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become second nature undermining the constitution, or some ill advised treatment in infancy implanting seeds of misery.

Hence small things are of weight-as cyphers make the sum of aggregated millions: they are nothings alone, but placed in connection with something -the least positive number, they express an aggregate of good or ill of fearful or exulting consequence.

We had rather the poet had said there is nothing trivial in life, but all is serious, even to sublimity to the thoughtful. And who but the thoughtful are safe and happy. It is they only who feel that they tread the vestibule of the Temple of Being; the place of struggle for entrance into the 'many mansions' where Faith who keeps the door has said pleasures too high for our present mental powers to conceive, await the just made perfect by charity and love.

But what is it to be just? Does not this virtue comprehend duty to children? and are not sicknesses among those trials which belong to this state or stage of our existence? To prevent these evils which so weigh upon the moral powers as to deprive some of the conscious blessing of life's opportunity, must be as much a duty as to cure diseases. And hence the importance of Physical Education, which means the use of rational means to develope the form and strengthen the constitution and possess health: the key to every enjoyment.

The loss of health casts a gloom over all this fair creation. To the sick eye the landscape of this world, with all its springs of joy, is covered with the mist of a chill morning. But when health is restored, its return seems like the sun's rays, pure warmth, the verdure the bloom are all revealed to the eye, and the bright, smooth stream as it winds its reluctant way, reflects the azure sky reminding the reviving soul of heaven. The soul of the healthy man rejoices in its moral existence, as the animals rejoice in their physical well-being-and whatever his employment, he goeth forth to his labor with a cheerful and grateful elevation of mind-knowing that God is no respecter of the outward condition of men, but looketh on the heart-for the same poet says "an honest man's the noblest work of God."

This sentiment no one disputes-it is true. But how often dishonesty springs from weakness of mind caused by weakness of body-the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. It is then just, dutious, charitable, kind, and christian-like to do all in our power that our children have sound minds in sound bodies. This is of more value to them than fortune, or accomplishments: and hence the importance of Physical Education.

We do not propose however to burden the limited pages of the Microcosm with a treatise on gymnastics or even the elegant art of calisthenix. It will be more consistent with its object to allude to the principle on which these arts are founded: the reasons why they are needful. Nor will affectionate mothers through a false delicacy deem facts in physiology unsuitable to the argument.

It seems impracticable to draw a line any where across the path of life and say, here should physical education begin. The rights of infancy, may be a new claim, but it is evidently real. To inquire what is best for the man we must consider him as first a child. We must go back not only to the morning, but to the dawn of our days. Nor let it be thought that the Nursery is an apartment too small and obscure for philosophy to visit. It may not indeed

be the sunniest and airiest in the house, as it ought to be, but it is the abode of innocence, of sweet children, such as the Savior, that great physician, received to his arms and blessed. The more elegantly furnished and duly attempered drawing room may be pleasanter, and the customs of society demand the presence there of the mistress of the family, but, where the treasure is there will the heart be also; and that the treasury of affection may be saved from too often being a scene of distress we venture to speak of unusual, but yet of topics that belong to the subject.

Gratitude is said to be sweet to feel, as well as to receive; but, this refined sentiment cannot be felt by children, but comes late to the bosom when it realizes in dutious vigils, how much must have been done for oneself: and perhaps philanthropy, in the possession of science, can never be better exerted than in alleviating the cares, sorrows, and fears of young mothers. They would no doubt welcome from abler pens lessons of practical wisdom from the volume of nature.

They have often much to learn that would be availing. We all observe with admiration the birds instinctively teaching their young to fly—and their task is soon accomplished and recompensed in its fulfilment, while the mother has not only to teach her child to walk, but how to go forward in rectitude: to impress the first lessons of justice and truth, and to see that he has proper food and exercise that his growth be strong and the seeds of future suffering

not sown.

This great blessing must have its first growth while in arms. The earliest claim of the child is never denied by a mother's heart although too often it is so by an enfeebled constitution, for the want of early physical education. Yet, how can a claim exist that cannot be made? It is made in the language of that tearful eye-the sad expression of that cherub face, the semblance of her own :-it pleads for congenial nourishment:-and could the soul but speak out for itself, would it not desire earnestly not to be estranged from that bosom to which it will owe duty; ever made sweet by affection.

The temper, it is thought depends very much on the quality of the earliest nourishment—and since the faculties of the mind are found to be exerted by mental organs, it is rendered extremely probable that the early observers of human nature had a deep meaning in the fabled nursing of the twin founders of Rome, by a wolf.

In modern times we have no need of fiction to explain the formation of irritable fractious tempers. Infancy has the language of fretfulness to express sufferings from indigestion-caused by excess and improper food and the want of air and exercise, as necessary to their well being and cheerfulness, as to grown persons.

There is well known to be in the human constitution a power to resist morbid influences so that some persons live in the midst of infection untouched, at least for a long while-but this defense is weak in children. Why do the bills of mortality present us so large a proportion of its numbers from those under a year old, but that they are very liable to suffer more from like morbific causes than older children? And what are these causes? Whatever they are do they not reach the children of the poor least? and have not these the immediate care of their mothers? and are they not always in the free air?

But it is the privilege of opulence to hire labor :-true, but it is the duty of leisure to superintend it: to understand the principle of the operations and

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services performed and direct what it has a right to command. The necessity of employing another is no doubt a painful one to the affectionate parent; but this does not render it unnecessary to see that the nursling is treated judiciously and kindly. It can hardly be expected that one hired away from her own, will feel animated with maternal solicitude for another's child—or will be very solicitous to labor in giving it exercise. It may indeed be fortunate if it escape narcotics. She will never think the child can bear the fresh air when it is not agreeable to her own feelings.

Indeed, mothers delicately brought up, are apt to think, being themselves very susceptible of the cold, that tender infancy must be more so; not aware, perhaps, that he whose care of all is manifested in the downy covering of the sparrow, has not neglected the offspring of his rational creatures in giving them defense against the low temperature of the atmosphere: which is, notwithstanding its coldness, the great store-house of heat. To infancy he has given the power of drawing in more of the oxygen of the air than to grown persons. The healthy pulse of a child is 100 beats per minute: that of an old man 60.

The exquisitely delicate structure of the lungs even of the adult warns us against depriving children of it, in its natural density. Those travelers who have ascended lofty mountains have found the tenuity of the atmosphere such as to take off so much of the external pressure as to allow the outward pressure to cause bleeding of the ears and lungs. This tendency must exist more or less in very warm rooms. The air is made thin by rarefaction as well as found so at great elevations.

The innumerable air cells of the lungs being only separated from the blood vessels by a thin membrane permeable to the oxygen gas, this vital part of the air passes through it, giving to the blood its warmth and brightness, as seen in the vermillion of the cheek of youth and beauty, especially when animated by morning exercise.

The nursery should be regulated by a thermometer rather than by the feelings, and a fire of wood injures the air less than coal.

If boys were to have their breasts and necks and feet daily washed, like their ruddy faces, with cold water, they would be able to take their exercise in the open air, even in stormy weather, if a part of the play ground were covered. Every class should go out after its recitations. Earnest play for a few minutes would prepare them well for the study of the next lesson. In cold damp weather exercise is of more importance than when the sun and air are bright, warm and elastic.

All sports and plays should strengthen both sides of the frame equally. Girls should be permitted such plays only as keep the form erect, and strengthen both shoulders alike. They are else in danger of having the spine of the back bent out of its natural line. This column supporting the head and chest being composed of 24 pieces, with intermediate cartilages-which are elastic to permit its bending, and being kept erect by the equal force of the muscles on each side, acting as antagonists-if one side becomes the stronger, the others cannot resist them, and at length the spine assumes a crooked shape from which it is very difficult to recover,--though those who are placed in a machine for the purpose do sometimes regain their health in about a year.

The exercise therefore most proper for young ladies, (next to those of good

housewifery) is the flying hoop-the spring board and dancing. The main objection to the latter is that it is usually practised in crowded rooms, but it is also often a domestic recreation in the course of a long winter's evening. Not to know how to dance is to be deprived of one of the means of health. For boys, foot-ball is the most favorable of all plays, as its contentious struggle for the victory gives animation to the mind, and cultivates courage.

But to some lazy boys it may be necessary to explain why exercise is every day necessary to their health and proportionable growth. They are soon intelligent enough to understand the subject of nutrition.

The secret operations of the stomach have been providentially revealed; and they afford us sure rules of guidance to health. A young man in the army was accidentally wounded by the discharge of a gun. He was standing very near to it, and the charge after tearing away the muscles and breaking several of the ribs of his left side penetrated the stomach. This severe hurt was however cured by the skilful care of D. E. Beaumont; but in healing, the sides of the wound so adhered to the contiguous parts as to leave a permanent opening into the stomach, of more than an inch diameter. For a considerable time it was closed only by the bandages, but at length nature kindly let down a curtain for the purpose, from the folds of the internal coat, operating like a valve when pressed on by the food; so that when the man lay on his side it could be depressed-and food introduced for experiment, thus ascertaining what was the most digestible, and suitable for sick and well. The doctor's interesting publication affords us some new arguments for temperance as well as exercise applicable to this occasion.

We now know that the digestive process is on chemical principles,—that it is effected by an agent secreted in exact proportion to the wants of the body, —and to the quantity of food proper to be taken at one meal—that this fluid agent is derived from materials in the blood and deposited in many little receptacles just outside the stomach, into which it is led by ducts, which open through the velvet-like coat of this organ, and issuing stand like dew drops, till they trickle down its sides-that this fluid issues when the food taken stimulates the nerves and muscles of the stomach, to give it out,—and thus induce this truly chemical process to begin. The food thus presented to its action, whatever the kind, is converted into a new and uniform pulp, in the course of three hours; when the lower opening, which is quite high on the right side the stomach, opens and the contents are gradually propelled into the duodenum, where it meets the bile, which is another chemical agent to effect the process of refining the aliment to be now drank up as it flows along, by the lacteals which convey it into the blood.

But if too much is eaten, the excess is not digested: it remains over and the lower orifice not allowing it to pass, it produces much irritation of its very sensitive valves, and this causes the liver to secrete and pour more bile than it ought into the duodenum, when it rises into the stomach and thus the ill feelings are produced denominated bilious. The disturbance is then extended, and all the train of ills denominated dyspepsia follow with reaction upon the brain, with diminution of the mental powers-and in students bad scholarship.

We not only see in this state of things the reason for the ancient maxim to rise from a meal with an appetite, but that children as well as adults may eat too much and be injured in the same way. If a youth has self command

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enough to leave off before satiety is felt, the remaining hunger is soon found to cease; because the receptacles before mentioned which are the seat of the sensation of hunger, become gradually empty. The digestion accomplished, the stomach empty, remains two or three hours tranquil and at rest. In this beautiful arrangement for successive periodical meals, we see wise and beneficent intention.

The infant living on food of the easiest digestion requires to receive it oftener. But the same principle will apply-and it would be cruel, when an infant is fed on cow's milk to feed it as often as if it nursed. Such treatment will be sure to spoil its temper. What! Temperance to be practised even by infants? Yes, surely, do not trifles make the sum of human things?

Perhaps it has been shown that it is necessary to the preservation of health and the formation of good constitutions, to consult in this early and minute manner the dictates of nature. The lungs will not then fail to do their part in giving a generous warmth to the blood, and the whole frame will grow up well proportioned, light and strong; competent to sustain the action of a vigorous mind; which is according to a modern science, dependent on organs, which in their turn are dependent on the due development of the frame-till the soul, mature, and rejoicing to be free, lays down this instrument to assume one, which, St. Paul assures us, will be a far more glorious body.

All we have said is equally applicable to the health of our daughtersthey must be nourished-and they must be taught to avoid the causes of ill health; and they must have their full share of oxygen. But unhappily the female world is under another government. When America threw off the yoke of Colonial dependence, Congress was able only to emancipate her sons -her daughters remained subject to the empire of Fashion: a European power as infallible as the Pope, but changeful as republicanism. Those silken fetters have ever since been voluntarily worn to an immense amount of tribute money to London and Paris. But there is now some hope of relief from Greece. This rising power which our fair countrywomen have so much aided, may in return emancipate them from the domination of the monstrous impositions of French fancy, misnamed taste,-by sending over some of their beautiful sculpture in drapery of simple elegance, suitable also to the faultless forms of the American Fair, when not injured by shackles; and favorable to the play of the organs of respiration, and to the benevolent expansion of the heart.

Therefore, ere long, we may see the present veil of drapery withdrawn, when there will appear a morbid narrowness of the chest, and a servile roundness of the shoulders. Beauty passes away. Sic transit gloria mundi. But soon the next wave of life will bring up its thousands, rising like Venus (the Grecian personification of beauty and grace) from the sea, to be the new subjects of a rational reign. But anticipation trespasses on the rights of the despotic queen, and see, she comes throned on a gorgeous cloud, changeful with all the hues of light,-and beneath broods her magazine of portentous blackness,—she calls a flash of lightning from it to her diamond eyes, and waving her peacock sceptre, frowns from her presence the presumptuous SHADE OF HIPPOCRATES.

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