finished and the strength is greatest, and when nutrition is
required only to repair waste, the proportions are changed, and the
solid or earthy part exceeds the vital or animal; and in extreme old
age, the earthy part so predominates as to cause the bones to become
very brittle.

The bones, like other parts of the system, require exercise. If properly
used, they increase in size and strength. But while a due degree of
exercise is beneficial, it ought to be remarked that severe and
continued labor should not be required of children and youth; for its
tendency is to increase the deposition of earthy matter to a hurtful
extent. It is by this means that many children are made dwarfs for life,
their bones being consolidated by an undue amount of exercise and
excessive labor before they have attained their full growth. Multitudes
of children in our country, from this and kindred causes, fail of
attaining the size of their ancestors. These remarks may be turned to a
practical account in the family and in the school. At birth, many of
the bones are scarcely more than cartilage; yet children are frequently
urged to stand and walk long before the bones become sufficiently strong
to sustain the pressure; and, as a consequence, their legs become
crooked, and they are perhaps other ways deformed for life. Children
ought always, when seated, to be able to rest their feet upon the floor.
When they occupy a seat that is too high, and especially when they are
unable to reach their feet to the floor, the thigh bones very frequently
become curved. If, in addition to high seats, the back is not supported,
children become round shouldered, their chests contract, their
constitutions become permanently enfeebled, and they become peculiarly
susceptible to pulmonary disease. The back to the seat should afford a
pleasant and agreeable support to the small of the back, but it ought
not to reach to the shoulder blades.

Parents and teachers should never forget that children are as
susceptible to physical training as to intellectual or moral culture.
And here, especially, they should be "trained _up_ in the way they
should go." Physical uprightness is next to moral. If children are
allowed to contract bad physical habits, they are liable not only to
grow crooked, but to become deformed in various ways. But so great is
the power of education, that by it even the physically crooked may be
made straight; the chest may be enlarged, the general healt