and on some games--ball or what not--which will ensure that raised
chest, and upright carriage, and general strength of the upper
torso, without which full oxygenation of the blood, and therefore
general health, is impossible; if they will sternly forbid tight
stays, high heels, and all which interferes with free growth and
free motion; if they will consider carefully all which has been
written on the "half-time system" by Mr. Chadwick and others; and
accept the certain physical law that, in order to renovate the
brain day by day, the growing creature must have plenty of fresh
air and play, and that the child who learns for four hours and
plays for four hours, will learn more, and learn it more easily,
than the child who learns for the whole eight hours; if, in short,
they will teach girls not merely to understand the Greek tongue,
but to copy somewhat of the Greek physical training, of that
"music and gymnastic" which helped to make the cleverest race of
the old world the ablest race likewise; then they will earn the
gratitude of the patriot and the physiologists, by doing their
best to stay the downward tendencies of the physique, and
therefore ultimately of the morale, in the coming generation of
English women.

I am sorry to say that, as yet, I hear of but one movement in this
direction among the promoters of the "higher education of women."
{8} I trust that the subject will be taken up methodically by
those gifted ladies, who have acquainted themselves, and are
labouring to acquaint other women, with the first principles of
health; and that they may avail to prevent the coming generations,
under the unwholesome stimulant of competitive examinations, and
so forth, from "developing" into so many Chinese--dwarfs--or
idiots.