Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/263

 PHYSICAL DEGENERACY.

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��and sledge, grasp the hoe, trundle the wheelbarrow. Let them leap into every- day as into a new paradise, " over a wall of eight hours' solid sleep." Let them of a Saturday hie away over the breezy hills, with fit companions, in utter for- getfulness of lessons, drills and examina- tions, until "every drop of blood in their veins tingles with the delight of mere an- imal existence." Let them in the absence of practical toil, poise the dumb-bell, pitch the quoit, glide on skates, or dash down the frozen hill-side. Only let all these things be clone in such measure and manner as shall develop brawn and mus- cle, health and vigor, and with a distinct recognition of their own higher nature and capacities.

We are led to be the more emphatic in calling attention to this subject from our knowledge of the conditions of health now existing in the schools of Nashua. Of the girls fourteen years of age and upwards thirty-three per cent, (one-third) are either invalids, more or less affected with a disease of the heart, liver, lungs, or some other vital organ disqualifying them for the mental work of the school- room, or they are suffering from that " nervous sensibility" which was un- known to New England girlhood half a century ago. In truth, so prevalent and so well understood is this general debili- ty of school girls, that during the past year a petition numerously signed by the matrons of this city and by several well- known physicians was presented to the School Board requesting them to abolish the regulation of marching up and down the stairways at recess— an exercise re- quiring but little more exertion than the ordinary marches and countermarches on the pavements.

During last term, of the eighty-three girls in the High School twenty-nine pre- sented a written statement from the fam- ily physician certifying that on account of feeble health it was desirable that they should be relieved from some of the reg- ular exercises of the school.

Now, this physical inability does not mainly arise from the influences of school life, but rather from causes over which teachers and school authorities have no control. Home counsel and home influ-

��ence are the controlling force in deter- mining the habits and health of our chil- dren. Especially is this true of girls, who are usually the earliest to betray physical infirmity. The indulgence of a morbid appetite for improper food ; trans- ition from over-heated rooms to a pierc- ing atmosphere ; late hours and insuffi- cient sleep; free indulgence in the ex- hausting excitements of fashion and fan- ciful reading furnish a solution to the mystery of degenerate health and vigor so visible among school girls. At an age when nothing should be left to the un- controlled will of the inexperienced and thoughtless, it is unnecessary to argua that the young school miss, who leaves a heated hall or a social circle at ten or eleven o'clock at night all aglow with physical exercise and an excited imagi- nation, will not be in good preparation for the school work of the next day. Dull recitations, heavy eyes, and droop- ing spirits will constitute the day's expe- rience — to be succeeded in due time by failing health.

These conditions of health so prevalent in all the Eastern States are attracting the careful attention of the highest sci- entific and medical authorities of the country. Their investigations will at least awaken attention to existing facts, and suggest to parents the inquiry as to what changes must be made in the in- dustrial, the social, and the moral trail- ing of the young to correct these evil's. In a recent paper written by Dr. Lincoln of Boston, an able and intelligent inves- tigator of sanitary facts, alluding to the wide-spread sources of nervous degener- acy, he says :

" Our nation is suffering from certain wide-spread sources of nervous degener- acy. Give the child a constitution deriv- ed from excitable parents; a diet in child- hood most abundant, but most unwhole- some, and based upon a national disre- gard of the true principles of cookery; a set of teeth which early fail to do their duty ; a climate which at its best is ex- tremely trying ; add to these influences those of a moral nature, arising from the democratic constitution of our country, spurring on every man, woman and child to indulge in personal ambition, the de- sire to rise in society, to grow rich, to get office, to get everything under the heavens ; add a set of social habits, as

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