If the children and adults among our agricultural population derive from
their employments in the open air a more ruddy appearance than those
either of the city or country who are confined more to their rooms; or
to a vitiated atmosphere, and to numerous other sources of disease, and
if they _appear_ more favored with health, I have learned, by accurate
observation, that these appearances are somewhat deceptive. Their active
sports and employments in the open air give them a stronger appetite
than any other class of people; and the indulgence of this appetite, not
only with articles which are heating or indigestible in their nature,
but with an unreasonable quantity even of those which are considered
highly proper, is almost in an exact proportion. And it is hence
scarcely possible for the causes of disease and premature death to be
more operative in factories and in cities than in farm houses and the
country. Indeed it may be questioned whether the abuses of the ANIMAL
part of man--more common in some of their forms in country than in
city--though they may be less conspicuous, are not more certainly and
even more immediately destructive than those abuses which, in city life,
and bustle, and competition, affect more the MORAL nature.

Be that as it may, however--for this is not the place for the grave
discussion of so broad a question--one thing, to my mind, is perfectly
clear, namely, that until physical education shall receive more
attention from all those who hold the sacred office of instructors of
the young, humanity can neither be much elevated nor improved. Mothers
and schoolmasters especially--they who, as Dr. Rush says, plant the
seeds of nearly all the good or evil in the world--must understand, most
deeply and thoroughly, the laws which regulate the various provinces of
the little world in which the soul resides, and which, like so many
states of a great confederacy, have not only their separate interests
and rights, but certain common and general ones; as well as those laws