demand fresh air and exercise. Ill health will inevitably ensue if boys
and girls are cooped up a great part of the day in a close room. A
distinguished writer of the present day says: “The children of the very
poor are always out and about. In this respect they are an example to
those careful mammas who keep their children, the whole day long, in
their chairs, reading, writing, ciphering, drawing, practicing music
lessons, doing crochet work, or anything, in fact, except running about,
in spite of the sunshine always peeping in and inviting them out of
doors; and who, in the due course of time, are surprised to find their
children growing up with incurable heart, head, lung, or stomach
complaints.”
331. _What is the best exercise for youths?_
Walking or running, provided it be not carried to fatigue. The slightest
approach to it should warn a youth to desist from carrying it further.
Walking exercise is not sufficiently insisted upon. A boy or a girl, to
be in the enjoyment of good health, ought to walk at least ten miles
every day. I do not mean ten miles at a stretch, but at different times
of the day.
Some young ladies think it an awfully long walk if they manage a couple
of miles! How can they, with such exercise, expect to be well? How can
their muscles be developed! How can their nerves be braced? How can
their spines be strengthened and be straight? How can their blood course
merrily through their blood-vessels? How can their chests expand and be
strong? Why, it is impossible! Ill health must be the penalty of such
indolence, for Nature will not be trifled with!
Walking exercise, then, is the finest exercise that can be taken, and
must be taken, and that without stint, if boys and girls are to be
strong and well!
The advantage of our climate is, that there is not a day in the whole
year that walking exercise cannot be enjoyed. I use the term _enjoyed_
advisedly. The roads may of course be dirty; but what of that? A good,
thick pair of boots will be the remedy.
Do then, let me entreat you, insist upon your girls and boys taking
plenty of exercise; let them almost live in the open air! Do not coddle
them; this is a rough world of ours, and they must rough it; they must
be knocked about a little, and the knocks will do them good. Poor youths
who are, as it were, tied to their mothers’ apron-strings, are much to
be pitied; they are usually puny and delicate, and utterly deficient of
self-reliance.
332. _Do you approve of horse or pony exercise for boys and girls?_
Most certainly I do; but still it ought not to supersede walking. Horse
or pony exercise is very beneficial, and cannot be too strongly
recommended. One great advantage for those living in towns, which it has
over walking, is that a person may go farther into the country, and thus
be enabled to breathe a purer and more healthy atmosphere. Again, it is
a much more _amusing_ exercise than walking, and this, for the young, is
a great consideration indeed.
Horse exercise is for both boys and girls a splendid exercise; it
improves the figure, it gives grace to the movements, it strengthens the
chest, it braces the muscles, and gives to the character energy and
courage.
Both boys and girls ought to be early taught to ride. There is nothing
that gives more pleasure to the young than riding either on a pony or on
a horse, and for younger children, even on that despised, although
useful animal, a donkey. Exercise, taken with pleasure, is doubly
beneficial.
If girls were to ride more on horseback than they now do, we should hear
less of crooked spines and of round shoulders, of chlorosis and of
hysteria, and of other numerous diseases of that class, owing,
generally, to debility and to mismanagement.
Those ladies who “affect the saddle” are usually much healthier,
stronger, and straighter than those who either never or but seldom ride
on horseback.
Riding on horseback is both an exercise and an amusement, and is
peculiarly suitable for the fair sex, more especially as their modes of
exercise are somewhat limited, ladies being excluded from following many
games, such as cricket and football, both of which are practiced, with
such zest and benefit, by the rougher sex.
333. _Do you approve of carriage exercise?_
There is no muscular exertion in carriage exercise; its principal
advantage is, that it enables a person to have a change of air, which
may be purer than the one he is in the habit of breathing. But, whether
it be so or not, change of air frequently does good, even if the air be
not so pure. Carriage exercise, therefore, does only partial good, and
ought never to supersede either walking or horse exercise.
334. _What is the best time of the day for the taking of exercise?_
In the summer time, early in the morning and before breakfast, as “cool
morning air exhilarates young blood like wine.” If a boy cannot take
exercise upon an empty stomach, let him have a slice of bread and a
draught of milk. When he returns home, he will be able to do justice to
his breakfast. In fine weather he cannot take too much exercise,
provided it be not carried to fatigue.
335. _What is the best time for him to keep quiet?_
He ought not to take exercise immediately after—say for half an hour
after—a hearty meal, or it will be likely to interfere with his
digestion.
AMUSEMENTS.
336. _What amusements do you recommend for a boy as being most
beneficial to health?_
Many games—such as rowing, skating, cricket, quoits, football, rackets,
single-stick, bandy, bowls, skittles, and all gymnastic exercises. Such
games bring the muscles into proper action, and thus cause them to be
fully developed. They expand and strengthen the chest; they cause a due
circulation of the blood, making it to bound merrily through the
blood-vessels, and thus to diffuse health and happiness in its course.
Another excellent amusement for boys is the brandishing of clubs. They
ought to be made in the form of a constable’s staff, but should be much
larger and heavier. The manner of handling them is so graphically
described by Addison that I cannot do better than transcribe it: “When I
was some years younger than I am at present, I used to employ myself in
a more laborious diversion, which I learned from a Latin treatise of
exercises that is written with great erudition; it is there called the
σκιομαχια, or the fighting with a man’s own shadow, and consists in the
brandishing of two short sticks grasped in each hand, and loaded with
plugs of lead at either end. This opens the chest, exercises the limbs,
and gives a man all the pleasure of boxing without the blows. I could
wish that several learned men would lay out that time which they employ
in controversies and disputes about nothing, in this method of fighting
with their own shadows. It might conduce very much to evaporate the
spleen which makes them uneasy to the public as well as to themselves.”
Another capital healthful game is single-stick, which makes a boy “to
gain an upright and elastic carriage, and to learn the use of his
limbs.” Single-stick may be taught by any drill-sergeant in the
neighborhood. Do everything to make a boy strong. Remember, “the glory
of young men is their strength.”
If games were more patronized in youth, so many miserable, nervous,
useless creatures would not abound. Let a boy or a girl, then, have
plenty of play; let half of his or her time be spent in play.
There ought to be a gymnasium established in every town of the kingdom.
The gymnasium, the cricket ground, and the swimming bath are among our
finest institutions, and should be patronized accordingly.
First of all by an abundance of exercise and of fresh air make your boys
and girls, strong, and then, in due time, they will be ready and be able
to have their minds properly cultivated. Unfortunately, in this
enlightened age, we commence at the wrong end—we put the cart before the
horse—we begin by cultivating the mind, and we leave the body to be
taken care of afterward; the results are, broken health, precocious,
stunted, crooked, and deformed youths, and premature decay.
One great advantage of gymnastic exercise is, it makes the lungs expand,
it fills the lungs with air, and by doing so, strengthens the lungs
amazingly and wards off many diseases. The lungs are not sufficiently
exercised and expanded; boys and girls, girls especially, do not as a
rule half fill their lungs with air! now, air to the lungs is food to
the lungs, and portions of the lungs have not half their proper food,
and in consequence suffer.
It is very desirable that every boy and girl should, every day of his or
her life, and for a quarter of an hour at least each time, go through a
regular _breathing exercise_—that is to say, should be made to stand
upright, throw back the shoulders, and the while, alternately and
regularly, fully fill and fully empty the lungs of air. If this plan
were daily followed, the chest and lungs would be wonderfully
invigorated, and the whole body benefited.
337. _Is playing the flute, blowing the bugle, or any other wind
instrument, injurious to health?_
Decidedly so; the lungs and the windpipe are brought into unnatural
action by them. If a boy be of a consumptive habit, this will, of
course, hold good with tenfold force. If a youth must be musical, let
him be taught singing, as that, provided the lungs be not diseased, will
be beneficial.
338. _What amusements do you recommend for a girl?_
Archery, skipping, horse exercise, croquet, the hand-swing, the
fly-pole, skating, and dancing are among the best. Archery expands the
chest, throws back the shoulders, thus improving the figure, and
develops the muscles. Skipping is exceedingly good exercise for a girl,
every part of the body being put into action by it. Horse exercise is
splendid for a girl; it improves the figure amazingly—it is most
exhilarating and amusing; moreover, it gives her courage and makes her
self-reliant. Croquet develops and improves the muscles of the arms,
beautifies the complexion, strengthens the back, and throws out the
chest. Croquet is for girls and women what cricket is for boys and men—a
glorious game. Croquet has improved both the health and the happiness of
womankind more than any game ever before invented. Croquet, in the
bright sunshine, with the winds of heaven blowing about the players, is
not like a ball in a stifling hot ball-room, with gas-lights poisoning
the air. Croquet is a more sensible amusement than dancing; it brings
the intellect as well as the muscles into play. The man who invented
croquet has deserved greater glory, and has done more good to his
species, than many philosophers whose names are emblazoned in story.
Hand-swing is a capital exercise for a girl; the whole of the body is
thrown into action by it, and the spine, the shoulders, and the
shoulder-blades are especially benefited. The fly-pole, too, is good
exercise for the whole of the muscles of the body, especially of the
legs and the arms. Skating is as exhilarating as a glass of champagne,
but will do her far more good! Skating exhilarates the spirits, improves
the figure, and makes a girl balance and carry herself well; it is a
most becoming exercise for her, and is much in every way to be
commended. Moreover, skating gives a girl courage and self-reliance.
Dancing, followed as a rational amusement, causes a free circulation of
the blood, and, provided it does not induce her to sit up late at night,
is most beneficial.
339. _If dancing be so beneficial, why are balls such fruitful sources
of coughs, of colds, and consumptions?_
On many accounts. They induce young ladies to sit up late at night; they
cause them to dress more lightly than they are accustomed to do; and
thus thinly clad, they leave their homes while the weather is perhaps
piercing cold, to plunge into a suffocating, hot ball-room, made doubly
injurious by the immense number of lights, which consume the oxygen
intended for the due performance of the healthy function of the lungs.
Their partners, the brilliancy of the scene, and the music excite their
nerves to undue, and thus to unnatural action, and what is the
consequence? Fatigue, weakness, hysterics, and extreme depression
follow. They leave the heated ball-room, when the morning has far
advanced, to breathe the bitterly cold and frequently damp air of a
winter’s night, and what is the result? Hundreds die of consumption who
might otherwise have lived. Ought there not, then, to be a distinction
between a ball at midnight and a dance in the evening?
340. _But still, would you have a girl brought up to forego the
pleasures of a ball?_
If a parent prefer her so-called pleasures to her health, certainly not;
to such a mother I do not address myself.
341. _Have you any remarks to make on singing, or on reading aloud?_
Before a mother allows her daughter to take lessons in singing, she
should ascertain that there be no actual disease of the lungs, for if
there be, it will probably excite it into action; but if no disease
exist, singing or reading aloud is very conducive to health. Public
singers are seldom known to die of consumption. Singing expands the
chest, improves the pronunciation, enriches the voice for conversation,
strengthens the lungs, and wards off many of their diseases.
EDUCATION.
342. _Do you approve of corporal punishment in schools?_
I do not. I consider it to be decidedly injurious both to body and mind.
Is it not painful to witness the pale cheeks and the dejected looks of
those boys who are often flogged? If their tempers are mild, their
spirits are broken; if their dispositions are at all obstinate, they
become hardened and willful, and are made little better than brutes. A
boy who is often flogged loses that noble ingenuousness and fine
sensibility so characteristic of youth. He looks upon his school as his
prison, and his master as his jailer, and, as he grows up to manhood,
hates and despises the man who has flogged him. Corporal punishment is
revolting, disgusting, and demoralizing to the boy, and is degrading to
the school-master as a man and as a Christian.
“I would have given him, Captain Fleming, had he been _my_ son,” quoth
old Pearson the elder, “such a good sound drubbing as he never would
have forgotten—never!”
“Pooh! pooh! my good sir. Don’t tell me. Never saw flogging in the
navy do good. Kept down brutes; never made a man yet.”—Dr. Norman
Macleod in _Good Words_.
If school-masters must flog, let them flog their own sons. If they must
ruin the tempers, the dispositions, and the constitutions of boys, they
have more right to practice upon their own than on other people’s
children! Oh that parents would raise—and that without any uncertain
sound—their voices against such abominations, and the detestable cane
would soon be banished the school-room! “I am confident that no boy,”
says Addison, “who will not be allured by letters without blows, will
never be brought to anything with them. A great or good mind must
necessarily be the worst for such indignities; and it is a sad change to
lose of its virtue for the improvement of its knowledge. No one has gone
through what they call a great school, but must have remembered to have
seen children of excellent and ingenuous natures (as have afterward
appeared in their manhood). I say, no man has passed through this way of
education but must have seen an ingenuous creature expiring with shame,
with pale looks, beseeching sorrow, and silent tears, throw up its
honest eyes, and kneel on its tender knees to an inexorable blockhead,
to be forgiven the false quantity of a word in making a Latin verse. The
child is punished, and the next day he commits a like crime, and so a
third, with the same consequence. I would fain ask any reasonable man
whether this lad, in the simplicity of his native innocence, full of
shame, and capable of any impressions from that grace of soul, was not
fitted for any purpose in this life than after that spark of virtue is
extinguished in him, though he is able to write twenty verses in an
evening?”
How often is corporal punishment resorted to at school because the
master is in a passion, and he vents his rage upon the poor school-boy’s
unfortunate back!
Oh! the mistaken notion that flogging will make a bad-behaved boy a good
boy; it has the contrary effect. “‘I dunno how ’tis, sir,’ said an old
farm-laborer, in reply to a question from his clergyman respecting the
bad behavior of his children, ‘I dunno how ’tis; I beats ’em till
they’re black and blue, and when they won’t kneel down to pray I knocks
’em down, and yet they ain’t good.’”
In an excellent article in _Temple Bar_ (November, 1864) on flogging in
the army, the following sensible remarks occur: “In nearly a quarter of
a century’s experience with soldiers, the writer has always, and without
a single exception, found flogging makes a good man bad, and a bad man
worse.” With equal truth it may be said that, without a single
exception, flogging makes a good boy bad, and a bad boy worse. How many
men owe their ferocity to the canings they received when school-boys!
The early floggings hardened and soured them, and blunted their
sensibility.
Dr. Arnold of Rugby, one of the best school-masters that England ever
produced, seldom caned a boy—not more than once or twice during the half
year; but when he did cane him, he charged for the use of the cane each
time in the bill, in order that the parents might know how many times
their son had been punished. At some of our public schools nowadays a
boy is caned as many times in a morning as the worthy doctor would have
caned him during the whole half year; but then the doctor treated the
boys as gentlemen, and trusted much to their honor; but now many
school-masters trust much to fear, little to honor, and treat them as
brute beasts.
It might be said that the discipline of a school cannot be maintained
unless the boys be frequently caned—that it must be either caning or
expulsion. I deny these assertions. Dr. Arnold was able to conduct his
school with honor to himself, and with immense benefit to the rising
generation, without either frequent canings or expulsions, The humane
plan, however, requires at first both trouble and patience; and trouble
some school-masters do not like, and patience they do not possess; the
use of the cane is quick, sharp, and at the time effective.
If caning he ever necessary, which it might occasionally be, for the
telling of lies for instance, or for gross immorality, let the head
master himself be the only one to perform the operation, but let him not
be allowed to delegate it to others. A law ought in all public schools
to be in force to that effect. High time that something was done to
abate such disgraceful practices.
Never should a school-master, or any one else, be allowed, _on any
pretense whatever_, to strike a boy upon his head. Boxing of the ears
has sometimes caused laceration of the drum of the ear, and consequent
partial deafness for life. Boxing of the ears injures the brain, and
therefore the intellect.
It might be said that I am traveling out of my province in making
remarks on corporal chastisement in schools. But, with deference, I
reply that I am strictly in the path of duty. My office is to inform you
of everything that is detrimental to your children’s health and
happiness; and corporal punishment is assuredly most injurious both to
their health and happiness. It is the bounden duty of every man, and
especially of every medical man, to lift up his voice against the
abominable, disgusting, and degrading system of flogging, and to warn
parents of the danger and the mischief of sending boys to those schools
where flogging is permitted.
343. _Have you any observation to make on the selection of a female
boarding-school?_
Home education, where it be practicable, is far preferable to sending a
girl to school; as _at_ home, her health, her morals, and her household
duties can be attended to much more effectually than _from_ home.
Moreover, it is a serious injury to a girl, in more ways than one, to
separate her from her own brothers; they very much lose their affection
for each other, and mutual companionship (so delightful and beneficial
between brothers and sisters) is severed.
If home education be not practicable, great care must be taken in making
choice of a school. Boarding-school education requires great
reformation. Accomplishments, superficial acquirements, and brain-work
are the order of the day; health is very little studied. You ought, in
the education of your daughters, to remember that they, in a few years,
will be the wives and the mothers of England; and if they have not
health and strength, and a proper knowledge of household duties to
sustain their characters, what useless, listless wives and mothers they
will make!
Remember, then, the body and not the mind ought in early life to be
principally cultivated and strengthened, and that the growing brain will
not bear, with impunity, much book learning. The brain of a school-girl
is frequently injured by getting up voluminous questions by rote, that
are not of the slightest use or benefit to her or to any one else.
Instead of this ridiculous system, educate a girl to be useful and
self-reliant. “From babyhood they are given to understand that
helplessness is feminine and beautiful; helpfulness, except in certain
received forms of manifestation, unwomanly and ugly. The boys may do a
thousand things which are ‘not proper for little girls.’”
From her twelfth to her seventeenth year is the most important epoch of
a girl’s existence, as regards her future health, and consequently, in a
great measure, her future happiness; and one in which, more than at any
other period of her life, she requires a plentiful supply of fresh air,
exercise, recreation, a variety of innocent amusements, and an abundance
of good nourishment, more especially fresh meat; if therefore you have
determined on sending your girl to school, you must ascertain that the
pupils have as much plain, wholesome, nourishing food as they can eat,
that the school be situated in a healthy spot, that it be well drained,
that there be a large play-ground attached to it, that the young people
are allowed plenty of exercise in the open air—indeed, that at least
one-third of the day is spent there in croquet, archery, skipping,
battle-dore and shuttlecock, gardening, walking, running, etc.
If a girl has an _abundance_ of good nourishment, the school-mistress
must, of course, be remunerated for the necessary and costly expense;
and how can this be done on the paltry sum charged at _cheap_
boarding-schools? It is utterly impossible! The school-mistress will
live, even if the girls be half-starved. And what are we to expect from
poor and insufficient nourishment to a fast-growing girl, and at the
time of life, remember, when she requires an _extra_ quantity of good
sustaining, supporting food? A poor girl, from such treatment, becomes
either consumptive or broken down in constitution, and from which she
never recovers, but drags out a miserable existence. A _cheap_
boarding-school is _dear_ at any price.
Take care that the school-rooms are well ventilated, that they are not
overcrowded, and that the pupils are allowed chairs to sit upon, and not
those abominations—forms and stools. If you wish to try the effect of
them upon yourself, sit for a couple of hours without stirring upon a
form or upon a stool, and take my word for it you will insist that forms
and stools be banished forever from the school-room.
Assure yourself that the pupils are compelled to rise early in the
morning, and that they retire early to rest: that each young lady has a
separate bed, and that many are not allowed to sleep in the same room,
and that the apartments are large and well ventilated. A horse-hair
mattress should always be preferred to a feather bed. It is not only
better for the health, but it improves the figure. In fine, their health
and their morals ought to be preferred far above all their
accomplishments.
344. _They use, in some schools, straight-backed chairs, to make a girl
sit upright and to give strength to her back: do you approve of them?_