Io OUTDOOR STUDIES 
people, those advantages would be utterly val- 
ueless, since they would be utterly without se- 
curity.” 
Physical health is a necessary condition of 
all permanent success. To the American peo- 
ple it has a stupendous importance, because it 
is the only attribute of power in which they 
are said to be losing ground. Guarantee us 
against physical degeneracy, and we can risk 
all other perils, — financial crises, Slavery, 
Romanism, Mormonism, Border Ruffians, and 
New York assassins ; “ domestic malice, foreign 
levy, nothing” can daunt us. Guarantee to 
Americans health, and Mrs. Stowe cannot 
frighten them with all the prophecies of Dred; 
but when her sister Catherine informs us that 
in all the vast female acquaintance of the 
Beecher family there are not a dozen healthy 
women, one is a little tempted to despair of the 
republic. 
The one drawback upon our public-school 
system has been the physical weakness which 
it revealed and perhaps helps to perpetuate. 
One seldom notices a ruddy face in the school- 
room without tracing it back to a Transatlantic 
origin. The teacher of a large school in Can- 
ada went so far as to declare to me that she 
could recognize the children born this side the 
line by their invariable appearance of compara- 
