sleeping-room from simple ignorance of the laws of ventilation,
and in the schoolroom likewise, from simple ignorance of the laws
of physiology? from an ignorance of which I shall mention no other
case here save one--that too often from ignorance of signs of
approaching disease, a child is punished for what is called
idleness, listlessness, wilfulness, sulkiness; and punished, too,
in the unwisest way--by an increase of tasks and confinement to
the house, thus overtasking still more a brain already overtasked,
and depressing still more, by robbing it of oxygen and of
exercise, a system already depressed? Are you aware, I ask again,
of all this? I speak earnest upon this point, because I speak
with experience. As a single instance: a medical man, a friend
of mine, passing by his own schoolroom, heard one of his own
little girls screaming and crying, and went in. The governess, an
excellent woman, but wholly ignorant of the laws of physiology,
complained that the child had of late become obstinate and would
not learn; and that therefore she must punish her by keeping her
indoors over the unlearnt lessons. The father, who knew that the
child was usually a very good one, looked at her carefully for a
little while; sent her out of the schoolroom; and then said, "That
child must not open a book for a month." "If I had not acted so,"
he said to me, "I should have had that child dead of brain-disease
within the year."

Now, in the face of such facts as these, is it too much to ask of
mothers, sisters, aunts, nurses, governesses--all who may be
occupied in the care of children, especially of girls--that they
should study thrift of human health and human life, by studying
somewhat the laws of life and health? There are books--I may say
a whole literature of books--written by scientific doctors on