and severe exercise of the intellectual faculties, to the comparative neglect of their moral, and still more of their physical nature. Nay, not only do they neglect their physical nature-they ABUSE it; they sin against. themselves and against God; and though they sin in ignorance, they do not escape the penalties of His violated laws. Hence you see them pale, and wan, and feeble; hence you find them acknowledging, when too late, the effects of severe application. But do they acknowledge it humbly and repentingly, as with a consciousness of sin? No, they often do it with a secret. exultation, with a lurking feeling that you will say or think, 'Poor fellow, his mind is too much for his body!' Nonsense! his mind is too weak; his knowledge too limited; he is an imperfect man; he knows not his own nature. But if he has no conscientiousness, no scruple about impairing his own health and sowing the seeds of disease, he has less about entailing them upon others. And a consumptive young man or womanthe son or daughter of consumptive parents-hesitates not to spread the evil in society, and entail puny faces, weakness, pain, and early death upon several individuals, and punish their children for their own sins.

"Is this picture too high-colored? Alas! no. And if I showed you satisfactorily that sin against the organic laws caused so great a proportion of blindness, how much more readily will you grant that the same sin gives to so many of our population the narrow chest, the hectic flush, the hollow cough, which makes the victim doomed, by his parent, to consumption and early death! Do you not see, every Sabbath, at church, the young man or woman, upon whose fair and delicate structure the peculiar impress of the EARLY DOOMED is stamped? and as a slight but hollow cough comes upon your ear, does it not recall the death-knell which rang

in the same sad note before to the father or mother? Who of you has not followed some young friend to his long resting-place, and found that the grass had not grown rank upon the grave of his brother? that the row of white marbles, beneath which slept his parents and sisters, were yet glistering in freshness, and that the letters which told their names and their early death seemed clear as if cut but yesterday?

They tell us that physical education is attended to in this country; and yet, where is the teacher, where is the clergyman even, who dares to step forth in these cases, and say to those who are doomed, you must not and shall not marry? and where are the young men and women who would listen to them if they did? It is not that they are wanting in conscientiousness; they may be conscientious and disinterested; but they do not know that they are doing wrong, because they are not acquainted with the organic laws of their nature. All that is done in schools or colleges toward physical education is the mere strengthening of the muscular system by muscular exercise; but this is not half enough. These remarks may be deemed irrelevant to my subject, but they can not be lost to an audience whose highest interest is the education of man; and if I am mistaken in supposing that little attention has been paid to the subject, its importance will guaranty its repetition."

Before dismissing this subject, I will introduce two additional quotations from American authors, whose opinions are received by the medical profession in this country not only, but throughout Europe. In both instances, I copy from works published in Great Britain, into which the opinions of these American writers have been quoted. In regard to hereditary transmission, Dr. Caldwell observes: "Every constitutional quality, whether good or bad, may descend, by inheritance,

from parent to child. And a long-continued habit of drunkenness becomes as essentially constitutional as a predisposition to gout or pulmonary consumption. This increases, in a manifold degree, the responsibility of parents in relation to temperance. By habits of intemperance, they not only degrade and ruin themselves, but transmit the elements of like degradation and ruin to their posterity. This is no visionary conjecture, the fruit of a favorite and long-cherished theory. It is a settled belief resulting from observation-an inference derived from innumerable facts. In hundreds and thousands of instances, parents, having had children born to them while their habits were temperate, have become afterward intemperate, and had other children subsequently born. In such cases, it is a matter of notoriety that the younger children have become addicted to the practice of intoxication much more frequently than the older, in the proportion of five to one. Let me not be told that this is owing to the younger children being neglected, and having corrupt and seducing examples constantly before them. The same neglects and profligate examples have been extended to all, yet all have not been equally injured by them. The children of the earlier births have escaped, while those of the subsequent ones have suffered. The reason is plain. The latter children had a deeper animal taint than the former."-Transylvania Journal.

Physiologists in general coincide in the belief that a vigorous and healthy physical and mental constitution in the parents communicates existence in the most perfect state to their offspring, while impaired constitutions, from whatever cause, are transmitted to posterity. In this sense, all who are competent to judge are agreed that the Giver of life is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third

and fourth generation of them that hate him or violate his laws. Strictly speaking, it is not disease which is transmitted, but organs of such imperfect structure that they are unable to perform their functions properly, and so weak as to be easily put into a morbid state or abnormal condition by causes which unimpaired organs are able to resist.

My last quotation on this point is from a lecture delivered by Dr. Warren before the American Institute of Instruction, copied into the "Schoolmaster," a work published in London under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge:

"Let me conclude by entreating your attention to a revision of the existing plans of education in what relates to the preservation of health. Too much of the time of the better educated part of young persons is, in my humble opinion, devoted to literary pursuits and sedentary occupations, and too little to the acquisition of the corporeal powers indispensable to make the former practically useful. If the present system does not undergo some change, I much apprehend we shall see a degenerate and sinking race, such as came to exist among the higher classes in France before the Revolution, and such as now deforms a large part of the noblest families in Spain; but if the spirit of improvement, so happily awakened, continues-as I trust it will-to animate those concerned in the formation of the young members of society, we shall soon be able, I doubt not, to exhibit an active, beautiful, and wise generation, of which the age may be proud."

*

* I am informed by a lady who passed a long time at the Spanish court, in a distinguished situation, that the grandees have deteriorated by their habits of living, and the restriction of intermarriages to their own rank, to a race of dwarfs; and, though fine persons are sometimes seen among them, they, when assembled at court, appear to be a group of manikins.

CHAPTER III

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. THE LAWS OF HEALTH.

If man is ever to be elevated to the highest and happiest condition which his nature will permit, it must be, in no small degree, by the improvement—I might say, the redemption-of his physical powers. But knowledge on any subject must precede improvement.—ALCOTT.

Physical and moral health are as nearly related as the body and the soul.-HUFELAND's Art of Prolonging Life.

If the reader is persuaded that the views presented in the last chapter on the importance of physical education are truthful-and they are concurred in by physiologists generally--he will naturally desire to become acquainted with the laws of health, that, by yielding obedience to them, he may improve his physical condition, and most successfully promote his intellectual and moral well-being. I might, then, here refer to some of the many excellent treatises on this subject; but I shall probably better accomplish the object for which this work has been undertaken by presenting, within as narrow limits as practicable, a summary of these laws.

In every department of nature, waste is invariably the result of action. In mechanics, we seek to reduce the waste consequent upon action to the lowest possible degree; but to prevent it entirely is beyond the power of man. Every breath of wind that passes over the surface of the earth, modifies the bodies with which it comes in contact. The great toe of the bronze statue of Saint Peter at Rome has been reduced, it is said, to less than half its original size by the successive kisses of the faithful.