Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/172

Rh your pound. My advice to you is—give it up."

Children in school growing narrow-chested and round-shouldered stooping over desks and books, ought to be taught to breathe as well as to read, and they ought to be kept at it as constantly. And prizes and honors ought to be given to the girls and boys who can run best, swim best, throw the farthest ball, and whose chest-measurement, taken monthly by the teacher, is largest, as well as to those pale-faced students in spectacles, who can demonstrate a problem in Euclid or construe Greek at sight—or rather at half-sight.

The examination of the eyes of Boston public-school children, by a distinguished oculist, a few years ago, brought to light the shocking fact that the vision of the majority was defective. The Hygiene Committee of the Boston School Board, in a report dated Nov. 22, 1887, said: "It has been settled beyond question that school-life has a damaging effect on the eyesight of children."

Listen to the congregation in church on Sunday morning, where there is nothing to divert attention. From end to end of the church you will hear an endless hacking and wheezing from bronchial tubes in all stages of disease and decay. Suppose you had a flock of sheep, and that you came on them quietly some day, and heard such a