The adolescent girl often is thought to be lazy, and when called upon to work she shows an exasperating dulness and inattention. This is a natural condition when the girl is passing through the langour of physical growth; she is overcome, not by listlessness, but by the strain of her awakening senses, and the inattention of the mind is, as a rule, but a symptom of the mysterious and difficult maturing of the brain. The apparent apathy is not real: all the girl’s power, all energy of body and mind is being consumed by the overwhelming force of the half-conscious life of instincts that are ripening within. The young girl for the first time feels, though very rarely does she understand, the power of her nature stirring her soul. And any seeming backwardness in studies during these years, as should be known by the wise teacher, leads afterwards to finer progress, if only the right opportunity of unstrained development is given. But it is this harmony of growth that we have been disturbing as with persistent zeal we have educated from the outside. Little wonder that we have failed. I have spoken before of the wide difference that is present between the nature of the boy and that of the girl, and though I speak with hesitation on a question that is too complex to permit dogmatic assertions, the boy has, I think, a much more healthy and conscious knowledge of himself; a girl understands herself less, and has a very dim notion of the motives of her conduct. This leads to very certain danger. The thoughts of most girls are occupied with vague and romantic longings, much heightened by the nonsense written on love in the books girls are allowed to read, stories from which every hint of wholesome reality has been omitted. Such false feelings, dominating the girl’s mind at the time of the adolescent crisis, work grave evil.
While always thinking of love most girls know almost nothing of what love really is; and certainly the strain of any sudden chance investigation of the physical facts of sex is a very near danger.
That is one reason why, in a previous section, I have urged so strongly that sexual enlightenment be given to the girl while she is still at the age when sex has no strong personal significance.