Some years ago, indeed, Dr.Mary Putnam Jacobi, in a very able book, _The Question of Rest for Women_, concluded that "ordinarily healthy" women may disregard the menstrual period, but she admitted that forty-six per cent, of women are not "ordinarily healthy," and a minority which comes so near to being a majority can by no means be dismissed as a negligible quantity.
Girls themselves, indeed, carried away by the ardor of their pursuit of work or amusement, are usually recklessly and ignorantly indifferent to the serious risks they run.

But the opinions of teachers are now tending to agree with medical opinion in recognizing the importance of care and rest during the years of adolescence, and teachers are even prepared to admit that a year's rest from hard work during the period that a girl's sexual life is becoming established, while it may ensure her health and vigor, is not even a disadvantage from the educational point of view.

With the growth of knowledge and the decay of ancient prejudices, we may reasonably hope that women will be emancipated from the traditions of a false civilization, which have forced her to regard her glory as her shame,--though it has never been so among robust primitive peoples,--and it is encouraging to find that so distinguished an educator as Principal Stanley Hall looks forward with confidence to such a time.

In his exhaustive work on _Adolescence_ he writes: "Instead of shame of this function girls should be taught the greatest reverence for it, and should help it to normality by regularly stepping aside at stated times for a few years till it is well established and normal.

To higher beings that looked down upon human life as we do upon flowers, these would be the most interesting and beautiful hours of blossoming.