enough--handsome is that handsome does.'

IS THE RACE DEGENERATING?

This is a question which perplexes some minds in our times. A German
author of note has recently written a volume to prove that each
generation is feebler than the preceding. Old physicians say that in
their youth diseases of exhaustion were rarer than now-a-days. For this
our habits of life, the pressure on our nervous systems, the prevalence
of hereditary diseases, and the excessive use of narcotics and
stimulants, are held responsible. 'The fathers,' say these croakers,
'have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.'

We attach little weight to these gloomy views. There are plenty of facts
on the other side. The suits of old armour still preserved in our
museums prove that, as a rule, we have slightly gained in weight and
size. Tables of life insurance companies and reports of statistics show
that the average length of human life is greater than it ever was. Dr.
Charles D. Meigs used to state in his lectures that the size of the head
of American infants at birth is somewhat greater than in the Old World.

That there are more numerous diseases than formerly, is not true; but it
is true that we know more, for we have learned to detect them more
readily and to examine them more minutely. This is especially true of
such as are peculiar to women. Within the last ten or twenty years so
much that is of sovereign importance has been contributed to this
department of medical science, that it is hardly possible for one to
become an expert in it unless he gives it his whole attention.

To avoid the tendency to debilitated frames and chronic diseases, woman
should therefore learn not only the laws of her own physical life, but
the relations in which she stands to the other sex. Thus she can guard
her own health, and preserve her offspring from degeneracy. It is only
by enlightenment, and the extension of knowledge on the topics relating
to soundness of body and mind, that we can found rational hopes of a
permanent and wide-spread improvement of the race.

Some have maintained, not understanding the bearing of the facts, that
such degeneracy is more conspicuous in the frame of woman than anywhere
else. They quote the narratives of travellers, who describe with what
fortitude--we might almost say with what indifference--the Indian women,
and those of other savage races, bear the pangs of childbirth, and how
little the ordeal weakens the