THE CULTIVATOR. 
8 ? 
sition of permanent instead of alternate contraction} which we have 
seen to be in realitymore fatiguing and debilitation to them than sever_ 
labor. Girls thus restrained daily for many successive hours, invaria 
bly suffer—being deprived of the sports and exercise after school-hours 
which strengthen the muscles of boys, ar.d enable them to withstand 
the oppression. The muscles being thus enfeebled, they either lean 
over insensibly to one side, and thus contract curvature of the spine; 
or their weakness being preceived, they are forthwith cased in stiffer 
and stronger stays—that support being sought for in steel and whale¬ 
bone which nature intended they should obtain from the bones and 
muscles of their own bodies. The patient, finding the maintenance of 
erect carriage (the grand object for which all the suffering is inflicted) 
thus rendered more easy, at first welcomes the stays, and, like her 
teacher, fancies them highly useful. Speedily, however, their effects 
show them to be the reverse of beneficial. The same want of varied 
motion, which was the prime cause of the muscular weakness, is still 
further aggravated by the tight pressure of the stays interrupting the 
play of the muscles, and rendering them in a few months more power¬ 
less than ever. In spite, however, of the weariness and mischief which 
result from it, the same system is persevered in; and, during the short 
time allotted to that nominal exercise, the formal walk, the body is left 
almost as motionless as before, and only the legs are called into activi¬ 
ty. The natural consequences of this treatment are, debility of the 
body, curvature of the spine, impaired digestion, and, from the di¬ 
minished tone of all the animal and vital functions, general ill health: 
—-and yet while we thus set Nature and her laws at defiance, we pre¬ 
sume to express surprise at the prevalence of female deformity and 
disease! 
It would be easy, were it required, to prove that the picture here 
drawn is not overcharged. A single instance from a note appended by 
Dr. Forbes to an excellent treatise on “ Physical Education,” by Dr 
Barlow of Bath, will suffice. After copying the programme of a board¬ 
ing school for young ladies, which exhibits only one hour’s exercise, 
consisting of a walk, arm in arm, on the high road, and that only when 
the weather is fine at the particular hour allotted to it, in contrast with 
nine hours at school or tasks, and three and a half at optional studies 
or works,—-Dr. Forbes adds :—“ That the practical results of such an 
astounding regimen are by no means overdrawn in the preceding pages 
is sufficiently evinced by the following fact, a fact which, we will ven¬ 
ture to say, may be verified by inspection of thousands of boarding 
schools in this country. We lately visited in a large town a boarding- 
school containing forty girls ; and we learned on close and accurate in¬ 
quiry, that there was not one of the girls who had been at the school two 
years, (and the majority had been as long) that were not more or less 
crooked 1 Our patient was in this predicament; and we could per¬ 
ceive (what all may perceive who meet that most melancholy of all pro¬ 
cessions,—a boarding-school of young ladies in their walk) that all her 
companions were pallid, sallow, and listless. We can assert, on the same 
authority of personal observation, and on an extensive scale, that scarcely 
a single girl (more especially of the middle classes) that has been at a board¬ 
ing-school for two or three years, returns home with unimpaired health: 
and for the truth of the assertion, we may appeal to every candid father, 
whose daughters have been placed in this situation.”* 
The sedentary and unvaried occupations which follow each other for 
hours in succession in many of our schools, have also been the cause of 
needless suffering to thousands: and it is high time that a sound physi¬ 
ology should step in to root out all such erroneous and hurtful practices. 
Instead, therefore, of so many successive hours being devoted to study 
and to books, the employments of the young ought to be varied and in¬ 
terrupted by proper intervals of cheerful and exhilerating exercise, such 
as is derived from games of dexterity, which require the co-operation 
and society of companions. This is infinitely preferable to the solemn 
processions which are so often substituted for exercise, and which are 
hurtful, inasmuch as they delude parents and teachers into the notion 
that they constitute in reality that which they only counterfeit and su¬ 
persede. We have already seen what an important part the mental sti¬ 
mulus and nervous impulse perform, in exiting, sustaining, and direct¬ 
ing muscular activity; and how difficult and inefficient muscular con¬ 
traction becomes, when the mind, which directs it, is languid, or absorb¬ 
ed by other employments. The playful gambolling and varied move¬ 
ments which are so characteristic of the young of all animals, man not 
excepted, and which are at once so pleasing and so beneficial, show that, 
to render it beneficial in its fullest extent, nature requires amusement 
and sprightliness of mind to be combined with, and be the source of, 
muscular exercise: and that, when deprived of this healthful condition, 
it is a mere evasion of her law, and it is not followed by a tithe of the 
advantages resulting from its real fulfilment. The buoyancy of spirit 
and comparitive independence enjoyed by boys when out of school, pre-. 
vent them suffering so much from this cause as girls do; but the inju¬ 
ry inflicted on both is the more unpardonable, on account of the ease 
with which it might be entirely avoided.— Combe's Prin. of Physiology. 
Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine, article Physical Education ; vol. i. p. < 
ON EDUCATION. 
How is a nation to grow rich and powerful ? Every one will an¬ 
swer—By cultivating and making productive what nature has given 
them, bo long as their lands remain uncultivated, no matter how rich 
by nature, they are still no source of wealth : but when they bestow labor 
upon them, and begin to plough and sow the fertile earth, they then 
become a source of profit. Now is it not precisely the same case with 
the natural powers of mind l So long as they remain uncultivated, are 
they not valueless? Nature gives, it is true, to the mind talent, but 
she does not give learning or skill: just as she gives to the soil fertility, 
but not wheat or corn. In both cases the labor of man must make 
them productive. Now, this labor applied to the mind, is what we call 
education ; a word derived from the Latin, which means the educing or 
bringing forth the hidden powers of that to which it is applied. In the 
same sense also when we use the word cultivation we say: “ cultivate 
the mind,” just as we say cultivate the soil. 
From all this we conclude that a nation has two natural sources of 
wealth: one, the soil of the nation, and the other, the mind of the na¬ 
tion. So long as these remain uncultivated, they add little or nothing 
to wealth or power. Agriculture makes the one productive, education 
the other. Brought under cultivation, the soil brings forth wheat and 
corn and good grass, while the weeds and briars and poisonous plants 
are all rooted out: so mind brought under cultivation, brings forth skill, 
and learning, and sound knowledge, and good principles: while igno¬ 
rance and prejudice, and bad passions, aud evil habits, which are the 
weeds and briars and poisonous plants of the mind, are rooted out and 
destroyed. 
An ignorant man, therefore, adds little or nothing to the wealth of the 
country, an educated man adds a great deal: an ignorant man is worth 
little in the market, his wages are low, because he has got no know¬ 
ledge or skill to sell. Thus in a woollen factory a skilful workman may 
get $10 or $15 a week, while an unskilled workman must be contented 
with $2 or $3. In the store of a counting house, one clerk gets $1,000 
salary because he understands book-keeping or the value of goods, 
while another who is ignorant, gets nothing but his board. * * We see 
this difference too when we look at nations. Thus China has ten times 
as many inhabitants as England, but England has a hundred times as 
much skill; therefore, England is the more powerful of the two, and 
frightens the Government of China by a single ship of war. 
Thus, too, among the nations of Europe, Prussia is more powerful 
and prosperous than any other of the same size on the continent, because 
all her people are educated, and that education is a Christian one, ma¬ 
king them moral and industrious as well as skilful. If, then, the educa¬ 
tion of the people be necessary to the prosperity of the nation, it is the 
duty of the government or nation to provide for it: that is, to see that 
no child grow up in ignorance or vice, because that is wasting the pro¬ 
ductive capital of the country. This education too should be a Christian 
education in order that children when they grow up should be honest, 
faithful and temperate: for if a man be a liar or a drunkard his know¬ 
ledge and skill is worth little to the country, because he will be neither 
trusted nor employed. 
None know the value of education but those who have received it: it 
is therefore the duty of every child who has been well educated himself, 
to use his influence when he grows up to extend it to others, and if he 
be a legislator to make it national and universal in his country.— Mc- 
Vickar. 
THE CULTIVATOR-SEPT. 1886 . 
TO IMPROVE THE SOIL AND THE MIND. 
THE CROPS. 
In a recent excursion to the western borders of the state, we took 
much pains to ascertain, Irom the best sources, the probable average of 
the wheat crop. The result of these inquiries is a conviction, that west of 
Cayuga lake, the product does not exceed half a fair average crop; that 
in Cayuga and Onondaga, the proportion diminishes to a third, and that 
in Oneida it will not be one-quarter of the quantity required for the 
population of the county. These counties embrace the great wheat dis¬ 
trict of our slate. The causes of failure have been, a snowy winter, 
which smothered much of the grain, a wet spring, the hessian fly, and 
lastly, we suspeet to some extent, the grain worm. This insect has 
been detected about Geneva and Ithaca, and we doubt not it has tended 
to diminish the product east of those places, as the farmers, not being 
sensible that the enemy was among them, omitted to look for it in their 
wheat fields till it had fallen and burrowed in the ground. The two 
first enumerated causes seem, however, principally to^have operated to 
lessen the crop, and particularly the wet spring. 
The corn crop seems diminutive in quantity, inferior in quality, and 
unpromising in product. An early frost would cause an almost total 
failure of a sound crop. We would repeat our advice, to harvest this 
