ANNA C. BRACKETT. 117 East 36th street, New York City, January, 1874. CONTENTS. PAGE I. Education of American Girls _Anna C. Brackett._ 11 II. A Mother's Thought _Edna D. Cheney._ 117 III. The Other Side _Caroline H. Dall._ 147 IV. Effects of Mental Growth _Lucinda H. Stone._ 173 V. Girls and Women in England and America. _Mary E. Beedy._ 211 VI. Mental Action and Physical Health. _Mary Putnam Jacobi, M.D._ 255 VII. Michigan University _Sarah Dix Hamlin._ 307 VIII. Mount Holyoke Seminary _Mary O. Nutting._ 318 IX. Oberlin College _Adelia A. F. Johnston._ 329 X. Vassar College. _Alida C. Avery, M.D._ 346 XI. Antioch College " " 362 XII. Letter from a German Woman _Mrs. Ogden N. Rood._ 363 XIII. Review of "Sex in Education." _Editor._ 368 XIV. Appendix. 392 "Die Weltgeschichte ist der Fortschritt in das Bewusstseyn der Freiheit."--HEGEL. THE EDUCATION OF AMERICAN GIRLS. "Who educates a woman, educates a race." THE EDUCATION OF AMERICAN GIRLS. There seems to be at present no subject more capable of exciting and holding attention among thoughtful people in America, than the question of the Education of Girls. We may answer it as we will, we may refuse to answer it, but it will not be postponed, and it will be heard; and until it is answered on more rational grounds than that of previous custom, or of preconceived opinion, it may be expected to present itself at every turn, to crop out of every stratum of civilized thought. Nor is woman to blame if the question of her education occupies so much attention. The demands made are not hers--the continual agitation is not primarily of her creating. It is simply the tendency of the age, of which it is only the index. It would be as much out of place to blame the weights of a clock for the moving of the hands, while, acted upon by an unseen, but constant force, they descend slowly but steadily towards the earth.