128 POPULAE KllUORS. 



employed with growing young females, so is curvatme exclusively 

 limited, to them — their brothers, whose dress is quite loose, being 

 wholly free from it. " To be out," as it is called, *' in one of the 

 shouldei-s," is by no means now an unfrequcnt occurrence with young 

 women, and is a matter of daily remark and regret with their mothers; 

 and as many of them resist the conviction that it originates from 

 improper restraints, and injurious mechanical pressure, relief is 

 sought for in still greater restraints, and in the mechanical resources 

 of inclined planes, and tighter and stifler lacing, by which they seek 

 to aid, but by which, unhappily, they greatly mar the development 

 of the fonn— of that foiin which the painter and the sculptor of every 

 age have justly set up as the standard in nature for all that is beautiful 

 in outline, and by whose model of symmetry and beauty, the beauty 

 of all may be tested. 



But, beside the injury occasioned to the spine by an nnnatural 

 j)rcssure on the growing and expanding chest, there is a further evil 

 inflicted by the effect which it has upon the organs within it, and by 

 which a foundation is often laid for a long course of disordered health. 

 For it is in the order of nature, and in obedience to her laws, that the 

 organs which lie within the chest shall completely Jill it ; and thus, 

 following the order of their growth, that they should extend to that 

 full amplitude of the chest, to which its unchecked development 

 would cary it. Whatever, therefore, by circular pressure during its 

 growth, prevents the full expansion of the bones of the chest, pre- 

 vents, in the same degree, the full and natural expansion of the organs 

 growing within it ; and these organs are the heart and lungs, not to 

 mention the stomach and liver and other important viscem, which are 

 contained within the ribs, and are subject to injury by their com- 

 pression ; and no one, indeed, reflecting upon the nature of tlieir 

 structure and office, can doubt for a moment as to the evil that must 

 result from a pennanent curtailment of their due size, and of their 

 just and appropriate development. 



Before concluding these observations, there is one other subject 

 connected with the physical education of female children which I am 

 unwilling to pass by ; namely, the practice of gymnastic exercises 

 introduced of late into female schools, and which are designed to 

 counteract, I believe, — (though I pretend not to be certain) — the 

 mischief of the system we have been reprobating, bnt which is, in 



