PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 579 



" Beware of the night- wind ; be sure and close your windows after 

 dark " ! In other words, beware of God's free air ; be sure and infect 

 your lungs with the stagnant, azotized, and offensive atmosphere of your 

 bedroom. In other words, beware of the rock spring ; stick to sewer- 

 age. Is night-air injurious ? Is there a single tenable pretext for such 

 an idea ? Since the day of creation that air has been breathed with 

 impunity by millions of different animals tender, delicate creatures, 

 some of them fawns, lambs, and young birds. The moist night-air 

 of the tropical forests is breathed with impunity by our next relatives, 

 the anthropoid apes the same apes that soon perish with consumption 

 in the close though generally well-warmed atmosphere of our northern 

 menageries. Thousands of soldiers, hunters, and lumbermen sleep 

 every night in tents and open sheds without the least injurious conse- 

 quences ; men in the last stage of consumption have recovered by 

 adopting a semi-savage mode of life, and camping out-doors in all but 

 the stormiest nights. Is it the draught you fear, or the contrast of 

 temperature? Blacksmiths and railroad-conductors seem to thrive 

 l^nde^ such influences. Draught ? Have you never seen boys skating 

 in the teeth of a snow-storm at the rate of fifteen miles an hour ? " They 

 counteract the effect of the cold air by vigorous exercise." Is there no 

 other way of keeping warm ? Does the north wind damage the fine 

 lady sitting motionless in her sleigh, or the pilot and helmsman of a 

 storm-tossed vessel ? It can not be the inclemency of the open air, 

 for, even in sweltering summer nights, the sweet south wind, blessed 

 by all creatures that draw the breath of life, brings no relief to the 

 victim of aerophobia. There is no doubt that families who have freed 

 themselves from the curse of that superstition can live out and out 

 healthier in the heart of a great city than its slaves on the airiest high- 

 land of the southern Apennines. 



In such countries as Italy and Mexico, where the plurality of the 

 population pass the daylight hours in open air, unventilated bedrooms 

 are almost the only cause of tubercular diseases ; but in the north, where 

 children have to be nursed like exotic birds, the chief defects of our 

 domestic arrangements may be classed under three heads : impure air, 

 want of sunshine, and want of room for exercise. The heau-ideal of 

 a healthy house would be a well-plastered stone building on some emi- 

 nence, remote from swamps and stagnant creeks, but surrounded by 

 sunny slopes available for play-grounds ; spring or well water ; out- 

 door cellar, kitchen in an out-house, or at least not directly below the 

 sitting and sleeping rooms ; high ceilings, wainscots, or wall-paper of 

 innocuous colors ; deep windows, with projecting mullions to admit 

 the air and exclude the rain ; an airy veranda, and no shade-trees on 

 the east and west side, as sunlight is most needed in the mornings and 

 evenings. Children can not thrive in dark back rooms, and in the first 

 eight years of their lives should have all the exercise they want. The 

 countrymen of Dr. Frobel are ahead in this respect, and the best-ar- 



