Part 11 (2/2)

But a third fact stands just as boldly forth--the thin, unhealthy-looking physique and nervous sensibility of the American people; and the iinal ancestors, the English, confessedly the finest physical race in the world These facts--the superior average education in Ae physique of the nation--are so striking, that it is strange that they have not oftener and ether as cause and effect The education has gone on increasing, and the physique has gone on declining, till now the census returns begin to make us look anxiously about us Our men are unmuscular and short-lived, the best of them; the men of a physique of the type of Chief Justice Chase rarely live beyond sixty or sixty-five They are not invalids, but they are subject to fever, congestion, and paralysis, violent crises

The woraceful, impressionable, and active In the poorer ranks of life they have a nervous, anxious look; in the well-to-do and wealthier ranks, a nervous, spiritual look They are not invalids, but they are delicate, and are kept under a constant and chafing restraint froth to carry out the plans they set before theenerations Our census reports are very trustworthy oracles; these give us dark omens, and it is folly to shut our eyes

Many causesto this physical deterioration, any one of which, with a little ingenuity, may be clearly made to appear responsible for alree, is the temporary effect of the very clever feint of Dr

Clarke--nothing else can it be called The book gives us the i to attack our effort to produce the kind of women upon which any shrewd observer ree rests Itto attack the verywo to attack the hest and ultimate aim of a woman is to be the satisfactory wife of onemother of another;” but he does not even try to do any one of these things He has thrown a calciu some defects, and many eyes are for a time draards it His feint has created a sensation, and brought an irade of familiarity and openness where it can be talked of and exaation on behalf offelt that physicians, theer we are incurring in the average neglect that attends the physical rearing of A woe of their tendency to weakness in their present condition Mothers are busy, and girls are left too much to take care of thee, I aht to occasion anxiety; that girls, ignorant of the consequences, are disposed to conceal any weakness or unnatural condition, through their great aversion to medical attendance, and from a dislike to restrictions upon their social pleasures; and also from the fear that these restrictions would produce suspicion aard to their condition I a facts that are not appreciated in the degree that they deserve

Looked at physically, and with a philanthropy that extends beyond our contelish women do not allow us to feel wholly satisfied with our American women They make us feel that there is a debit as well as a credit column e compare our system of social life with theirs But we must not be so unwise as to attribute the fault to four or five years in the Ahted as to lieneration

Our own grandmothers did thus and so; but, as Miss Phelps says, this is the very reason that we cannot do it; nor can we afford to be so unjust as to make women bear the whole blame, nor so injudicious as to criminate our society as a whole Crime implies bad intentions, or lect of available knowledge

Our bitterest eneh-bred aristocracy,” could not charge us with the first; and as to the second, the past furnishes no experience for our guidance We do not know just how ; nor indeed do we kno to adjust the action of the different parts, and to et the best possible work out of it Some overstrain it, others take needless trouble about the repairs As yet the capacities of human muscle and nerve have never been adequately tested We are carrying the experione before We cannot know the full strength of a cord till it is broken; but we grow cautious e see that the fibres are beginning to give way

Our astonishi+ng prosperity is due to the large total of brain-activity that is being applied in the development of the natural resources, industries, and social life of our nation--a total to which women as well as men contribute, and the poorer people as well as the richer

That they are able to make this common contribution, is due to the fact, that we educate not only men but women, not only the rich but the poor; that they are keenly stimulated to make it, is due to the natural resources of the country, to the mobile conditions of society, and to the peculiar systeether, which conditions co possibilities for acquiring wealth and influence Along with this tree proportion of our people are carrying on an unusual amount of s to be done faster than they supply us with anization in industry, to reduce lish life we observe:

I Co hope and a hurried and worrying activity A large part of the nation atte their entire energies into ani this animal force for the benefit of those above them, almost as completely as the horse or the ox This statericultural laborers as to admit of very little palliation, and it is scarcely less true of the unskilled working classes in the towns

In all the lower ranks of society there are great obstacles to advancement in position, because each plane of life is croith its own members; because each class is educated in schools where only children of that class are found, and where the education is especially adapted to that class--that is, to their industrial needs and to what is expected in that grade of society--and does not fit them for any other place in society One-fifth of the nation cannot read, and the education of the great majority of the reo far enough to create a taste for reading books; and, shut off as they have been from participation in political life, they have too little interest in public concerns to read the newspapers

That is, as compared with our life, the possibilities for advancee education is of a low order, and the stimulus that comes from an acquaintance with the habits of those above the, and in consequence there is little tendency to doin the old ways The skilled artisans have in this matter of opportunity for advancement more in common with the circumstances of our life This sphere is not overcrowded, but they, too, lack the means for education and association with those above them provided in our public schools

The result of their better chances for improvement shows itself with theh, as we should expect, not in the saree Complaints are made of the physical deterioration of this class, and laws are enacted to li hours of children; and in the last session of Parliament, Mr

Mundella introduced a bill to fix the limit for women below that of men

The bill did not pass, but it will be introduced again in the next session

The large shopkeepers and ain, more assies in financial conditions; but at best they are a small class, and efficient help is more easily attainable With us, as soon as a ood ability for work, he finds for himself an independent place Here, as a rule, there is no independent place for hied to sell his ability to so So that the leader of a schee part of the planning is done by able ive but little of his tih platforher

II The importance of health is a dominant idea in the whole nation

This is probably due to the very perlish civilization by the feudal system, to the demand made for the permanence of the family, and for the production of warrior barons and warrior retainers The physical condition, that was formerly a necessity, is now maintained as a matter of aristocratic fashi+on and pride in ancestry

The higher classes have nothing to do that de physique, but they devote the best part of their energies to securing it, and set up their own results and methods as a model which the whole nation follow As evidence of this national interest in health, we may observe the number of Public Health bills that coet the most attention from the Conservative side of the House As farther confirreat nu, but in a stroll in the fresh air of the country, and the fact that nearly all the faular provision for one or s” in the year, as they do for the extra wraps for the winter; and still farther, that almost the poorest classes refuse to buy bread and meat of second quality, not from luxurious tastes, but from a belief that it is less healthful This consideration for health pervades all ranks of the nation

III As conducive to the ularity of habits, which is largely due to the fixedness, or caste state of society, that keeps people in the sarade of life into which they are born; that is, in conditions where they have no occasion to change their habits, and where they have little opportunity for seeing any habits, except those to which they conform Children naturally fall into the ways in which they are expected to go This perularity that almost converts habits into instincts Within the last feeeks, I have for the first tilishman say that he had eaten too much