ii.] THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 45 



lodged, badly housed, badly fed, and live from one year's 

 end to another in bad air, without chance of a change. 

 They have no play-grounds ; they amuse themselves 

 with marbles and chuck-farthing, instead of cricket or 

 hare-and-hounds ; and if it were not for the wonderful 

 instinct which leads all poor children of tender years 

 to run under the feet of cab-horses whenever they can, 

 I know not how they would learn to use their limbs 

 with agility. 



Now there is no real difficulty about teaching drill 

 and the simpler kinds of gymnastics. It is done ad- 

 mirably well, for example, in the North Surrey Union 

 schools ; and a year or two ago, when I had an oppor- 

 tunity of inspecting these schools, I was greatly struck 

 with the effect of such training upon the poor little 

 waifs and strays of humanity, mostly picked out of the 

 gutter, who are being made into cleanly, healthy, and 

 useful members of society in that excellent institution. 



Whatever doubts people may entertain about the 

 efficacy of natural selection, there can be none about 

 artificial selection ; and the breeder who should attempt 

 to make, or keep up, a fine stock of pigs, or sheep, under 

 the conditions to which the children of the poor are 

 exposed, would be the laughing-stock even of the bucolic 

 mind. Parliament has already done something in this 

 direction, by declining to be an accomplice in the as- 

 phyxiation of school children. It refuses to make any 

 grant to a school in which the cubical contents of the 

 school-room are inadequate to allow of proper respiration. 

 I should like to see it make another step in the same 

 direction, and either refuse to give a grant to a school 

 in which physical training is not a part of the pro- 

 gramme, or, at any rate, offer to pay upon such training. 

 If something of the kind is not done, the English 

 physique, which has been, and is still, on the whole, a 



