This excerpt was at the end of an article I was reading. I found it rather… interesting.

Every effort in the school now is to cultivate (girl’s) minds at the expense of their bodies. They consequently have a sickly life, if perchance not cut off in early girlhood; they make poor mothers, are unable to nurse their children in many instances with a tendency to some of the most distressing complaints, and disease is propagated in their children. Much of this arises from the popular mistake that young misses must study algebra, chemistry, scientific botany, Latin, and perhaps Greek and Hebrew, but the time they are fifteen, in order to become ladies. They have no frolicking girlhood–because it is plebeian to romp out of doors with freedom, as nature intended in order to strengthen and perfect their delicate organization. A knowledge of domestic economy is decidedly vulgar, and belongs to poor kitchen girls, whose red cheeks, round arms, splendid busts, and fine health are perfectly contemptible…More active play and fewer books, pudding-making in place of algebraical equations, with free exercise of their feet, which were actually designed for walking, would produce a race of women in our midst, such as now cannot be found, in regard to figure, capacity and beauty.
Editorial: Female education. Boston Med Surg J. 1852; 46:187-188.

Found in: Pediatrics (1989) 84(4) 716.

It’s amazing that the human race survived the 19th century.