reasoning, but when we consider the constitution that this overstrained
life bequeathes to the children, it assumes a different aspect.

Being accustomed to see an attenuated, sickly physique in our leading
and best-bred families, the eye is mis-educated; we establish a false
ideal for women, and become comparatively indifferent to a fine physique
in men. Men do not marry with a view of founding or continuing a family
name, and their sentiment of gallantry inclines them to be fond of
protecting a weak woman.

Irregular habits are to some degree a necessity with us, and the
greatest misfortune is, that we get used to the irregularity, and take
little pains to avoid it. We have some rules in regard to diet and
digestion, but they are for the most part practised only by those who
have acquired ills, and are not very frequently applied in the rearing
of children.

The extremes of climate, and our uninviting roads, discourage open air
exercise, and comparatively few have much time to go out.

Our children do some more work at school than English children, and they
have a good deal more of their time wasted in our system of text-books
and "recitations," a word not known in England in the sense in which we
use it, which requires that the able and conscientious pupils of the
class shall look on while the weak and indolent ones are being drilled;
which plan, judging from my own experience at school and college, I feel
justified in saying, involves for them not only a waste of from one to
three hours a day, but a fatigue fully or nearly equal to the same
amount of time spent in study. We put great pressure upon class rank,
the value of which is determined by the daily marks. This forces pupils
into a very high degree of regularity in their work; at the same time it
has most effect upon the most conscientious pupils; if it does not lead
them to overdo in work, it is liable to make them overworry about the
work, and girls suffer far more from this overworry than boys.

In considering the relation between the health of the country and the
education, the few women who have had a university course of study need
not be taken into account. Most of them have reached an age when people
are allowed to decide upon their own habits, and, as a matter of fact,
these habits have been determined by stern necessities, by the hard,
money-getting circumstances that surround women, rather than by choice.
At Antioch College, with few exceptions,