to physical organization; and a multitude of fine constitutions are ruined by it in both sexes.

Whether any proper substitute can be found, in our sex, for competition and rivalry, I must leave to others to decide. So far as my experience extends, I should give an affirmative answer; and while I do not pretend to be a very competent judge in the case, it is fair to say, that the habit of giving public instructions for more than twenty years has afforded me some conclusions of a satisfactory nature.

The application of the system of rivalry to the softer sex, I speak with submission to greater experience, appears to me fraught with mischief. It inflames the imagination, festers the passions, and poisons the happiness of the brightest days of life; and since the very highest grade of literary acquirement is not essential to the duties of the sex, it seems as unnecessary as it is pernicious.

I have just made a question whether there is a substitute which is sufficiently practical to be of general use. I do not know that there is; and if none exists, I think the ingenuity and intelligence of instructors could not be employed on a more important subject than in devising such substitute. The spirit of improvement has, I imagine, already discovered that the reasoning process may be generally employed with great success in the instruction of young persons. I know individuals who use it to a considerable extent, and with the most happy results. They endeavour to enforce on their pupils the doctrine that the path of duty is the most easy and most for the interest of the individual to pursue. They do this by conversation and by argument; and the process

succeeds with those who are capable of being influenced in any way, and why should it not? Children of the earliest age are perfectly capable of feeling the force of reason; and I believe it will generally be found that they are under the power of their parents rather in proportion to the employment of this agent than to that of the rod or any other compulsory means. If they understand reason at so early a period, surely they cannot lose their susceptibility to it at one more advanced. There are, I know, minds on which the powers of language make no impression, and all the weapons of argument fall as if pointless. But these are to be considered as exceptions to general laws-cases in which all the means of severity and kindness They should not cause discouragement. the everlasting motto of the instructor. performs wonders-without it he can do nothing.

equally fail.

Patience is
With it he

The remarks made above will give some notion of the most important of what I conceive to be general causes of ill health and imperfect growth during the educating process.

It may not be useless to say a few words on some of the immediate causes of spinal distortion, which may be called local, in opposition to the former.

The most obvious of the local causes are bad postures of the body and limbs. The habit of bending the neck while writing or drawing gradually compresses the vertebræ and the intervertebral substance on their anterior part, and causes a permanent change in the form of this part of the spinal column. This distortion is so very common among us, that we are apt to consider it a natural formation. In fact, however, it is entirely artificial in a great number of instances. Sometimes it

is the consequence of negligence, and not unfrequently of timidity. Whether it tends to impair the health always I will not say that it sometimes does so I am certain; and its effect in deforming the shape is even greater than a moderate degree of lateral curve.

The immediate cause of the lateral curve of the spine to the right, opposite to the right shoulder, is the elevation and action of the right arm in drawing and writing. This posture pulls the part of the spinal column to which the muscles of the right arm are fixed to the right side. The convexity of the spine thus produced keeps the right shoulder elevated and the left consequently depressed. The lower part of the column is thrown to the left side; and this displacement being favoured by the disposition to rest on the left foot, while standing to speak or read, there comes to be a permanent projection of the left hip. The postures employed in practising on musical instruments sometimes bring on these distortions; as, for example, a great use of the harp favours the disposition to lateral curvature, from the constant extension of the right arm.

Having adverted to the nature and the causes of some of the defects that arise from want of attention to phy sical education, I shall now throw out some hints as to the modes in which it may be improved.

Nature, as we have before said, if left to herself, is all-sufficient to the development of physical organization. But we live in an artificial state-a state that continually thwarts the course of the native dispositions of the animal economy; and as we must abandon the advantages of these, we must seek for substitutes in an artificial process.

The principles which should form the basis of such a

process will readily be seen, on attending to the nature and the causes of these defects. We shall observe that the remedy, or rather the preventive means, lies in a certain regulation of the sentiments and passions and intellectual operations; in promoting bodily activity; in a salutary regimen, and in some other inferior considerations. In regard to the first of these, that is, to what relates to the mind, I have already said all I intend at this time, and I shall now advert to the others.

Towards a perfect system of education it is necessary there should be a balance preserved between physical and intellectual cultivation. When the mind is closely occupied the body should be carefully guarded. If the pursuits of the former are severe and absorbing, those of the latter should be cheerful and relaxing. Instead, then, of abandoning the physical to the intellectual culture, it should be increased in the same ratio, and followed with the same earnestness.

Exercise is so material to physical education that it has sometimes been used synonymously, though it really constitutes only a part of it. In order that exercise may have its due operation it must begin at the earliest period of life, and of course the parent must in this act the part of instructor. He must take pains to have the infant carried into the air every day, and in every season; for, whatever may be the dangers of such a course, they are in the end less than those incident to the accidental exposures of a delicate constitution. In the earlier years, the dress should be arranged so as to allow that use of the body and limbs to which nature prompts, with freedom and without impropriety. When children are sent to school care should be taken that they are not confined too long. Children under fourteen

should not be kept in school more than six or seven hours a day; and this period should be shortened for females. It is expedient that it should be broken into many parts, so as to avoid a long confinement at one time. Young persons, however well disposed, cannot support a restriction to one place and one posture. Nature resists such restrictions; and, if enforced, they are apt to create disgust with the means and the object. Thus children learn to hate studies that might be rendered agreeable, and they take an aversion to instructors who would otherwise be interesting to them.

The postures they assume while seated at their studies are not indifferent. They should be frequently warned against the practice of maintaining the head and neck long in a stooping position; and the disposition to it should be lessened by giving a proper elevation and slope to the desk; and the seat should have a support or back of a few inches, at its edge. The arms must be kept on the same level; and there should be room to support them equally, or the right will be apt to rise above the left, from its constant use and elevation. A standing posture in writing and studying is not commendable for young persons. The secret of posture consists in avoiding all bad positions, and avoiding all positions long continued.

The ordinary carriage of the body in walking should be an object of attention to every instructor. How different are the impressions made on us by a man, whose attitude is erect and commanding, and by one who walks with his face directed to the earth, as if fearful of encountering the glances of those he meets! Such attentions are even of great importance to the fairer sex, where we naturally look for attraction in