724 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



tninntlo monachi could counteract the effects of deficient exercise ; if 

 we can believe the publicists of the Reformation, the chronique scan- 

 daleuse of Lesbos and Capri was far surpassed in the record of some 

 mediaeval convents and not in the flagrant latitude of Italy alone 

 (Robert Burton's " Anatomy of Melancholy," volume of miscellanies, 

 pp. 449-451, quotations, etc.). Nor can we mistake the significance of 

 the circumstance that sexual aberrations in the years of immaturity are 

 almost exclusively the vice of male children, whose potential energies, 

 with the same diet and the same general mode of life, find no adequate 

 vent in an amount of active exercise nearly sufficient for the consti- 

 tutional wants of the other sex. Moral lectures are sadly ineffectual 

 in such cases, because, as Gotthold Lessing remarks, vicious passions 

 pervert the constitution of the mind as effectually as they subvert that 

 of the body " the evil powers blindfold the victims of their altars." 

 A frugal diet may subserve the work o\ reform, but the great specific 

 is competitive gymnastics, the society and example of merry, manly, 

 and adventurous companions. Crank- work gymnastics won't do ; en- 

 list the pride of the young Trimalchion, watch him at play, find out 

 his special/br^e, no matter what running, jumping, or throwing stones 

 and organize a sodality for the cultivation of that particular accom- 

 plishment. Beguile him into heroic efforts, offer prizes and champion- 

 badges : as soon as manful exercises become a pleasure, unmanning 

 indulgences will lose their attractions. The depressing after-effect of 

 sensual excesses, the dreary reaction, is a chief incentive to the repe- 

 tition of the vicious act, and the success of all reformatory measures 

 depends at first upon the possibility of relieving this depression by 

 healthful diversion, till, in the course of time, regained mental and 

 bodily vigor will help the remedial tendency of Nature to neutralize 

 the morbid inclination. 



" Rickets " is a sign of general debility, owing to mal-nutrition 

 during the years of rapid growth. The best j^hysic for a rickety child 

 is milk, bran-bread, and fruit ; the best physician, the drill-master of 

 the turner-hall. Rickety children are apt to be precocious, and till 

 their backs are straightened up their books ought to be thrown aside. 

 Knock-knees, bow-legs, " chicken- breasts," and round shoulders are all 

 amenable to treatment, if the cure be begun in time during the first 

 three years of the teens, of all ages at once the most plastic and the 

 most retentive of deep impressions. 



For the cure of young topers, smokers, and gluttons I am persuaded 

 that punishments are only of temporary avail, and homilies of no use 

 whatever. The most glowing eloquence palls before the suasion of 

 a vicious ^9encA7?^. Here, too, the chances of saving the tempted 

 depend m^oyv the possibility of silencing the tempter by outbidding 

 his offer. Provide healthful diversions ; the victims of the poison- 

 habit yield to temptation when the reaction (following upon every 

 morbid excitement) becomes intolerable. Relieve the strain of that 



