210 Notes f of the Month. [Ai:e. 



many other of the whims and fancies of our grandfathers and grand- 

 mothers, has long since been *>ut of date, and disused, and forgotten." 



As regards the application of this foolery to boys' schools, perhaps it i* 

 not worth talking about. Those who think it necessary to pay for having; 

 their sons taught to turn head over heels, probably, if they did not employ' 

 the : r money in that way, would apply it to some other purpose equally 

 useless perhaps have " professors" to teach the " young gentlemen," 

 after their small clothes had been put down in order that they should 

 be whipped, the fittest and readiest manner of buttoning them up again. 

 But the quackery of attempting to extend the same description of humbug 

 to female schools, is mischievous as well as impertinent; and people who 

 do happen to possess a single particle of brains, ought to resist it in 

 plainer terms, to kick it out of doors. 



By what process, for example, it would be pleasant to know, did 

 Sigiior Voarino discover " That the labouring classes of society are 

 superior in general health and bodily conformation to those of a more 

 fortunate position in life? ' Or how, supposing him to be even as guiltless 

 of science as those who would listen to him must be of common sense 

 how is it that he has contrived to keep himself ignorant that the fact is 

 directly the reverse ? and that any thing like " labour," or violent exertion 

 more especially when resorted to at an early age tends directly to the 

 deformity and distortion of the human frame, rather than to its improve- 

 ment? One would think there was nobody that walked about the streets 

 of town with his eyes open could fail to have perceived, that almost every 

 species of labour, and every species in which children are employed 

 produces, instead of improvement, its peculiar and distinctive deformity. 

 That bakers are knock-kneed; butchers round-shouldered; post boyi 

 diminutive; chimneysweepers (who begin their exertions the youngest) 

 crooked and dislocated in every limb, almost without an exception ; and 

 the tumblers and jugglers, who perform feats of activity at shews and 

 fairs, the most ricketty and unhealthy people in the community. The 

 labour which females perform, being of a more varied character, does less 

 mischief; while the garb which they wear, prevents any deformity of 

 shape from being so readily perceived ; but where is it that we find hand- 

 some limbs or well formed figures among the females who live by hard 

 labour ? or who in his senses, in this country, or, as a result of bodily 

 labour, in any country, would think of looking for such a thing ? 



But the best answer, as far as science is concerned, to this description 

 of rubbish, appears in Mr. Shaw's paper [the surgeon of Middlesex 

 Hospital] on " Gymnastics," published in the last number of the Quar- 

 terly Journal of Science and Literature ; and as the essay (which is of 

 considerable length) has abundant entertainment as well as instruction to 

 secure, from whoever once takes it up, an entire reading for itself, we 

 shall venture to fortify ourselves with a few paragraphs from its pages. 



Mr. Shaw begin his argument by a reference to the known effect of 

 early exertion upon labouring animals. 



" The bad effects of working a young horse too early, and so as to call for occa- 

 sional violent exertion, are so generally known, that a valuable animal is seldom 

 put to a trial of its powers before it has attained its full growth. But children, 

 and especially those of the poor, are often put upon tasks beyond their natural 

 powers ; and the bad consequences are soon apparent ; for children who are thu* 

 treated, seldom grow up vigorously, but are stinted in their growth, and often 



