State Board of health. 
267 
many of the existing defects might be avoided, and that in the con¬ 
struction of our lofty school houses and in the general custom of 
sending to the uppermost rooms the advanced classes of girls who 
are just developing into womanhood, there is being practiced an 
evil against which there cannot be uttered too emphatic a remon¬ 
strance. We fully indorse and cordially recommend to school offi¬ 
cers and school architects the idea of lower school buildings, with 
greater floor space to each scholar, and believe that all questions 
of architectural beauty should be made subordinate to the higher 
consideration of the health of our offspring. 
MENTAL HYGIENE. 
The subject of mental hygiene, treated by Dr. Favill, is one upon 
which comparatively little has been written, yet one of very great 
interest and importance. How rightly to train and feed the ex¬ 
panding minds of our children, is a problem worthy our most care¬ 
ful attention; when, where and how to teach them so as to develop 
their mental health and strength, is a question upon which their fu¬ 
ture welfare in a great measure depends. The effects of popular 
methods of school education, the pernicious influence of self-report¬ 
ing, and of prize systems, the demand of developed mental activity 
for food, the effect of bodily fatigue on the mind, and the influence 
of heridity, are some of the topics treated of in this paper. We 
call especial attention to the thought of the writer that insanity is 
generally a consequence of disuse rather than of overuse of the 
brain, and that the occupations calling for most mental strength 
are the least likely to break down or to lead to insanity. 
FOODS AND DOMESTIC BEVERAGES. 
The paper of Dr. Selden, on “ Foods,” is the opening of a wide 
subject of practical daily application. The kinds of food, the meth¬ 
ods of preparation, the time and manner of eating, the influence of 
certain kinds of food on the system, the reasons why certiiii arti¬ 
cles of food can be used continuously, while the relish for others is 
speedily lost, the absolute necessity for a certain variety of food, 
the necessity for changing our hasty habits of eating, and of more 
thoroughly masticating our food, are among the things treated of 
in this paper on this most fruitful theme. There can be no ques¬ 
tion but that, as a people, we are in need to be constantly remind- 
