in itself essentially graceful, and to be seen in every reposing
figure in Greek bas-reliefs and vases; graceful, and like all
graceful actions, healthful at the same time. The only tolerably
wholesome attitude of repose, which I see allowed in average
school-rooms, is lying on the back on the floor, or on a sloping
board, in which case the lungs must be fully expanded. But even
so, a pillow, or some equivalent, ought to be placed under the
small of the back: or the spine will be strained at its very
weakest point.

I now go on to the second mistake--enforced silence. Moderate
reading aloud is good: but where there is any tendency to
irritability of throat or lungs, too much moderation cannot be
used. You may as well try to cure a diseased lung by working it,
as to cure a lame horse by galloping him. But where the breathing
organs are of average health let it be said once and for all, that
children and young people cannot make too much noise. The parents
who cannot bear the noise of their children have no right to have
brought them into the world. The schoolmistress who enforces
silence on her pupils is committing--unintentionally no doubt, but
still committing--an offence against reason, worthy only of a
convent. Every shout, every burst of laughter, every song--nay,
in the case of infants, as physiologists well know, every moderate
fit of crying--conduces to health, by rapidly filling and emptying
the lung, and changing the blood more rapidly from black to red,
that is, from death to life. Andrew Combe tells a story of a
large charity school, in which the young girls were, for the sake
of their health, shut up in the hall and school-room during play
hours, from November till March, and no romping or noise allowed.
The natural consequences were, the great majority of them fell