffer, and
actually do suffer less, than school-girls, from persistent work
straight through the year, is because the former work their brains
less. To use the language of Herbert Spencer, "That antagonism between
body and brain which we see in those, who, pushing brain-activity to
an extreme, enfeeble their bodies,"[25] does not often exist in female
operatives, any more than in male. On the contrary, they belong to the
class of those who, in the words of the same author, by "pushing
bodily activity to an extreme, make their brains inert."[26] Hence
they have stronger bodies, a reproductive apparatus more normally
constructed, and a catamenial function less readily disturbed by
effort, than their student sisters, who are not only younger than
they, but are trained to push "brain-activity to an extreme.
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