ungraceful, and such as no artist would care to draw. As if "lolling,"
which means putting the body in the attitude of the most perfect ease
compatible with a fully expanded chest, was not 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 ill; and I am afraid that a great deal of illness has been from