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Has Dr. Clarke written a book on "Sex in Clerkships"?

Women have, year out and year in, busily plied the needle in tailors' and dressmakers' shops, having no opportunity to change at will their p6sition from the sitting to the standing, walking, or reclining.

Has Dr. Clarke written a book on "Sex in Workshops," or "Sex in Sewing"?

School-teachers are expected to be in their school-rooms promptly on the hour every school-day in the year, ready to discharge their duties to their pupils. Where is the school-board that ever allowed its female teachers to take a week's vacation every month? Where is that man who would have a young woman teach in his ward or neighborhood who should make application to him in this wise: "Sir, I am very desirous of becoming a teacher. I want a school, and will do all in my power to bring it to a standard of high moral excellence and worth. But I must tell you that I cannot teach for four consecutive weeks. I can teach only three weeks at a time: the fourth I must have to myself. Mighty and powerful demands are then- made upon my constitution, and it requires all the strength and energy I can command to meet them. To attempt at such times to manage and instruct an unruly and rollicking set of young urchins would derange the tides of my organization, divert blood from the reproductive apparatus to my head, and consequently add to my piety at the expense of my blood."

Women teach school under a regimen that pays no more regard to their bodily organism than to that of men. Yet in the face of this fact Dr. Clarke tells us it is a sin under such a regimen to attend school as a pupil! Are the duties and responsibilities of a pupil so much more arduous and exacting than those of a teacher that a much more favorable regimen must be prescribed for the former than for the litter?

Imagine Miss Applicant, in quest of a situation to do housework, addressing mistress of the house as follows: "You know, my dear woman, that public opinion and sentiment have imposed upon girls a boy's regimen, that is, that girls who go out to work are expected to work every day of the month, just as boys do. Now this is altogether wrong and contrary to the laws of nature. It is grounded on the supposition that sustained regularity of action may be as safely required of a girl as a boy; that there is no physical necessity for periodically relieving her from standing, walking, cooking, or baking.; that the striking of the clock may call her as well as him to a daily morning walk with the baby, with standing work at the end of it, regardless of the danger that such exercise, by deranging the tide of her organization, may add to her piety at the expense of her blood; that she may bother her brain over bread, pies, cake, preserves, condiments, and the like, with equal and sustained force on every day of the month, thus diverting blood from the reproductive apparatus to the head; in short, that she, like her brother, develops health, strength, blood, and nerve by a regular, uninterrupted, and sustained course of work. All this is not justified either by experience or physiology. Girls lose all these by doing housework all the time. By requiring a girl to perform the same round of duties every day of the month, you impose upon her a regimen which ignores the periodical tides and reproductive apparatus of her organization. Allow me to tell you, dear madame, that work every fourth week the same as the other three, lack of privilege to change her position when she needs change, persistent exercise and constant labor, which you say any girl who works in your household will be subjected to, are wicked. It will do very well for a boy; it will toughen and make a man of him but it can be only prejudicial to a girl. Surely, ma'am, you can't expect girls to work every week: they would become agenes under such a regimen as that."

Would she be likely to secure the situation? Is it the prerogative of those who go out to housework, or who perform any kind of service or labor, to suspend work every fourth week? Are not all women expected to do the bidding of their employers, the same as men, however great their disinclination?

Does that regimen which men are ever prescribing for woman, namely, marriage, grant her one week's cessation from labor out of every four? Can a mother, when weary and over-tasked, relinquish the work and care of her family, and engage her thoughts upon nothing save that of her own physical weaknesses, and how to relieve them?

No, women may work in the factory, in the store, in the workshop, in the field, in the dining-saloon, at the wash-tub, at the ironing-table, at the sewing-machine, -- do all these things, and many more equally hard, from Monday morning till Saturday night every week in the year may wear their lives out toiling for their children, and doing the work for their families that their husbands ought to do, and nobody raises the arm of opposition but just now, because there is a possibility and even probability that in matters of education women will be as honorably treated as men, lo! Dr. Clarke comes forth and tells us it ought not to be so, because, forsooth, the periodical tides and reproductive apparatus of her organization will be ignored!