rational country, all imperfect and ill-considered schemes are
sure to gravitate. But if the proposal be a bona-fide one: then
it must be borne in mind that in the Public schools of England,
and in all private schools, I presume, which take their tone from
them, cricket and football are more or less compulsory, being
considered integral parts of an Englishman's education; and that
they are likely to remain so, in spite of all reclamations:
because masters and boys alike know that games do not, in the long
run, interfere with a boy's work; that the same boy will very
often excel in both; that the games keep him in health for his
work; and the spirit with which he takes to his games when in the
lower school, is a fair test of the spirit with which he will take
to his work when he rises into the higher school; and that nothing
is worse for a boy than to fall into that loafing, tuck-shop-
haunting set, who neither play hard nor work hard, and are usually
extravagant, and often vicious. Moreover, they know well that
games conduce, not merely to physical, but to moral health; that
in the playing-field boys acquire virtues which no books can give
them; not merely daring and endurance, but, better still, temper,
self-restraint, fairness, honour, unenvious approbation of
another's success, and all that "give and take" of life which
stand a man in such good stead when he goes forth into the world,
and without which, indeed, his success is always maimed and
partial.

Now: if the promoters of higher education for women will compel
girls to any training analogous to our public-school games; if,
for instance, they will insist on that most natural and wholesome
of all exercises, dancing, in order to develop the lower half of
the body; on singing, to expand the lungs and regulate the breath;