sweep the floor with the hair. So, among
ourselves, the great athletic resources of the female frame are
vindicated by every equestrian goddess of the circus, every pet of the
ballet. Those airy nymphs have been educated for their vocation by an
amount of physical fatigue which their dandy admirers may well prefer to
contemplate through the safe remoteness of an opera-glass.

Dr. Gardner, of New York, has lately contributed very important
professional observations upon this class of his patients; he describes
their physique as infinitely superior to that of ordinary women,
wonderfully adapting them not only to the extraordinary, but to the
common perils of their sex, "with that happy union of power and
pliability most to be desired." "Their occupation demands in its daily
study and subsequent practice an amount of long-continued muscular
energy of the severest character, little recognized or understood by
the community"; and his description of their habitual immunity in the
ordeals of womanhood reminds one of the descriptions of savage tribes.
But it is really a singular retribution for our prolonged offences
against the body, when our saints are thus compelled to take their
models from the reputed sinners,--prize-fighters being propounded as
missionaries for the men, and opera-dancers for the women.

Are we literally to infer, then, that dancing must be the primary
prescription? It would not be a bad one. It was an invaluable hint of
Hippocrates, that the second-best remedy is better than the best, if the
patient likes it best. Beyond all other merits of the remedy in question
is this crowning advantage, that the patient likes it. Has any form of
exercise ever yet been invented which a young girl would not leave for
dancing?

"Women, it is well known," says Jean Paul, "cannot run, but only dance,
and every one could more easily reach a given point by dancing than by
walking." It is practised in this country under immense disadvantages:
first, because of late hours and heated rooms; and secondly, because
some of the current dances seem equally questionable to the mamma and
the physiologist. But it is doubtful whether any possible gymnastic
arrangement for a high-school would be on the whole so provocative
of the wholesome exercise as a special hall for dancing, thoroughly
ventilated, and provided with piano and spring-floor. The spontaneous
festivals of every recess-time would then rival those German
public-rooms, wh