79 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



demned. This question, however, I am not careful to answer. Even 

 if it is true that there is a difficulty in providing other and efficient 

 modes of punishment, I should not feel the difficulty to justify the 

 maintenance of modes that are so clearly injurious. But, merely for 

 the sake of giving an answer, I may say that, in the case of girls, ex- 

 perience derived from many of the higher-class schools shows that 

 discipline may be maintained, either without any punishment at all, or 

 else by such kinds as are more nominal than real. The difficulty in 

 the case of boys is no doubt greater, but not, I think, insurmountable. 

 Many kinds of punishment may here be devised which go upon the 

 principle, not of denying muscular exercise, but of enforcing it. Extra 

 drills or other compulsory exercise during play-hours are modes of 

 punishment greatly to be preferred to those involving sedentary con- 

 finement, although I do not pretend to insinuate that compulsory 

 exercise in the way of punishment has the same recreative value as 

 voluntary exercise in the way of play. For my own part, I have no 

 hesitation in recommending corporal punishment as on all grounds 

 greatly preferable to the protracted, tedious, heart-sickening, and 

 health-breaking systems which, in the name of humanity, are coming 

 more and more into general use. But, however great the difficulty of 

 devising or substituting other modes of punishment may be, I feel 

 sure there can be no reasonable doubt that the modes which are at 

 present so largely in fashion ought to be universally abolished. 



The above remarks of course apply almost exclusively to boys' 

 schools ; and, looking to boys' schools as a whole, but little more re- 

 mains to be said of them in connection with recreation. The John 

 Bull spirit of this country is in favor of allowing schoolboys to play 

 the hardy and vigorous games which require all the muscles to be 

 brought into active service. The case, however, is widely different 

 in girls' schools ; so, before concluding, I should like to add a few 

 words with special reference to them. 



School-life is the time when, most of all, healthful recreation is 

 needed. It is then that the organism, being in a state of active 

 growth, most requires the purifying and strengthening influences of 

 muscular exercise to be in frequent operation ; and the development 

 which the organism, during the years of its growth, receives, is car- 

 ried through its life as an unalterable possession. Yet in the majority 

 of girls' schools how miserable is the provision that is made for secur- 

 ing this development ! Even in our higher-class schools the whole 

 mechanism of their discipline seems to be devised with the view of 

 stemming the healthful flow of natural joyousness by the barriers of 

 tedious monotony. On all sides a schoolgirl is shut up in a very 

 prison-house of decorum ; every healthful amusement is denied her as 

 " unladylike " ; she is imperatively taught to curb her youthful spirits 

 in so far as these may sometimes be able to struggle above the weight 

 of a mistaken discipline ; she is nurtured during her growth on the 



