skating parties and
gymnastics are also fruitful sources of ill-health. The girl prepares
herself for the former by inflating and over-heating her skirts over the
register in the hall-floor; a few minutes' exercise chills the hot
drapery--what wonder that a morbid bodily sensitiveness follows the
insane exposure? No thoughtful person can watch a class of gymnasts,
without seeing how extreme and unnatural are many of the attitudes
assumed, especially for women. What would be thought of making bread or
sweeping floors, if these compelled such attitudes, or brought about
such fatigue?

The sleep of these exhausted pupils is often broken, by what has been
wittily called a "panorama on the brain," in which the worries,
excitements, dissipations of the day, are incessantly repeated, and they
rise late, more wearied than they went to bed.

In spite of eminent authority to the contrary, mothers observe that it
is their sons who require the largest allowance of sleep, and who keep
the morning meal waiting; but if the growing girl cannot sleep, she
should be compelled to lie in bed the proper number of hours, and it is
obvious, that sleep like that I have described is no refreshment, and
furnishes no opportunity for repair of tissue.

"I want to borrow a book, doctor," said a patient the other day to a
famous specialist. "Any book upon my shelves, madam," was the reply,
"except those which concern the diseases of women," and the lady turned
disappointed away.

It behooves all those who have the care of children of both sexes, to
bear their possible futures silently in mind; but all talk to them, or
before them, all reading upon physiological subjects, during the period
of development, should be forbidden, for the reasons that dictated the
answer of the specialist; children should be instructed long before the
developing period. I cannot tell what might be possible if we had to
deal with girls in a normal state of health; but the girls and women of
to-day are encouraged to a morbid consciousness of sex; and I believe,
that all that relates to personal care should be ordered by those who
are the natural guardians of the young, without unnecessary explanation
or caution. When development begins, special treatment is required; not
according to the sex so much as according to the individual; and no
parent or teacher can dictate to another on general grounds. That school
or family is an absolute failure which does not allow a marg