on the edge of which the children sit in a row while they receive a
shower bath over their heads and bodies. The feet get well washed in
the trough, and the smart douche of water on head and shoulders acts
as an admirable tonic.

Another exercise which ought to be specially dear to a nation of
islanders is swimming, and this, again, is a relatively cheap luxury
too much neglected amongst us. Certainly there are public baths, but
there are not enough to permit of all the elementary school children
bathing even once a week, and still less have they the opportunity of
learning to swim. There is much to be done yet before we can be justly
proud of our national system of education. We must not lose sight of
the ideal with which we started--viz. that we should endeavour to do
the best that is possible for our young people in body, soul, and
spirit. The three parts of our nature are intertwined, and a duty
performed to one part has an effect on the whole.




CHAPTER III.

CARE OF THE ADOLESCENT GIRL IN SICKNESS.


If measured by the death-rate the period of adolescence should cause
us little anxiety, but a careful examination into the state of health
of children of school age shows us that it is a time in which
disorders of health abound, and that although these disorders are not
necessarily, nor even generally, fatal, they are frequent, they spoil