A Charlotte Mason Moment:
“Here comes in for consideration the question of ‘overpressure’, a possibility – too serious to be passed over without investigation – which parents naturally dread more for their girls than their boys. In the first place, work, regular disciplinary exercise, is so entirely wholesome for the brain, that girls, even more than boys, should be the better for definite work with a given object. It cannot be too strongly put, that, as a matter of health, growing girls cannot afford to be idle, mentally; it is just as pernicious that they should dawdle through their lessons as that they should lounge through the day. There is no more effectual check to the tendency to hysteria and other nervous maladies common to growing girls than the habit of steady brain-work.”
(Home Education by Charlotte M. Mason Vol. 5, pp. 180, 181)
Editor’s note: The habit of steady brain-work is just as effectual for busy little boys who would otherwise spend their school time giving their parents many “nervous maladies.” Want an example of this? See the link below: