PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 337 



for a cooling liquid is not plainer than the brain's craving for rest and 

 slumber when a high temperature adds its somniferous tendency to 

 the drowsy influence of a full meal. On warm summer days all 

 Nature indulges in a noontide nap ; I have walked through tropical 

 forests that were as silent under the rays of a vertical sun as a Nor- 

 wegian pine-grove in the dead of a polar night ; nor would it be easy 

 to name a single animal that does not appear sleepy after meals. At 

 noon leaf -trees throw their densest shade ; even butterflies seek the 

 penetralia of the foliage, and lizards cling lazily to the dark side of the 

 lower branches ; every school-teacher knows that children feel the 

 drowsy spell of the afternoon sun ; why should they alone be hurt by 

 yielding to its promptings? Either postpone the principal meal to 

 the end of the day, or increase the noontide recess to at least three 

 hours, so as to leave time for a digestive siesta. 



In midsummer all mammals (squirrels, perhaps, excepted) become 

 semi-nocturnal : deer and llamas pasture the moonlit mountain-mead- 

 ows ; bears, badgers, and the larger species of monkeys are wide-awake ; 

 buffaloes wander en masse to the next drinking-place ; and the step- 

 children of Nature, the starved lazzaroni of Southern Europe, forget 

 their misery if they can procure a fiddle or a guitar. The moonlit 

 streets of the Mexican cities swarm with merry children, but north 

 of the Rio Grande not a decent lad is seen out-doors after sundown ; 

 Luna has to seek her Endymions in the tropics, though our summer 

 nights are often as glorious as the noches serenas of southern Anda- 

 lusia. And what would our hardy forefathers have said about our 

 dread of the morning dew ? How many thousands of hunters and 

 soldiers have slept in the open fields, and how many times did we icade 

 through the dew-drenched brambles of the Ardennes, my little brother 

 and I, to see the sun rise, and breathe the mountain wind, at the only 

 hour Avhen the air is both fragrant and cool, inspiring thoughts which 

 music can only awaken for a fleeting moment ! if such hours are 

 mortiferous, there can not be a more as:reeable wav of endinoj what 

 our latter-day epicures are pleased to call life. 



What harm can there be in dividing our daily portion of sleep ? 

 Birds and beasts do it, the founders of the most ascetic orders of 

 Spanish monks allowed it, and our summer months are certainly as 

 warm as those of Southern Europe. People who are so anxious to 

 improve the shining hours for business purposes had much better 

 curtail the number of their meals ; take a vote among the juvenile 

 operatives of a cotton-factory, and ten to one that a large majority 

 would gladly postpone, or even renounce, their dinner for the privilege 

 of sleeping an hour or two between 1 and 3 p. m. A Belgian silk- 

 manufacturer, who had spent his own boyhood at the loom, told me 

 that he could never find it in his heart to discharge a factory-child for 

 dozing over its work. 



Necessity may compel individuals to compromise such matters. If 

 VOL. XIX. 22 



