We have seen that the sex of the individual is already determined as early as any other of his or her characters, though the realization of the potentialities of that sex may be much modified by nurture, as in the contrasted cases of the queen bee and the worker bee. Children, then, are already of one sex or other, and though our business in the present volume is not childhood of either sex, a few points are worth noting before we take up the consideration of the individual at the period when the distinctive characteristics of sex make their effective appearance.

Despite the abundance of the material and the opportunities for observation, we are at present without decisive evidence as to the distinctiveness of sex in any effective way during childhood. Here, as elsewhere, we have to guard ourselves against the influences of nurture in the widest sense of the word; as when, to take an extreme case, we distinguish between the boy and the girl because the hair of the one is cut and of the other is not. The natural, as distinguished from the nurtural, distinctions at this period are probably much fewer than is supposed. It is asserted—to take physical characters first—that the girl of ten gives out in breathing considerably less carbonic acid than her brother of the same age, thus foreshadowing the difference between the sexes which is recognized in later years. If this fact be critically established it is of very great interest, showing that the sex distinction effectively makes its presence felt in the most essential processes of the body. But we should require to be satisfied that the observations were sufficiently numerous, and were made under absolutely equal conditions, and with due allowance for difference in body-weight. They would be the more credible if it were also shown that the number of the red blood corpuscles were smaller in girls than in boys in parallel with the difference between the sexes in later years.

Children of both sexes have fewer red blood corpuscles in a given quantity of blood and a smaller proportion of the red colouring matter, or hÆmoglobin, than adults. Women have very definitely fewer red blood corpuscles than men, and a smaller proportion of hÆmoglobin, and their blood is more watery. According to one authority this difference in the hÆmoglobin can be observed from the ages of eleven to fifty, but not before. The specific gravity of the blood is found to be the same in both sexes before the fifteenth year. Thereafter, that of the boy's blood rises, and between seventeen and forty-five is definitely higher than in women of the corresponding age. It thus seems quite clear that, as we should expect, these differences in the blood, which are certainly, as Dr. Havelock Ellis says, fundamental, make their appearance definitely at puberty—a fact which supports the view that fundamental differences of practical importance between the two sexes before that age are not to be found. Careful comparative study of the pulse of children is hitherto somewhat inconclusive, though it is well known that the pulse is more rapid in women than in men.

On the other hand, it seems clear as regards respiration that as early as the age of twelve there are definite differences between the sexes. Several thousands of American school children were examined, and between the ages of six and nineteen the boys were throughout superior in lung capacity. The girls had almost reached their maximum capacity at the age of twelve, and thereafter the difference, till then slight, rapidly increased.[6] It appears that from eight to fifteen years of age a boy burns more carbon than a girl, the difference, however, being not great. But at puberty the boy proceeds to consume very nearly twice as much carbon per hour as his sister.

Perhaps the matter need not be pursued further. It is sufficient for us to recognize that puberty is really the critical time, and that in the consideration of womanhood we may, on the whole, be justified in looking upon the problem of the girl before that age as almost identical with her brother's. Yet we must be reasonably cautious, since our knowledge is small, and there is some by no means negligible evidence of fundamental physiological differences between the sexes before puberty, relatively slight though these may be. Therefore, though on the whole we need make few distinctions between the girl and her brother, and though we are doubtless wrong in the magnitude of the practical distinctions which we have often made hitherto, yet we must remember that these are going to be different beings, and that the main principles which determine our nurture of womanhood may be recalled when we are doubtful as to practice in the care of the girl child.

Physiological distinctions, we have seen, probably exist during these early years, but are of less importance than we sometimes have attached to them, and of no importance at all compared with what is to come. Psychological distinctions, we may believe, are still more dubious. For instance, it is generally believed that the parental instinct shows itself much more markedly in girls than in boys, and the commonly observed history of the liking for dolls is quoted in this connection. As this instinct bears so profoundly upon the later life of the individual, and as we may reasonably suppose the child to be the mother of the woman as well as the father of the man, the matter is worth looking at a little further.

But, in the first place, it has been asserted that the doll instinct has really nothing whatever to do with the parental instinct in either sex. Psychologists, whom one suspects of being bachelors, tell us that what we really observe here is the instinct of acquisition: it really does not matter what we give the child, though it so happens that we very commonly present it with dolls; it is the lust of possession that we satisfy, and in point of fact one thing will satisfy it as well as another.

The evidence against this view is quite overwhelming. We might quote the universal distribution of dolls in place and in time as revealed by anthropology. Wherever there is mankind there are dolls, whether in Mayfair or in Whitechapel, Japan, the South Sea Islands, Ancient Egypt or Mexico. Further, there is the observed behaviour of the child, opportunities for which have presumably been denied to the psychologists whose opinion has been quoted. The only objection to the theory that the child will be content with the possession of anything else as well as of a doll is the circumstance that the child is not so content, but asks for a doll for choice, and will lavish upon any doll, however diagrammatic, an amount of love and care which no other toy will ever obtain. Further, if the child has opportunities for playing with a real baby, it will be perfectly evident, even to the bachelor psychologist, that the doll was the vicarious substitute for the real thing.

But now, what as to the comparative strength of this instinct in the two sexes? Here we must not be deceived by the effects of nurture, environment, or education. Though finding, as we do, that the little boy enjoys playing with his dolls as his sister does, we refrain from buying dolls for him, and may indeed, underestimating the importance of human fatherhood, declare that dolls are beneath the dignity of a boy though good enough for his sister. He, destined rather for the business of destroying life, so much more glorious than saving it, must learn to play with soldiers. In this fashion we at least deprive ourselves of any opportunity of critically comparing the strength and the history of the instinct in the two sexes.

There is good reason to suppose that the distinction between the psychology of the boy and that of the girl in these early years is very small. If boys are not discouraged they will play with dolls for choice, just as their sisters do, and may be just as charming with younger brothers or sisters. Nor is it by any means certain that this misleading of ourselves is the worst consequence of the common practice. It is possible that we lose opportunities for the inculcation of ideals which are of the highest value to the individual and the race. I am reminded of the true story of a small boy, well brought up, who, being jeered at in the street by bigger boys because he was carrying a doll, turned upon his critics with the admirable retort—slightly wanting in charity, let us hope, but none the less pertinent—"None of you will ever be a good father."

Thus, on the whole, one is inclined to suppose that the general resemblance in facial appearance, bodily contour, and interests which we observe in children of the two sexes, indicates that deeper distinctions are latent rather than active. This is much more than an academic question, for if our subject in the present volume were the care of childhood, it is plain that we should have to base upon our answer to this question our treatment of boy and girl respectively. Probably we are on the whole correct in instituting no deep distinction of any kind in the nurture, either physical or mental, of children during their early years. Nor can there be any doubt, at least so far, as to the rightness of educating them together, and allowing them to compete, in so far as we allow competition at all, freely both in work and in games.

However this may be, there comes at an age which varies somewhat in different races and individuals, a period critical to both sexes, in which the factors of sex differentiation, hitherto more or less latent, begin conspicuously to assert themselves. Here, plainly, is the dawn of womanhood, and here, in our consideration of woman the individual, we must make a start. If we recall the tentative Mendelian analysis already referred to, we may suppose that the "factor" for womanhood begins to assert itself, at any rate in effective degree, at this period of puberty, when a girl becomes a woman; and that its most effective reign is over at the much later crisis which we call the change of life or climacteric. In other words, though sex is determined from the first, and though certain of its distinctive characters remain to the end, we may say that our study of womanhood is practically concerned with the years between twelve or thirteen, and forty-five or fifty. Before this period, as we have suggested, the distinction between the sexes is of no practical importance so far as regimen and education are concerned. After this period also it is probable that the difference between the two sexes is diminished, and would be still more evidently diminished were it not for the effects which different experience has permanently wrought in the memory. We begin our practical study, then, of woman the individual, with the young girl at the age of puberty; and we must concern ourselves first with the care of her body.