English school girls wished to be men, though scarcely any boys wished to be women.[31] With the same tendency may be connected that neglect to cultivate the emotions, which, by a mischievously extravagant but inevitable reaction from the opposite extreme, has sometimes marked the modern training of women.

In the finely developed woman, intelligence is interpenetrated with emotion.
If there is an exaggerated and isolated culture of intelligence a tendency shows itself to disharmony which breaks up the character or impairs its completeness.

In this connection Reibmayr has remarked that the American woman may serve as a warning.[32] Within the emotional sphere itself, it may be added, there is a tendency to disharmony in women owing to the contradictory nature of the feelings which are traditionally impressed upon her, a contradiction which dates back indeed to the identification of sacredness and impurity at the dawn of civilization.

"Every girl and woman," wrote Hellmann, in a pioneering book which pushed a sound principle to eccentric extremes, "is taught to regard her sexual parts as a precious and sacred spot, only to be approached by a husband or in special circumstances a doctor.

She is, at the same time, taught to regard this spot as a kind of water-closet which she ought to be extremely ashamed to possess, and the mere mention of which should cause a painful blush."[33] The average unthinking woman accepts the incongruity of this opposition without question, and grows accustomed to adapt herself to each of the incompatibles according to circumstances.