BEST TIME FOR TAKING EXERCISE. 129 



simply because the weather is rainy at the regular hour 

 of going out. When the muscular system is duly ex- 

 ercised in the open air early in the day, the power of 

 mental application is considerably increased ; while, 

 by delaying till late, the efficiency of the whole pre- 

 vious mental labour is diminished by the restless crav- 

 ing for motion which is evinced by the young of all 

 animals ; and which, when unsatisfied, distracts at- 

 tention, and leads to idleness in school. It would 

 be well to copy in this respect the practice adopted 

 in the infant-schools, where the children are turned 

 out to play for a few minutes, as soon as the wan- 

 dering of mind and restlessness of body indicate that 

 the one has been too much and the other too little 

 exerted. After such an interval, work goes on 

 briskly again, and every one is alive. 



To render exercise as beneficial as possible, par- 

 ticularly in educating the young, it ought always to 

 be taken in the open air, and to be of a nature to 

 occupy the mind as well as the body. Social play 

 and active sports of every kind, cricket, bowls, shut- 

 tlecock, the ball, archery, quoits, hide-and-seek, arid 

 similar recreations well-known to the young, are in- 

 finitely preferable to regular and unmeaning walks, 

 and tend in a much higher degree to develop and 

 strengthen the bodily frame, and to secure a straight 

 spine and an erect and firm but easy and graceful 

 carriage. A formal walk is odious and useless to 

 many girls, who would be delighted and benefited 

 by spending two or three hours a day in spirited 

 exercise. 



Let those mothers who are afraid to trust to 

 Nature for strengthening and developing the limbs 

 and spines of their daughters attend to FACTS, and 

 their fears will vanish. It is notorious that a ma- 

 jority of those girls who, in opposition to the laws 

 of nature, are encased in stays, and get insufficient 

 exercise, become deformed ; an occurrence which 

 is, on the other hand, comparatively rare in boys, 



