interest girls as much as boys, it is
probably from deficiency in these respects,--and also because the female
pupils, beginning on a lower plane of strength, do not command so great
a variety of exercises, and so tire of the affair more readily. But
hundreds, if not thousands, of American women have practised in these
institutions during the last ten years,--single establishments in large
cities having sometimes several hundred pupils,--and many have attained
a high degree of skill in climbing, vaulting, swinging, and the like;
nor can I find that any undue proportion of accidents has occurred.
Wherever Dr. Lewis's methods have been introduced, important advantages
have followed. He has invented an astonishing variety of games and
well-studied movements,--with the lightest and cheapest apparatus,
balls, bags, rings, wands, wooden dumb-bells, small clubs, and other
instrumentalities,--which are all gracefully and effectually used by his
classes, to the sound of music, and in a way to spare the weakest when
lightly administered, or to fatigue the strongest when applied in force.
Being adapted for united use by both sexes, they make more thorough
appeal to the social element than the ordinary gymnastics; and evening
classes, to meet several evenings in a week, have proved exceedingly
popular in some of our towns. These exercises do not require fixed
apparatus or a special hall. For this and other reasons they are
peculiarly adapted for use in schools, and it would be well if they
could be regularly taught in our normal institutions. Dr. Lewis himself
is now training regular teachers to carry on the same good work, and his
movement is undoubtedly the most important single step yet taken for the
physical education of American women.

There is withal a variety of agreeable minor exercises, dating back
farther than gymnastic professors, which must not be omitted. Archery,
still in fashion in England, has never fairly taken root among us, and
seems almost hopeless: the clubs formed for its promotion die out almost
as speedily as cricket-clubs, and leave no trace behind; though this may
not always be. Bowling and billiards are, however, practised by lady
amateurs, just so far as they find opportunity, which is not very far;
desirable public or private facilities being obtainable by few only,
except at the summer watering-places. Battledoor-and-shuttlecock seems
likely to come again into favor, and that under eminent auspices:
D