The rate of change in this country in education, in dress, and in diet
and habits of daily life surprises even the most watchful American
observer. It is now but fifteen years since this little book was written
as a warning to a restless nation possessed of an energy tempted to its
largest uses by unsurpassed opportunities. There is still need to repeat
and reinforce my former remonstrance, but I am glad to add that since I
first wrote on these subjects they have not only grown into importance
as questions of public hygiene, but vast changes for the better have
come about in many of our ways of living, and everywhere common sense is
beginning to rule in matters of dress, diet, and education.

The American of the Eastern States and of the comfortable classes[1] is
becoming notably more ruddy and more stout. The alteration in women as
to these conditions is most striking, and, if I am not mistaken, in
England there is a lessening tendency towards that excess of adipose
matter which is still a surprise to the American visiting England for
the first time.

I should scarcely venture to assert so positively that Americans had
obviously taken on flesh within a generation if what I see had not been
observed by many others. It would, I think, be interesting to enter at
length upon a study of these remarkable changes, but that were scarcely
within the scope of this little book.

[Footnote 1: Happily, a large class with us.]