but also lead a life as free from conventionalities and as much in the
open air as possible. No girl should be sent away to school at this
period of rapid growth and development; nor should girls of the
working classes, when it can possibly be avoided, be sent out to fill
positions as clerks in illy ventilated stores, in factories, or as
domestics. If a girl can be kept at home until she is eighteen years
old, she will be a much stronger, healthier woman than would otherwise
be possible.

Corsets.-- At this period of life it is particularly necessary that
the clothing should be warm and at the same time sufficiently loose to
prevent the constriction of any part of the body. And whatever the
adult woman may elect to do in the matter of wearing corsets herself,
she does her young daughter an irreparable injury by constricting and
moulding her growing body in these corset-splints. Corsets placed on
the young girl interfere with the functions of circulation,
respiration, digestion, and of the pelvic organs, also with muscular
development. In addition to all this, the girl is handicapped in
taking all outdoor exercises and athletic sports.

The lungs, heart, and great blood-vessels are placed in and completely
fill an air-tight, distensiblecage, which is most distensible at its
base.

The least chest girth of the adult woman-- that is, the under-arm
girth around the chest-- that is consistent with health is
twenty-eight inches; and this girth must be enlarged three inches in
forced inspiration. In ordinary respiration the waist expansion should
be one-half to one inch, while during great muscular activity it
should be from one and a half to three or four inches. One-third of