THE COMMONHEALTH
 
 PKIXTKD BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 LONDON
 
 THE COMMONHEALTH 
 
 .4 SERIES OF ESSAYS ON HEALTH AND FELICITY 
 FOR EVERY-DAY READERS 
 
 BY 
 
 BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON, M.D., F.R.S. 
 
 FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE O? PHYSICIANS 
 AND HONORARY PHYSICIAN TO THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND 
 
 ' Homines ad decs nulla re propius accednnt quaru salutem bominibus daiido ' 
 
 ClCKRO 
 
 Men never nearer to the gods attain 
 Than in the art of giving health to men 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 1887 
 
 Ml fight f rexri-ffi
 
 TO 
 
 GEOKGE GODWIN, F.E.S., F.S.A. 
 
 Mr DEAR GODWIN, 
 
 In the band of useful and distinguished men who have 
 striven to make this century assume the vesture of health and the 
 joy of life, you, in your quiet and persistent way, have been one of 
 the foremost, your mind ever set on the homes of the people as the 
 centres from which alone the blessings of health can spring. To you, 
 therefore, a pioneer of pioneers, I dedicate this volume, as a slight, 
 token of the true respect and affection which during the many long 
 years of our friendship I have felt towards you, and in which I 
 pray to remain 
 
 Yours ahvays truly, 
 
 BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON. 
 
 11276CO
 
 PBEEACE. 
 
 THE twelve essays published in this volume consist 
 chiefly of addresses which on various occasions have 
 been delivered before the sanitary and other societies 
 of this kingdom, and which, having been favourably 
 noticed by the press as current topics, have since been 
 asked for in more permanent form. 
 
 25 MANCHESTER SQUARE, LONDON, W. 
 May 1, 1887.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH . . . 1 
 
 HEALTH AND EECREATION 34 
 
 HEALTH AND EECKEATION FOR THE YOUNG 61 
 
 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 90 
 
 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES OF NATIONAL EDUCATION . 115 
 
 DISEASES INCIDENT TO PUBLIC LIFE 157 
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITARY EEFORMER 167 
 
 DRESS IN EELATION TO HEALTH . . . . . . . 201 
 
 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 233 
 
 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON . . 254 
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY EESEARCH 272 
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT PHYSICAL AND MENTAL . . 303
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH. 1 
 
 IN the depths of the night, in a climate where night is 
 short, in the midst of that short interval when even the 
 gods are supposed to rest, when the sun-god himself has 
 withdrawn from the earth, and the sun sees not the 
 deeds of men, some men and women of the earth, in 
 solemn silence, bring something forth from home. 
 
 If they should speak there would flow from the lips 
 of those people a language so beautiful, so perfect, so 
 expressive, that though the listening ear were foreign to 
 it and understood it not it would be held listening. But 
 there is not a sound. 
 
 If these people could be seen in their fair stature and 
 build of body, draped in their loose garments, the eye, 
 like the ear, would be vanquished. Such incomparable 
 beauty ! Should a sculptor want a model for a work 
 he would leave for all time, he would find it in them ; 
 should a painter want a face for his perfected art, he 
 would find it in them ; should a poet want a theme for a 
 song on living beauty, he would find his inspiration in 
 them ; should a physician want a text for a discourse 
 
 1 Presidential Address to the Brighton Health Congress. Delivered 
 in the Dome, Brighton, on Tuesday evening, December 13, 1881.
 
 2 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 on the types of health and sanity, he would find it in 
 those types of beauty. 
 
 In those faces, which actually live to this hour in 
 marble more precious than gold, there would be seen, 
 if they were unveiled from this awful stillness and dark- 
 ness of the night, two living passions, engraved in life 
 through expression of the soul, resigned grief and 
 sublime fear. What has happened can never be recalled, 
 and grief, therefore, is chastened by reason ; but what 
 has happened is so unnatural, so wrong, that reason, in 
 its turn, is sublimed to fear. It is so terrible, none must 
 look on it : if the sun-god, source of light and life, should 
 see it, he might hide his face and punish all the races of 
 mankind. 
 
 Well may there sit on every face the chaste beauty of 
 resignation and sublimity of fear ! 
 
 What can have happened ? 
 
 There is something that is being carried tenderly, 
 awfully ! It is a casket, small and light. It might be 
 a cradle or a cot supporting some object of tender solici- 
 tude. A child ! Yes, a child, in all its childish wealth, 
 its golden tresses on its pillow, its features divinely fair 
 and spiritual, its limbs the ideal of grace. Surely in 
 the dead of this night it sleeps, and they are taking it 
 to some golden coast, where in the morning it will greet 
 the sun, lave in the azure sea, listen to the shell picked 
 up by the shore for the mysterious music, and bask in 
 pleasure. 
 
 Alas ! no. As the earth is now dead and silent, its 
 soul of sun withdrawn, so is the soul of that human 
 lovely form; and as the earth is proceeding to enter 
 once more the eternal fire that at once animates it and
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 3 
 
 destroys it, so this child of earth is being carried to the 
 pyre. 
 
 Beyond expression terrible this event, that they, the 
 bearers and followers, should be so ignorant as to let 
 such beaming beauty die. Had it lived its course, 
 played its mortal part, and like the ripe grain fallen 
 fairly under the sickle of the immortal reaper, then, 
 though a thousand suns had shone, the event had been 
 natural, honourable. Then this ceremonial had been 
 public as the day. Tears might have moistened the eyes 
 of the lookers on, but there would be no shame ; the 
 deeds of the dead might be themes of honour, or fame, 
 or joy; but shame, no trace of it. The shame is 
 now ; the shame that must be hidden in darkness of 
 darkness, as a crime against knowledge, and love, and 
 family, and country, and time ! the shame that life in 
 its earliest dawn should be let go, and run no Olympian 
 game, and sing no song, and tell no history, and plant 
 no work of art, and hold no standard, and fulfil no task 
 of duty. They veil themselves from the truth that they 
 may awake us from a deathly-dream. Let them pass 
 from us also as a dream. Yet the dream is true, for I 
 have embodied in these sentences an idea of mankind in 
 that period of human history when, as by a miracle, the 
 human soul burst into the flame which to this day is our 
 great source of intellectual light ; the flame that in its 
 own home went out, but from which, while it burned, all 
 the world lighted a torch and carried it away. 
 
 While the sculptor of to-day still strikes a light from 
 the dead of that period of intellectual glory, from the 
 very marble into which its fervid life was infused for 
 ever, let us who deal with actual life strike a light from
 
 4 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 the sentiment regarding the young who fell as they were 
 rising from the drowsy torpor of infancy into the waking 
 dreams of adolescence, instead of passing, in natural 
 course, through manhood or womanhood, towards ma- 
 turity, towards drowsy decline. 
 
 These wise people knew that life ought to be a per- 
 petual feast. They not only knew the fact, they acted 
 up to it. They were equally well aware that a long and 
 perfect life could alone be attained by perfection of life 
 at its opening, in the seed-time of health. To die at 
 that time was, therefore, an offence against natural rule, 
 against reason, against sentiment. The knowledge of 
 such an event was death to the brain, death to the heart. 
 In this seed-time of health the life was to be made, the 
 life that was to be in truth a life worth living. Animals 
 beneath men, that are worthy of going through their 
 appointed time, and of being made both useful and 
 beautiful, must have their seed-time of health. Shall 
 their human masters be less cared for ? If the masters 
 are to be mere slaves, yes ; and then it were a pity and 
 a danger ; for they who have no respect for life and 
 beauty, who drag through existence and grow weary of it, 
 are to be trusted neither with life, beauty, nor fame. 
 
 In the history of great truths derived from the 
 Hellenic wise times, there is not one truth so great as 
 this, mid not one so completely missed. It is the secret 
 that was lost. In our day we have lost it so severely 
 that it might never have been in existence for aught we 
 seem to care. The key to all we would have, the key to 
 the gates of health and happiness, has been lost as if it 
 had never been found. 
 
 In point of health our children in these times, proud
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 5 
 
 as we are of these times, are our reproach. Where is 
 there a healthy child ? I have never seen one. I might 
 search through the length and breadth of the island, I 
 could not find one. You may put before me a child in 
 all its innocence. It has done no wrong that it should 
 suffer ; it may show to the unskilled mind no trace of 
 disease ; and yet I know that if I or any skilled observer 
 will look into the history of the life in question, it 
 cannot be found intrinsically sound. It will have to 
 battle with future dangers sufficient for the soundest to 
 meet ; but it is not itself free from dangers other than 
 those that are prospective and avoidable. It is sure 
 to have some inherited failures, and too likely some 
 that will help to increase the independent risks that lie 
 before it. 
 
 So our children under five years are expected to die 
 in what may almost be called a definite proportion. He 
 is a fortunate man who, having four children born to 
 him, retains three alive. Later on, for a short time, the 
 danger is reduced ; with adolescence it recuirs. Again it 
 retreats, but with such failure all along the line, that 
 one-third of the allotted life, the life that would be were 
 it planted in sound health, is only attained. 
 
 And for this we have no shame. The sun, the moon, 
 and all the stars may witness our miseries, and we may 
 grieve, but we have no shame. There is an assembly 
 of learned men which I sometimes visit, an assembly of 
 earnest men who are bent on understanding to the full 
 these human failures from health. These men spare no 
 pains, and to gain a spark of light will labour like 
 miners in a mine. When last I visited them a puny 
 feeble spark of life was in their presence undergoing
 
 6 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 their searching yet kindly scrutiny. Except that it cried 
 a little and laughed a little in changing inood, this spark 
 of life might have been considered a pathological speci- 
 men, and in truth it was discussed as such. No one 
 there had a thought of that small life developing into 
 wholesome life and passing through its natural term; 
 not one was there who did not know that the continuance 
 of life was impossible, and that nothing could be done 
 to save the life. The intent was to study the pathology, 
 and fix that by name. They said, when their technical 
 language was translated, this child is suffering from the 
 error, some would say the sin, of its parents. How deep 
 did this error go ? In what strange forms did it appear ? 
 How singular that the nervous system, once impressed 
 with the poison of that error, should impress another 
 nervous system, and so modify the nutrition of the 
 organism to which it belonged as to cause false nutrition 
 of internal organs and of the very bones themselves ! 
 In a whisper one of the learned expressed to another one 
 the pity ' that such a specimen of humanity should ever 
 have been born, to breathe and take notice, and smile, 
 and cry, and love, and suffer, and die, and we able to 
 do nothing for it except hope for the relief that should 
 end in the earliest death.' 
 
 I belong to a committee which takes under its care 
 another class of sad childhood. The members of this 
 community pass before us deaf and mute. We try to 
 give them the powers of intelligent converse by laborious 
 and artificial means, and we do some good; but the 
 train of sufferers passes by, and we know that full half 
 are mute from the undeveloped brain ; that they are 
 practically lost to life. It is not that the one sense is
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 7 
 
 lost, and thereby the means of expression by intelligible 
 language ; it is not even that the nervous organisation 
 which ministers to intelligence is low ; it is that these 
 deficiencies are some of the outward signs of a general 
 deterioration of body, and that there is scarcely a struc- 
 ture which the eye of science would recognise as moulded 
 in health. 
 
 Passing from the sphere of general observation, from 
 modified to destroyed vitality, I find more startling facts 
 at hand. A short unpretending essay reached me not 
 long ago in which the writer, who in his too great 
 modesty conceals his name, epitomises the facts he has 
 collected respecting the attainment of maturity in peoples 
 of different nations. He tells us that of ten children born 
 in Norway a little over seven reach their twentieth year ; 
 that in England and in the United States of America 
 somewhat less than seven reach that stage ; that in France 
 only five reach it ; and in Ireland less than five. He tells 
 us that in Norway out of ten thousand born rather more 
 than one out of three reaches the age of seventy; in 
 England one out of four ; in the United States, if both 
 sexes be computed, less than one out of four ; in France 
 less than one out of eight ; and in Ireland less than one 
 out of eleven. And he adds this significant computa- 
 tion, based on what may be called the commercial view 
 of the vital question. 'In producing dead machinery 
 the cost of all that is broken in the making is charged to 
 the cost of that which is completed. If we estimate by 
 this same rule the cost of rearing children to manhood, 
 if we calculate up the number of years lived by those 
 who have fallen, with the years of those who have passed 
 successfully to manhood, there would be found between the
 
 8 THE SEED-TniE OF HEALTH 
 
 two extremes presented in Norway and Ireland both, be 
 it observed, unnatural a loss of one hundred and twenty 
 per cent, greater in the first year of life, seventy-five per 
 cent, greater in the first four years of life, and one hun- 
 dred and twenty per cent, greater in the years between 
 the fifth and the twentieth, in Ireland than in Norway. 
 In Norway the average length of life of the effective 
 population is thirty-nine and rather more than a half 
 years ; in England, thirty-five and a half years ; in 
 France, not quite thirty-three years ; and in Ireland, 
 not quite twenty-nine years. Thus, again comparing 
 the best with the worst of a scale of vitality in which 
 both are bad, in 'Norway the proportion of the population 
 that reaches twenty survives nearly forty years, or four- 
 fifths of the effective period, to contribute to the wealth 
 of the community ; while in Ireland the same proportion 
 survives less than twenty-nine years, or considerably 
 under three-fifths of the effective period. 
 
 When we are sitting in the family circle and are 
 speaking of families that lie within our cognisance, we 
 estimate in the most natural way the happiness of the 
 families by the health they represent. We may thought- 
 lessly speak of other standards of measurement. We 
 may for a moment dwell on the riches of the house ; on 
 the luxuries that are to be seen in it ; on the influence 
 which the owners of it might or do exercise in the 
 social sphere, and such like sentiments. But, after all, 
 these rest on health as the basis of the happiness. If 
 one out of every two of the offspring of the favoured 
 house have died, if some who have not died are mute to 
 the world or otherwise stricken, we soon fall into more 
 thoughtful mood, and say that even this rich home is not
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 9 
 
 a possible home for happy life. Pleasures there may be, 
 happiness there cannot be. 
 
 How much worse the estimate of a family in which, 
 together with the vital failures, there is the lack of all 
 that is necessary to make the burden of life endurable. 
 The favoured in health and means wonder, when they 
 think of it, how such unfavoured endure the life they 
 live. In that sentiment no maudlin canker lies ; it is as 
 hard and as free from poetry as a mathematical problem ; 
 and is, for that reason, a sentiment which, above every 
 other, is persistently preserved. 
 
 What is true of family circles is equally true of nations. 
 Eest, quiet of nations, repose for cultivation of refined 
 arts and sciences, happiness derived from healthy and 
 vigorous minds and intended for healthy, vigorous, and 
 wholesome purposes, there cannot be, when one in two 
 of life can only reach maturity with a survival of three- 
 fifths of effective population. Such a national family 
 presents persistent mourning. It sits for ever in gloom ; 
 the blinds of its home are always drawn. It broods ; it 
 attributes, as all heart-stricken mourners do, the loss 
 it has sustained to every imaginable and unimaginable 
 cause. It thinks with incoherency ; speaks now with 
 hysteric grief, then with hysteric rage, and acts the same. 
 In a word, it follows natural law. State physicians 
 tender their remedies for such families of nations and 
 call themselves curers, as if that could be cured which is 
 Nature pursuing her merciless course towards her merci- 
 ful dispensations, in correction of those who have outraged 
 her. 
 
 I have named this discourse ' The Seed-time of Health,' 
 and in the sentences foregone I have tried to strike a con-
 
 10 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 trast, and thereby to give to sanitation a broader mean- 
 ing as a practical science than is commonly connected 
 with it as a system of details respecting ventilations, 
 sewer traps, and the like. 
 
 I want to point to health as the all-in-all to man ; 
 the gate of life, leading to the truly good in politics, 
 art, science, letters ay, and religion, not less than the 
 least of everything. The strain of my argument is, that, 
 unless we make the early life of our children a seed-time 
 of health ; unless we, from the root of life, so change the 
 conditions which now exist, all our other measures are 
 practically valueless. 
 
 At this moment we have not, as a nation, got this 
 notion set in our minds in such degree as even to 
 accept it, basic as it is, as worthy of serious thought. 
 We have no shame when our young fail and die. Grief 
 we have, fond memories we have; but shame, none. 
 We bury our young as if the act were natural, and erect 
 memorials of it. We print obituaries of the young dead ; 
 we read the terrible obituaries of the Kegistrar- General ; 
 we discuss in congresses like these the cost of young life ; 
 but the shame of the Greek touches us not. The know- 
 ledge of the troubles which flow from the lack of the 
 shame reaches us not. 
 
 One bright Sunday morning I was in Dublin, hi the 
 Phoenix Park. A great crowd formed a vast ring, to the 
 borders of which I made my way. A wrestling match ! 
 Men of different counties wrestling in deathly earnest, 
 the lookers-on intent to terror. On not a face in that 
 multitude, barring the faces of some four or five cock- 
 neys, who had a car all to themselves, and grinned as 
 foolishly as they chattered and chaffed, was there so
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 11 
 
 much as a smile ; the victors were approved, but not 
 cheered. If this be sport, I felt, it is the strangest I 
 ever knew since I read of Christian trying to be merry 
 in the castle of Giant Despair. In that same day I 
 traversed the city to see authority armed to the teeth in 
 utterly joyless open places. I visited an exhibition of 
 pictures to experience the same sense of all-pervading 
 oppression. I followed a crowd, and found myself one 
 of another multitude going out of the city until we 
 reached a place where the members of that multitude 
 were burying their dead ; and, as they swept by, the train 
 of young dead that was carried in the sight of the sun 
 to sleep in that resting-place was to me as appalling as 
 it was revealing. It was like lightning in persistent 
 discharge. Peace, progress, content, happiness, with 
 this discharge of fearful facts in view ! A fable ! ' As 
 is the earthy,' says the priest, ' such are they also that 
 are earthy ; ' and I knew that I had never understood 
 the saying before. 
 
 It struck me for the first time, as I witnessed this 
 painful phenomenon, that, with so much young death, 
 there coul'd no more be health in the body politic than 
 in the body corporeal. We sanitarians are, however, 
 only bound to treat of that which belongs to our own 
 labours ; and, acknowledging the perils incident to early 
 life, and it may be even recognising the shame of them, 
 have before us the question of their prevention from its 
 health side alone. 
 
 That we may approach this task with intelligence, 
 let us for a short time glance at the nature of the perils 
 which beset the springtide of human life, and the period 
 bounded by maturity.
 
 12 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 The perils are of four kinds : 
 
 1. Those that are inherited. 
 
 2. Those that are accidental. 
 
 3. Those that are inflicted. 
 
 4. Those that are acquired. 
 
 Inherited Perils. Foremost amongst the perils to 
 life, in all its stages, but especially in its early stages, 
 are the inherited. We may safely say that no one is 
 born free from taint of disease, and we may almost say 
 with equal certainty, that there is no definable disease 
 that does not admit of being called hereditary, unless it 
 be accidentally produced. To what is known as specific 
 disease, the disease of diseases ; to struma, or scrofula, 
 and its ally, if not the same, tubercular affection ; to 
 cancer ; to rheumatism and gout ; and to alcoholic de- 
 generation, the grand perils of life are mainly due. 
 These are the bases of so many diseases which bear 
 different names ; these so modify diseases, which may in 
 themselves be distinct, that, if they were removed, the 
 dangers would be reduced to a minimum. These diseased 
 conditions do not, however, exhaust the list of fatal 
 common inheritances. On many occasions, for several 
 years past, I have observed, and maintained the obser- 
 vation, that some diseases, which are to be noticed in a 
 coming page, as communicable, infectious, or contagious, 
 are also classifiable under this head. I am satisfied that 
 quinsey, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and even what is called 
 drain fever, typhoid, are often of hereditary character. 
 I have known a family in which four members have 
 suffered from diphtheria, a parent having had the same 
 affection, and probably a grandparent. I have known
 
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 13 
 
 a family in which five members have, at various periods, 
 suffered from typhoid, a parent and a grandparent 
 having been subject to the same disease. I have known 
 a family in which quinsey has been the marked family 
 characteristic for four generations. These persons have 
 been the sufferers from the diseases named, without any 
 obvious contraction of the diseases, and without having 
 any companions in their sufferings. They have been, in 
 fact, predisposed to produce the poisons of the diseasesjn 
 their own bodies, as the cobra is to produce the poisonous 
 secretion which in its case is a part of its natural organi- 
 sation. 
 
 Accidental Perils. Next amongst the perils which 
 beset the early life are the accidental dangers to which 
 it is exposed. I do not mean the purely physical 
 accidents, the troubles and blows to which childhood is 
 subjected, not these only, but the more subtle accidents 
 which are incurred through exposure to vicissitudes of 
 season, and to the influence of those particles of the com- 
 municable diseases, which, being introduced into the body, 
 incubate there, and transform the secretions of the body 
 into poisons like unto themselves. A long list of diseases 
 incident to the spring-time of life is found in these two 
 classes of causes of diseases, those due to the contagious 
 particles, numbering from twenty-five to thirty alone. 
 
 The grand mortality of the child-period is indeed due 
 to the two classes of causes now under our consideration. 
 From exposure to the vicissitudes of season comes, fore- 
 most of all, that first step into so wide a universe of 
 evil, the common cold, or catarrh. Upon that comes the 
 continuous visitation which, extending to the pulmonary 
 surface, causes bronchitis, croup, pneumonia, tubercular
 
 14 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 inflammation ; or, extending to the mucous surface of 
 the intestine, causes irritation there, diarrhosa and 
 choleraic affection. From exposure, again, to the poisons 
 of the communicable diseases, there are produced the 
 long and fatal calendars of diseases of shortest incuba- 
 tion, like cholera ; of short incubation, like scarlet fever, 
 diphtheria, erysipelas, influenza, whooping-cough, and 
 croup ; of medium incubation, like relapsing fever and 
 cow-pox ; of long incubation, like small-pox, chicken-pox, 
 measles, German measles, typhus, typhoid, mumps, and 
 malarial fever ; and of longest incubation, like hydro- 
 phobia. The returns of the Registrar-General will show, 
 weekly, how in persistent procession these diseases march 
 through the land. 
 
 Inflicted Perils. Third amongst the perils incident 
 to the early life are those inflicted by reason of ignorance, 
 or false knowledge and practice, or hard necessity, or all 
 combined. These perils begin with the earliest days of 
 infancy and continue onward. The tight swathing band 
 in which the helpless infant is enrolled, as if it were an 
 Egyptian mummy ; the frequent error that is made in 
 depriving it of its natural food its mother's milk and 
 in substituting for that true standard of food foods 
 having no proper arrangement nor proper assimilable 
 quality ; the too hasty introduction to it of foods in 
 common use in adult life ; the not uncommon introduction 
 even of stimulants to these young ; the imperfect feeding 
 of the mother, and of pampering her with stimulants when 
 she undertakes the maternal duty of being nurse to her 
 own child ; the poisonous method of giving soothing or 
 narcotic ' quieteners ' to children ; the almost as injurious 
 plan of taking up children from their gentle life-giving
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 15 
 
 sleeps and exposing them to shocks, surprises, and ex- 
 citements, that are injurious to every function of nutrition 
 and of mental repose ; the confinement of the child in 
 close rooms, away from the fresh midday air ; the evil 
 plan of taking it out into the night air and into crowds 
 and noisy places, like the railway station or busy tho- 
 roughfare ; the worse plan still, of scolding, frightening, 
 and even slapping, the helpless being, and thereby im- 
 planting in it a nervous, irritable nature, which it will 
 never lose these are the truly crying evils, which in 
 earliest, dreamiest, and most eventful days and months 
 of human life, plant, imperceptibly, their accursed 
 stings into every day of life that is to follow. If young 
 animals of lower life, that are to be bought and sold and 
 made gross profit upon, were to be subjected to the same 
 penalties, there would be such discomfiture in the selling 
 of them that the reform of the manner would soon be 
 accepted by the most ignorant salesman. It was so in 
 the time of the insane traffic in human flesh and blood. 
 The child of the choice slave, intended ultimately for the 
 market, was often better nurtured in its infancy than 
 the child of the man who owned it, and became a better 
 specimen of humanity. 
 
 These evils inflicted on childhood in its first estate 
 are, moreover, followed later on by other evils not less 
 reprehensible, and by one worse than all I mean the 
 evil of endeavouring, during the time when all the 
 nervous force the growing frame demands is barely suffi- 
 cient to sustain the natural wants of nutrition, to tax 
 that growing frame beyond the powers that belong to 
 maturity, with competitive mental and physical labours. 
 Both good in their way in moderate form, both neces-
 
 16 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 sary for health in moderate form, mental and physical 
 labours are, in these days, made the bane of the nation. 
 The false and useless efforts which crumple up the 
 animal and spiritual natures, making distaste for all 
 labour an early disease, and blighting every flower of 
 genius so soon as it begins to bud, is equal in falsity only 
 with the conviction it engenders, that men and women 
 are made but to learn up to the time of maturity, and 
 that an education which is not what is called ' finished ' 
 when the school or college is left behind, is an education 
 that can never be made up in after life. I know nothing 
 so deathly to mind and body as this anxiety now all but 
 national in its acceptance to complete education within 
 twenty-one years, when the fact really is that length of 
 life, and length of happy life, depend on the continued 
 cultivation of mental and physical existence beyond all 
 and everything else. 
 
 He who has ceased to learn begins to die. 
 
 Schools for boys and girls, do you say ? ' Yes,' I 
 reply ; ' and schools for men and women through every 
 phase of life, if you would have them complete their 
 career.' That crystal brain of the young man, sur- 
 charged with more than it can bear, will discharge itself 
 abruptly, and remain an empty centre. But the crystal 
 brain, always crystal, slowly charged and sedately as- 
 similating, will retain its natural lucidity and power 
 through every stage, and will animate to its natural 
 termination the body to which it is the seat of the 
 ministering spirit. 
 
 And still to this grand evil inflicted on youth there 
 is a supplemental evil which adds physical to mental 
 scathing viz. the infliction of corporal punishment
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 17 
 
 on the helpless young before they know why that is 
 wrong for which they are punished, and often when no 
 wise man or woman could detect any wrong leading 
 to the savage performance save the wrong done by the 
 one who punishes. To me, as a physician, nothing is 
 more tainted with iniquitous injury than that corporal 
 punishment of children which proceeds to teach what is 
 believed to be wrong by the instant infliction of phy- 
 sical pain. To the punished and the punisher alike the 
 system is as mischievous as it is barbarous. On the 
 punished it brands hate, or servility, or palpitating fear. 
 On the punisher it brands coward, tyrant, hasty adjudi- 
 cator of rights and wrongs ; while it so perverts the 
 judgment that he who would scorn himself if he 
 struck a woman stronger than himself, will think the act 
 right if a helpless child be the object of his infliction. 
 In another century it will sound as the tones of inquisi- 
 torial suffering sound to this, that in our public schools, 
 not masters merely, but masterful boys, should be 
 trained, during the seed-time of health, to tund, to 
 strike with ashen rods, their younger, feebler fellows for 
 faults, or failings, for it may indeed be for virtues, 
 which they themselves are not old enough to compre- 
 hend, nor wise enough to rectify. 
 
 Acquired Perils. The perils acquired by the young 
 themselves, acquired as a rule from imitation of the 
 habits of their seniors, form a last part of the dangers 
 incident to this seed-time. In boys, late hours, 
 smoking, resort to the use of stimulants, indulgence in 
 games of chance, and self-infliction of early worry, are 
 special acts ruinous to the foundation of a long and 
 healthy life. In girls, the passion for unhealthy 
 
 o
 
 18 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 systems of clothing ; for compression of the too yielding 
 chest in tight unyielding band and corset ; the careless- 
 - . ness about clothing in cold weather ; the desire to appear 
 in late evening assembly ; the recklessness about food and 
 regularity of meals ; the neglect of exercise, and the too 
 frequent fondness of affectation in regard to good 
 common-sense rules of manner and life, are, in their way, 
 as mischievous as the errors committed by the juvenile 
 male community, and in some respects lead more imme- 
 diately to serious consequences. 
 
 We will not, however, dwell longer on this theme, 
 for the faults that might be included in it were it ex- 
 tended to its full length would, after all, be found to 
 be but the reflected faults of older humanity: faults 
 irreparable until that older humanity shows the way 
 to those improvements to which it is now necessary to 
 invite your attention. 
 
 THE NEW EEGIME. 
 
 I can imagine easily enough that some who are 
 listening to the multiplied evils incident to the seed-time 
 will shrink in despair from all hope of amendment. The 
 sense of necessity of youthful death will seem for a 
 moment to excuse the sense of shame. I hear one, sigh- 
 ing, say : If this be by design, it is vain to meet it. I 
 hear another say : If this be by no design, but by, as it 
 were, an universal accident or fortuitous occurrence, it 
 were hopeless to try to meet it. 
 
 For my part, I am beset with no such doubts or 
 fears. If I begin to think of design, the design I think 
 of is poor mine ; I am designing for the designer, and
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 19 
 
 must come to grief. If I think of no design, I am 
 merely helping to build up something for those who 
 conjure up design from their own designing. I, there- 
 fore, am content to feel assured that, while there is 
 design in regard to this mortal life of man, it is out of 
 the range of my inadequate comprehension ; I bow my 
 head and say I do not know. And yet there are lines of 
 thought resting on knowledge of natural facts in which 
 the directions of the design of life are traceable ; these are 
 laid, first, in the observation of constantly recurring 
 phenomena bearing on this subject ; secondly, in the ob- 
 servation of those phenomena of sentiment or undemon- 
 strated opinion which also bear upon the subject. 
 
 Touching, then, the actual recurring phenomena, we 
 may, I think, discover from them most distinctly that 
 the tendency of human life is always towards a more 
 perfect condition ; that the natural tendency is towards 
 a more perfected life, and that when man himself does 
 not, in ignorance or intention, do what is injurious to 
 himself, natural law does not. Nature follows truly its 
 own course, and gives us no help against ourselves ; but 
 the moment we see the right way she is with us in our 
 efforts, and with giant power helps us on. We are not 
 to natural law as so much inanimate matter ; we stand 
 above natural law as we stand above the brutes. As 
 our divine Plato expresses it ' We are plants, not of 
 earth, but of heaven ; and from the same source whence 
 the soul first arose, a divine nature, raising aloft our 
 head and root, directs our whole corporeal frame.' 
 
 Towards this same view our sentiments converge. 
 We compare all that is desirable to all that is healthy, 
 and the summum bonum of our wishes is the summum 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 bonum of health. We cling to the idea of a persistent 
 life even beyond death : a life encrowned with such 
 health that to be sick and to die is impossible. We 
 cling to the idea of such a life in unmeasured happiness : 
 a life devoid of pain and sorrow, a perfected health. 
 We cling to the idea of such a life in realms of perpetual 
 beauty : a life of the beautiful of beauties, health in ite 
 completed form and character. 
 
 Thus, in this instance, reason and sentiment are one, 
 the surest proof of truth. 
 
 On the sentiment involved in the proposition I need 
 not dwell : it thrills in every breast. On the reason I 
 am bound to dwell, and if it be but in one instance, I 
 should give proof of it. I will give one ; a contrast of 
 good and evil, of health and disease under human direc- 
 tion, and, I may say, under human control. 
 
 There were, some years ago, two communities exist- 
 ing at one time, and noted by an able observer. One 
 community was at Montreux, a parish in the Canton of 
 the Vaud, in Switzerland, a parish of two thousand eight 
 hundred and thirty-three souls. The pastor there, M. 
 Bridel, kept a life-history of his charge, and during a long 
 series of years recorded births at the rate of one in forty- 
 five, and deaths of one in sixty-four annually, a death- 
 rate of 15-62 in the thousand. The other community 
 was a Eusso-Greek, existing at the same period of time. 
 In this community the births were one in seventeen, the 
 deaths one in twenty-five, or at a rate of forty in the 
 thousand. In the Switzer parish one sixty-fourth died 
 per year ; in the Eussian, one twenty-fifth, or more 
 than twice as many. In Montreux four-fifths of those 
 born reached twenty years; in the Eussian class, six
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 21 
 
 hundred and six out of one thousand perished ere they 
 had attained their fifteenth year, the nuptial garments 
 of the mothers becoming, as it was said, the shrouds of 
 the first-born. In the Swiss community the march of 
 life, seemingly slow, was towards health and an improving 
 life ; in the Russian the march of life, seemingly so 
 fruitful, if it had been calculated by the birth-rate alone, 
 was the most fatal in Europe. 
 
 I would not, for my part, set up this Swiss parish as 
 perfect far from it ; it was but half perfect. Still, the 
 contrast is before us. Why did it exist ? The answer 
 was clear. The Swiss success was due to simple fore- 
 thought and the virtue of continence. Those civilised 
 peasants of the Vaud conserved their health, their 
 happiness, their life, by the comparative slowness and 
 circumspection with which their successive races were 
 brought upon the scene of the world. Those uncivilised 
 Russian- Greeks, reckless as to birth not much more 
 reckless than some great English towns have been in 
 our time lost their health, their happiness, their life, 
 by their mad growth of life. With them death was the 
 shadow of birth, and they had no shame. In our 
 present day, in our best communities, though the reason 
 for the shame is less than it was, yet still in the seed-time 
 of health it is double what it ought to be, or what it 
 need to be. That the reason for it diminishes is proof 
 enough that it may diminish more, until it be refined 
 to the delicacy of susceptibility of those who dared not 
 let the sun behold their young dead. 
 
 How towards this perfection shall we wend our 
 course ? 
 
 We have seen that, in the seed-time of health, there
 
 22 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 are four influences at work, sustaining the perils that 
 bring the cause of shame. It is by carefully and 
 earnestly correcting these influences that our course shall 
 be towards success and honourable vitality. 
 
 To those inherited perils of which I have spoken our 
 minds must first be turned. Say you, the task of reduc- 
 ing them is difficult, delicate ? It is all that. But it is 
 not insurmountable in a world that has commenced to 
 throw off its animal impulses, and to reason, and to 
 believe, that ' from the same source whence the soul first 
 arose, a divine nature, raising aloft our head and root, 
 directs our whole corporeal frame.' 
 
 I know, and it is hopefullest knowledge, that I shall 
 be listened to by thousands with attention and respect 
 when I urge that, in regard to these inherited perils, 
 wise men and wise women will soon begin to hesitate, even 
 in relation to the marriage tie, before they of a certainty 
 inflict those perils on the world. And with this hesita- 
 tion such good will come as I dare not express. Let it 
 be known that there are certain marriages which must 
 lead to intermarriages of disease of body or mind ; let it 
 be known that results of combinations of this kind are 
 inevitable towards premature death ; let it be known 
 that results of combinations of this kind are as inevitable 
 towards sickness and death as combinations of health 
 are inevitable towards health and long life, and we 
 cannot but feel sure that no perversity of folly can long 
 continue to produce through birth the most fatal types 
 of all the fatalities. Let hereditary health be once 
 recognised as an element of the marriage contract, and 
 the health and life of the nation will receive a lease that 
 shall double the value of one and the duration of the
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 23 
 
 other. I speak on this point not from simple enthu- 
 siastic hope, but happily from. a knowledge singularly 
 cheering. A short chapter of mine in 'Diseases of 
 Modern Life,' entitled ' The Intermarriage of Disease,' 
 has itself during the last six years been the means of 
 checking many of what would have been most deplorable 
 instances of these intermarriages. 
 
 While this reform lingers we have some direct means 
 in our hands for lessening the extent of even propagated 
 perils. The tendency of hereditary perils is towards re- 
 moval when the influences which support them and nur- 
 ture them are removed. By beginning early in life to 
 place those who are born to peril in conditions for good 
 life, it is astonishing how much can be practically done 
 for them in their bad, if not in their worst, estate. Take 
 as an example of this reforming service the Anerley 
 Schools, where waifs and strays of society, born to all 
 kinds of physical perils, are tended and trained in mental 
 and physical arts. It is like a regeneration. The blood- 
 less, the scrofulous, the rachitic, the rheumatic, predis- 
 posed by birth to these afflictions, burst out into such 
 active life that the diatheses seem in abeyance. Nature, 
 always pursuing her unchanging course, would go with 
 a bad system, no doubt, and cure the world of those 
 affected by sweeping them from it, if they were left to 
 their fate. Happily, she goes also with those who work 
 to save, and, aiding them, cures the world by restoring 
 to it its life,, and by re-endowing it with health. 
 
 In this cause and course the schoolmaster becomes 
 the physician, and the more we have of this branch of 
 the healing faculty the better for us all. 
 
 In the removal of the diseases by inheritance there
 
 24 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 are, then, two modes of treatment, the preventive and 
 curative : preventive in wisdom of selection of parentage ; 
 curative in training those whom no prevention has 
 blessed, into the choicest conditions for health in the 
 seed-time of health. 
 
 There is yet another removable cause of these perils 
 which I touch with the lightest finger, but dare not 
 omit. It is indicated on the chart of sin and shame in 
 dark, black, pall-like blot. It is the physical crime which 
 men and women commit when in days of responsible life 
 they acquire to themselves by intemperance and other 
 terrible indulgences those inheritances of crime which 
 pass to their children and proclaim their shame through 
 them. If we could take the world, drowsy in ignorant 
 lusts, and shake it into knowledge here, what crime and 
 shame were saved in one generation none can tell. I 
 know the mass to be reformed is huge as the mightiest 
 mountain, dense as lead. But faith and knowledge in 
 steady action are all-potent even for overcoming this 
 present overwhelming difficulty. 
 
 The accidental perils which beset the young in the 
 seed-time of health, and which we accept as evils which 
 sanitarians are bound specially to combat ; those serious 
 perils which spring from the exposure of the body to the 
 poisonous particles which produce disease by contagion 
 or infection, come next before us for removal. We call 
 these perils contagious diseases ; we call them plagues 
 or pestilences, and, in respect to them, we have learned 
 much that is accurate, and, I fear, much that is inaccu- 
 rate. What is accurate is, however, the most important. 
 We know the number of these diseases, we know that 
 their number is limited, that it is confined to thirty at
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 25 
 
 the most, and practically to little over half thirty. We 
 know that the members of this class of diseases have 
 different periods of incubation, that is to say, of period 
 intervening between the reception of the poison and the 
 development of the symptoms produced by the poison. 
 We know that the symptoms of the diseases, once deve- 
 loped, run a regular course. We know that some persons 
 are more susceptible to them than others. We know that, 
 to a certain extent, one attack of suffering from many 
 of the diseases is a cause of exemption from a future 
 attack. We know that the diseases assume an epidemic 
 or spreading character, and that each of them has its 
 season, in which its spread is so remarkable that its 
 general course may be charted or outlined as connected 
 with the time of weeks or months or years. And if, 
 regarding the nature of the poisons which produce the 
 diseases, we know least and are most divided, we have, 
 at all events, this precious knowledge, that the poisons 
 themselves are removable and destructible, so that they 
 lie within the range of human control. 
 
 What is more, we have the clearest demonstration 
 that while the poisons of these diseases can be generated, 
 cultivated, and disseminated, when the conditions for 
 such generation, cultivation, and dissemination are 
 present, they can also be prevented to such an extent 
 that places which were their favoured homes can be 
 made the places in which they cannot live. 
 
 When you enter a court of justice, in some old 
 country assize town, you see to this day lying before my 
 Lord Judge a bunch of rue. My Lord himself may not 
 know what that bunch of rue means, and the man who 
 cuts it and lays it out will give you, if you ask him, the
 
 26 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 strangest version of the ceremony. ' Some will rue the 
 day when my Lord Judge comes down to try.' That is 
 true, many will rue the day ; but the meaning is not 
 there. That bunch of rue was once, not very long ago, 
 the supposed antiseptic or purifier which interposed 
 between my Lord Judge's nose and the fever -stricken 
 prisoners at the bar before him. Once, not very long 
 ago, the gaols from whence those prisoners were brought 
 were the centres of the great pestilent disease, typhus. 
 The men, stived up in those horrid dens, fed with air 
 charged with their own emanations, and fed with food 
 on which they starved, generated the contagion of 
 disease. They were the cobras of society, secreting a 
 poison worse than the cobra's, a poison volatile, subtle, 
 deadly, that would diffuse into the air, and not spare my 
 Lord himself if he came within the sphere of its in- 
 fluence. The gaols then were the foci of fever. But a 
 change took place. Howard, who was as good a sani- 
 tarian as he was a philanthropist, and whose rules for 
 the construction of sick hospitals remain model rules to 
 this hour, proclaimed his mission. The ga*ols began to 
 improve ; one improvement of a sanitary kind followed 
 upon another improvement ; the results began to arrest 
 attention, and the good that was being done increased 
 and increased with every year. And now, what think 
 you is the triumph ? The triumphant result is that in 
 the gaols, the foci once of diseases of the spreading kind 
 and of worst types, spreading diseases cannot practically 
 exist at all. We might lay roses before my Lord to-day 
 instead of rue, or lay the rue on the dock instead of the 
 bench, for the prisoner, in matter of risk from contagion, 
 is actually safer than his judge.
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 27 
 
 I cannot overstate this lesson. If the homes of those 
 who live in the seed-time of health ; if the nursery, the 
 schoolroom, the school dormitory, the playground, were 
 only kept in the same state of physical purity as the 
 model prison, the perils from the accidental diseases, 
 caused by infectious particles of diseases, were soon re- 
 moved, and the immortelles we see on the little graves so 
 thickly laid in cemetery and churchyard were as little 
 called for as the rue on my Lord's da'is. 
 
 To you who are interested in the events that occur in 
 the seed-time of health I press this lesson. I press it 
 because of the truth it conveys, the plain, the practical 
 truth, that the simplest means are all that are demanded 
 for the removal of the most fatal of human foes. You 
 are masters and mistresses yourselves of the position. 
 Those shame-faced mourners who would not let the sun 
 see their faults and sorrows were not so much masters 
 of the position, perchance, as you are ; had not the 
 dearly bought experience that has been incurred for you. 
 Shall you be less shamed than they when death from 
 accidental causes which you could so largely control comes 
 to your door or enters your domicile ? Again I press 
 this lesson, and there is need of it again, for yet another 
 reason. Science, in the main most useful, but sometimes 
 proud, wild, and erratic, is lately proposing a desperate 
 device, founded on an hypothesis clever and specious, but 
 not yet gilded with wisdom or proof, for the prevention 
 of these infectious perils. She proposes to prevent one 
 peril by setting up another. She would inoculate new 
 diseases into our old stock in the anticipation that 
 thereby the new diseases will put out the old. This may 
 be called homeopathy on the grand scale ; and if it goes
 
 28 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 on we may soon see the ranks of sanitarians divided into 
 two ranks, as we see in medicine the regular and the 
 homoeopathic practitioners. I pray you be not led away 
 by this new conceit of prevention. In infinitesimals the 
 homoeopathic principle may be harmless enough, and on 
 the old adage, 
 
 ' Our doctor is a man of skill, 
 If he does you no harm, he will do you no ill ' 
 
 it may sometimes seem to compare favourably with 
 heroic methods of cure. But homoeopathy on this grand 
 scale, this manufacture of spick-and-span new diseases in 
 our human, bovine, equine, and canine, perhaps feline 
 species, is too much to bear the thought of, when we know 
 that perfect purity of life is all sufficient to remove what 
 exists, without invoking what now is not. I doubt, 
 indeed, whether it were not better to continue in our 
 present imperfect state than venture to make new 
 additions of prophylactic maladies ; and content, with 
 Hamlet's sage advice, 
 
 ' Bather bear the ills we have, 
 Than fly to others that we know not of.' 
 
 By a few rules, in short, which all prudent and wise 
 people may carry out in their own homes, the accidental 
 perils of the seed-time may be kept from the homestead 
 as easily as from the prison-house. Let every man and 
 wife be their own sanitarians and make their house a 
 centre of sanitation. Let in the sun, keep out the 
 damp ; separate the house from the earth beneath ; con- 
 nect the house with the air above ; once, nay twice, a 
 year hold the Jewish Passover, and allow no leaven of 
 disease to remain in any corner or crevice ; let the house
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 29 
 
 cleanse itself of all impurities as they are produced ; eat 
 no unclean thing ; come back to the first fruits of the 
 earth for food ; drink no impure drink ; wear no impure 
 clothing; do no impure act; and all the good that 
 science can render you is at your absolute command. 
 
 The perils incident to the seed-time of health which 
 I have called inflicted, come before us as altogether re- 
 movable. To remove them skill even is not demanded ; 
 nothing is demanded but common human nature and 
 common human sense. That every mother should nurse 
 her own child ; that in the early days of life, before the 
 consciousness is naturally developed, the blessed sleep 
 of infancy should be allowed its natural course; that 
 the senses should not be oppressed until they are duly 
 developed ; that the quickly breathing lungs should be 
 fed with fresh air ; that the yet feeble digestive organs 
 should be supplied with simple food ; that the growing 
 body should be clothed in warm and loose garments; 
 these, surely, are practices the simplest people can carry 
 out, practices easier than most which now prevail. 
 Again, that gentleness should be the law of treatment to 
 the young, and that the mind should be taught to know 
 before the body is taught to suffer, that surely is a 
 practice which all can carry out ; a practice which both 
 for learner and teacher is easier and better than many 
 which now prevail. Once more, that the growing bodies 
 of our youth of both sexes should be permitted to enjoy 
 the full force of the growing power allotted to them; 
 that such power should be permitted to play its part for 
 their nutrition, so that the body may be endowed 
 with its full maturity ; that, surely, is a practice of let- 
 ting Nature have her free course in other words, of
 
 30 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 letting well alone which all can follow much more 
 easily than most practices that now prevail. Lastly, 
 that the growing mind should be permitted its free and 
 natural course to grow and grow throughout the whole 
 term of its earthly life, and not be killed in its early 
 career by the insane pressure of labours it is utterly un- 
 able to bear, or to apply if it could bear them ; that, 
 surely, is a practice simplest of all, most natural of all, 
 and most certain for the promotion of intellectual and 
 social advancement. 
 
 The fourth series of perils incident to the seed-time 
 of health those which I have designated the induced 
 are, like the last, entirely under human command. 
 For them to be removed, however, a reform beginning 
 with those who have passed the seed-time is the abso- 
 lute necessity. These perils must cease, and can only 
 cease, by the process of the younger learning what is 
 right from the examples of the older and wiser creations 
 of humanity. While middle-aged and old men and 
 women indulge in low and injurious luxuries and plea- 
 sures, which inevitably shorten and embitter existence ; 
 while these revel in intemperance, and break every sani- 
 tary law in the Decalogue and out of it, it cannot be 
 expected that imitative youth will do less than follow in 
 their staggering and bewildering footsteps. What now 
 is wanted is the ideal of a new nobility. In the wild- 
 boar days of human existence, in the days when men, 
 hardly emancipated from lower forms of life, crept out 
 of their caves, their huts, their walled prisons, to see their 
 nobler species go forth to exercise those rude arts of 
 fighting, hunting, revelling, which formed the whole art 
 of civilisation, there was a nobility which deserved the
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 31 
 
 name, the representative of necessity. But now, when 
 these arts have degenerated into mere childish imitations, 
 mere apedoms of the great past, they are but injurious 
 pretensions for nobility of soul and body. Once noble 
 according to the spirit of their day, they are in this day 
 ignoble. Gamblings and struggles for money, false fame, 
 false hopes, false health, they kill the older, cripple the 
 younger, pervert all. I say nothing but what is good 
 of physical exercise : I would that every school were a 
 gymnasium ; I would that every man and woman could 
 ride well, walk well, and skilfully exercise every sense 
 and every limb. I urge only that this example be set, 
 that all exercises, whether of body. or mind, be carried 
 out in purest habitude and in accordance with the 
 enlightening progress of the age. 
 
 Approaching now the close of my discourse, I find 
 two applications of thought with which briefly to trouble 
 you ; one general, the other local and connected with 
 this passing hour. I have tried to bring before you the 
 seed-time of health, the time when this humanity of 
 ours, in body, mind, and spirit, is learning either to live 
 well or to live ill, to live long or to live short, according 
 to its life in the seed-time. I have shown how bad is 
 the seed-time, how pressing the shame of it, and how 
 shameless nevertheless. I have tried to show what are 
 the elements of reform which in that seed-time are 
 required. In general expression of thought I would, 
 respectfully as earnestly, ask those who rule and govern 
 us to look at this period of life as it is ; to make it 
 their test object of good or bad government ; to assure 
 themselves that when the death-roll of this period of 
 life reports itself filling, filled, the government is bad,
 
 32 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 
 
 happiness out of the question; peace, order, national 
 greatness all impossible ; that when the death-roll of 
 this period is emptying, is emptied, all is well ; that life 
 then promises to run its completed course, and peace, 
 concord, and prosperity to accompany the health that is 
 ensured. 
 
 But to you, Brightonians, I address myself specially. 
 It may easily be your fate, if you will it so to be, to have 
 less cause for shame than even those shrinking mourners 
 of whom I drew a picture in my opening lines. You, 
 planted by the silver sea, have now, in spite of your- 
 selves, a health which you do not of yourselves deserve. 
 You, whose coats the breeze of the sea brushes, whose 
 homes it of its own wild will cleanses, you are made for 
 the work of tending those who are living in the seed- 
 time of health. That specifically, in so far as your 
 resources permit, is your great mission. You have 
 called us sanitarians here to speak the truth that is 
 in us. Let our meeting be useful ; let it be the date 
 from which the shame of those mortal events the sun 
 ought never to witness may be felt whenever they 
 occur. You have before you opportunities almost with- 
 out parallel. You have Nature with you in all her 
 freshness, expanse, and beauty. Learn her ways from 
 herself. Embarrassed by no traditions of antiquarian 
 treasures, you can pull down and rebuild as freely as 
 you can build anew. You are already a school-ground 
 of schools : let that be your abiding tradition, and make 
 your town, in which the ideal of a model city was 
 announced, be the model Hygeiopolis itself, The Common- 
 health of the Commonwealth. Then your sons, proud of 
 their ancestry, shall realise even here, that ' as is the
 
 THE SEED-TIME OF HEALTH 33 
 
 heavenly such are they also that are heavenly;' and 
 approaching the Infinite Spirit, from whom all proceed 
 and to whom all return, shall declare, not in words merely 
 but in very deeds, that perfected consummation of 
 sanitary principle : ' Thy will be done on Earth as it 
 is in Heaven.'
 
 HEALTH AND EECREATIOX. 
 
 THAT all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy is one 
 of those common sayings which we seem hound to accept, 
 whether we like it or not. It is a truthful saying and 
 an untruthful, a wise saying and an unwise, according 
 as one word in it is interpreted, and that word is play. 
 If play really means play in the strict sense of the term, 
 as it is denned for us in the dictionaries, viz. ' as any 
 exercise or series of exercises intended for pleasure, 
 amusement, or diversion, like blind man's buff; ' or as 
 ' sport, gambols, jest, not in earnest ' then truly all 
 work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and Jill a dull 
 girl. 
 
 But in these days there is a difficulty in accepting 
 the saying as true, because the idea of play, especially 
 when it is expressed by the tern 'recreation,' is not 
 always represented in the definition I have given above. 
 We now often really transform play into work ; and our 
 minds are so constituted that what is one person's work 
 is another person's play. What a backwoodsman would 
 call his horse-like labour, a foremost statesman may 
 call his light of pleasure. How shall we define it ? 
 What is play or recreation ? 
 
 Men differ, I think, on the definition of work and
 
 HEALTH AND KECREATION 35 
 
 play more than on almost any other subject : differ in 
 practice as much as in theory in regard to it. I have 
 had the acquaintance, and I may say the friendship, of 
 a man who lives, it is said, for nothing but recreation, 
 or pleasure, or play. Such a man will rise at ten in the 
 morning, and after a leisurely, gossiping, paper-reading 
 luxurious breakfast will stroll to the stables to look after 
 the horses, of each one of which he is very fond. He 
 delights in horses. Thence he will away to the club, 
 will gossip there, reads the reviews or the latest new 
 novels, and regale at luncheon. After luncheon he will 
 play a rubber, winning or losing several shillings it 
 may be pounds. He may then take a ride, or drive, or 
 walk in the Park, and have a chat there ; or canter over 
 to Kew and look round the gardens ; or attend a drum ; 
 or visit the Zoological or Botanical Gardens. After this 
 he will return home, and, ably and artistically assisted, 
 will dress for dinner. The dinner, in accordance with 
 his life, will be elegant, sumptuous, entertaining, whether 
 he take it at his own table or abroad. After dinner 
 he may probably go to a ball and dance until two or 
 three in the morning ; or if there be no ball on hand, 
 he may have another rubber, or a round at billiards, 
 or a turn at the play, the Opera, or the concert-room, 
 with a final friendly chat and smoke before retiring for 
 rest. 
 
 To this gentleman and I am pencilling a true and 
 honest gentleman, not a modern rake of any school of 
 rakes this mode of life is a persistent pleasure, and to 
 many more it would, I doubt not, be a perpetual holiday. 
 To me it would be something worse than death. The 
 monotony of it would be a positive misery, and I am con- 
 
 D I
 
 36 HEALTH AND KECKEATION 
 
 scious that many would be found to share with me in the 
 same dislike. 
 
 Some will say that is all true enough with respect 
 to persons who have passed out of youth into manhood, 
 but that when life is young the distinctive appreciations 
 for different modes of recreative pleasures are not so well 
 marked out. I doubt, for my own part, this belief. It 
 seems to me that in childhood the tastes for recreative 
 enjoyment are as varied as they are in later years, with 
 this difference, that they are not so effectively expressed. 
 The little mind is ever in fear of the greater, and is often 
 forced to express a gladness or pleasure which it does 
 not truly feel. When children, left to themselves, are 
 independently observed, nothing can be more striking to 
 the observer than the difference of taste that is expressed 
 in respect to the games at which they shall play. More 
 than half the noise and quarrel of the nursery is, in fact, 
 made up of this difference of feeling as to the character 
 of the game that shall be constituted a pastime. In the 
 end, on the rule, I suppose, of the survival of the fittest, 
 the strongest children have their way, and one or two 
 little tyrants drag the rest into their own delights. 
 
 I should, on the grounds here stated, venture, then, 
 to say that there is, in point of fact, no more actual 
 difference between work and recreation than what exists 
 as a mere matter of sentiment : that recreation is a 
 question of sentiment altogether, both in the young and 
 the old. 
 
 If we could get this fact into our minds in our educa- 
 tional schemes for the young we should accomplish at 
 once a positive revolution in the training of the young, 
 which revolution would, I think, be attended by the
 
 HEALTH AND EECEEATION 37 
 
 happiest change and train of thought in those who, in 
 the future, shall pass through the first stages of life to 
 adolescence and maturity. The search for amusements, 
 and for new amusements, amongst the well-to-do would 
 not be needed, since the mind from the first would be 
 naturally brought to find a new delight in each act now 
 called labour. The word ' labour,' in short, might drop 
 altogether ; the praise of labour, which is so often ex- 
 tolled, would find its true meaning ; and the blame of 
 play, which is so often unduly criticised, would have its 
 proper recognition. 
 
 It has always seemed to me that in that once high 
 though brief development of human existence ; in that 
 period, if we can believe that the art of the period came 
 from the life of it when the human form took its most 
 magnificent model for the artist still to copy; in that 
 period when the perfection of bodily .feature and build 
 indicated, of itself, how splendid must have been the 
 health of the living organisations that stood forth to be 
 copied and re-copied for ever it has always seemed to 
 me, I repeat, that in that wonderful period of Greek 
 history, so effulgent and so short, the reason why such 
 physical excellence was attained rested on the circum- 
 stance that amongst the favoured cultivated few, for they 
 were few after all, there was from the beginning to the 
 end of life no such thing as work and play. Everything 
 was existence nothing less and nothing more. Every 
 office, every duty, every act must have been an existence 
 for the moment, varied but never divisible into one of 
 two conditions, practical pain or practical pleasure. Life 
 was an enjoyment which nothing sullied except death, 
 and which was purified even from death by the quick
 
 38 HEALTH AND RECREATION 
 
 consuming fire, that the life might begin again instantan- 
 eously and incorruptibly. 
 
 If by some grand transformation we could in our day 
 approach to this conception which has been rendered to 
 us by the history of art, and could act upon it, we should, 
 in a generation or two, attain a degree of health which 
 no sanitary provision, in the common meaning of that 
 term, can ever supply. If we could turn our houses into 
 models of sanitary perfection ; if we could release our 
 toiling millions from half their daily labour ; if we could 
 tell want to depart altogether ; if we could give means of 
 education to every living human being ; we should not 
 remove care, and therefore we should not secure health 
 unless with it all we could also remove the idea of the 
 distinction of labour and pleasure, the morbid notion 
 that some must work and some must play, that the world 
 may make its round. 
 
 In this country, so differently placed to the country 
 of the great and the ancient nation of which I have 
 spoken, it is impossible, perhaps, ever to introduce a 
 joyousness like to that which the favoured old civilisation 
 enjoyed. Our climate is of itself a sufficient obstacle to 
 such a realisation. Where the physical conditions of 
 life are so unequal, where we waste in structure of body, 
 whether we will it or not, at certain fixed seasons, and 
 gain, whether we will it or not, at other fixed seasons, it 
 is impossible to attain such excellence by any diversion 
 of mind or variation of pursuit. For universal gladness 
 the sun must play his part, doing his spiriting gently, 
 but never actually hiding the brightness of his face. 
 From us, for long intervals, his face is hidden. Under 
 these variations of the external light and scenery around
 
 HEALTH AND EECKEATION 39 
 
 us we have to cripple our minds through our bodies. 
 Our clothing must be heavy during long stages of the 
 year, and our food so comparatively heavy and gross, that 
 half the power which might otherwise go off in vivacity, 
 or nerve, or spirit is expended in the physico-chemical 
 labour that is demanded for keeping the body warm and 
 moving and alive. 
 
 To these drawbacks is added the unequal struggle for 
 existence ; the partitioning off of our people into great 
 classes, millions who are obliged to work from morning to 
 night, and of thousands who are at liberty to make some 
 change in their course of life : the millions who are tied 
 to some continuous, monotonous round of labour, until 
 the whole body lends itself to the task with an automatic 
 regularity which the mind follows in unhappy and fretful 
 train, with little hope for any future whatever on earth 
 that shall bring relief: the thousands who would be 
 better off if they had more to do. 
 
 From whatever side we look upon this picture it 
 seems at first sight to present an almost insoluble 
 problem, when the conception of mixing recreation with 
 work, so as to make all work recreative, is considered. 
 Amongst the masses there is no true recreation whatever, 
 no real variation from the daily unceasing and all but 
 hopeless toil ; nay, when we ascend from the industrial 
 and purely muscular workers to the majority who live 
 by work, we find little that is more hopeful. There is 
 no true recreation amongst any class except one, and 
 that a limited and happy few, who find in mental labour 
 of a varied and congenial kind the diversity of work 
 which constitutes the truly re-creative and re-created 
 life of man.
 
 40 HEALTH AND RECREATION 
 
 We get, in fact, a little light on the nature of health- 
 ful recreation as we let our minds rest on this one and 
 almost exceptional class of men of varied life and action 
 of a mental kind. They come before us showing what 
 recreation can effect through the mere act of varying 
 the labour. The brain- worker who is divested of worry is 
 at once the happiest and the healthiest of mankind, 
 happiest, perchance, because healthiest; a man con- 
 stantly recreated, and therefore of longest life. 
 
 The late Dr. Beard, of New York, computed the facts 
 bearing on this particular point, and left us a reading 
 upon it which is singularly appropriate to the topic 
 now under consideration. He has reckoned up the life- 
 value of five hundred men of greatest mental activity : 
 poets, philosophers, men of science, inventors, politicians, 
 musicians, actors, and orators, and he has found the 
 average duration of their lives to be sixty-four years. 
 He has compared this average with the average duration 
 of the life of the masses, and he has found that duration to 
 be fifty years in all classes the members of which have 
 survived to twenty years of age. He, therefore, gives 
 to the varied brain-workers a value of life of fourteen 
 years above the average. By a later calculation, re- 
 lating to a hundred men belonging, we may say, to our own 
 time, he has discovered a still greater value of life in 
 those who practise mental labour, seventy years being 
 the mean value of life in them. Thereupon he has en- 
 quired into the cause of these differences, so strange and 
 so startling, and has detected, through this analysis, as I 
 and others have, a combination of saving causes, the one 
 cause most influencing being the recreative character of 
 the work. His observation is so sound, so eloquent, and,
 
 HEALTH AND RECREATION 41 
 
 above all, so practical, I can feel no necessity for apology 
 in giving it at length. He is comparing, in the passage 
 to be quoted, what he calls the happy brain-worker with 
 the mere muscle-worker ; and this is the argument : 
 
 ' Brain- work is the highest of all antidotes to worry ; 
 and the brain-working classes are, therefore, less dis- 
 tressed about many things, less apprehensive of inde- 
 finite evil, and less disposed to magnify minute trials, 
 than those who live by the labour of the hands. To 
 the happy brain-worker life is a long vacation ; while 
 the muscle- worker often finds no joy in his daily toil, 
 and very little in the intervals. Scientists, physicians, 
 lawyers, clergymen, orators, statesmen, literati, and 
 merchants, when successful, are happy in their work 
 without reference to the reward ; and continue to work 
 in their special callings long after the necessity has 
 ceased. Where is the hod-carrier who finds joy in going 
 up and down a ladder ; and from the foundation of the 
 globe until now, how many have been known to persist 
 in ditch-digging, or sewer-laying, or in any mechanical 
 or manual calling whatsoever, after the attainment of 
 independence ? Good fortune gives good health. Nearly 
 all the money in the world is in the hands of brain- 
 workers ; to many, in moderate amounts, it is essential 
 to life, and in large and comfortable amounts it favours 
 long life. Longevity is the daughter of competency. 
 Of the many elements that make up happiness, mental 
 organisation, physical, health, fancy, friends, and 
 money the last is, for the average man, greater than 
 any other, except the first. Loss of money costs more 
 lives than the loss of friends, for it is easier to find a 
 friend than a fortune.'
 
 42 HEALTH AND EECEEATION 
 
 The contrast put before us in these forcible remarks 
 is most striking. It is the key to the position in trying 
 to unlock the secret as to what true recreation should be. 
 These brain-workers of whom Dr. Beard speaks are, in- 
 deed, the modern Greeks, not perhaps in perfection, but 
 in approximation. The Greeks might possibly have gone 
 higher than they did in the way of developed physical 
 beauty and of mental endowment, and these happy brain- 
 workers of later ages might perhaps still more nearly ap- 
 proach the Greeks. But both were on the lines towards 
 the highest that may be attainable, and this, as a means 
 of indicating the right line, is my reason for using the 
 illustrations that have been offered. 
 
 That which I have so far urged consists, then, of two 
 arguments. Firstly, that recreation to be healthful 
 must, as its meaning conveys, literally, be a process of 
 re-creating; that is, of reconstructing, or rebuilding; 
 a practice entirely distinct from what is called play, 
 when by that is meant either cessation from every kind 
 of creation, or enjoyment of abnormal pleasures which 
 weary mind and body. Secondly, that they who are 
 able to live and recreate in the manner suggested are, 
 in positive fact, they who present the healthiest, the 
 happiest, and the longest lives. 
 
 From these premises I draw the further conclusion 
 that we have no open course of a reasonable kind before 
 us except to strive to beget a healthful recreation in the 
 direction indicated. 
 
 At the same time I do not say this in order to divert 
 attention from what may be rightly called the natural 
 animal instincts of man. I have no doubt there might 
 be a cultivation of mind which should cease to be re-
 
 HEALTH AND EECKEATION 43 
 
 creative, and which thereby should be as injurious to ths 
 health of the body as an over-cultivation of mere gross 
 mechanical labour, and which might even be more 
 dangerous. It is not a little interesting to observe that 
 the greatest of the Greeks had become conscious of this 
 very danger, as if he had learned its existence from 
 observations in his daily life. Plato, in treating of this 
 subject in one of his admirable discourses, warns us 
 against the delusion that the cultivation of nothing but 
 what is intellectually the best is, of necessity, always the 
 best. It is more just, he says, to take account of good 
 things than of evil. Everything good is beautiful ; yet 
 the beautiful is not without measure. An animal des- 
 tined to be beautiful must possess symmetry. Of sym- 
 metries we understand those which are small, but are 
 ignorant of the greatest. And, indeed, no symmetry is 
 of more importance with respect to health and disease, 
 virtue and vice, than that of the soul towards the body. 
 When a weaker and inferior form is the vehicle of a 
 strong and in every way mighty soul, or the contrary ; 
 and when these, soul and body, enter into compact 
 union, then the animal is not wholly beautiful, for it is 
 without symmetry. Just as a body which has immoder- 
 ately long legs, or any other superfluity of parts that 
 hinder its symmetry, becomes base, in the participation 
 of labour suffers many afflictions, and, through suffering 
 an aggregation of accidents, becomes the cause to itself 
 of many ills, so the compound essence of body and soul, 
 which we call the animal, when the soul is stronger than 
 the body and prevails over it then the soul, agitating 
 the whole body, charges it with diseases, and by ardent 
 pursuit causes it to waste away. On the contrary, when
 
 44 HEALTH AND EECEEATION 
 
 a body that is large or superior to the soul is joined with 
 a small and weaker intellect, the motions of the more 
 powerful, prevailing and enlarging what is their own, but 
 making the reflective part of the soul deaf, indocile, and 
 oblivious, it induces the greatest of all diseases, ignorance. 
 As a practical corollary to these remarks, Plato adds 
 that there is one safety for both the conditions he has 
 specified : neither to move the soul without the body, 
 nor the body without the soul. The mathematician, there- 
 fore, or any one els 3 who ardently devotes himself to any 
 intellectual pursuit, should at the same time engage the 
 body in gymnastic exercises ; while the man who is care- 
 ful in forming the body should at the same time unite the 
 motions of the soul, in the exercise of music and philo- 
 sophy, if he intends to be one who may justly be called 
 beautiful and at the same time ' right good.' 
 
 Such is the Platonic reading of the recreative life as 
 it appeared to him in his day and amongst his marvellous 
 people. We have but to trouble ourselves with half the 
 problem he refers to, and with but half the advice he 
 suggests. Little fear, I think, is there amongst us that 
 the soul should be so much stronger than the body, and 
 so greatly prevail over it that it should agitate the whole 
 inwardly, and by ardent application to learned pursuits 
 cause the body to waste away. Nor is this to be regretted 
 because if the danger so stated were a prevailing one we 
 should have two evils to cure in lieu of one which is all- 
 sufficient for the reforming work of many of the coming 
 generations of men. 
 
 I have not, I trust, dwelt too long on what I may call 
 the practical definition of recreation as it ought, I think, 
 to be understood, as it was once understood and practised,
 
 HEALTH AND RECREATION 45 
 
 and as it is still practised, if not systematically under- 
 stood, by a few whose varied and delightful works and 
 tastes make them the healthiest and longest lived 
 amongst us. 
 
 It is well always to have a standard before us, though 
 it be seemingly unapproachable, and the illustrations I 
 have endeavoured to supply of all work and all play, and 
 of long-continued recreation thereupon, form the standard 
 I now wish to set up for observation. 
 
 To make all England and all the world, for the 
 matter of that a recreation-ground : to make all life a 
 grand recreation: to make all life thereby healthier, 
 happier, and longer : this is the question before us. 
 
 Confining our observations to our own people and 
 time, it may now be worth a few moments of analytical 
 inquiry as to how far we, in different classes of our 
 English community, are away from so desirable a con- 
 summation the consummation of all human effort to- 
 wards the perfected human life : the dream of some poets 
 that such a life has been and will return ' Eedeunt 
 Saturnia regna ' the dream of many poets that it is to 
 be, if it has not been. 
 
 The Eegistrar-General, with much judgment due to 
 long and wide experience of the component parts of the 
 nation comprised under the title of England and Wales 
 has divided our community into six great classes, 
 which classes are in many respects so distinct that they 
 may almost be considered as great nations of themselves, 
 having their own individual pursuits, habits, tastes, 
 and, if the word be allowable, recreations. He described 
 from the census of 1871. (1) A professional class, of 
 governing, defending, and learned persons, numbering
 
 4(5 HEALTH AND KECKEATION 
 
 some 684,102 persons, chiefly of the male sex. (2) A 
 domestic class, wives and women of the household, and 
 hotel and lodging-house keepers a large class, the great 
 majority women, numbering as many as 5,905,171 
 nearly, in fact, six millions. (3) A commercial class of 
 buyers, sellers, lenders, and transporters of goods and 
 produce, chiefly men, and numbering 815,424. (4) An 
 agricultural class, cultivators, growers, and animal 
 keepers, the majority men, numbering 1,657,138. (5) An 
 industrial class, mechanics, fabric manufacturers, food 
 and drink producers, and purveyors of animal, vegetable, 
 and mineral produce a very large class, having in it 
 members of both sexes, and numbering 5,137,725. (6) 
 An indefinite non-productive class ; persons of rank and 
 property, and scholars and children, with nearly an 
 equality of representation of numbers of both sexes ; 
 the whole class including a total of 8,512,706, of whom 
 7,541,508 are scholars and children the living capital 
 of the next generation of men and of women. 
 
 As we glance at these classes we quickly detect that 
 what may be called their vocations are extremely different ; 
 that each class with the exception, perhaps, of two, the 
 professional and the commercial, with that part of the 
 indefinite class which is composed of persons of rank and 
 property, and which approach each other are as widely 
 separated in tastes and habits and inclinations as they 
 are in labours and works. Looking at the education of 
 body and mind in these classes as a whole, there is 
 certainly little enough of symmetry. 
 
 Amongst the representatives of these classes which 
 are best able to command the advantages of true recrea- 
 tion there is little sound attempt to use the privilege in a
 
 HEALTH AND RECREATION 47 
 
 refined and reasonable way. The persons who have their 
 time at command, and who belong to the most favoured 
 division, are divisible into two groups, (a) A group 
 which does no work at all that can bear the name of 
 useful or applied labour, but which spends all its waking 
 hours at what it considers to be recreative pursuits, 
 which may be laborious, but must not be remunerative. 
 (6) A group which labours industriously for the sake of 
 return or reward, but which steals from time of labour 
 regular intervals in order to follow out certain of the re- 
 creations which form the whole life of the first group, in 
 strict imitation of that envied group, and in hopeless 
 neglect of any recreation of its own better adapted to its 
 real wants and best enjoyments. 
 
 Each of these groups suffers from the course it follows. 
 The representatives of the first kind lose much, since they 
 are for ever repeating the same, to them, pleasurable or 
 automatic activity. The second lose because, while they 
 are ever repeating the same useful activity, they are only 
 relieving that activity by repeating day after day the same 
 automatic and imitative recreations. Thus both are sub- 
 jected to what may be called the automatism of recreation, 
 an automatism of recreation bad in every sense, and 
 specially bad in the present day, because of the quality 
 of it, as well as the limited quantity, and because there 
 is in it no such diversity of recreation as is wanted 
 to keep the body in health by the exercise of the mind. 
 With one man the recreation is all taken out in cards, 
 with another in chess, with a third in billiards, with a 
 fourth in debate or gossip on some one persistent topic 
 of discourse or argument, and so on, for what may be 
 called the indoor recreative life. Nor is it much different
 
 48 HEALTH AND EECEEATION 
 
 with outdoor recreative amusement. Some one particular 
 amusement claims the attention of particular men, and 
 to this amusement the men adhere as if they had to live 
 by it, and as if, in fact, there were no other recreative 
 pursuits in the world. 
 
 This speciality of recreative pleasure or labour for 
 soon it becomes labour leads to consequences which are 
 often of the most serious character. The man who 
 undertakes the recreation at first as an enjoyment, and, 
 indeed, as a relaxation, becomes so absorbed in it that 
 he strains every nerve to be eminent in it, a professor 
 of the accomplishment, with a local repute for his excel- 
 lence. The moment he enters on this resolve, he loses 
 recreation. He sets himself to a new work, be it mental 
 or physical ; his mind becomes a nursery for the pro- 
 duce of that one particular culture, and he is in 
 respect to that not far removed from a monomaniac. 
 From the day that he is completely enamoured of the 
 special pursuit it is little indeed that he is good for out 
 of it in hours apart from the common vocation of his life. 
 He becomes fretful if for a day he be deprived of his 
 peculiar gratification ; irritable if he joins with others in it 
 who are not so skilful as himself ; envious if he meets 
 with a rival who is better at it than himself ; and often 
 actually sleepless in thinking and brooding over some 
 event or events that have been connected with the pre- 
 vious play or venture. 
 
 If the time at my disposal admitted the introduction 
 of detailed illustration of the facts here referred to I 
 could supply from experience instance upon instance. I 
 have seen an amateur chessplayer so infatuated with 
 the game, which he originally sat down to as a relaxa-
 
 HEALTH AND EECEEATION 49 
 
 tion, that he became for months a victim of insomnia. 
 He carried the whole chessboard, set out in various diffi- 
 cult problems, in his brain, if I may use such a simile, 
 studied moves on going to sleep, dreamt of them, woke 
 with the solution solved, was sick and feeble and irrit- 
 able all next day, followed his usual occupation with 
 languid ability and interest, resumed his play at night 
 with excited but not recruited determination, got more 
 and more sleepless, and at last failed to sleep altogether. 
 I have known more than one similar illustration in 
 whist-players and in great billiard-players, and have 
 seen the results of these so-called recreations end in the 
 most sad physical disaster, when the pursuit of them 
 has been made a matter of living importance, and when 
 the player has ever had in his mind that pitiful if: 'If 
 I had done this or that if I had made that move on 
 the board if I had played that card if I had made 
 that stroke, how would the case have been ? ' It matters 
 little what the answer to the question may be whether 
 it be that by such a move, card, or stroke the game would 
 have been lost or won ; the perplexing doubt is there to 
 annoy, and it keeps up an irritation which imperceptibly 
 wears out the animal powers and does permanent injury 
 to life. You see men while still they are actually young 
 grow rapidly like old men under this supposed recreative 
 strain. They grow prematurely careworn, prematurely 
 grey, prematurely fixed in idea and obstinate in idea, 
 angry at trifles, baffled by trifles, and, in a word, young 
 senilities. 
 
 In every busy city there are hundreds may I not 
 extend the calculation and say thousands ? of men who, 
 in pursuit of the recreative pleasures I have specified, or 
 
 E
 
 50 HEALTH AND RECEEATIOX 
 
 of others similar in their results, are wearing themselves 
 out twice as fast as they need do by the legitimate 
 labour to which they have to apply themselves in order 
 that they may earn their daily bread. The observant 
 physician, as he listens quietly to the statements of 
 these suffering men, is obliged, in his own mind, to 
 differentiate between the assigned and what is often the 
 real cause of that train of evils to which it is his duty 
 to lend an attentive ear. 
 
 Thus, amongst the most intelligent part of the com- 
 munity amongst the part that can help itself there is 
 no systematised scale or class of recreations that can be 
 relied upon to afford the change really demanded for 
 health. Nor are matters much improved when we take 
 up the kind of change that is sought after by the same 
 classes in the matter of physical recreation. When the 
 Volunteer movement first came under notice, and for 
 some time after it first came into practice, it was the 
 hope of all sanitary men, I believe without any excep- 
 tion, that the exercise, and drill, and training, and 
 excitement which would be produced by the movement 
 would prove most beneficial to the health of the male 
 part of the people at a period of life when the training 
 of the physical powers is most required and often most 
 neglected. I remember being quite enthusiastic at that 
 change and its promises, and I recalled the other day an 
 often-quoted paper or essay which had sprung out of 
 that enthusiasm, and which I dare say at the time it 
 was written seemed common-sense itself. I can but feel 
 now that the hope was begotten of inexperience. The 
 movement has been a success, I presume, in a national 
 and political point of view, but a careful observation of
 
 HEALTH AND RECREATION 51 
 
 it from its first until this time has failed to indicate to 
 me, as a physician, that it has led to any decided im- 
 provement in the health generally of those who have 
 been most concerned in carrying it out by becoming its 
 representatives. Certain it is that nothing affirmative 
 of good stands forth in its favour, and I wish I could 
 stop with that one neutral statement. I cannot in order 
 of truth and fairness so stop, for I have seen much 
 injury from the process. To say nothing of the expense 
 to which it subjects many struggling men, to the loss of 
 time it inflicts on them, to the neglect it inflicts at the 
 fireside and home, to the spirit of contest of mind and 
 fever of mind which it engenders ; to say nothing, I 
 repeat, of these things all of which, nevertheless, are 
 detrimental, indirectly, to the health of the men them- 
 selves and of those who surround them in family union 
 there is a direct harm often inflicted by the service, 
 call it recreation if you like, which is not to its credit. 
 The man who has advanced just far enough in life to 
 have completed his development of growth, and to have 
 lost the elasticity of youth, the man who has rather too 
 early in life become fat and, as he or his friends say, 
 puffy, the man who has, from long confinement in the 
 office or study, found himself dejected and dyspeptic, 
 each one of these men has passed into the ranks of the 
 Volunteers, in order to regain the elastic tread, to 
 throw off the burthen of fat, or to find relief from the 
 dyspeptic despondency. For my part, I have never 
 been able to discover a good practical result in any of 
 these trials ; but I have seen many bad practical results. 
 I have seen the partly disabled men, in the conditions 
 specified, striving to do their best to keep alive and be 
 
 E 2
 
 52 HEALTH AND RECREATION 
 
 on a level with younger and athletic men, and I have 
 been obliged to hear of the signal and natural failure of 
 the effort. I have heard of the attempts to meet the 
 failure by the tempting offer and too willing acceptance 
 of what are called artificial stimulants to give temporary 
 support, and I have been obliged to discover in persons 
 so overtaxed and so over stimulated a certain heavy 
 excessive draw on the bank of life, an anticipation of 
 income which, in the vital as surely as in the commer- 
 cial world, is the road to a premature failure and closure 
 of the whole concern. 
 
 There are many who will agree with me, I doubt not, 
 on this point ; there are many men, and there are more 
 women, for wives and mothers are far more observant 
 and wise than husbands and fathers on these points, 
 who will be able to bring their experience to bear in con- 
 firmation of that which I have spoken ; and these will 
 agree that to put men of different ages and of different 
 states of constitution and habits in the same position for 
 recreation ; to trot them all through the same paces ; 
 to make them all wear the same dress, walk or march 
 the same speed, carry the same load, labour the same 
 time, move the limbs at the same rate ; that to construct 
 one great living machine out of a number of such dif- 
 ferently built machines is of necessity an unnatural and, 
 in the end, a ruinous process. There are some, how- 
 ever, who, while admitting so much, will put in a plea 
 for the young members of the community. They will 
 insist that the younger men, men who are from nine- 
 teen or twenty up to twenty-nine or thirty, may, with 
 advantage, go through the recreation of training after the 
 Volunteer fashion. The case is much stronger on behalf
 
 HEALTH AND RECREATION 53 
 
 of this argument, but even in the respect named there 
 requires a great deal of discrimination. A race of strong 
 men may be bred, and a weak race may, by gradual 
 development, be raised into a strong ; but a weak man, 
 born weak, can, through himself, be led a very little way 
 into strength ; while during the process of training he 
 can most easily be broken into utter feebleness, so that 
 the last of the man may be worse than the first. Hence, 
 in training the weak into strong through any form of 
 recreation, mental or physical, but specially physical, 
 there must be a singular discrimination. In this in- 
 stance of Volunteering as a mode of progress in physical 
 health for the young there are dangers that ought to be 
 avoided with religious care. To advise a weakly youth 
 of consumptive tendency and feeble build, or one having 
 some special proclivity to rheumatic fever, heart disease, 
 or other well-defined hereditary malady, to compete with 
 other men of the same age and of athletic nature, in the 
 &ame recreative exercise, is to deceive the youth into 
 danger. To force such a one into violent competitive 
 exercise, and tax him to the same degree of vital with- 
 drawal day after day, or week after week, is to sub- 
 ject him all but certainly to severe, if not fatal, bodily 
 injury. 
 
 I have selected the recreative exercise of Volunteer- 
 ing as a case for illustration of an important lesson, and 
 I have made the selection, not because the recreation is 
 special as a sometimes harmful recreation, but because 
 more persons are concerned in. it just now than in aught 
 else of the same kind of recreative pursuit. 
 
 There are many other so-called recreations which are 
 even more injurious to the feeble adolescent and to the
 
 54 HEALTH AND KECREATION 
 
 enfeebled matured individuals, who seek to find sym- 
 metry of health in extreme recreation. Football is one 
 of these recreations fraught with danger. Rowing is 
 another exercise of the same class. Polo, while the 
 fever for it lasted, was found to be of similar cast. 
 Excessive running and prolonged and violent walking, 
 in imitation of those poor madmen whose vanity trains 
 them to give up sleep and all the natural ordinances that 
 they may walk so many hundred miles in so many 
 hundred hours, these are alike injurious as ph} T sical 
 recreations, unless taken with the same discrimination 
 as is required by those who enter into the Volunteer 
 movement. 
 
 As we pass from the freer and wealthier classes of 
 the community into the less prosperous we find no marked 
 improvement whatever in any form of recreation. We 
 begin, in fact, to lose sight of the recreation that minis- 
 ters to either mind or body in a sensible and healthy 
 degree, and to see that which should be recreative re- 
 placed almost entirely by continuous and monotonous 
 labour. The idea of symmetry of function and develop- 
 ment between mind and body disappears nearly alto- 
 gether ; so that, indeed, to mention such a thing would, 
 in some of the classes concerned, be but to treat on a 
 subject unknown, and therefore, as it would seem to 
 them, absurdly unpractical. To tell a country yokel that 
 his body is not symmetrical in build, and that his mind 
 has no kind of symmetrical relation to his body, were 
 cruel, from its apparent satire. Yet why should it be ? 
 Why should ignorance and labour so deform any one that 
 the hope of a complete reformation, the hope of the con- 
 stitution of a perfect body and in it a perfect mind,
 
 HEALTH AND EECEEATION 55 
 
 should seem absurd ? It is not the labour that is at 
 fault. The labour is wholesome, healthful, splendid ; it 
 is a labour compatible with the noblest, nay, the most 
 refined of human acquirements. Why should it be in- 
 compatible with perfect physical conformation of mind 
 and body ? It is not, indeed, the labour that is at fault, 
 but the ignorant system on which it is carried out. 
 
 There is much difference, in fact, between the three 
 classes of the community called the domestic, the agri- 
 cultural, and the industrial, in respect to the work, the 
 recreation, and the resultant health pertaining to each 
 class. The domestic class as a whole is, by comparison 
 with the industrial, fairly favoured. The members of it 
 lead, it is true, a monotonous life, and see often but 
 little of the beauties of external nature, but they find in 
 the amusements they provide for those who are about 
 them some intervals of change which are, as far as they 
 go, of service. Moreover, except in that part of the class 
 which is engaged in disposing of spirituous drinks, and 
 which pays a heavy vital taxation from the recreation 
 springing out of that vocation, its representatives are 
 not exposed to harmful recreations to any extreme degree. 
 The domestic class therefore presents, on the whole, a 
 fairly healthy life. The majority of its members are 
 women and mothers ; and, in the gladness with which 
 they tender their love and adoration to the young and 
 innocent life that comes into their charge, they find, 
 perchance, after all, the purest pleasure, the most en- 
 trancing, the most ennobling recreation, that, even in the 
 midst of many cares and sorrows and bereavements, falls 
 to the lot of any section of the great community. 
 
 The agricultural class, less favoured in recreative
 
 56 HEALTH AND RECREATION 
 
 opportunities than the others which have passed before 
 us, living a laborious and very poor life, ever at work for 
 small returns, and rinding little recreation beyond that 
 which is of mere animal enjoyment, is still comparatively 
 favoured. To the agricultural worker the seasons supply, 
 imperceptibly, some delight that is beneficial to the 
 mind. 
 
 ' These as they change, Almighty Father ! these 
 Are but the varied God. 
 Mysterious round ! what skill, what force divine 
 
 "Deep felt in these appear : a simple strain, 
 Yet so delightful, mix't with such kind art, 
 Such beauty and beneficence combin'd, 
 And all so forming one harmonious whole 
 Shade unperceived, so soft'ning into shade 
 That as they still succeed they ravish still.' 
 
 The labour of the outdoor agricultural class, blessed 
 by these changing scenes which the exquisite poet, above 
 quoted, so exquisitely describes, is varied also in itself. 
 Each season brings its new duty : the spring its meadow- 
 laying and sheep-shearing ; the summer its haymaking ; 
 the autumn its harvesting and harvest-home, and fruit- 
 gathering ; the winter its ploughing and garnering, and 
 cattle-tending ; with sundry well-remembered holidays 
 which are religiously kept. There may be through all 
 this continuous, wearing labour ; there is ; but, as it is 
 not monotonous, it is to some extent recreative, and the 
 facts of mortality tell that it is saving to life. The agri- 
 cultural classes present a mortality below the average in 
 the proportion of ninety-one to one hundred of the mass 
 of the working community. Moreover, there is hope for 
 the agricultural classes in the fact that it is, compara-
 
 HEALTH AND KECREATION 57 
 
 tively, an easy task to supply them with a perfect 
 roundelay of beautiful recreations for their resting hours. 
 It is only to remove from them the grand temptations to 
 vice in the beershop and the spirit-store, and to substi- 
 tute for these resorts a rational system of enjoyments, to 
 win for the country swain the first place in that symmetry 
 which Plato called * right good.' 
 
 The utter blankness, the blankness that may be felt, 
 in respect to recreation is realised most in the millions 
 of the industrial class who live in the everlasting din of 
 the same mechanical life ; who see ever before them the 
 same four walls, the same tools, the same tasks ; who 
 hear the same sounds, smell the same odours, touch the 
 same things, feel the same impressions, again and again 
 and again, until the existence is made up of them, never 
 to be varied until death doth them part. It is to this 
 class, repining, naturally envious, naturally restless, 
 and at this moment of time unsettled, mournful, and 
 disaffected, to an extent which few, I fear, of our rulers 
 comprehend, it is to this class most of all that the balm 
 of wholesome recreation is most necessary, and for whom 
 the absence of it is most dangerous. In this class there 
 is no such thing as health. It is a blessing not to be 
 found. You could not, I solemnly believe, bring me one 
 of them that I dare, as a conscientious physician, declare, 
 after searching examination, to be physically healthy in 
 any approach to a degree of standard excellence. As 
 a rule the average of life amongst those who have 
 passed twenty-five would not be above fifteen years. 
 
 In these classes we see the effect of what I may 
 venture to call the denseness of work, leading to 
 mortality in the most perfect and distinctive form ; work
 
 58 HEALTH AND RECREATION 
 
 without any true recreative relief; work without any- 
 thing changing or becoming recreative in itself ; work re- 
 lieved at no regular intervals for introduction of new life. 
 
 The greatest of all the social problems of our day is 
 involved in this study of the manners and modes of 
 thought of over five millions of adult English people, all 
 confined in order that they may labour, with no satisfac- 
 tory relief from labour, and with no land of promise 
 before them. The greatest of all the political questions 
 of our day is also involved in this same study. The 
 physician knows that the wisest of mankind, the most 
 intelligent of mankind, are only half their former selves 
 when they are out of health. He knows that health 
 which is bad, but not sufficiently bad to prostrate the 
 physical powers to such an extent as to cause inactivity 
 of the will, is the most perplexing of all states of mind 
 and action with which he has to deal. He feels there- 
 upon a fellow-sympathy with the political physician who 
 is called upon to treat the industrial masses in mass ; 
 to provide for their minds' health, to calm their excite- 
 ment, to plant confidence in their hearts, and most 
 arduous task of all to find out the way for securing 
 for them those two grand remedies in the Pharmacopoeia 
 of the ordinary physician, rest and change of scene, in 
 pure and open air. 
 
 ' They find their own recreations, these working 
 millions,' I think I hear some one say. They try to find 
 them, would be the truer statement. They try their 
 best, but they have found few conducive to health, many 
 that are fatal. They are to be pitied and pardoned for 
 these errors of their finding. What if they do discover 
 recreation of the worst kind in the bar and saloon of the
 
 HEALTH AND RECEEATION 59 
 
 spirit-seller ? Have they not the example of the wealthier 
 classes before them, teaching that the same indulgence, 
 in another style, is recreation ? May they not ask how 
 many other obtainable pleasures are provided for them, 
 and whether many too many of obtainable pleasures 
 so called, and so bad, are not positively thrust upon 
 them ? They have laboured all day in monotony : where 
 shall they go for recreation and what shall the recreation 
 be ? If they go far away, they are removed from the 
 sphere of their labours ; if they look near to their own 
 abodes, they find not one true and ennobling pastime, 
 but fifty that are degrading, and, at the same time, filled 
 with every possible temptation. 
 
 I apply this to our own people ; but it is, I fear, 
 equally applicable to other peoples. Dr. Beard, the 
 American I have already quoted, wrote his experience, 
 gathered in his own country, as follows : ' To live,' he 
 says, speaking of the same classes, to live on the slippery 
 path that lies between extreme poverty on the one side 
 and the gulf of starvation on the other ; to take continual 
 thought of to-morrow, without any good result of such 
 thought ; to feel each anxious hour that the dreary tread- 
 mill by which we secure the means of sustenance for a 
 hungry household may, without warning, be closed by any 
 number of forces, over which one has no control ; to double 
 and triple all the horrors of want and pain by anticipation 
 and rumination such is the life of the muscle-working 
 classes of modern civilised society ; and when we add to 
 this the cankering annoyance that arises from the envy- 
 ing of the fortunate brainworker, who lives at ease before 
 his eyes, we marvel not that he dies young, but rather 
 that he lives at all.'
 
 60 HEALTH AND EECEEATION 
 
 There remains still in the list of classes requiring re- 
 creation, and the health that springs from it, the last or 
 indefinite class. Of the poor in the indefinite class I need 
 not speak ; for they the waifs and strays of our civili- 
 sation are, I fear, under little influence of such refining 
 agencies as we would put forward for the future. With 
 the very small class of persons of rank and property, 
 less than 169,000 altogether, I have dealt already, by 
 joining them with the professional and commercial well- 
 to-do classes. To the seven and a half millions of 
 scholars and children and their recreations attention will 
 be called in a new chapter.
 
 61 
 
 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOR 
 THE YOUNG. 
 
 THE study of the recreations of those who are in their 
 early years brings up one of the most pressing questions 
 of modern social life. There is so much diversity of 
 opinion and of practice on this subject that no kind of 
 system can be said to prevail in relation to it in any 
 class of society except the poorest, in which necessity 
 rather than choice enforces a gloomy and sad uniformity. 
 If there be any rule at all it is, perhaps, that parents and 
 those who have charge of the young give to them those 
 kinds of recreation which they themselves were taught 
 to enjoy. There is much haphazard about the matter at 
 the best ; and, may I be allowed to say, there is much 
 that is called recreation which has no reference to health, 
 and which therefore is not recreative, although it pre- 
 tends to be. 
 
 On the other hand, many recreations which may be 
 healthful to the young become hurtful, owing to the 
 times and modes of carrying them out, and from no 
 other causes. The holding of children's parties at late 
 hours in winter time is one of the most dangerous 
 examples of this kind, as it is one also of the most foolish 
 of modern devices. The children's party is now often
 
 62 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOR THE YOUNG 
 
 called for seven or even eight o'clock at night, and young 
 children, for three or four hours after they ought to have 
 been in bed and fast asleep, are kept up in the midst of 
 a feverish excitement, which will not cool down for two 
 or three succeeding days. In this excitement they are 
 frequently fed with foods and drinks of the most indigest- 
 ible character ; and from the excitement, the dyspepsia 
 which results, and the colds which are engendered from 
 the exposure to cold air late at night and when the 
 strength is exhausted, there is set up, almost of necessity, 
 temporary derangement of the body, and in some cases 
 fatal disease. 
 
 There is a fact to be ever borne in mind in respect to 
 exposure of the body during these inclement seasons ; 
 and the fact is this : at these seasons the body is under- 
 going a natural process of waste or consumption a 
 veritable loss of weight, which is a cause of exhaustion, 
 and which is increased by every additional exposure. 
 This waste is in progress during all the winter months, 
 from November to April, and affects the whole of the 
 community. Thus the danger increases as the winter 
 months progress, until it attains its maximum in the 
 fatal months of early spring, when so many of the en- 
 feebled of all ages pass away. 
 
 There is another and indirect danger connected with 
 children's parties which I must here incidentally notice, 
 although it lies a little apart from my subject, because 
 of its immense and practical importance. In the cold 
 seasons, when the body is at its lowest working power, 
 the epidemic diseases are often most rife, and are always 
 most dangerous. These diseases are also at such times 
 communicated more easily from one person to another,
 
 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOR THE YOUNG 63 
 
 the poison which produces them being brought into a 
 company, not in the open space, but in the close room. 
 Thus the winter children's party becomes not un- 
 frequently the centre from which an epidemic takes fresh 
 root, and is, in fact, a focus of spreading disease. There 
 is much thoughtlessness on the part of grown-up people, 
 who have little people in their charge, in this particular. 
 I knew, lately, an instance in which some young children 
 who were recovering from scarlet fever, and who could 
 not leave their rooms, were allowed, as a pastime, 
 to make the dolls' clothes and the decorations for a 
 Christmas tree, which dolls' clothes and decorations 
 were to pass a few hours later into the hands of a large 
 party of juveniles, to the certain infection of some, 
 who in going there to play would be going possibly to 
 death. 
 
 Dr. Whitmore, a late and able medical officer of 
 health for Marylebone, most forcibly called the attention 
 of the public to this source of danger, and illustrated 
 the fact of danger from the clearest evidences of 
 mortality. But, in spite of all, the imprudence still 
 goes on, and I must be pardoned for one minute of 
 irrelevancy in having once more referred to it. 
 
 To return to our subject proper. The next series of 
 dangers in the recreations of the young are contracted 
 by over-competition and by the equality of effort enforced 
 alike on children and youths of different build and con- 
 stitution. Nothing can be more absurd, nothing, indeed, 
 more cruel, than the inflictions which, in the name of 
 recreations, are perpetrated in the manner named. Let 
 me give one illustration. 
 
 I was at a swimming bath, where some twenty boj's,
 
 64 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOR THE YOUNG 
 
 all under twelve years of age, were swimming or learn- 
 ing to swim. There was no comparison between these 
 lads in matter of physical outline. One, a short lad, had 
 a narrow and pointed chest, a fragile form, an almost 
 transparent skin, a chilly surface of body, and a blue 
 lip; another, a tall, broad-shouldered, broad-chested 
 youth, had a full and ruddy complexion, a warm surface, 
 and a firm muscular build. The others varied between 
 these two standards. Such were the physical conditions 
 of the swimmers, and so constructed, physically, they 
 commenced their recreation. Swimming is a healthful 
 recreation, when properly carried out, as well as useful 
 and necessary. But here was the mischief from it in the 
 case of the boys in question : there was no discrimination 
 in the amount of the recreation. The boy with the 
 pigeon chest and blue lip had quite as much of it as was 
 safe for him at the end of five minutes; but, to keep him 
 up to the same standard as the swimmer with the broad 
 chest, who had such buoyant lungs that he could hardly 
 sink even if he tried, the weak boy was encouraged and 
 driven to go on and keep on until he had passed through 
 the same exertion as his more favoured comrade. The 
 result was that the weak boy came out of the water 
 blue all over, an hour later was as blue as a bilberry in 
 the lips and cheeks, and was cold, shivering, feeble, and 
 sleepy. I could see those boys as plainly as if I had 
 followed them going back to school and to the afternoon 
 work. I could be as sure as I could be of any physio- 
 logical fact that it would require six hours, under the 
 most favourable of circumstances in relation to food, 
 rest, and warmth, to fully revitalise that feeble boy up 
 to his own imperfect standard, while no number of hours
 
 HEALTH AND EECKEATION FOE THE YOUNG 65 
 
 would ever bring his vitality up to the standard of his 
 more fortunate fellow-student. 
 
 Look now at the error, at the long series of errors, 
 committed by this mode of recreation on the feeble boy. 
 His animal warmth had been robbed unduly, and he was 
 therefore languid and unhappy. His blood was aerated 
 less freely than it should be, and he was therefore circu- 
 lating blood more slowly than he ought, and breathing 
 with excess of labour. He was more susceptible to every 
 depressing influence, and his nervous system was dulled 
 in the same manner as it would be from sitting in a 
 close and badly ventilated room. He would be drowsy, 
 and perhaps the master of his school would say idle or 
 apathetic. For this he would be rated at his lessons, 
 compared with other boys who got on better, and, if not 
 punished corporeally, made irritable and anxious in 
 mind, which is another form of punishment. This 
 nervous lad, never over-strong, would be again unduly 
 taxed. And now, what else must follow as results? 
 When the nervous system is low and depressed, the 
 digestive power is enfeebled. When the digestive power 
 is enfeebled, the nutrition of the body is degraded in 
 every part. Then the vital organs, on which life 
 depends, and in which the activity of nutritive changes 
 ought to be most rapid and regular, are the first to 
 suffer, while even such passive parts as those which 
 make up the skeleton do not escape scot-free. See, then, 
 what a modification of healthy life may be easily effected 
 by one apparently trifling error of recreation. Let that 
 error be repeated many times, or let some equivalent 
 error be performed and repeated many times, and what 
 is the almost necessary evil? The almost necessary 
 
 F
 
 66 HEALTH AND EECEEATION FOE THE YOUNG 
 
 evil is the institution in that feeble body, in active 
 form, of the phenomena of disease towards which it 
 had a proclivity, and on which the feebleness depended. 
 It will possibly be urged by some that the process of 
 making these feeble boys compete with stronger boys is 
 intended to invigorate the feeble. For a similar reason, 
 these same naturally enfeebled children are often sent 
 out of doors in cold weather to ' harden them.' The 
 ignorance is beyond pardon. As you cannot- gather 
 grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles, so you cannot out of 
 a weak animal frame extract strength except by taking 
 it out of the bank of life, to the premature shortening of 
 the inherited store of life a store which, ceteris paribus, 
 may be fairly calculated from the mean value of life in 
 the two latest generations of the stock from whence it 
 has been derived. 1 
 
 1 The calculation may be cast as follows after an actual calculation 
 in which the estimated value of the last life proved correct within a 
 year : 
 
 Actual value of paternal grandfather's life . . 80 years. 
 Actual value of paternal grandmother' life . . 64 
 
 Actual value of maternal grandfather's life . . 68 
 Actual value of maternal grandmother's life . . 72 
 
 Actual value of father's life 71 
 
 Actual value of mother's life 71 
 
 Total value of the six lives .... 426 
 Estimated value of last life 426-=-6 . . . 71 
 
 Actual value of last life, 72 years less one month. 
 
 In these calculations, deaths from accidents and from accidental 
 
 diseases have to be excluded, and much labour, therefore, is required for 
 
 collecting as many facts as would form a basis for a positive rule. I 
 
 have collected sufficient to indicate that, allowing a range of five years
 
 HEALTH AND EECEEATION FOE THE YOUNG 67 
 
 By care in training we may make this life extend to 
 its full term, or a little over, but only by careful con- 
 servation. There is no making up for what is once 
 positively lost in the matter of life. Life is the reflex of 
 the dying earth in this respect. ' There are three 
 things,' said the Caliph Omar, ' which come not back 
 the sped arrow, the revengeful thought, and the spoken 
 word.' He would have added a fourth had he been a 
 vital physicist, viz. the stroke of the heart. 
 
 It is of no use opposing these natural facts; we 
 might as well buffet rocks with our hands. In training 
 up the child towards his natural standard we must in 
 everything thoughtfully conserve ; we may use up power 
 to its bearable limit for that is exercise in the true 
 sense, and is necessary but to do more is to destroy. 
 To get a stronger, and longer-lived, and finer model of 
 human kind, we must change through progenies, not 
 through individuals. We must alter the factors, then the 
 figures will come. 
 
 Mothers know these facts better than fathers, and 
 mothers are often laughed at because their knowledge is 
 the knowledge of love, and passion, and anxiety rather 
 than of cold, calculating, reasonable I had almost said 
 commercial expectation. But the mothers are none the 
 less right, and, indeed, men know better when they are 
 dealing with lives that have to be bought and sold. The 
 great breeders of flocks and herds do not try to harden or 
 over-tax the young lower animal they want to perfect. 
 
 of estimated value on either side, the method above stated affords a fair 
 basis for a general rule of calculation of the hereditary value of human 
 life in this stage of our knowledge of the means for preserving and 
 maintaining life. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOE THE YOUNG 
 
 They use a wise discretion, and they succeed in what they 
 do. At the same time they are often indiscriminate 
 about their own children. A country surgeon, whom I 
 much esteemed for his quick insight, once brought to 
 me for consultation a feeble boy of a consumptive 
 tendency, in order to settle the question whether the 
 mother's fostering or the father's hardening system 
 should prevail. ' The father,' said my friend, is a 
 clever man ; he is most successful in the management of 
 cattle, and if he would be only half as clever in the 
 rearing of his children all would be well. But he is 
 very hasty on this point, and the other day a day 
 bitterly cold he did two of the most inconsistent things 
 I ever knew a man to do. He quarrelled like a fury 
 with his poor wife for sending Charlie to skate with his 
 legs in warm stockings, and five minutes later dismissed 
 his groom for taking a colt out for exercise without 
 clothing it in a horse-cloth.' 
 
 The instance I have adduced of swimming is all I 
 can afford time for in illustration of excessive physical re- 
 creation. The example is one of fifty or more in which 
 errors of a similar kind are perpetrated in the manage- 
 ment of the young. Yet is there one more I dare not 
 let pass by, because of its great importance. It relates 
 to the plan of forcing recreation on children by surprises 
 or by mere force or insistence, against their courage 
 rather than against their will. 
 
 A child during some recreative exercise is told to do 
 something he would do if he could, but which he dare 
 not do. He is told to go into the water ; he is told to 
 jump over a fence or a wide gap ; he is told to mount a 
 horse or to get on the bar at the gymnasium. The child
 
 HEALTH AND RECKEATION FOR THE YOUNG 69 
 
 hesitates, and then, too often, comes the risk of danger 
 in direction. The child hesitates, and thereupon he is 
 admonished or he is bidden not to wait, or he is even 
 made to do what he is bidden ; or, worst of all, he is 
 tricked into the act, under the impression that once he 
 gets through the ordeal he will care for it no more, 
 hesitate never again. 
 
 This is disastrous work, beyond any measure of com- 
 parison. Little seeds of evil are sown in the mind by 
 these proceedings, which grow into the most terrible 
 consequences. Distrusts are engendered, and doubts as 
 to the good faith of the nearest and dearest, and there- 
 fore of every one. So there is developed a distrustful 
 mind, which is of all minds the most pitied for its own 
 sake and for everybody's sake that has to do with it. 
 
 And when we come to analysis of facts in relation to 
 causes, we find again that the practice which leads to 
 these sad distrusts is as foolish as it is hurtful. Courage 
 is not a quality that can be infused into a child by 
 threat, and trick, and force; it is a quality men and 
 women are born with, and its centre is the heart, not the 
 head. No one can make a person with a physically 
 feeble heart courageous. We say of men or children 
 who are strong and courageous, they are lion-hearted; 
 we say of those who are opposite, they are chicken- 
 hearted ; and the terms express the facts. But as we 
 cannot by the most consummate skill transform a 
 chicken into a lion, so we cannot make a chicken-heart 
 a lion-heart. We can encourage, set example, ex- 
 plain the freedom from danger, explain how to do the 
 thing that looks dangerous without much exposure to 
 risk ; and so we can train even a faint-heart to become
 
 70 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOR THE YOUNG 
 
 morally, if not physically, brave. But to try to give 
 physical courage to a body that is weak at its centre ; to 
 try to force courage out of such a body ; to try to call 
 forth what is not there ; to make it an opprobrium to be 
 weak-hearted ; and, under the name of coward, to hound 
 shamefully a poor, fluttering, gentle, loving, trustful 
 nature, as is commonly done, is one of the wickedest 
 pieces of ignorance with which I am conversant. It 
 never makes a man brave, but it makes many assume 
 bravery, and by the means of assumption generates a 
 race of cowardly hypocrites who are the very curses of 
 social life. 
 
 I have touched on one or two of the most deadly 
 errors connected with the recreative exercises of children. 
 I might pass now to the consideration of those modes 
 of recreation which promise to be most conducive to 
 national as well as to individual health. In this task I 
 might cast back on the different classes in the reverse 
 manner to that I have hitherto followed, beginning with 
 the younger and proceeding to the older members of the 
 community. 
 
 Before, however, I enter into details of this character, 
 I would like to clear the way by referring to certain often 
 styled recreative pursuits or pleasures, which, as I think, 
 ought to be removed altogether from that position. 
 
 There are four classes of so-called recreations which 
 deserve to be placed under the condemnation I have 
 named. The exercises included in these different classes 
 may be called pastimes, or games, or accomplishments, 
 or amusements, or anything else. My argument is not 
 with them in that sense ; my argument is that they are 
 not recreative, and therefore are not healthy.
 
 HEALTH AND KECEEATION FOE THE YOUNG 71 
 
 Firstly, then, whatever calls forth the passion of 
 expectation for the sake of self-interest is not recreation 
 but destruction. I mean by this, that whatever so indi- 
 vidualises a human being that in the pursuit of it all 
 thought concentrates in himself and his own selfish 
 expectations and hopes for success, exposes that human 
 being to a risk greater, perchance, than the risk he is 
 speculating upon. The risk means anxiety or worry ; 
 the anxiety means a sense of fulness and oppression 
 within the chest, and that sense of oppression means an 
 undue pressure and load upon the heart. In course 
 of time, sometimes prolonged, at other times instan- 
 taneous, the motion of the heart, under the excitement, 
 loses its nervous balance, and then there is set up a 
 truly physical condition of broken heart a condition 
 in which the heart intermits in its movements, or beats 
 out of rhythm, without respect to time. This is, in fact, 
 a broken heart a heart no longer steady, no longer 
 ready to meet emergency or carry its owner comfortably 
 into the vale of a long life. 
 
 The exclusion of such influences on life as those to 
 which I now refer throws out of the order of recreation 
 all games in which what are called stakes are played ; or 
 it would be more correct to say, all resort to games in 
 which the game is used for the purpose of play for high 
 stakes. The games may in themselves be innocent 
 enough, and even recreative, when they are merely 
 intended for simple exercise of skill. In this sense a 
 game at whist, or other games at cards, or a game at 
 billiards, bagatelle, chess, or the like may be purely 
 recreative and useful ; but when stakes come into the 
 play in such manner as to excite great anxiety and
 
 72 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOE THE YOUNG 
 
 expectation, then comes the danger. Winning then and 
 losing then is in either case bad. Winning elates ; 
 losing depresses ; both destroy. 
 
 I know of little that has been a worse physical 
 scourge to the human race, in civilised life, than this 
 system of using recreation for the purpose of winning or 
 losing, or, as it is called, staking. I say nothing of the 
 moral injuries at all ; they are not in my province. I 
 speak of the physical ; they are in my province. And 
 of this I am certain : that no man, woman, or child can 
 indulge long in any chance game for more than trivial 
 stakes, and remain in health. Health and chance are in- 
 compatibles. Whoever tries the experiment has ceased 
 to find recreation, and may say most truly with the 
 worst of adventurers : 
 
 For I have set my life upon a cast, 
 And I will stand the hazard of the die. 
 
 To the young, whatever partakes of a tendency to indulg- 
 ence in games of chance should never be taught, and 
 the desire for it should ever be suppressed or diverted by 
 some more wholesome recreation. To the older members 
 of the community the temptation to the same presumed 
 recreative pleasure should equally be withheld by all 
 wise and prudent monitors. 
 
 It is a good sign of our times that the taste for 
 games of chance is steadily passing away, and I think 
 our Government never did a wiser, a more healthful, 
 a more national, a more rational act, than when with 
 firm and unhesitating voice it forbade the mad project to 
 establish a public lottery for the presumed relief of the 
 sufferers from the Glasgow Bank failure. There were
 
 HEALTH AND KECKEATION FOB THE YOUNG 73 
 
 doubtless many broken hearts hearts physically broken 
 from that sad calamity ; but the number was a bagatelle 
 compared with the number that might have been reckoned, 
 had that appalling scheme for the promotion of national 
 degradation been allowed to run its ruinous course and 
 to set up its ruinous example. 
 
 Secondly, whatever calls forth a craving or fixed and 
 overpowering desire for the repetition of any particular 
 pleasure or gratification is not a recreation, but a de- 
 struction. In craving, as in gambling, individuality 
 overcomes the better judgment. The organic or vegeta- 
 tive part of the nature of man conquers the reasoning, 
 and a self-possession is attained, which in its extreme 
 form leads to the maddest of crimes robbery, forgery, 
 falsehood, lust, suicide, murder. Whoever craves unduly 
 for anything is, strictly speaking, unbalanced in mind, 
 and is practically insane. Whatever, therefore, ministers 
 to the animal part of man so entrancingly that it leads 
 to intense desire for repetition, or craving, is not recrea- 
 tion, but destruction. 
 
 The growing intensity of craving for a pleasure is the 
 most solemn danger connected with it, and, what is 
 worse, it is in most instances a danger which, once 
 trifled with, is long endured. The wisest cannot escape 
 it, nor the strongest, nor the best, when it is once estab- 
 lished, without an almost mortal conflict. One of the 
 wisest, one of the strongest of minds, one of the best, the 
 great Sir Humphry Davy, discovered, in his scientific 
 researches, a singular fascination, which with him 
 passed into what some would call a recreation, in the 
 breathing of laughing gas. In this process he became 
 absorbed and lost in such luxurious dreams that all the
 
 74 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOR THE YOUNG 
 
 universe seemed to him to consist of nothing but 
 thoughts. He revelled in dreams that at times reached 
 ecstasy. At last the craving for this false, this factitious 
 existence became to him so extreme that he could not 
 watch a person breathing, could not look at a gasholder, 
 without experiencing the intense desire to be once more 
 indulging in his aerial nectar. This was an exceptional 
 delight, to which he alone became accustomed, but it is 
 only typical of many that are more common and equally 
 dangerous, which, acquired in early life, are the after- 
 penalties of some part of life, and which, acquired even 
 late in life, are not free from their evil consequences. 
 
 Such kinds of so-called pleasures are not recreations ; 
 they are destructions : the body is not recreated upon 
 them nor by them. They kill time, and time is life ; 
 and so they kill life, for they shorten its days. Drinking 
 strong drinks ; taking into the body narcotics and nar- 
 cotic fumes, as the smoke of tobacco ; eating too much 
 of the assumed good, but really bad things of this life ; 
 these are the luxuries which beget the fatal cravings that 
 are most injurious. I will not venture to offend by putting 
 in too strong terms the denunciation of such forms of 
 pretended recreative pleasures. I will let the matured 
 who recreate after this fashion remain as the scapegoats 
 of the immatured, and I will simply enforce that the 
 cravings to which I have specially alluded, and all others 
 that might be referred to, ought not to be cultivated 
 between the period of birth and the attainment of the 
 majority of any child born in this era of civilisation. 
 
 Thirdly, whatever in the way of a pleasure or delight 
 shortens the hours of natural repose is not a recreation, 
 but a destruction. If it break repose outright by the
 
 HEALTH AND KECBEATION FOR THE YOUNG 75 
 
 circumstance that it keeps its victim out of the way of 
 going to rest at proper hours, it is not recreative ; if it 
 allows its victim to go to bed at proper times, but keeps 
 him awake in thought, and restlessly striving for sleep, it 
 is not recreative ; if it permits him so far to sleep as to let 
 him lose his consciousness of external things, but forces 
 him to dream, it is not recreative. Almost all recrea- 
 tions, as they are believed to be, which introduce strife, 
 or competition, or chance, produce this effect. They 
 are not recreations at all. They do not recreate; they 
 destroy. 
 
 One illustration of this form of injury occurs to me 
 here as very practical, and as important because it re- 
 lates to a comparatively new and increasing danger. I 
 refer to an exercise that is day by day becoming more 
 and more popular amongst our young and untrained 
 population, that of indulging in fiery and systematic 
 debate on the most solemn and abstruse questions. It 
 does not matter in these debates whether or not a debater 
 should show carefully studied knowledge ; the point to 
 be gained is to secure a victorious contest, to win at all 
 hazards. It is not even necessary that the debater be 
 consistent in the course that he takes, for it may be that 
 his reputation rests on the fact that he can, with equal 
 skill, discuss the subject successfully on the opposing 
 sides of it. No ; what has to be cultivated is perception, 
 finesse, the trick of catching up from an opponent some 
 point on which to found an adverse argument ; to throw 
 at one time fire and at another time water on the heads 
 of opponents. These are the seductive arts which govern 
 the young debater, and which set up cross vibrations in 
 the fibres of his as yet growing and unformed brain.
 
 76 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOR THE YOUNG 
 
 For my part, I think there is far too much of debating 
 amongst the educated classes in all periods of life. I 
 never see a man of culture, who possesses the qualities 
 necessary to become a teacher, enter the arena for mere 
 showy debate, without a pang at seeing what energy is 
 thrown away, that might be expended on thousands of 
 ignorant outsiders whom to teach would be a national 
 blessing. The sight presents to me the picture of a 
 number of well-fed citizens going into a ring and throwing 
 their rich viands at each other's heads and immensely 
 disfiguring themselves, while a vast multitude outside is 
 howling for the mere necessaries of existence. 
 
 But when we come to the young debaters, then we come 
 to the crisis. Then is the time to see the pelting heart, 
 the flushed brain, the straining expression after what 
 is not known, the heated declaration often of what the 
 speaker would afterwards give anything to withdraw, the 
 fierceness of expectation, the flush of conquest, the pallor 
 of defeat, the babble of discord, the succeeding restless- 
 ness, the weariness without repose, and the resolves and 
 schemes for the future : then, I say, is the time to see 
 these things and to consider what they will bring forth. 
 
 This is not recreation, but destruction. If I dared to 
 lift the professional veil and show the mental havoc 
 which I, as one only, have witnessed from this form of 
 contest, you, my readers, who are not learnedly conver- 
 sant with the facts, would wonder little at my earnestness. 
 It is the saddest part of this subject that those men or 
 youths whose minds are most excitable, least reasoning, 
 most impulsive, least absorbent, are the youths who are 
 most given to wish for the contest, and are most liable to 
 suffer physically and mentally from its results. If they
 
 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOR THE YOUNG 77 
 
 fight through the early ordeal without injury they are 
 fortunate, and even then are not benefited ; for when 
 they are young they acquire a debating, controversial 
 disposition, when they are old they do not depart from 
 it, and, according to their relative power, they bore to its 
 very vitals the comfort of a family, a town, a corporation, 
 or it may be a nation, until they create a wholesale re- 
 bellion against themselves, in which at last their very 
 friends join, and they are left to the inevitable fate of 
 being easily beaten by cooler and keener, though per- 
 chance less endowed intellectual opponents. To conclude 
 this head, nothing is recreative that does not naturally 
 lead to repose. That is a simple rule to remember, and 
 still simpler to act upon. When any one feels, by a few 
 observations, that anything he does, be it ever so pleasant, 
 interferes with his natural repose, let him be assured 
 that, whatever pig he may have caught by the ear, that 
 pig's name is neither Health nor Eecreation. 
 
 Fourthly, whatever is rendered automatic in mind or 
 act is not recreative and is not conducive to health. 
 Automatism long continued becomes, in fact, a form of 
 slavery, makes the mind fretful until the automatic pro- 
 cess is carried out in due time and order, and thereby 
 makes bcth body and mind fidgety, so that rest is not 
 obtained in a regular and systematic way. For aged 
 persons automatic amusements are, it is true, less harm- 
 ful than for the young, but I have no doubt that even 
 the aged are far more benefited by the pleasures of 
 changing recreations than by any orderly and systematic 
 recurrence of one particular pleasure. Variation prevents 
 undue pressure and wear on a single centre or set of 
 nervous centres ; it also prevents the sense of periodical
 
 78 HEALTH AND KECKEATION FOE THE YOUNG 
 
 restlessness until something to be done is done, and so 
 it conserves the life. 
 
 Some nominal recreations of a physical kind are, 
 under all conditions, so extreme that they ought to be 
 tabooed by all sensible and civilised people at all periods 
 of life. At the top of the list of these bad physical exer- 
 cises I place football. This game, in some modes of 
 playing it, is the cause of more physical mischief than I 
 can describe. To say nothing of the immediate injuries 
 that occur from it by falls, sprains, kicks and concussions, 
 broken bones, dislocations, broken shins, and other visible 
 accidents, there are others of a less obvious kind, which 
 are sometimes still more disastrous. Hernia, or rupture, 
 is one of these disasters ; varicose veins is another ; and 
 disease of the heart from pure over-strain is a third. 
 One of the finest built youths I have ever seen, who 
 came directly under my own observation, was for two 
 years entirely disabled owing to the excessive action of 
 the heart induced by his becoming a champion at foot- 
 ball ; and he escaped well to recover at all. The weak 
 do not recover perfectly at any time. 
 
 This is not recreation, but destruction ; and how it is 
 that in the present day of enlightenment there can be 
 found masters of schools who encourage the worst forms 
 of such a savage, damaging, right-down insane pastime 
 is one of the wonders of the day. 
 
 Middle-aged men and men past that period do not, 
 as a rule, play at football, but lately they have taken, in 
 vacation time, to a recreation which is to them almost as 
 bad, and that is climbing. At home a man may find 
 the second flight of stairs up to bed as much as he cares 
 to do in the way of ascending ; but in autumn, after ten
 
 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOR THE YOUNG 79 
 
 or eleven months' hard work, he thinks he must invigorate 
 himself by climbing a mountain that has become cele- 
 brated for its difficulty. He thereupon buys an ' alpen- 
 stock' I think that is the right word and up the 
 mountain he goes as far as he can blow. Perhaps he 
 does what he wished to do and gets down again, and 
 then he wonders why he is worse for the effort ! why his 
 breathing is so embarrassed, and why he should feel so 
 much older ; while his friends wonder that he, who was 
 climbing Swiss mountains a few months ago, should 
 have died so suddenly such a healthy-looking man, so 
 active, and only, after all, in his prime. His friends 
 would not wonder if they knew the strain which he, 
 already inelastic and incapable of strain, had passed 
 through in his great effort. 
 
 Sir Walter Kaleigh is said to have etched on a 
 window-pane 
 
 Fain would I climb, but fear lest I should fall ; 
 and his queen is said to have added 
 
 If thy heart fail thee, do not climb at all. 
 
 It would not be bad practice for every middle-aged man 
 who is ambitious to climb a mountain before he dies to 
 ask his physician whether, if he climbed at all, his heart 
 would fail him or let him down low beyond recall. 
 
 Let me pass from these considerations to those which 
 relate to the amusements that are demanded in our pre- 
 sent modes of life. I sometimes see by the public com- 
 ments on my papers, an inference is being drawn that I 
 am unfavourable to all recreation. Nothing could be 
 more incorrect. True recreation is, in my opinion, one
 
 80 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOR THE YOUNG 
 
 of the grand necessities for health during every stage 
 of rational life. 
 
 In my previous essay I referred to the fact that 
 amusements such as chess, which call for mental effort, 
 cease to be recreative so soon as they degenerate into 
 hard mental labour and leave impressions firmly fixed 
 on the mind. I named chess because I believe that of 
 all games it calls forth the largest share of mental 
 labour, and that it easily ceases to become a recreation. 
 At the same time, I have nothing but good to say of it 
 when it is resorted to occasionally without imposing upon 
 the player any great tension or mental strain. I think it 
 is, in moderate taste of it, a very fine mental exercise, 
 which mixes well both with physical and mental work, and 
 which is thus, in the purest sense of the term, recreative. 
 And so of other similar mental sports which involve no 
 chance or stake. 
 
 Nay, in games of chance themselves, such as cards, 
 I see nothing but good recreation when the stake, which 
 is their sting, is extracted from them. Whist, as a study 
 of proportion in numbers, is a fine mental exercise a 
 mental kaleidoscope full of pleasant surprise and wonder 
 while those games which depend partly upon chance 
 and partly upon skill, such as billiards, combine in their 
 legitimate application a mixture of mental and physical 
 exercise, which is excellently recreative and healthy when 
 healthily pursued. The only objection to these games 
 that can be raised against them is their easy degenera- 
 tion from recreation and health into labour, and worry, 
 and weariness, and disease. 
 
 It is part of my experience, indeed, that whenever any 
 one cannot indulge in recreation, and whenever any one is
 
 HEALTH AND EECREATION FOE THE YOUNG- 81 
 
 so busy with work that recreation seems to be a bore ; or is 
 so depressed and dull that recreation becomes a penalty 
 then any man, woman, youth, or child, is in danger. It 
 is, in all such examples, ten chances to one that the 
 person so circumstanced is suffering from some physical 
 malady, which is in turn affecting and enfeebling the 
 mental powers. 
 
 My objections are all directed against false notions 
 of recreation, against prodigal expenditure of time and 
 labour in assumed pleasures or pastimes which wear out 
 the body and mind instead of recreating the one and 
 refreshing the other. 
 
 I am led then to ask, What are true and natural 
 recreations ? What is absolutely necessary in the way of 
 recreation for persons of different ages, different stations, 
 and different modes of life ? 
 
 Let us first consider the subject in relation to the 
 early periods of life. 
 
 In England now the whole of the youth of the king- 
 dom is now under educational control. The institution of 
 universal education a few years ago marks an epoch in 
 the national history. Magna Charta was not a nobler 
 page. In the Board schools the minds of the young of 
 all the masses are turned towards what is good or bad, 
 and as in them the example of the high-class voluntary 
 schools will probably be largely followed, we may fairly 
 assume that we have, through the young, the recreation 
 as well as the learning of the nation fairly in hand, and 
 with this realisation of power we should assume that 
 recreation ought, in fact, to become a real part of the 
 educational programme. 
 
 We ought, in other words, to make the subject of 
 
 a
 
 82 HEALTH AND BECREATION FOR THE YOUNG 
 
 recreation a scientific study, so that natural recreative 
 delights might be put on the proper line for serving health. 
 Viewing the subject in this sense of it, I should place 
 music as the primitive of recreative pleasures. It proves 
 itself first by its spontaneity. We mark that our 
 children are well and happy when they can sing. We 
 see men and women gathered together, and find the 
 height of mirth and happiness when somebody gives a 
 song or a tune. In the most refined society music is the 
 joy of life; in the lowest dens, men hardly above 
 animals, when they meet to be amused, sing. It may 
 be that in all these positions the music is very bad, but 
 it is there, and it extends through creation. 
 
 Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings. 
 
 In a word, this music is an element of nature. It fills 
 the universe ; it fills the microcosm of the universe the 
 human soul. 
 
 Here, therefore, is the first recreation to be scientifi- 
 cally studied. Make a nation a musical nation, and 
 think how we have harmonised it socially, morally, 
 healthfully. We cannot begin to teach this recreation 
 too early or too soundly. 
 
 We ought to begin by making the learning of notes 
 in succession the scale of musical sounds coincident 
 with the learning of the alphabet. The one could be 
 taught just as easily as the other, and would be retained 
 as readily, perhaps more agreeably. Next, the intervals 
 should be taught in a simple but careful way, so that 
 melody may be acquired and the art of sight-singing laid. 
 From this elementary basis should follow the simplest 
 forms of time, after which a plain melody could be read
 
 HEALTH AND KECREATION FOE THE YOUNG- 83 
 
 with as much ease as the reading of the first story-book. 
 Simple part songs, leading to endless delight, would 
 succeed in exercise, and a true and natural language in 
 sweet sounds would be the property, in one generation, of 
 all the nation. 
 
 The system of teaching the very young useful infor- 
 mation from the study of natural objects, in the midst of 
 recreative enjoyments not in fixed attitudes on hard 
 seats for hours at a time is another blending of recrea- 
 tion and work which would tend in the most excellent 
 manner to that equalisation of work and play which 
 would be the summum bonum of happiness. The Kinder- 
 garten is an admirable blending of this kind, and is 
 worthy, in our English life, of general imitation. I am 
 myself no slavish admirer of German acquirements ; I 
 do not believe that every Frciulein who pretends to teach 
 music is a great musician, or better than those who are 
 to the manner born. I do not believe that every German 
 professor is a philosopher, or that every miserable second- 
 hand English pedant who can play no other part than 
 that of a German translator should be allowed to pipe 
 down all native talent as it exists now, and as it has 
 existed in such masters as Faraday, Davy, Locke, Hume, 
 Bacon, Shakespeare, and the hardly mortal Newton. But 
 it is nevertheless true that in mode of education the 
 Germans can teach us many things, and in the Kinder- 
 garten they have set a lesson which we may with much 
 advantage learn and practise. 
 
 Together with these recreations I should place dancing 
 as another recreation for the young ; by which I mean 
 not mere set dancing after the form of high-class, high- 
 company quadrille alone, but good, graceful dancing in 
 
 o 2
 
 84 HEALTH AND KECREATION FOE THE YOUNG 
 
 figures as varied as the changing sky. There are a 
 number of good old English dances which deserve to be 
 reintroduced for this purpose of recreation. A clever 
 schoolmaster could write a school book on dancing that 
 would be a fortune to himself and a source of happiness 
 to all who practically studied it. 
 
 After dancing I should put forward for the young of 
 both sexes the process of drill and gymnastic exercises. 
 Swimming, too, as a recreation should, with due care and 
 encouragement, be taught to both sexes. Swimming has 
 a double, nay, a treble, purpose : it teaches a very useful 
 and necessary accomplishment ; it is a good exercise, 
 expanding the chest and giving play to the limbs ; and it 
 encourages cleanliness, for a good swimmer learns to like 
 the sensation of a clean surface of the body. To that 
 veteran sanitarian Mr. Edwin Chadwick, whose introduc- 
 tion of the half-time system into factory life places him 
 amongst the great liberators from practical slavery, this 
 last advantage of swimming would probably seem on the 
 whole the most healthful. 
 
 For recreation out-of-doors, for boys and girls, there 
 is nothing finer in winter than skating, nor for boys has 
 there ever been invented a finer summer exercise than 
 English cricket. The founder of the Olympian games 
 deserves a monument not half as high as the inventor of 
 that immortal game with the ball, and the bat, and the 
 wicket. Cricket has lost in gracefulness, and I, for one, 
 think, in skill, of late years, by the introduction of the 
 somewhat animal exhibition of swift and round bowling ; 
 but it is recovering from that insanity, and I hope it will 
 retain the first place amongst the outdoor games of 
 English boys and men wherever they may go.
 
 HEALTH AND KECKEATION FOk THE YOUNG 85 
 
 There are some gentler games which are good for both 
 sexes out-of-doors. Since its introduction, the game of 
 croquet has been of immense benefit to the health of girls 
 and women. It has taken them out of the house, and 
 encouraged them to activity in pure atmospheres. Bad- 
 minton and lawn tennis have the same good influences. 
 
 There is another game which ought to belong to 
 women as well as men, which is also singularly good, and 
 which should be reintroduced into every village in England. 
 I mean the old English game of bowls. There is no 
 game that calls forth better or more healthful exercise. 
 It calls for skill, it brings every muscle into play, and it 
 does not suddenly exhaust by single and violent paroxysms 
 of effort. It encourages repose, and, as Martin Luther 
 thought, it helps digestion. 
 
 If we could teach our young to sing harmoniously, 
 and know the language of sweet sounds ; if we could teach 
 them the music of motion in the dance ; if we could make 
 them float and move gracefully in the water ; and if we 
 could let them recreate in such gambols as I have 
 named, bringing the members of both sexes as often as 
 possible together in innocent and recreative enjoyment 
 we should indeed give health ; we should indeed make 
 a new people, born to health and all its blessedness. 
 Why should we not ? We have all the means at our 
 command. We want only the will. 
 
 We can deal with the young easily now, if we like, in 
 respect to recreations, and can mould them as we please. 
 But what of those industrial and agricultural adults the 
 millions of workers whose minds are formed, and who 
 wait, and waste, and strive, and still wait ?
 
 86 HEALTH AND RECREATION FOR THE YOUNG 
 
 I put forward the Greek model of recreative life in 
 a former paper as perfect, in its way, for producing an 
 ephemeral type of perfected physical form and beauty. 
 I have been reminded over and over again, since then, 
 that this perfected people nevertheless fell ; fell an easy 
 prey to barbarous encroachment; fell, says one of my 
 learned critics, like ripe apples from a fruitful tree. 
 
 It is true, and they would fall again under the same 
 conditions. Yet their fate none the less forcibly illus- 
 trates my argument. They proved at least what could 
 be done by a section of a great community. Their fate 
 proved no failure in the matter of accomplishment, but 
 a failure in the foundation on which the accomplishment 
 was laid ; and that same fate might easily be ours. That 
 is the fate we have to avoid, and the avoidance of it con- 
 sists in making the causes of the attainments of the 
 favoured minority extend, in some fair proportion, if not 
 in perfection, to the whole of our population. If we 
 would live by perfected knowledge, we must, if I may so 
 say, pin every man to the earth by it. Then there will 
 be a foundation, solid, and unshifting, and satisfied. 
 
 Here, therefore, is the problem. How shall we diffuse 
 recreative pleasures amongst the masses ? 
 
 I have been a great deal amongst these masses. 
 Two public inquiries which I have had in hand relating 
 to the health of these masses have led me into their own 
 centres of life, and to diagnose, with that knowledge 
 which comes from a life of experience in diagnosis, their 
 physical condition ; and the fact I have learned I am 
 not speaking on matter of opinion at all, but of fact is 
 that the first step to take will be to reduce their hours 
 of labour. I am quite sure that by such reduction they
 
 HEALTH AND KECKEATION FOE THE YOUNG 87 
 
 would do more work, and that soon they would do happily 
 in eight hours what they languidly do now in ten. This 
 effected, the next step is to improve their recreative 
 opportunities, by clearing away the loathsome tempta- 
 tions which beset them in every step of their course, so as 
 to make sin an expensive difficulty ; and by introducing 
 such pleasures as are harmless and truly recreative. 
 
 All those recreations to which I have referred above 
 come in to our aid here, with others fitter for men. 
 The music class ? Yes. The dancing class ? Yes. The 
 swimming bath? Yes. Cricket, bowls, tennis, drill, 
 the gymnasium ? Yes. And to these I would add still 
 other sources of enjoyment ; museums for them to enter 
 whenever they have time ; free galleries of artistic beauty ; 
 an improved stage ; a very flood of good and wholesome 
 literature ; and colleges in which subjects of advanced 
 knowledge and thought may not be debated, but taught 
 to them secundum artem. 
 
 I do not think that these improvements are out of 
 the range of accomplishment, any more than are the 
 means for the advanced recreative education of the 
 young. We have all the appliances. It is will alone 
 that is needed. 
 
 The six millions of the domestic class of this country 
 the women of the household must not be left behind. 
 Their fate follows the fate of the rest, or marches with 
 it. They are married to their fate, and the tie is a close 
 one. But I need not specially discuss it ; it is included 
 in what has been, and in what remains to be, said. 
 
 We come at last to the recreations of that minority 
 less than two millions in all which forms the govern- 
 ing and commanding mental force of the country, the
 
 88 HEALTH AND KECKEATION FOE THE YOUNG 
 
 headship of the whole. In this minority including in 
 it the commercial as well as the professional classes 
 ought to be found the nearest approach to the perfection 
 of recreative enjoyment, and of all the health that 
 springs from such enjoyment. There cannot be a doubt 
 that the health of this minority is higher than that of 
 the majority, and that its mortality is relatively lower. 
 This is, however, due rather to protection from direct de- 
 pressing causes, such as actual want, privation, worry, 
 and care, than to affirmative good arising from judicious 
 methods of recreative pursuit. If, indeed, we survey the 
 whole field of recreation amongst these more favoured 
 classes, the inference to be obtained is that their relaxa- 
 tions and pleasures are, on the whole, detrimental to 
 health. The pleasures include, amongst the most promi- 
 nent evils, late hours; too free indulgence in rich and in- 
 digestible foods ; indulgence in stimulants and narcotics ; 
 a great deal of chance play ; attention to many so-called 
 artistic delights which are neither chastening nor en- 
 nobling in character ; participation in feats of mere 
 animal strength few of dexterity, and none which are 
 specially invigorating either to soul or body; the perusal 
 of a literature which is not of the highest class ; and 
 the encouragement of a drama which, abused most 
 unjustly for its sensational commonness, is never syste- 
 matically supported in the sustainment of its nobler 
 purposes, as set forth by its grandest representative, ' to 
 show Virtue her own feature, Scorn her own image, 
 and the very age and body of the time its form and 
 pressure.' 
 
 We look round in despair, in short, to find a recrea- 
 tion for the favoured few that is healthy in itself, or that,
 
 HEALTH AND RECKEATION FOR THE YOUNG 89 
 
 being healthy, is conducted healthily. But the favoured 
 classes are they that should set the example to the rest 
 of the community; and to them it is most urgent to 
 appeal, that they may introduce such reforms as shall 
 be the examples for the many. 
 
 The examples are not different from those suggested 
 for the younger and the poorer sections of the com- 
 munity, though they may be supplemented by others 
 which the less wealthy could not afford, to the great 
 advantage of trade and commercial activity. Eiding or 
 walking leisurely through the whole of our beautiful 
 country, until all its lovely scenery is appreciated, and 
 the people of different parts of it are known is one of 
 the recreations for both sexes of the wealthy which 
 would advance their own health, increase their knowledge, 
 and encourage a most useful and fair expenditure of the 
 good things with which they are blessed beyond their 
 fellow-countrymen. And, when their own country is 
 exhausted, there is still all the world before them.
 
 90 
 
 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION. 1 
 
 IN this address I propose to consider the question of 
 ' Health through Education,' that is to say, the study of 
 those methods of education by which the mind, during the 
 whole period of its work, may be maintained in a healthy 
 and properly balanced condition, its powers usefully 
 employed, and its natural tendencies allowed full and 
 natural scope and development. 
 
 Up to the present time the progress of science for 
 the promotion of health has had reference, almost exclu- 
 sively, to the physical health in education, to the state 
 of the schoolroom, to the diet of the scholar, to the 
 clothing, to the training and exercise of the body, to the 
 position of the scholar at the desk, and to such-like 
 purely physical considerations. These considerations 
 can scarcely be over-estimated. I have had the happiness 
 to be associated with the most earnest and energetic of 
 the sanitary leaders who, in our generation, have striven 
 to force them on the attention of a public not always too 
 willing to listen to them, and I regret that I should have 
 to put them somewhat aside for the present hour. But 
 I feel there is another subject even of more pressing 
 
 1 Address delivered at the Conference on Education, held in the 
 Booms of the Society of Arts, January 16, 1880.
 
 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 91 
 
 moment, and therefore I turn to it. The purely physical 
 study has made its way to some extent : the subject I 
 have now before me has made, practically, no way at all, 
 although its importance can hardly be exaggerated. 
 
 Men engaged steadily and systematically in taking 
 different views of the same object are led to see differently 
 and to express themselves Differently. I cannot therefore 
 conceal that I approach the argument I would set forth 
 with a perfect knowledge of the fact that I must speak 
 what is, or what may seem to be, contrary to the opinions 
 which are entertained by many who are deeply inter- 
 ested in the work of education, and who, hi most respects, 
 are masters or mistresses of the argument on its prac- 
 tical, scholastic side. Those who are engaged in the actual 
 labour of teaching from day to day may entertain views 
 very different in kind from mine. Those who are anxious 
 and over-anxious for the education of their children may 
 entertain views of a very different character from mine, 
 and may, indeed, be far more likely than the teachers of 
 their children to differ from me. The teachers will, 
 I think, in their hearts, be in most respects with me 
 altogether. 
 
 When I say that the physical side of the health 
 question is not a part of my present programme, I do 
 not quite state the whole truth, for the physical side of 
 the question is, in one direction, admitted in it. There 
 is always in progress a reaction of the mind on the body 
 which, when it is clearly understood, is seen to be mo- 
 mentous in its results. The amount of physical disease 
 that is dependent on mental influence is large beyond 
 any accepted present conception of it. I am almost 
 afraid to express what I know on this point, lest I should
 
 92 HEALTH THKOUGH EDUCATION 
 
 appear to be putting forward what is speculative instead 
 of what is real. And yet I may venture to say that 
 of the deaths of adults who die in their prime from 
 what are called natural diseases a good fourth is due 
 to diseased conditions of body that have been induced by 
 mental influences. The actual and immediate cause of 
 the demise, the killing blow, may be outside the body, 
 may be independent of the body, may be very subtle and 
 seemingly very slight, may admit of no correct scientific 
 exposition at this present stage of science, may be some 
 unknown or obscure meteorological influence ; and yet 
 the conditions leading up to the point when slight causes 
 take effect may all the while have been in steady pro- 
 gress, and may all the while have been mental, mental 
 from the first, in the persons affected. Thus men in the 
 prime of life often die suddenly from some slight external 
 influence of a physical nature which has acted upon them 
 fatally, and which gets the whole of the blame ; but the 
 conditions of body which have rendered that external 
 influence effective have been long in operation ; have 
 been, in the strictest form of expression, mental influ- 
 ences modifying the physical structures, and making 
 those structures susceptible of destructive change from 
 slight external shocks or vibrations. Thus, again, here- 
 ditary tendencies, originally formed from mental action, 
 are often transmitted in the character of hereditary phy- 
 sical disease, under which, from some slight external 
 influence, death may occur. 
 
 Impressions traversing the senses into the organ of 
 the mind afford the most striking illustrations of physical 
 derangements and of degenerations from mental action 
 in which the mental and the physical most intimately
 
 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 93 
 
 blend. They give rise, in fact, to a term which is as 
 distinctly physical as any that would describe a mechani- 
 cal concussion or blow the term, most correct in its 
 application, of ' mental shock : ' a shock or blow received 
 by the body through the mind, and producing physical 
 action in the body; a transmutation of an unknown 
 force, which we have only named, so far, by metaphysi- 
 cal names, such as fear, anger, hate, love, into a strictly 
 physical force and a resultant effect ; a vibration through 
 the senses, yet not of mere sound, not of mere light, but 
 of something more of which hearing or sight are but the 
 modes of conveyance, modes of conveyance into the 
 nervous atmosphere or ether, to be changed there into 
 some new state of motion or into a new physical con- 
 dition that is inimical to continuance of life. 
 
 Let me explain by one example. 
 
 A little boy was once brought to me by a medical 
 friend under the following painful circumstances. The 
 boy was the son of a carpenter, and his father sent him 
 occasionally to a neighbouring timber-yard to give orders 
 for wood. The keeper of the timber-yard, a modified 
 type of Mr. Quilp, had a morbid delight in frightening 
 children. He had bought a large ugly and savage 
 dog, and he tied the dog closely up in a recess in the 
 passage leading to the timber-yard. The little boy I 
 speak of, knowing nothing of this new and terrible im- 
 portation, was proceeding, as usual, down to the yard, 
 when the dog flew out at him. The dog could not reach 
 the boy, but the little fellow was so affrighted that he 
 stood motionless for two or three minutes, and at last 
 fell to the earth. He was picked up by some kind 
 passer-by and taken home, and from that moment was
 
 94 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 
 
 stricken by the fatal disease called diabetes, of which in 
 time he died. In this instance there was the direct phy- 
 sico-mental shock followed by physical change, in line. 
 There was the metaphysical vibration of fear transmitted 
 by sight and sound into the body; there was the nervous 
 storm engendered in the body ; there was the resultant 
 in a modification of chemical action, by which, in con- 
 tinuous new conditions, a part of the food taken into the 
 body was changed into glucose or grape-sugar ; and, on 
 the formation of this sugar in excess, there followed a 
 new series of other organic changes, ending in destruction 
 of that unity of functions which makes up what we call 
 life. I need scarcely say that the illustration above sup- 
 plied is one in which a mental impression, made through 
 the mind upon the body, was exceptionally severe in its 
 physical effects. But such severe effects have to be seen 
 before the great and primary truths they teach can be 
 recognised. 
 
 I was myself many years in practice as a physician 
 before I fully recognised these physical changes wrought 
 through the windows of the mind. It is true I had read 
 of those who were almost bechilled to jelly by the act of 
 fear, but then I looked upon such sayings as mere nights 
 of poetic genius, and in medical literature proper I dis- 
 covered no clue for guidance in this beat of observation. 
 At last such facts as the one I have stated arrested my at- 
 tention, and since it has been so arrested I have been daily 
 studying the subject with increasing interest. I could 
 fill this essay and many essays with details of observed 
 phenomena of physical disease from mental action under 
 mental shock. 
 
 Indeed, in so many forms do the mental impressions
 
 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 95 
 
 tell on the bodily organisation, that mental health in 
 education becomes a new branch of science which all 
 persons should begin to learn. By the assistance of 
 this learning our successors will formulate a new world 
 of thought, and will in no small degree fashion, physically, 
 a new world of women and men, having the garb of their 
 souls structurally finer, stronger, and more tenacious of 
 life, from whom shall come a new evolution of species, 
 and a new living earth. 
 
 On this inviting theme I must not longer dwell. It 
 is my desire now to treat on those bad mental influences 
 in education which undo the mental and physical health, 
 and on the modes by which these injurious influences 
 may be removed. 
 
 Constitutions of Mind. 
 
 Suppose we had before us in our schools a body of 
 children all of whom were typical specimens of health. 
 It would then be a momentous fact to know that we 
 could, by our methods of feeding the children with 
 knowledge, make them all specimens of good or bad 
 health. But the truth is that, when we have before us 
 a class of children, we have probably not one before us 
 who is a typical specimen of perfect health. It is a 
 solemn thing to say, and yet it is as truthful as it is 
 solemn, that I have never in my whole professional life 
 seen a perfectly healthy child, and I doubt if one exists 
 in the land. The birthday of health is not yet in the 
 almanack. As a rule, in the majority of children of 
 every class, there is some prepared mode of departure 
 from health inborn in its members. In many of its
 
 96 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 
 
 members the bad health is not merely inborn, but is 
 in actual existence, easily detectable under scientific 
 research. How important, then, that in the modes of 
 training the mind such modes only should be selected as 
 would lead to the better development of both body and 
 mind ! How vastly important that all modes shall be 
 avoided which shall lead to a lower development of the 
 mind, and of the body through the mind ! If, indeed, it 
 could be that the mind could be elevated while the body 
 was degraded, I, for my part, should doubt the wisdom of 
 education. And if it be really impossible, as I should 
 maintain it is, to elevate either mind or body alone, and 
 absolutely impossible to make one great and the other 
 little, how wide a problem lies before us in respect to 
 education in this age ! 
 
 What, then, are the modes to be followed in educa- 
 tion by which the mental training may be made con- 
 ducive to both mental and physical development and 
 regeneration ? May we think of such modes ? I am 
 sure we may, and practise them also. At the same time, 
 the thought as well as the practice requires to be con- 
 sidered from new points of view of an educational kind. 
 
 Let me proceed to indicate what seem to be some of 
 the basic changes that must be made in education in 
 order to found a system of mental and physical health 
 on education. I cannot pretend to do more than touch 
 on a few of these changes, the more prominent to my 
 own mind, but far from a complete list. 
 
 In the first place, there is, I venture to think, too 
 much friction of mind in education, and, as a conse- 
 quence, much injury, mental and physical, from cross 
 nervous vibration, owing to the plan which now prevails
 
 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 97 
 
 of treating every boy and girl as if every boy and girl 
 had the same nervous construction and mental aptitude. 
 
 As it seems to me, there are as distinctly two grand 
 divisions of mental aptitudes as there are two grand 
 divisions of sex, and any attempt to convert one into the 
 other is a certain failure. The two divisions I refer to are 
 the analytical and the synthetical, or, in other words, 
 the examining and the constructive types of mind. 
 
 In our common conversation on living men with 
 whom we are conversant in life we are constantly ob- 
 serving upon them in respect to these two qualities of 
 mind. We say of one man that he has no idea or plan 
 of looking into details ; he cannot calculate accurately ; 
 he cannot be intrusted with any minute labour of de- 
 tails ; but he can construct anything. Give him the 
 tools and materials for work, and he will build a house ; 
 but if he had to collect and assort the tools and materials, 
 he would never construct at all. We say of another 
 man that he is admirable at details, and can be intrusted 
 with any work requiring minute definition, but he has 
 no idea of putting anything together so as to produce a 
 new result or effect. 
 
 Moreover, we assign to these different men distinctive 
 services in the world. We understand them perfectly, 
 and by an unwritten and, I may almost say, by a spon- 
 taneous estimate we reckon them up and give them their 
 precise place in the affairs of life with which they are 
 connected. It is as if by design of nature these classes 
 of men, and it may be of women also, exist as pure types 
 of intellectual form, have always existed, and are always 
 being repeated. In other words, it is as if they are 
 definite families, and that out of them, as out of a dual 

 
 98 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 
 
 nature, that human organisation of thought, which we 
 call history, is educed. 
 
 The elements of the analytical and synthetical minds 
 appear on a large scale in the pursuits which men follow. 
 The mathematician is analytical, and he, in whatever 
 science his powers are called forth, is always working on 
 the analytical line. He may be an astronomer, a chemist, 
 a navigator, an engineer, an architect, a physician, a 
 painter ; but whatever he is, all his work is by analysis. 
 We often wonder at his labour, at his accuracy, at his 
 fidelity. We may say of him that he approaches nature 
 herself in the magnitude and perfection of his results, 
 but we never say of him that he is inventive or con- 
 structive. From him much that is quite new comes 
 forth, but it is always something that he has hauled out 
 of the dark recesses : he lays his treasures at our feet, 
 and we are content to admire and wonder. We may be 
 entranced with our view of the produce of this man, but 
 he very rarely kindles our enthusiasm for him as a man, 
 and very often we find that no credit has been given to him 
 as himself deserving of it. We praise only his industry. 
 The poet is, on the other hand, synthetical. This does 
 not always follow, but it usually does, and I think we 
 may fairly say that every man of a purely constructive 
 mind is a poet, albeit we may not be able to say that 
 every poet is constructive. But in whatever particular 
 phase of life and action he exists he shows his synthesis 
 distinctively. His tendency is naturally to drift into 
 such labours as are inventive and constructive. Fre- 
 quently he avails himself of the labours of the analyst 
 whom he unconsciously follows, believing meantime hi 
 himself alone. He makes for us romance in literature ;
 
 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 99 
 
 mechanical instruments in handicraft ; pictures in art ; 
 tunes and melodies in music ; plays and epics and songs 
 in poetry; strategies in war ; laws in parliament; specu- 
 lations in commerce ; methods in science. 
 
 The two orders of men are often as distinct in feeling 
 as they are in work. They do not love each other, and 
 they admire each other little. Jealousy does not separate 
 them, but innate repulsion. The analytical looks on 
 the synthetical scholar as wild, untrustworthy, pre- 
 suming, hasty, dangerous. The synthetical looks on the 
 analytical with pity, or it may be contempt, as on one 
 narrow, conceited, and so cautious as to be helpless ; a 
 bird that has never been fledged, or, being fledged, has 
 not dared to stretch out his wings to fly. 
 
 It has in rarest instances happened that the two 
 natures have been combined in one and the same person. 
 It is, I think, probable that this combination has been 
 the reason for the appearance of the six or seven greatest 
 of mankind. As a general fact, however, the combina- 
 tion has not been fortunate. It has most frequently 
 produced startling mediocrities, whose claims to great- 
 ness have been sources of disputation rather than in- 
 stances of acknowledged excellence. 
 
 These orders of mind, distinctive of the distinct, are 
 in their primitive forms so essential to the course of 
 progress, that it is difficult to assign priority of value to 
 either. The analytical mind seems to be most indus- 
 trious and soundest in practice : the synthetical, the 
 most brilliant, and when on the right track the most 
 astounding, in the effects it produces. The analytical is 
 the first parent of knowledge, the synthetical the second 
 both necessary.
 
 100 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 
 
 To apply this reasoning to our present argument, I 
 maintain that, as the child is the father of the man, so 
 in every child there is always to be detected, if it be 
 a child of any parts at all, the type of mind. I will 
 undertake to say that every experienced teacher could 
 divide his school into these tw r o great analytical and 
 synthetical classes. He might have a few who combine 
 both powers, and he would no doubt have a residuum, 
 a true caput mortuum, that had no distinctive powers 
 at all ; but he would have the two distinctives. He 
 would have scholars who could analyse as easily as they 
 could run or walk, and to whom the mathematical 
 problem and all that may be called analytical is as easy 
 as play, but who have little inventive or constructive 
 power. He would have the scholars whose minds are 
 ever open to impressions from outer natural phenomena, 
 who have quick original ideas, who have, it may be, the 
 true poetic sentiment, but who cannot grasp the ana- 
 lytical and detailed departments of learning at all. The 
 illustrious William Harvey was a scholar of this latter 
 type. It is related of him that late in his life he was 
 discovered studying Oughtred's ' Clavis Mathematical 
 and he remarked then that the simplicity of the proposi- 
 tions their obviousness as it were had formerly been 
 an obstacle in his way. Harvey was simply a pure type 
 of a most original, and I may go so far as to say me- 
 chanical, mind, which, abashed in youth before mathe- 
 matical problems, in later life, when the reasoning 
 faculty the wise faculty was brought to bear upon 
 the difficulties, looked on the understanding of them 
 as (Difficulties merely from their self-obviousness and 
 simplicity.
 
 HEALTH THKOUGH EDUCATION 101 
 
 The moral I draw from these outlines of natural fact 
 is that in teaching it is injury of mind, and thereby 
 injury of body, to try to force analytical minds into syn- 
 thetical grooves, or to try to force synthetical minds into 
 analytical. I have an instance under my own observa- 
 tion at this time in which a worthy, a most earnest, and 
 I may add most practical, mathematical master is trying 
 to teach a boy, whose mind is all for construction, the 
 details of the science of details. He had better try to 
 get a third chemical element out of water by chemical 
 process, for that task, hard as it might be, could possibly 
 be a success. But this boy, bright of brightness when 
 the lines on which he can tread are before him, is hope- 
 less here. The master may be angry or perplexed, the 
 parents disappointed; the thing cannot be done. If 
 fifty masters could be employed in the effort, or if the 
 ability of fifty masters could be forced into one master, 
 the thing could not be done. By a mere act of tempo- 
 rary cram, the thing might be carried out in what we 
 may call a treacherous manner ; but it could not be carried 
 out by an honest and reliable education of that youthful 
 mind. Meanwhile, the injury that is being inflicted on 
 the youthful organism is incalculable. Time that could 
 be usefully expended is ruthlessly cast away. Then, the 
 mind itself is rendered irritable and obtuse with each 
 lesson, and the hope deferred makes the heart sick in the 
 truest sense of the term. The failure of each lesson tells 
 on the heart, making that organ irritable and uncertain 
 making its owner, in fact, ' sick at heart.' This tells 
 in turn on the stomach, causing persistent dyspepsia, 
 and soon there follow the trains of sensations of 'disap- 
 pointment, fears of failure in other things, anger at sight
 
 102 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 
 
 of the success of other minds, and all those troubles 
 which lead to the perversion of feeling which so easily 
 becomes the promoter of universal doubt and the opener 
 of despair. 
 
 Teachers of youthful scholars will recognise so readily 
 and fully the facts I name, that they will perhaps wonder 
 that I should relate them. Let them pardon me for the 
 sake of the object I have in view. They know, and I 
 know, that these natural differences exist, but the fathers 
 and mothers of children of such differing capacities do 
 not know. The parents look upon all children as alike, 
 and expect all to be turned out of the same brand. If 
 the children are not turned out of the same brand the 
 fault, of course, is the master's, and the master or mis- 
 tress is thought to be very conceited or overbearing if he 
 or she presumes to state the truth. Perhaps, therefore, 
 it is best for me, who am not a schoolmaster, to speak 
 the truth in all its nakedness. I am only one of the 
 public, and can bear, without harm, any amount of 
 chastisement for my temerity. 
 
 As a practical outcome of this part of my argument 
 I should suggest to the public that the members of the 
 scholastic profession should be duly encouraged to try 
 and discriminate, in the case of all their scholars, what 
 is the natural bent of the mind of each scholar ; and 
 that, having found this out satisfactorily, they should be 
 further encouraged to train the scholar according to his 
 bent of mind, in order to make him what he really can 
 be as distinct from what he never can be made by any 
 forced attempt at producing the impossible.
 
 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 103 
 
 Constitutions of Body. 
 
 A second point in relation to mental health in educa- 
 tion to which I would wish to draw attention relates to 
 the constitution of the body, the stamina of the body 
 to use a good and expressive term for work of mind. 
 Just as children of quite different mental stamina are 
 set to the same labours, and are expected to do the same 
 kinds of labour with equal success, so in like manner 
 children of different bodily stamina are expected to do 
 the same labours, and to produce out of them the same 
 results. No error can be more fatal. The class is 
 under the eye of the teacher, in line before him. In 
 one sweep of vision, if the class is a large one, he takes 
 in all the diatheses, all the deep constitutional tints and 
 taints of disease. If he swept his fingers over the keys 
 of a pianoforte he could not detect a more definite series 
 of regular changes. 
 
 There is the child with blue eye, light flaxen hair, 
 fragile form, pale cheek, finely chiselled ear, delicate 
 hand, quick apprehension, and nervous, almost scared, 
 nature. That child can be taught almost anything and 
 everything. It may be a very ambitious child, but it is 
 easily put down, and it is always, on the least emotion, 
 vibrating or palpitating. It is the type of the true 
 tuberculous child. You will find of a certainty that 
 some members of its family have died of tuberculous 
 disease in one or other of its forms, most likely of pul- 
 monary consumption. This child may be precocious to 
 an extreme degree, may lap up learning like water, and 
 become morbid in the acquirement of knowledge, but it 
 is always vibrating and constitutionally feeble.
 
 104 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 
 
 There is another, of the same general construction 
 but of much coarser mould, an obviously defective child 
 with nothing to fascinate : a head probably a little mis- 
 shapen, the crown somewhat raised and pointed ; the 
 face pale ; the eye blue or bluish-grey ; the ear not well 
 shaped ; the hair stiff, so that it has to be cut short to 
 look passable ; the hands large and clumsy ; the mind 
 rather stolid, and not over-appreciative, but fairly steady 
 at work ; the manner subdued and obedient ; the nature 
 trusting, but somewhat selfish, and often fretful. This 
 is the type of the strumous child. This child never can 
 work with zest : it has no precocity : when it labours hard, 
 it soon becomes as it were benumbed, and the firmest 
 teacher bids it go out and run, or lets it sit down and sleep. 
 
 There is another type in the school equally distinctive. 
 The head is large ; the face large and probably ruddy ; 
 the lips large ; the eye grey or light blue ; the hair red- 
 dish-brown ; the ear large, with a big lower lobe ; the 
 hands big; the body inclined to be plump, and the 
 joints large and clumsy. The minds of this type are 
 slow, but at the same time receptive : they are good- 
 natured and heavy, but they bear disappointment badly, 
 and punishment of all kinds very badly. Neither much 
 work nor much play is in them. These are types of the 
 rheumatical diathesis. You would find in them, as 
 family physical taints, rheumatism, neuralgia, gout, as 
 direct conditions of natural descent ; and epilepsy, chorea 
 Sancti Viti, heart-disease, and dropsy as the secondary or 
 indirect manifestations of the primitive taint which they 
 have inherited. 
 
 There is a fourth class, most distinct from all of the 
 foregoing : a type of child in which the body is small ;
 
 HEALTH THKOUGH EDUCATION 105 
 
 the head, by comparison, large ; the eyes very dark ; the 
 complexion swarthy ; the hair dark ; the lips large ; the 
 nose large ; the ear large, and the lower lobe pendulous ; 
 the body either very small and fragile, or of a size above 
 the usual ; the mind appreciative, absorbing, reticent, 
 and self-retained, with a keen sense of its own individual 
 interests, but with small sympathies, and with brooding 
 imagination. This child is a type of the true bilious 
 temperament. It has always in it some blood born of a 
 tropical clime : it has great capacity for work of a 
 mental order, and often for varied work of that kind. It 
 is a type of child fairly healthy during childhood, but 
 suffering often from dyspepsia, facial neuralgia, small 
 eruptive swellings, and frequent depression of spirits, 
 amounting sometimes to actual sadness. It has a very 
 limited capacity for all muscular efforts involving the 
 qualities of endurance and courage, but it is devoted 
 usually to music, and is gifted with musical and artistic 
 ability. 
 
 Lastly, amongst the really prominent types, there is , 
 the scholar of low mental capacity altogether, and by 
 physical condition incapable of illustrating the active 
 working mind. The children of this type are usually 
 either of small or of very gross build of body. They are 
 unduly pale and fragile ; they have irregular or notched 
 teeth ; compressed features ; very scanty and dry hair ; 
 often some bodily deformity, such as strabismus ; diminu- 
 tive heads ; and a feeble, sluggish circulation. These 
 constitute, mainly, the class of children whom I have de- 
 scribed in my work ' Diseases of Modern Life ' as children 
 in whom idleness is a veritable disease. You may do 
 what you will with them, you cannot make them work ;
 
 106 HEALTH THKOUGH EDUCATION 
 
 you may pet them, encourage them, punish them, they 
 are the same. They grow up listless and helpless, and, 
 as a rule, die of some organic disease of a nervous cha- 
 racter before they have reached the full meridian of life. 
 
 I have drawn out sharply five classes of types. In 
 these there are various shades and qualities. In the first 
 class there is now and then a specimen of great mental 
 strength, and often of great physical beauty. In the 
 second, there is often extreme vigour of mind, brightness, 
 and tenacity. In the third class there are, as a rule, 
 many specimens in which both mind and body are active 
 and powerful. In the fourth the mental power is fre- 
 quently excellent and strangely analytical in its character. 
 Of the fifth I need say no more than has been said. 
 
 In large schools with the scholars of which I have 
 come in contact it has occurred to me to observe all the 
 distinctive types and shades of type here named, and a 
 few times in science-teaching I have been able to compare 
 and test in a fair way the mental by the side of the 
 physical characteristic. Those who are teachers know 
 these classes as well as I do, I dare say a great deal 
 better, though they might not like to define them so 
 minutely. I define them because I want to enforce this 
 grand truth, that it is utterly hopeless for parents to 
 expect the teachers of their children to produce great 
 results while the system is enforced of teaching all these 
 children on one uniform system, and while the teacher is 
 debarred the privilege of forming a judgment of capacity 
 in respect to the individual scholar. There can be no 
 mental health in education while pupils of the last class 
 I have named are put in order with those of the first and 
 third. There can be no mental health in education while
 
 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 107 
 
 the brightest and quickest of the first class, the pre- 
 cocious of that class, are allowed to indulge their 
 precocity for learning, and are trained into an ambition 
 which almost of a certainty will, in a very few years, 
 imperil both their mental and their physical organisation. 
 The practical lesson I would enforce is that the 
 teacher and the parent of the child taught should have 
 between them a better understanding in relation to 
 mental and physical capacities. The quick precocious 
 child of the first class may, under pressure, be taught 
 anything, but the exertion of pressure is at the risk 
 of future disease of the most fatal kind. The child of 
 bilious temperament may be taught with difficulty, but 
 the effort to teach it may be the most useful in rousing 
 its physical powers into new and active life. The first 
 can be killed through the brain, the second can be saved 
 through it. While, in respect to the last-named class, 
 the class of child in whom the brain-cement is so con- 
 solidated that there is no free cellular activity, every 
 attempt to overcome inertia may be the very means of 
 increasing and intensifying inertia. 
 
 School Work and Overwork. 
 
 From the reflections which arise after the study of 
 these different classes of children, I am next led, in think- 
 ing over the matter of mental health in education, to 
 touch on the subject of limitation of work in youth. The 
 more I see of school labour, the more certain I become 
 that the strain commonly put upon the youthful mind 
 is altogether opposed to health. It is a matter now of 
 nearly daily task for me to have to suggest relaxation or
 
 108 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 
 
 removal of the young from school or student labour on 
 account of health. In these days no organs of the body 
 are forced so much as the brain and the senses which 
 minister to it. 
 
 There are two reasons for this cause of evil action. 
 
 The first reason is the utterly absurd general opinion 
 that the period of education is to be limited by the 
 periods of life, and that with the attainment of the 
 majority the day of learning has ceased. If we could 
 get over this transparent yet all but universal fallacy, 
 we should do more to regenerate the world than by any 
 other effort of an educational character. We could then 
 make life a continual feast of learning. We could fill 
 the vacancies between business and rest, vacancies which 
 are now filled often by the most poisonous and injurious 
 pursuits called pleasures pleasures which satiate by 
 their repetition and ruin by their inanity ; we could fill 
 these vacancies with delights of new worlds of know- 
 ledge which, ever changing, were ever bringing new 
 spirit and wholesome repose. We should do far more 
 than this grand as the prospect of cultivating an un- 
 wearied life may be we should take off the strain from 
 the young brain, when all the natural powers are 
 required, not for the using up of the brain in the service 
 of learning, but for the service of the brain itself, for its 
 own growth and development and preservation. 
 
 My view is that the duties of the teacher and of the 
 learner in relation to learning should never cease, but 
 that the aim should be to discover in what periods of life 
 such and such processes of learning are best cultivated, 
 and to make life divisible into periods devoted to the 
 attainment of certain phases and forms of knowledge.
 
 HEALTH THKOUGH EDUCATION 109 
 
 I take the case of one I know best. He, when a boy, 
 had great powers of memory for words and discourses 
 and poetry, but had then little power of memory for 
 dates and details. When he was thirty that power of 
 memory by committing to heart began to fail, but the 
 power of memory for details improved in a surprising 
 degree, so that he could without an effort learn new 
 sciences which before were to him closed books. Later 
 on hi life he found, in like manner of change, a facility 
 for artistic learning and for the study of forms of which 
 earlier in life he had no notion. 
 
 What is true in this one case is, I believe, true of 
 men generally. The man I refer to has, in later life, 
 simply found it easy to acquire that which was not by 
 force forced upon him, and thereby forced out of him in 
 early life, so that in many ways he would actually like 
 to pick up his satchel and go to school again. We want 
 this finding extended generally. If we could take off the 
 pressure of early mental training, so as to improve the 
 mental health by education, we should in turn improve 
 the methods of education. We should do this in various 
 ways. We should limit time so that boys under twelve 
 would not be pressed with more than four hours of work, 
 and girls with not more than three hours, daily. After 
 this we should gradually apportion more and more of 
 time for work, until the maximum of six hours for either 
 sex was obtained. 
 
 In other ways we should conserve. We should not 
 strive to teach by short cuts and clever devices until such 
 short cuts and clever devices become more complicate 
 and laborious than the subject itself which is taught by 
 them. I give one example, and that only, of what I
 
 110 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 
 
 mean. There is a book recently published, called a Latin 
 Grammar, in which the Latin language is tried to be 
 taught for I presume teaching is the aim of its com- 
 poser by rules which are, to my mind, much harder to 
 learn than the language. To make these rules facile 
 they are illustrated by doggerel verses so atrociously bad 
 that they make the flesh creep to listen to them. They 
 would have knocked all the verse out of Shakespeare 
 himself had he been tortured with them. The object, I am 
 told, is ' short cut.' To enable many facts to be taught 
 in a short time, it is requisite to artificialise the mind 
 with foreign matters, in order to make it take in more: 
 therefore so much brick rubbish is used on which to lay 
 an unsound foundation for an edifice that is not intended 
 to stand beyond the majority of its owner, but which is 
 fully expected then to fall to the ground or to remain a 
 useless ruin. So the minds of grown-up men are filled 
 with ruined edifices of learning, shapeless, empty, and 
 valueless. 
 
 To the errors which are thus cultivated by the crush 
 of education in early life, and which breed a dislike for 
 education in after-life, there is added, in our modern 
 systems, another error, that of making learning, which 
 should be quiet as a murmuring stream, competitively 
 furious. I confess I stand daily appalled at the injury to 
 mental and physical life which I see being perpetrated 
 by competition in the name of learning. Thirty years ago 
 matters were getting bad, now they are getting hopeless. 
 At that time one sex, at all events, was safe from the 
 insanity. Women were saved from competitive mental 
 strain so that the progenies that were to come and replen- 
 ish the earth were born with promise of safety on the
 
 HEALTH THROUGH EDUCATION 111 
 
 maternal side at least, from mental degeneration. Now, 
 however, women are racing with men, in strife to find 
 out who shall become mentally enfeebled and crippled 
 first. The picture looks terrible indeed. 
 
 The picture is terrible, and for the future would be 
 positively calamitous, but for one gleam of hope which, 
 as I will show by-and-by, is cast over it. At this time 
 we look fairly and honestly round to find a great many 
 men still playing an active part in the affairs of this 
 world, writing useful and amusing books, conducting 
 great organs of public opinion, making discoveries in 
 science of the most extraordinary kind, composing songs, 
 and, in a word, keeping alight the intellectual fire. Who 
 are these men ? We read their lives, and find that 
 they are, I had almost said without an exception, men 
 who in their early career have been under no competitive 
 pressure : free men whose brains at the period of matu- 
 rity were not filled with ruined edifices or whitened sepul- 
 chres holding dead men's bones. This, we may say, is 
 satisfactory so far. It is. But then comes the solemn 
 question : Who are to follow these ? We look at the 
 past history of men, and see that heretofore the men 
 have always come. We look at the present, and are 
 obliged to say : yes, but in the future where shall they 
 come from ? The dearth has commenced in earnest, 
 even at this time. How shall it be removed ? 
 
 In the upper and middle classes the dearth cannot 
 but remain while the current method of encouraging 
 mental death by competitive strife is the fashionable 
 proceeding. War-cries in learning, as in every other 
 effort, have but one end desolation, desolation ! I am 
 going to say a bold saying bold because it is based
 
 112 HEALTH THEOUGH EDUCATION 
 
 on natural fact. I can find numbers of men who, 
 having been born with good natural parts, have been 
 turned into practical imbeciles by severe competitive 
 strain ; but I challenge the production of even one man 
 of pre-eminent and advanced power who has been 
 brought out in complete and sustained and acknowledged 
 mastery of intellect by the competitive plan. ' Glamis 
 has murdered sleep ' competition has murdered mind. 
 There is one university which more than all others is 
 the offender, and the leader in this movement. It is not a 
 teacher ; it is a destroyer of teaching. I do not call in 
 question its good intentions, but I oppose its pride and 
 declare its blindness ; and I want all who are engaged 
 in education to protest against the ruin of the good 
 work which it and all who go with it are inflicting so 
 determinately. 
 
 I said I would light up this subject with one gleam of 
 hope for the future. I take that gleam from the Board 
 schools ; it is kept in them, and I trust it will be always. 
 If the Board schools will only maintain a moderate sys- 
 tem of education ; if they will simply be content to lay 
 the foundations for the development of such men as 
 Shakespeare, Priestley, Fergusson, John Hunter, James 
 Watt, Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday, William Cob- 
 bett, Turner, Flaxman, Eichard Cobden, Charles Dickens, 
 George Stephenson, David Livingstone, and others of such 
 sort, all of whom would almost surely have been mentally 
 destroyed by the competitive ordeal, they will do a work 
 which will be more than national, a work world-wide 
 and lasting as time. 
 
 Haply, too, in the success of their undertaking, the 
 Board schools may, by force of results, bring back to
 
 HEALTH THKOUGH EDUCATION 113 
 
 reason the erring crew who would cram all learning into 
 the human mind in the first quarter of its existence, 
 and leave it stranded there. It is a sad look-out for the 
 now governing classes, one million in twenty-four millions, 
 if this lesson be not soon learned. For knowledge alone 
 is power, and knowledge with wisdom combined is vic- 
 tory and governance. 
 
 In this suggestion for the future, no thought is con- 
 veyed of placing the Board schools in opposition to the 
 higher-class schools and the Universities. The higher- 
 class schools and the Universities of these islands have 
 played, in the past, a part second to none elsewhere. 
 They have had their princes of knowledge, their Newtons, 
 their Halleys, their Ham iltons, their Harveys, their hun- 
 dreds of great scholars, poets, philosophers, all that is 
 mentally noble, as their own. My argument is, that these 
 great ones were theirs when they were content to culti- 
 vate industry, to nurse genius, and even to fan into life 
 what might at first seem feeble and unpromising mental 
 effort ; but that the like of these can no longer be theirs, 
 if they continue to care less for true culture than for the 
 apparent, and only apparent, results of culture ; and if, 
 instead of sustaining the weak, they strive to become 
 powerful by crushing and killing in their early life the 
 strong as well as the weak by the like impatient pressure. 
 
 I had intended to touch on education as it should be 
 modified according to seasons of the year, and on one 
 or two other equally important topics ; but my time is 
 up, and I therefore content myself with offering, as the 
 essence of my discourse, the following propositions : 
 
 1. To secure health through education, it is requisite 
 that a more systematic and scientific study of the psy-
 
 114 HEALTH THKOUGH EDUCATION 
 
 chology of the subject should be undertaken, and that 
 class studies should be divided in regard to the mental 
 aptitudes of the scholar. 
 
 2. Parents should expect teachers to exercise a fair 
 and discriminating judgment as to the particular capaci- 
 ties of children under their care, and should be influenced 
 by such judgment in the direction of educational work. 
 The teacher should become, in short, like a second 
 parent to the scholar. 
 
 3. Much greater care should be taken in observing 
 the influence of special physical peculiarities of body and 
 heredities on educational progress, while the influence 
 of education on such peculiarities and heredities should 
 be carefully learned and determined. By this means 
 two useful purposes would be secured : education would 
 be made to conduce to physical health, and physical 
 health to education. 
 
 4. All extreme competitive strains in learning should 
 be discountenanced as efforts calculated to defeat their 
 own object, and to produce mental as well as physical 
 degeneration. 
 
 5. In school- work, the Swiss system of teaching 
 should be more closely followed : that is to say, very 
 quick and precocious children should be directed rather 
 than forced and over encouraged, while dull and feeble 
 children should receive the chief attention and care of 
 the teacher. 
 
 6. Education should be so carried out as to make the 
 whole of the life of men and women a continued process 
 of learning, varied, at 'different ages, according to the 
 changing capacities, faculties, and aptitudes for the differ- 
 ent subjects included under the head of knowledge useful 
 and universal.
 
 115 
 
 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. 1 
 
 WE have been discussing, for some weeks past, at the 
 London School Board, the question of higher education, 
 and after many debates have not, as yet, arrived at a 
 satisfactory conclusion. In the course of the debates, 
 two contending principles have been brought out. On 
 one side it has been enthusiastically declared that teach- 
 ing of a higher standard than that which is now common 
 is necessary, both for the teacher and the taught, because 
 the teacher feels the tax of one continual grind on ele- 
 mentary subjects an intolerable burden, and the taught 
 fail to receive what might, in many instances, prove 
 to be the inestimable blessing of a superior education. 
 On the other side, it has been urged, with great earnest- 
 ness, though, of course, not with enthusiasm, since 
 enthusiasm can only be allied to aspiration, that the 
 business of the Board ought strictly to be confined to the 
 objects of providing a plain and elementary education 
 for the many thousands of pupils it has under its care ; 
 that the development of higher-class teaching should 
 
 1 Revised and enlarged from a Lecture delivered before the Society 
 of Arts on April 28, 1882. 
 
 i 2
 
 116 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 rest with those who have the means of paying for it ; 
 that if the basis be laid for sound elementary instruc- 
 tion, all who desire to obtain a better-class education 
 will, themselves, find the means ; that, practically, the 
 present system gives the scholar the key by which he 
 may open the door leading from the regions of dark- 
 ness to the region of light, so that, being in the light, he 
 can go whithersoever he will ; and that, as a consequence, 
 every attempt to add more teaching in the elementary 
 school is a departure from economy, and a misappropria- 
 tion of the funds which the members of School Boards 
 hold in trust for the public. 
 
 I have taken no part in this discussion, except to 
 listen attentively to it, and try to extract from it that 
 which seemed to be useful; and the lesson I have 
 learned is, that in certain ways both parties concerned 
 are in the right and in the wrong. I entirely sympathise 
 with those who say that the present labour of the school- 
 master and schoolmistress must needs be a burden that 
 becomes a daily cross ; must be disheartening to a degree 
 that those of us who are engaged in varied pursuits can 
 scarcely recognise ; and, though very grand in its results, 
 must be as disappointing to those who are engaged in it, 
 as the mere laying of the foundation of a grand cathedral 
 pile must have been to those who failed to live to see the 
 structure rise beyond the ground, and become what it 
 ultimately would, the admiration of hundreds of succeed- 
 ing generations. 
 
 I am not without sympathy, at the same time, for 
 those who reason on the economical side. I agree with 
 them that when a child of fourteen years can read well, 
 write well, and calculate well, it has done as much as it
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 117 
 
 ought to be allowed to do, in that way, up to that age. 
 If it be forced to do more in form of brain work, it is 
 forced to do what is physically wrong for its body's sake, 
 so much power of work required for its nutrition having 
 been extracted simply for the development of mental 
 aptitude and accretion. I am quite sure, indeed, that in 
 a future and a wiser day, when the physics of life are 
 better understood, men and women generally who have 
 determined to live the whole term of life instead of 
 one third of that term will not care for their children 
 to be troubled with book-lore at all, previous to that 
 important physical stage of life marked out by the first 
 of the seven stages which ends between the fourteenth 
 and the fifteenth year. I sympathise with the econo- 
 mists on yet another ground, namely, that to prime the 
 young with the idea that they are only to learn while they 
 are young is to crystallise them into old men and women 
 from their first, and of a certainty to shorten their lives ; 
 because learning is as necessary to perfected life as 
 bread, and because the happiest human existences are 
 the existences of those persons who are always slowly 
 acquiring knowledge in its endless variety of form and 
 character, and who, as they grow older, apply what they 
 acquire the more wisely, effectively, and satisfactorily. 
 
 Why, then, it will be asked, if you feel these views, 
 have you not used your right to express them from your 
 place at the School Board ? I answer at once, that my 
 views would not have been in order, if expressed, inas- 
 much as they would not have related to the subject 
 actually under debate. The question under debate has 
 been for more book-learning, and more expense, by the 
 first section ; and for no more book-learning, and no
 
 118 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 more expense, by the second section of speakers. I do 
 not sympathise with the first on the matter of increased 
 book-learning ; I do not sympathise with the second in 
 favour of mere economy for economy's sake ; and there- 
 fore I could not expect to be considered in order on the 
 particular subject under discussion. 
 
 There is, however, another subject which no School 
 Board has touched, and which no School Board can 
 touch, until the public mind has become familiar with it. 
 I refer to the question whether the present system of 
 national education is based on the national necessities. 
 In a few years this will be the leading topic of the School 
 Boards everywhere ; at present it is in that embryonic 
 condition in which it can only expect to be tended and 
 nurtured by such a society as the Society of Arts, which, 
 as our late distinguished and lamented colleague, Sir 
 Henry Cole, once told us in Council, has for its first duty 
 the duty of becoming the nursing mother of new and 
 useful products of thought, until the nation takes them 
 up, and puts them into business on their own account. 
 
 It is for the purpose of bringing forward this new 
 aspect of the educational question that I stand before the 
 Society to-day. I ask myself if the system of education 
 at present going on in our nation is a system which has 
 a proper relation to the necessities of the nation. I look 
 round me to see the nation in chaos of thought and 
 action : in what Mr. Gladstone has correctly defined as 
 social revolution in all parts ; a revolution that might, 
 by the merest accident, by one or two days' shortness of 
 food, from failure of foreign supply and panic thereupon, 
 pass, after a few weeks of further chaos, into physical 
 revolution. The thought which occurs to my mind, as it
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 119 
 
 must to the minds of all who think, is, are we educating 
 to prevent catastrophe ? Are we educating the young 
 to become useful, independent, and capable working 
 members of society, ready to work with muscle as well 
 as brain, in orderly and profitable form ? Or, are we 
 educating them to become mere troublers without design ; 
 repiners without hope ; schemers without self-control ; 
 masters of the forces of nature herself, and knowing how 
 to use them for temporary, selfish, insane objects, but not 
 knowing how to apply them for splendid purposes and 
 for the general good ? 
 
 Let me at once say, that this apprehension, and, I 
 may add, comprehension, of a great national question is 
 not mine. It was advanced by Andrew Combe, it was 
 enforced by George Combe, and before either of these 
 great men wrote it was formulated and insisted on by Gall 
 and Spurzheim. But the man who has the longest and 
 the most earnestly advocated this view, urged it, pressed 
 it, in season and out of season, for forty years or more, 
 and who has held it up to this hour unflinchingly, is 
 Edwin Chad wick. 
 
 The national necessities, as the bases of national 
 education, call, first and foremost, in the early days of 
 youth, for the three simple elementary educational 
 practices of learning to read, to write, and to calculate. 
 But these necessities are comparatively valueless unless 
 they be combined with further necessities of a physical 
 kind, namely, sound and systematic muscular exercise ; 
 freedom of breathing and circulation of the blood ; 
 practical training, so that the body, can be structurally 
 builded up and sustained in health ; preparation for all 
 duties requiring precision, decision, presence of mind,
 
 120 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 and endurance; and readiness to acquire any craft or 
 handicraft that may lead to a useful living. In a word, 
 an education that shall bring the mental and physical 
 qualities of every person into faithful harmony and good- 
 will. 
 
 It will be clear from these expressions in what way I 
 agree and yet differ, remain with and yet stand apart from, 
 my colleagues at the School Board in their recent dis- 
 cussion. I, like some of them, would break up the 
 monotony of the schoolmaster and schoolmistress, and 
 would give those excellent workers as much variety of 
 teaching as any of them could desire. But that variety 
 should be physical, not mental, play rather than work ; 
 training of the muscles, and, I may say, of the skeleton 
 too, of the lungs, of the heart, of the digestive organs, 
 and of brain and nerve for action ; not training of brain 
 alone, all the day long, but of all the organic parts equally. 
 I, like others of my colleagues, would encourage economy, 
 not by keeping things as they are, but by saving some 
 part of the two-fifths of the money now expended on 
 teaching to spell, and by laying it out in teaching how to 
 walk with grace and ease, to sing with correctness, to 
 swim, to learn the use of the arms and fingers and hands, 
 and to become men and women in the strict sense of the 
 word, without danger of retrograding a hair's breadth in 
 the Darwinian line. 
 
 I said in my address at the Health Congress at 
 Brighton what was quite true, that I had never in my 
 life seen a child so healthy that it had not in it some 
 actual or latent constitutional disease. Touching the 
 subject now in hand, it is equally true to say that it is all 
 but impossible to find in the Board schools of our large
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 121 
 
 towns any semblance, critically viewed, of health. Con- 
 stitutional taints, which under favourable circumstances 
 may often be concealed, and which may or may not be 
 apparent, are there. Various conditions of disease are 
 there independently of the tendency from heredity ; there 
 of themselves, in some irregularity of body or limb, in 
 some imperfection of sense, in some deficiency of quality 
 of blood, in some feebleness of respiration, in some 
 nervous irregularity of function, in some shade of mental 
 aberration. 
 
 The field of disease which is presented in some of the 
 schools situated in crowded localities is indeed a sight at 
 once for anxiety and pity. To the eye of a physician who, 
 like myself, has spent many years in hospital practice, 
 it tells a story which is absolutely painful, if he permits 
 the result to be calculated out in his mind at leisure 
 hours ; if, that is to say, he compares what he has 
 witnessed in his survey with what he has learned from 
 long observation of the meaning of the phenomena in 
 the history of life. It is not necessary for him to strip the 
 children, percuss and sound the chest, examine the spine, 
 or practise any of those refined arts of diagnosis with 
 which he is familiar. He reads from the indications of 
 temperament, of expression of countenance, of colour of 
 skin, of position of limb, of build of body, of gait, of voice, 
 sufficient outward manifestation to discern what is the 
 true physical state, what is the stamp and extent of 
 disease, what is the vital value of the lives, generally* 
 that are before him. Tell the physician those lives are 
 to be valued for some monetary purpose as they stand 
 and as they are to go on according to the present system, 
 and he will give, in brief time, an estimate of value which
 
 122 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 the keenest man of business might readily accept and act 
 upon. 
 
 Foremost amongst the evils which are thus presented 
 are those common conditions of disease known as 
 anaemia and cachexia. Strictly these are not diseases, 
 like diabetes, bronchitis, or denned affections running a 
 regular course, but they are states of disease which by 
 their very presence indicate a faulty nutrition at the period 
 of life when good nutrition is most required, and which 
 cannot long go on without ensuring the construction of an 
 impaired bodily organisation. The blood is not being 
 duly oxygenated, and food, therefore, though it be even 
 fair in quality or quantity, is not properly applied. The 
 nervous system is imperfectly built up ; the skeleton is 
 imperfectly built up ; the muscular system is imperfectly 
 built up and sustained. How can the improvement 
 which is called scholarship be turned to fitting account 
 in such recipients of it ? I watched recently the after- 
 noon working of a large class of scholars, and counted one 
 third of them under the most decisive influence of these 
 conditions of disease. Of the affected there would not be, 
 in the ordinary averaging of life, twenty years of existence 
 under the course that was being followed. The one 
 saving clause in their case was development by physical 
 training, and that was withheld. The one destroying 
 clause in their case was over-mental work without the 
 physical training, and that was assiduously and re- 
 gularly supplied. 
 
 With or without the anaemia and cachexia, there is 
 the constitutional disease, struma or scrofula, presented 
 in these classes. The instances of this kind in varying 
 degrees of intensity are most numerous. This condition
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 123 
 
 again is a mal or bad nutrition. It, as much as cachexia 
 and anaemia, with which it is so often allied, is fostered by 
 the prevailing system of mental pressure. 
 
 With these conditions before the eye, there is to be 
 seen, also, here and there in the classes of both sexes, 
 but of the girls especially, the specimen of the phthisical 
 or consumptive subject. In a class of fifty I pick out 
 three thus doomed, if their circumstances be not changed ; 
 six per cent., certainly a moderate proportion. The 
 disease has not positively developed, but the probability 
 of its development is all but certain unless it be checked 
 by the one only remedial or preventive method, freedom 
 from nervous exhaustion combined with physical exercise 
 in open breathing space. Such preventives are not 
 supplied, but undue nervous exhaustion and confinement 
 are both supplied, and so the fatal disease is systemati- 
 cally fanned from latency into activity. 
 
 Spinal deformity and irregular construction of the 
 skeleton is another condition of disease, or actual disease, 
 readily detectable in these classes. 
 
 Miss Lofing, speaking of her experiences as to the 
 girls which have come under her notice, reports what is 
 but too true, that they are, as a rule, very flat-chested, 
 that there is evidently much spinal distortion, and that 
 lateral curvature of the spine is common amongst them. 
 This which, I may state in parenthesis, is equally true 
 in respect to boys is accounted for by Miss Lofing in 
 terms which show that the present school system does 
 more than simply permit the mischief that is progressing, 
 it actually fosters it and promotes it. Asked to what 
 the effects are chiefly ascribable, she replies : 
 
 'A part is ascribable to home neglects; but the
 
 124 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 greater part is due to excessive constraints under the 
 common school conditions : too long sitting on badly con- 
 structed seats (a fault which is in course of correction) ; 
 and even on good seats, when they are kept in bad posi- 
 tions in long writing exercises. The common bad posi- 
 tion is, indeed, prescribed by the Government School 
 Inspectors. I have found that, to obtain the school 
 grants, the children are so constrained as to exclude the 
 exercises that are needed for their bodily development. 
 For example, I visited one school where there was a 
 class of children (girls), who were stated to be of an 
 average of about eleven years of age ; they were gener- 
 ally of a pale sallow complexion, though they were 
 from a good neighbourhood. I asked the schoolmistress 
 whether these girls had any exercises ; she said, ' No, 
 they had none they had time only for the preparations 
 for the examinations.' Did she, I asked, give them any 
 play ? ' No, they had no time for play ; they had only 
 time for the preparations.' She said that if she could 
 make two weeks out of one she might then get time for 
 exercises. Another observation she made, upon my 
 suggestion that they really ought to have some exercises, 
 was that exercises would be difficult, as the girls had 
 stays on. These little girls of eight years of age with 
 stays on ! The fault is want of knowledge, in the School 
 Department, of the bodily constraint imposed by the 
 preparations for these examinations, and that pressure is 
 really now being extended to the infant schools. 
 
 It is right to put these matters of fact prominently 
 forward, and it is quite easy to do so, without suggesting 
 from them that the evils are worse than they were in 
 some past times. In truth, things are better than they
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 125 
 
 were. It is infinitely better for these children to come 
 out of their wretched homes into the schoolroom to be 
 educated than to remain in their homes all day ; and I 
 am not, for a moment, contending against the school 
 system on the argument that the children should not 
 come to school. My argument is, that the children, being 
 at school, should have all the benefits derivable from the 
 supervision under which they come, and nothing but the 
 benefits. 
 
 Mr. Charles Eoberts, in a letter which he has addressed 
 to Mr. Chadwick, puts this question forward in words 
 I should entirely indorse. ' I may observe,' he writes, 
 ' as the result of my study of this subject, that there is 
 a little exaggeration in the prevailing opinions on the 
 rapid degeneracy of the physique of our labouring classes 
 in towns, and that it is not nearly so great as it is often 
 represented to be. The great improvements in sanita- 
 tion, which you must look on with special satisfaction 
 from the part you have taken in bringing them about, 
 and the recent improvements in the medical treatment of 
 children's diseases, have more than counterbalanced the 
 injurious effects of town life. I think, however, the evil 
 of the physical degeneracy of our labouring population 
 is a very urgent question for the present, and the im- 
 mediate future. I think children are being very cruelly 
 used by the Legislature. It took nearly fifty years, and 
 half as many Acts of Parliament, to emancipate them 
 from the injurious effects of excessive physical labour ; 
 but the result has been merely to transfer them from 
 one taskmaster to another from the manufacturer and 
 their own parents to the schoolmaster ; and to subject 
 them to mental strain and physical inactivity, more
 
 126 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 injurious to their future well-being than their former con- 
 dition. I look on your proposal to introduce the half- 
 time system into schools as a sort of mental " Factory 
 Act" of the utmost importance and urgency, and the 
 establishment in elementary schools of systematic phy- 
 sical education as absolutely necessary .to prevent great 
 physical degeneracy in future.' 
 
 These are some of the serious evils which attend the 
 present school system. I have dealt only with the most 
 important, and I am glad to say that many minor evils 
 which are talked more about, such as short sight, stra- 
 bismus or squint, club-foot, and other local deformities, 
 are really not so prevalent as is generally believed. 
 There is sufficient of gravity without taking them into 
 our consideration at this moment. 
 
 In a minor degree the health, not only of the scholar 
 but of the teacher also, is imperilled. We know well 
 now that, in the adult stages of life, the constant 
 sedentary occupation, capped by the monotony which 
 springs from the perpetual following out of one pursuit, 
 cannot fail to be attended with premature degenerative 
 changes of tissue, leading to premature nervous en- 
 feeblement and old age. On this point the more thought- 
 ful of the school teachers are themselves agreed; and 
 the school-teachers of Scotland, who can hardly be 
 surpassed in practical shrewdness and knowledge, have 
 long declared that the present methods of teaching in- 
 troduced by the Code are injurious, mentally, bodily, and 
 morally. 
 
 We have quite recently had before us another exem- 
 plification of these facts in an effort which has been 
 made in the School Board of London to introduce a
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 127 
 
 systematic and, I had almost said, professorial plan of 
 education for pupil-teachers. In this trial, which is as 
 yet limited in its operation, teachers are nominated to 
 instruct classes of pupils in special subjects, the professed 
 teacher keeping to his own particular department of 
 instruction. The pupils, including representatives of 
 both sexes, meet at certain hours regularly each week in 
 class for this systematic work, as they might meet in a 
 college or university, and at first sight one would assume 
 that no better plan could be followed. I was, I confess, 
 much taken with it when it was started, and at a largely 
 attended meeting cf school-masters and -mistresses I 
 spoke in favour of it. I am in favour of it still, but, at 
 the same time, I am sorry to say that almost as soon as 
 it has commenced to pass into operation it has commenced 
 to show the cloven foot of the evil of mental overstrain 
 and physical exhaustion. Already the learners are enter- 
 ing into competition against each other and against that 
 much more formidable enemy, the edax rerum, time. 
 Already the health of the learner is being interrupted. 
 Already, if I am correctly informed, it is felt necessary 
 to encroach on the rest of Sunday in order that the les- 
 sons of preparation may be duly learned. Already it is 
 complained that certain of the pupils who have entered 
 at the beginning of a year are behind those who are a 
 year older and more advanced, and have, therefore, to 
 put on extra strain in order to catch up those who have 
 got a long start. And, already, some of us who have 
 control over this work are beginning to ask if we have 
 not once again reckoned without our host, and whether 
 we must not revise a treacherous but well-meant policy. 
 To return to the children. The present system is, in
 
 128 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 their case, not only a violation of physical but of psycho- 
 logical law. The powers of receptivity of the minds of 
 children of different ages have been tested, experimen- 
 tally, with as much care as physicists take when they 
 are treating in their experiments on the relationships of 
 ordinary matter to force. You take a Leyden jar of a 
 certain size, and you say you can charge it in a certain 
 time from so many turns of the electric machine ; beyond 
 that you can do no more ; you have reached the powers 
 of receptivity of that jar. You can break it if you will, 
 but you cannot naturally surcharge it. The powers of 
 receptivity of the minds of children of different ages have 
 been tested quite as carefully, and it has been found that 
 the capacity for attention and retention is as measurable 
 as in the physical experiment. Certain brains can take 
 in so much, and no more, according to age. The capa- 
 city grows with cultivation and skilful teaching, no 
 doubt, but it must be permitted to grow. In the very 
 young a lesson of a minute may be all-sufficient ; later, 
 of three minutes, five, ten, fifteen, and so on, to one 
 hour, two, or three. But to this there is limit, and it is 
 probable that, with the best scholar of primary school 
 age, the powers of receptivity rarely extend beyond a 
 period of two hours and a half of continuous teaching. 
 Teachers of various districts, and of different countries, 
 have testified in respect to this point, and while they have 
 explained, from direct observation, that the receptivity 
 varies in different children according to difference of 
 temperament and physical health and build, as might 
 very well be expected, the receptivity at one time, in all 
 children, ceases at the end of three hours. 
 
 This view is fully supported by Mr. Chad wick, who,
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 129 
 
 in his essay on the physiological and psychological limits 
 of mental labour, made to the British Association for the 
 Advancement of Science in 1860, reported as follows : 
 'In one large establishment, containing about six 
 hundred children, half girls and half boys, the means of 
 industrial occupation were gained for the girls before any 
 were obtained for the boys. The girls were, therefore, 
 put upon half-time tuition, that is to say, their time of 
 book instruction was reduced from thirty- six hours to 
 eighteen hours per week, given on the three alternate 
 days of their industrial occupation, the boys remaining 
 at full school time of thirty-six hours per week the 
 teaching being the same, on the same system, and by the 
 same teachers, the same school attendance in weeks and 
 years, in both cases. On the periodical examination 
 of the school, surprise was expressed by the inspectors at 
 finding how much more alert, mentally, the girls were 
 than the boys, and in advance in book attainments. 
 Subsequently industrial occupation was found for the 
 boys, when their time of book instruction was reduced 
 from thirty-six hours a week to eighteen; and after a 
 while the boys were proved, upon examination, to have 
 obtained their previous relative position, which was in 
 advance of the girls.' 
 
 I recall, too, how in the same report the exposition of 
 this practical truth is sustained by my illustrious coun- 
 tryman and friend, Professor Sir Eichard Owen. So 
 clear, so terse, so true, is this exposition, I make no 
 apology for presenting it again to the public, after its 
 long rest of over twenty years. 
 
 'All the nutritive functions and actions of growth 
 proceed,' says this master, ' more vigorously and rapidly 
 
 E
 
 130 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 in childhood and youth than in mature life, not merely 
 as regards the solids and ordinary fluids, but also in the 
 production of those imponderable and interchangeable 
 forces which have sometimes been personified as nervous 
 fluid, and muscular force. Using the latter term to 
 amplify my meaning, the excess of nervous force is 
 in the child most naturally and healthily reduced by its 
 conversion into muscular force ; and at very short in- 
 tervals during the active or waking period of life the 
 child instinctively uses its muscles and relieves the brain 
 and nerves of their accumulated force, which passes, by 
 the intermediate contraction of the muscular fibre, into 
 ordinary force or motion, exemplified by the child's own 
 amusements and by those of some object or other which 
 has attracted its attention. The tissues of the growing 
 organs, brain, and muscles, are at this period of life too 
 soft to bear a long continuance of their proper actions ; 
 their fibres have not attained their mature tone and 
 firmness. This is more especially the case with the brain 
 fibre. The direct action of the brain, as in the mental 
 application of learning, soon tires ; if it be too long con- 
 tinued, the tissues are unhealthily affected ; the due pro- 
 gress or growth, which should have resulted in a fibre fit 
 for good and continuous labour at maturity, is interfered 
 with ; the child, as an intellectual instrument, is to that 
 extent spoiled by an error in the process by which that 
 instrument was sought to be improved. 
 
 ' The same effect on the muscular system is exempli- 
 fied in the racers that are now trained to run at two and 
 a half or three and a half years old for the grand prizes 
 at Doncaster or Epsom. The winner of the Derby 
 never becomes an Eclipse or Flying Childers, because
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 131 
 
 the muscular system has been overwrought two or three 
 years before it could have arrived at full development, 
 which development is stopped by the premature over- 
 exertion. 
 
 ' If the brain be not stimulated to work, but be allowed 
 to rest, and if at the same time the muscles be forbidden 
 to act, there then arises, if this restraint be too prolonged, 
 an overcharged state of the nervous system. It is such 
 a state as we see exemplified in the caged quadruped of 
 active habits, when it seeks to relieve it by converting 
 the nervous into the muscular force, to the extent per- 
 mitted by its prison, either executing a succession of 
 bounds against the prison bars, like the agile leopard, or 
 stalking, like the lion, sullenly to and fro. If the active 
 child be too long prevented from gratifying the instinc- 
 tive impulse to put in motion its limbs or body, the ner- 
 vous system becomes overcharged, and the relief may at 
 last be got by violent emotions or acts, called " passion " 
 or " naughtiness," ending in the fit of crying and flood of 
 tears.' 
 
 It would be impossible to add a word that would em- 
 phasise this graphic and remarkable exposition of natural 
 law. It is a picture as truthful as it is forcible, and it 
 forms a truly fitting conclusion to the argument I have so 
 far made it my endeavour to set forth, as the physio- 
 logical foundation or institute of educational improve- 
 ments. 
 
 PROPOSED EEFORMS. 
 
 Let me now turn to the reforms which we, who are 
 urgent to reform the present system, have in view. I 
 have conveyed all along in this discourse this current 
 
 K 2
 
 132 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 thought, that the present system requires a radical 
 change, in which the physical shall at least halve the 
 time with mental education. For such change there is, 
 we maintain, a reason and a method. The reason is the 
 first point to be adduced. We reason that the existing 
 system is not a basis for the national necessities. We 
 are of opinion that in the future the education of a 
 mental kind now being supplied will be imperfect and 
 doubtful, nay, may be of dangerous use, unless it be so 
 laid out with physical culture that a perfect, or com- 
 paratively perfect, health of body shall go with it and 
 sustain it. We urge that, as we must either educate 
 health or disease, it is better to educate health. 
 
 The design we have in view, then, includes several 
 heads, which we say embrace no more than is absolutely 
 necessary as bases of the national necessities. I may 
 arrange these heads in the following order. 
 
 Physical Culture of the Body. We urge that education 
 should be so distinctly physical that the body should be 
 in no respect less improved than the mind at the close of 
 the educational career. We follow, in this regard, the 
 teaching of the Platonic philosophy, in which the master 
 insists that the symmetry of mind and body be cultivated 
 and maintained, without which there cannot be beauty, 
 there cannot be health. We urge that this is the only 
 sure way of keeping up, in our country, a strong and 
 vigorous and independent population, that shall under- 
 stand how to utilise the home resources of land and 
 industry, and keep the land and industry in the posses- 
 sion of our and their descendants. 
 
 The system of education that is now being carried on 
 seems to us to promote in no way whatever this necessary
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 133 
 
 intention. In the ' Standards' we find no efficient in- 
 struction of a technical kind that even in the barest 
 hypothetical style teaches the principles of useful arts 
 and appliances. Practical details of industries and of 
 modes of learning industrial occupations are thought to 
 be of less importance to the scholar than a knowledge 
 of geography, construction of language, physiology, and 
 history. It is no wish of ours to ignore studies of the 
 kind above named, but we consider that elementary in- 
 struction in details of inventive and industrial pursuits 
 holds a first place, and that in a country like ours in 
 which so much, in which, in truth, almost everything, 
 depends on individual perfection in some useful art, such 
 elementary instruction ought to have the place it deserves 
 at once and for good. We think, moreover, that the in- 
 struction should not be purely theoretical. We contend 
 that it should include elementary training in useful work 
 of a practical kind. We do not see why workrooms 
 should not be set up in schools, in which boys should be 
 taught the use of the lathe ; the beautiful art of wood 
 carving; the skill of the draughtsman; the method of 
 distinguishing metals, and other simple experiments in 
 chemistry ; the arts of swimming and riding ; the art 
 of distinguishing colours and signs at a distance ; the 
 practice of mensuration, and a number of other good and 
 useful branches of physical learning, which, whether the 
 boy remain at home or whether he emigrate to another 
 country, will always be to him a direct assistance, a 
 means of earning his bread, and an insight and test of 
 his particular ability or aptitude for the vocation by which 
 his subsistence will be most easily obtained. 
 
 Extending this principle of practical teaching to the
 
 134 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 female sex, we would have the girls well trained, both 
 theoretically and practically, in those occupations which 
 in the course of life fall more distinctly under their 
 exercise, management, or supervision. We know that 
 in the schools at present girls are taught sewing and a 
 few other useful industrial accomplishments. We would 
 extend these instructions. We would have the girls 
 instructed in modelling ; in the art of colouring and 
 painting on glass and porcelain ; in the various processes 
 of selecting, sorting, preserving, and preparing foods for 
 the table ; in the cleaning and ornamentation of drawing- 
 room ornaments, and in all the works pertaining to 
 domestic life. The girls in our schools would, as we 
 believe, make more rapid progress in mere book learning 
 if one half of the time now devoted to books were devoted 
 to that other branch of practical education which forms 
 the greater part, in practice, of their future womanly 
 life. We consider that evidence in proof of this belief 
 has already been offered, and we suggest that a girl 
 trained in the manner now described would, in this 
 country, or in any other country into which she might 
 emigrate, be far better fitted for the duties pertaining to 
 any station she might hold, than if she were simply 
 dismissed from school primed with the standards, and 
 standardless. 
 
 Life-learning Tendencies. We contend, secondly, that 
 the education of the young of all classes, and of the 
 poorest classes chiefly, should be so framed as to lead to 
 the inducement of making the acquisition of knowledge 
 a taste instead of a task, a liking instead of a labour. 
 We contend that in the present system as it is pursued, 
 children who are not by heredity born to mental
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 135 
 
 occupation, or who are not physically constituted to 
 acquire information, are, by sheer force, driven through 
 the hard and fast lines, fenced out by books called 
 standards, at a pace that tries to make them complete 
 their education irrespective of temperament, health, 
 ability, before their thirteenth or fourteenth year, and 
 that the pressure, amounting in every case to a hardship, 
 has merely the effect of causing them to cease to learn 
 when the pressure is taken off. We insist that this pre- 
 sent system should be so modified that there shall be no 
 mental pressure at all, but a mixture of mental and 
 physical teaching which shall bring the mind into desire 
 for knowledge after it is freed from the forced necessities 
 of acquiring it by routine under pressure. 
 
 Our argument on this point rests on history as well 
 as on natural observation or common sense. We have 
 from history no proof at all of greatness of mental 
 quality developed by the plan of forcing the young mind 
 through close and wearisome grooves of artificial learn- 
 ing. We see in past history that the greatest examples 
 of greatness in the arts and sciences, in literature, and 
 in skilled labour of all kinds have sprung from those who 
 have been least constrained and least trammelled, in their 
 early days, by artificial and forced systems of education. 
 We see, in current history, that under the favoured and 
 false systems now prevailing in our middle and rich 
 classes, the worst consequences follow upon such artificial 
 and forced educational devices. We see men and women 
 in their early age crippled for good; crippled, often 
 physically and very often mentally, by the cramming 
 ordeals which they are made to go through. We see in 
 them, moreover, the dearth and barrenness of the mental
 
 136 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 field ; the dead mediocrity of talent ; the weariness of 
 effort towards new and original advancements ; and the 
 surfeit of learning which so unhesitatingly leads the 
 pressganged scholar to accelerate his emancipation from 
 the school or university by the determination that now 
 he has got through his trials he will be free from all such 
 work again, and will fill up the rest of his short life with 
 other and less irksome pursuits, though they may even 
 lead him, as his seniors assure him they will, to ennui 
 and monotonous old age. 
 
 Seeing, then, the practical effect of the forcing system 
 upon those unfortunates on whom it has been tried, we 
 are anxious to save those from it upon whom, fortu- 
 nately, it has not as yet been so effectively practised. 
 We would like to see the scholars of the State such 
 scholars that, when their days of compulsory education 
 have passed by, they are anxious still to learn, and are 
 desirous te realise a state of life which makes life one 
 continuous happy school-day, each day a day in which 
 some lesson, however small, has been acquired, and has 
 been added to the satisfaction of accomplished desire. 
 Under such a regime I venture to think that the Board 
 schools might become evening colleges, in which the 
 older population could meet to pass through the stages of 
 a steadily advancing and higher education ; in which the 
 school professor should supersede the tapster and gin- 
 seller ; and from which there should constantly be given 
 forth scholars who should make their schools the friendly 
 and honourable rival establishments of the higher schools 
 and of those great seminaries of learning the ancient 
 Universities themselves. We feel that under this rule 
 the school would be a place to which the scholar would be
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 137 
 
 attached, and that the feeling of attachment, increasing 
 into pride of the institution in which he was educated 
 a sentiment which has never, up to this time, been en- 
 gendered would be dominant proof of the triumphs of a 
 sound national educational existence. 
 
 Aptitude for Productive Ability. A third advance- 
 ment upon which we lay great stress is, that the educa- 
 tional system shall be of a kind which shall render the 
 body of fitting aptitude for productive ability. We argue 
 that unless discrimination is used by the teacher for 
 detecting the natural, or, to speak more correctly, here- 
 ditary capabilities of the scholar, there must be failure, in 
 results, of the most serious kind ; failure that will tell 
 upon all the productive industries of the country, so 
 that agriculture, the various industrial arts, the various 
 labours which call for muscular skill, activity, and en- 
 durance, will be sacrificed, or largely reduced in effective 
 value. On this topic I have before me a letter written 
 to Mr. Chad wick by Mr. Isaac Ashe, a Fellow of the 
 King and Queen's College of Ireland, from the Central 
 Criminal Asylum, at Dundrum, Dublin, over which 
 establishment the learned writer presides. I do not 
 think I can do better than quote his exact words on this 
 part of our subject. 
 
 ' Persons,' he observes, ' used to continued brain- 
 work, and who have an inherited capacity for it, ig- 
 norantly compare the standard of mental toil attainable 
 by themselves or their children with that attainable 
 by the descendants of generations of manual labourers. 
 But they might as reasonably set their own children, 
 at ten or twelve years of age, to undertake the con- 
 tinuous labour of a navvy's son of the same age. I
 
 138 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 have no doubt but that the system of half-time schools 
 which you advocate is the true solution of the problem 
 of how to train to intellectual tasks the dull minds of 
 the humbler classes. It is easy to see how the healthy 
 discipline and regulated training in some artisan's trade 
 or handicraft will save from crime those whom mere 
 intellectual taskwork will surely relegate thereto. To 
 work healthily, either with mind or body, is a habit ; 
 and brain or muscle acquires the habit of using up the 
 energies of the body in a particular direction. Such a 
 habit, when once developed, becomes hereditary, and 
 constitutes in any individual's descendants a capacity 
 for a particular kind of labour not readily to be broken 
 through or set aside. If the young are forced to break 
 altogether with their hereditarily acquired and normal 
 tendencies and developments while yet they have been 
 unable fully to mould themselves to a different rule, it is 
 easy to see that their development will be abnormal and 
 unhealthy. But the habit of and capacity for manual 
 labour is necessarily much more easily acquired by the 
 children of generations of manual labourers than are the 
 habits of and capacity for brainwork. Hence to develop 
 and direct into healthy channels and courses of operation 
 the muscular energies of such children must always be 
 an easier task, and one more congenial to them, than 
 that of developing a new capacity to them almost a 
 new function of brain-tissue that, namely, of studying 
 and thinking. 
 
 ' The hereditary tendency of the children of criminals 
 to relapse into crime must also not be overlooked. The 
 question is, How can it be eradicated? This can pro- 
 bably be effected only by directing into healthy channels
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 139 
 
 the nerve and brain habits, which will otherwise act 
 spontaneously in morbid and criminal directions; and 
 the channel into which these can most readily and with 
 most ease be directed is undoubtedly to be found in 
 something which will call into action the same mental 
 and physical aptitudes as those which the hereditary 
 career of crime shall have developed. If, for instance, 
 the child of the clever forger is taught draughtsmanship, 
 the hereditary proclivity to a criminal use of an instinc- 
 tive faculty will be directed into an analogous yet healthy 
 channel, and probably with the result of at once curing 
 the tendency towards crime, and turning out a skilful 
 artisan. If the children of generations of pickpockets 
 are taught to use their criminally deft fingers and deli- 
 cate touch in some handicraft requiring a special capacity 
 of finger, such as watchmaking, or filagree work, a 
 healthy function will be found for a nervous proclivity 
 and muscular aptitude, which will otherwise fairly work 
 itself out in the criminal acts to which its very existence 
 forms an almost irresistible temptation. The children 
 of the burglar might be found, similarly, to have an 
 hereditary aptitude for a blacksmith's trade, and so on. 
 And thus criminality will be eradicated by directing the 
 hereditary faculty into a healthy and normal channel of 
 exercise. But to attempt to abrogate it utterly, or era- 
 dicate it as a criminal tendency, without such utilisation 
 of it in a healthy direction, will prove futile.' 
 
 Naturam expellas furca tarn en usque recurret. 1 
 
 A passage I would freely translate 
 
 Though man may check Nature by matter of force, 
 She will take her own way as a matter of course.
 
 140 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 In insisting on this practice of developing productive 
 ability, so ably stated by Mr. Ashe in the above remarks, 
 we are sustained by the belief that nothing could be lost 
 by the effort in the way of actual education. We are of 
 opinion that the time saved by the adoption of varying 
 conditions of school work would prevent the injuries now 
 incident to the fixed rules under which the educational 
 system is enforced, and in this view we are supported by 
 the opinions of the most practical teachers. 
 
 Mr. Imeson, late of the Central District School of 
 London, whose authority, based on extensive practice, 
 stands high as a teacher, objects to the Code that it has 
 rested erroneously on rigid lines of demarcation. He 
 observes as follows : ' The mental endowments of children 
 are so varied, that great elasticity of method is needed in 
 teaching them. This the inspector as a rule ignores, 
 being bound to a cut-and-dried rule of inspection. 
 Whatever is likely to develop intelligence may be com- 
 mented upon in Bluebooks ; but the ordinary tests of 
 the inspector are mechanical, and made to catch the 
 unwary, overleaping the proper course to be pursued- 
 There is a saying, ' As is the master so is the school.' This 
 used to be true, but now it might be said, ' As is the 
 inspector so is the school.' This is mischievous beyond 
 ordinary observation, for the inspector generally owes his 
 position to his attainments, which are presumed to be of 
 more avail in a school than the teaching skill of a bond 
 fide education.' 
 
 Physical Training and Mental Habits. We maintain 
 that courses of physical training, such as we wish to 
 introduce, would have a distinct formative effect on 
 mental habits. In a draft report for the consideration of
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 141 
 
 the Education Committee which has been presented to 
 the Council of the Society of Arts, and in the framing of 
 which Mr. Chadwick took the leading part, it was stated : 
 
 ' Nearly the whole of the industrial and of the refor- 
 matory institutions are now conducted on the same 
 principles of mixed physical and mental training as the 
 district half-time schools. Although the children, gene- 
 rally of the lowest type, are received after being already 
 much hardened against school influences, the success of 
 the tested outcome of a great majority of them appears 
 to be upwards of eighty per cent. Governors of prisons 
 at the Social Science Congresses have expressed gratifi- 
 cation at this progress, and congratulate themselves that 
 of the usual large contingent of this class of prisoners 
 they are now, as a class, almost relieved. It is import- 
 ant to note and consider the distinct formative process 
 and effect of the physical and mental training in these 
 institutions, by which incipient criminal habits are eradi- 
 cated, as contrasted with the courses of education in the 
 common schools which have no systematised physical 
 training. 
 
 ' In the long-time schools, during the time the boy is 
 kept waiting under restraint, his mind is absent from his 
 lessons, which are commonly so uninteresting as to be 
 repugnant to his voluntary attention, and his thoughts 
 are away on cricket, or some sort of pleasurable play, so 
 that he generally only returns, upon call to the lesson, 
 as to a task to be got rid of. Under the restraint of 
 separate confinement in a prison, the mind of the young 
 criminal cannot, as is shown by his action on release, 
 have been occupied with compunctious visitings of re- 
 morse, as commonly assumed. His thoughts are of
 
 142 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 his ill-luck under the wide chances of escape of which he 
 has had experience during all the time he has been at 
 large before detection, and of how he may have better 
 luck when he gets out. He is exhorted to be good : but 
 the child of the mendicant or of the delinquent does not 
 see his way to doing other than he has done before ; and 
 why should he so long as he feels his inaptitude of hand 
 and arm for industrial work ? Be this as it may, under 
 the common conditions of restraint in the district schools, 
 or in the reformatory schools all of which, comprising 
 some thirty thousand children, are now of necessity con- 
 ducted on the half-time principle of varied, physical, and 
 mental teaching the pupil is placed under entirely new 
 and opposite conditions, by which bad thoughts are 
 excluded, and good thoughts induced and impressed from 
 day to day by practical work, from the like of which he 
 may hereafter get something good for himself. In the 
 morning he is roused out of his sleep to attend to his 
 head-to- foot washing and his dressing. Then he has to 
 go with others to his breakfast ; after that to. the school, 
 where, with his class, he is kept to the simultaneous class 
 lesson without waiting, to which he willingly gives him- 
 self, as it is not over-wearisome, like the lessons of the 
 long-tune schools. He may next have to fall under the 
 drill-master or the gymnast, and, if he stumble or fail, 
 he is jeered by the other pupils, or reproved by the 
 corporal ; but he soon participates in the zeal and com- 
 petition of common lively action. He may on the 
 following day have a swimming lesson. He may next 
 have some naval exercise at the mast, where, unless he 
 holds on, he will fall into the net spread beneath to 
 receive him. Then he has to go to the workshop, where
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 143 
 
 the work-master in carpentry, in shoemaking, or in 
 tailoring keeps the mind, the hand, and the eye of the 
 pupil intently occupied. His day's occupation may be 
 varied by free-hand drawing, so useful to handicrafts, or 
 by lessons in singing, or, if he be a very good and apt 
 boy, by lessons in instrumental music. The enumeration 
 of the incessant occupations may sound as of severe 
 labour ; but the course is varied by ' relief lessons,' and 
 it becomes so little irksome that an interruption is dis- 
 agreeable, and an exclusion from any part of it is acutely 
 felt as a punishment. When some parents exercise their 
 right of taking away children from the district school, 
 the children are not glad, but commonly cry at having 
 to leave the institution, to part with their playmates or 
 their workmates, and to go home. As the physical and 
 industrial exercises have been improved, desertions have 
 diminished and the outcomes bettered. From morn 
 until night bad thoughts are much excluded, and com- 
 paratively good thoughts -thoughts of doing better for 
 themselves by work and wages, and by all honest and 
 esteemed position are generated and impressed. The 
 teacher cannot look into the mind and see what effects, 
 or whether any, have been produced by his precepts. 
 But the drill-master or the work-master does see the 
 valuable primary moral principles of attention, patience, 
 self-restraint, prompt and exact obedience, in outward 
 and visible action. The general result is that the pupil 
 gets interested in what he does, and does it with a 
 will.' 
 
 Reduction of Crime by Physical Training. We are 
 strongly of opinion that by the introduction of physical 
 training the end will be accomplished of reducing natu-
 
 144 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 ral crime. In the draft report before-mentioned, this 
 important section is dealt with in the following terms : 
 
 ' It is reported that the Vice-President of the Privy 
 Council has acknowledged that the Code has not yet 
 affected the state of crime. This acknowledgment may be 
 cited as an instance of deplorable want of information of 
 one department of what is going on in other educational 
 departments, namely, in the district half-time schools 
 under the Local Government Board, in the half-time 
 schools under the War Department, and in the half-time 
 school in action at Greenwich under the Admiralty, 
 and the very effective work going on there. It would be 
 seen that the Code has affected, and continues to affect, 
 vice and crime, by creating inaptitudes to physical 
 labour and productive service, with aptitudes to vice and 
 crime, as displayed by the conditions described in the 
 statement of Captain Brook, the manager of the very 
 successful Industrial School at Feltham. But it has yet 
 to be made known and understood how profoundly crime 
 is affected by physiological conditions, which require to 
 be dealt with by early training, including sanitation. 
 This is shown, to a considerable extent, in the following 
 answer of Dr. Guy, who for years superintended the 
 Penitentiary, and had charge of the statistics of crime 
 at the Home Department : 
 
 ' You are quite right in crediting me with the opinion 
 that the physical condition of prisoners has more to do 
 with criminality than the public are aware of. Of course 
 this opinion results from my experience of convicts, and 
 from returns relating to them. From censuses of the 
 convict population, we have learnt that while nearly half of 
 our male convicts are able-bodied, and more than a fourth
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 145 
 
 healthy, but not robust, less than another fourth are ill, 
 or fit only for light labour. Three in a hundred male 
 convicts are of weak mind, insane, or epileptic. Eleven 
 in a hundred are subject to scrofula and chronic diseases 
 of lungs and heart. Twenty-three in a hundred have 
 deformities or defects, congenital or acquired. The re- 
 maining sixty-three in the hundred have no deformities 
 or defects. I think that these figures indicate inferior 
 physical condition; but as we have no standard with 
 which to compare them, the opinion must continue to be 
 an opinion only. It is not a fact. I may add that 
 among the three per cent, of convicts who are weak- 
 minded, insane, or epileptic, are to be found those who 
 have committed an undue proportion of the worst crimes, 
 and also those who have committed the longest succession 
 of petty offences. They form a formidable group of 
 habitual offenders, for whom the proper place is the 
 imbecile asylum. But the imbecile asylum, as distinct 
 from the lunatic asylum, has still to be provided for 
 country parts, and plans have to be devised for gathering 
 our tramps and vagrants who belong to this class, and 
 paupers too, into them. Our rural population, including 
 the poor, properly so called, are greatly interested in this 
 matter. 
 
 ' Dr. Owen Eees, who for five years had medical charge 
 of the Pentonville prison, states that his observations 
 were all in accordance with the statement of Dr. Guy, 
 which is also confirmed by the experience of Dr. Mouat 
 of the Local Government Board, who has had the most 
 extensive official observations of the condition of prison 
 populations. 
 
 ' The statement of Captain Kowland Brook, of the 
 
 L
 
 146 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 Feltham Industrial School, as to the condition of phy- 
 sical inaptitude in which children are turned out who 
 have been educated under Code, may be commended to 
 particular attention. In a letter addressed by him to 
 Mr. Chadwick, he concurs heartily and practically in 
 the views now set forth : " I quite agree with you that 
 children will at all events make as much progress under 
 a properly arranged half-time system as under the present 
 long-time system; whilst, both politically and socially, 
 the physical development of children, by technical instruc- 
 tion, should be insisted on in all the wage-earning classes. 
 We have introduced gymnastic exercises here with 
 marked success, the result being that boys, on leaving, 
 are both mentally and physically prepared to earn their 
 own livelihood. I am quite of opinion that the present 
 Privy Council Examination much retards the progress of 
 children in education by making the quick ones dance 
 attendance upon the dull ones. Probably your leaving 
 examinations would meet this difficulty. The present 
 system of national education produces a dislike and in- 
 aptitude for labour amongst the children of the working 
 classes, which, unless altered, will, I fear, produce very 
 sad results. The sudden change from schoolroom to 
 workshop is the cause of many children being unable to 
 bear the trial they are called upon to undergo, and hence 
 they become idle vagabonds and worse. All the boys 
 admitted into this school are quite unable at first to work, 
 and seem to have had no possible previous training to 
 prepare them for it. It is only after they have for some 
 time enjoyed the advantage of our half-time system that 
 they acquire any willingness for labour." ' 
 
 Promotion of Scientific Recreation. Lastly, we submit
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 147 
 
 that, to ensure the happiness and serenity of the people 
 of the future, the children of the present should have 
 their mental and art training varied by making the sub- 
 ject of recreation a scientific branch of study amongst 
 all who are engaged in educational work. In such ad- 
 vance we should have the means for recreation made the 
 means for imperceptible instruction in bodily and mental 
 powers, so that, having never unduly severed them from 
 the tastes of the scholar, they shall be true resting-places, 
 useful as well as pleasing diversions from mental and 
 physical labour. 
 
 While this address has been in course of preparation I 
 have received from Washington, from the Bureau of Edu- 
 cation of the Department of the Interior, an article by Dr. 
 Hiram Orcutt, on ' The Discipline of the School,' in which 
 that eminent authority thus expresses himself. 
 
 'The mind and body,' he very truly observes, 'are 
 inseparably connected. Hence mental culture cannot 
 be successfully carried on without physical culture. 
 Both mind and body must have recreation more than 
 the ordinary recesses and holidays afford, and, as 
 every teacher knows, there are certain hours and days 
 when the fiend Disorder seems to reign in the school- 
 room. He cannot assign any reason, but the very at- 
 mosphere is pregnant with anarchy and confusion. And 
 what can the teacher do to overcome the evil ? He may 
 tighten his discipline, but that will not bind the volatile 
 essence of confusion. He may ply the usual energies of 
 his administration, but resistance is abnormal. He may 
 flog, but every blow uncovers the needle points of fresh 
 stings. He may protest and supplicate, scold and argue, 
 inveigh and insist ; the demon is not exorcised, nor even 
 
 L 2
 
 148 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 hit, but is only distributed through fifty fretty and fidgety 
 forms. He will encounter the mischief successfully only 
 when he encounters it indirectly. Here applies the pro- 
 posed remedy mental and physical recreation. Let an 
 unexpected change divert the attention of the pupils ; 
 let some general theme be introduced in a familiar lecture 
 or exciting narrative ; or, if nothing better is at hand, 
 let all say the multiplication table or sing the Old 
 Hundredth, and the work is accomplished. The room 
 is ventilated of its restless contagion, and the furies are 
 fled. Now add to this mental the physical recreation of 
 school gymnastics, and the remedy is still more sure. 
 Gymnastics are not only useful and important as a means 
 of physical development, but also of school government. 
 The exercise serves as a safety-valve to let off the excess 
 of animal spirits, which frequently bring the pupil in 
 collision with his master. It relieves the school of that 
 morbid insensibility and careless indifference which so 
 often result from the monotony and burdened atmosphere 
 of the schoolroom. It sets up a standard of self-govern- 
 ment and forms the habit of subjection to authority, and, 
 as it is a regulator of the physical system, it becomes such 
 to the conduct under the law. The gymnastic resembles 
 the military drill, and has the same general influence 
 upon the pupil that the military has upon the soldier, to 
 produce system, good order, and obedience. 
 
 ' Gymnastics also create self-reliance and available 
 power. This is more important in life than brilliant 
 talents or great learning. It is not the mere possession 
 of physical power that gives ability, but the control of 
 that power which this drill secures. Gymnastics pre- 
 serve and restore health. It can be shown that the
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 149 
 
 sanitary condition of schools and colleges has improved 
 from 33 to 50 per cent, since the introduction of this 
 systematic physical culture. Would we secure to future 
 generations the realisation of the old motto, Mens sana 
 in corpore sano, we must restore to our schools of every 
 grade systematic physical training. True gymnastics 
 are calculated to correct awkwardness of manner and 
 to cultivate gracefulness of bearing. They give agility, 
 strength, and ready control of the muscles, and thus 
 tend to produce a natural and dignified carriage of the 
 body and easy and graceful movement of the limbs. 
 
 'Again, the gymnastic drill awakens buoyancy of 
 spirits and personal sympathy. Concert of action brings 
 the class into personal contact in a variety of ways, and 
 tends not only to create mutual good-will, but the great- 
 est interest and enthusiasm. This promotes improved 
 circulation, digestion, and respiration, and induces a 
 feeling of cheerfulness and hopefulness that dispels de- 
 spondency and every evil spirit. The gymnastic garb 
 must leave the limbs free from restraint and the muscles 
 and vital organs free from pressure. Hence, under this 
 treatment, the beautiful form is left as God made it, to 
 be developed according to His own plan. We must mark 
 this as another advantage of gymnastics : to correct and 
 control the ruinous habit of a fashionable female dress. 
 Indeed, every department of education is carried on 
 through a system of practical gymnastics. We have 
 mental gymnastics, moral gymnastics, and physical 
 gymnastics, which include vocal gymnastics.'
 
 150 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 I have now put forward our programme. It rests, as 
 we conceive, on the bases of national necessities. A few 
 concluding paragraphs may be taken as proposed resolu- 
 tions to explain the mode in which we would carry out 
 the reforms we have in view. 
 
 1. We propose to lessen the tasks of a mental kind 
 in all schools by the general adoption of the half-time 
 system, which Mr. Chadwick introduced into the factory 
 over forty years ago. Believing that the brain of the 
 child under fourteen years of age is sufficiently charged, 
 to be safely charged, when it has been subjected to three 
 hours' work in book teaching, we assume that this period 
 per day of such teaching is sufficient for all useful and 
 safe advancement, that the children would have as much 
 as they could learn, and would retain more than they 
 retain on the present plan. We propose at the same 
 time to make inspection into book learning less critical 
 and less severe, with the substitution of inspection into 
 physical capability. In connection with this department 
 we propose that there should be at stated times a 
 physical inquiry, by competent authority, into the health 
 of every school and every scholar, and that as much 
 special encouragement and reward should be given to 
 scholars who present the best physique as to those who 
 present proofs of superior attainments in the standards. 
 We propose further that this great change shall be effected 
 by utilising the time taken from books and by apply- 
 ing it to lessons of play, exercise or work that shall be 
 useful in developing the body, and in making it apt to 
 attain proficiency in physical arts and sciences. We
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 151 
 
 would suggest that, in the school itself, the means for 
 this physical instruction should be provided; but we 
 would not by any hard-and-fast line hold by the school 
 as the only place. If it were found in any case that a 
 scholar had the means, in his half-time, of following any 
 proper and profitable occupation without injury to him- 
 self, we should let him follow it, by which plan, as we 
 believe, the sting of the compulsory clause in the Educa- 
 tion Act would be most effectually blunted. 
 
 2. We propose that, while the mind of the child shall 
 not be surcharged with book learning at a time when the 
 body is in the most critical stage of development, either 
 into a sound and helpful or into an unsound and help- 
 less body, there shall be made a provision, in the school 
 itself, by which education shall be allowed to go on after 
 the usual prescribed time during which it is presumed 
 that the education is completed. In this way, we believe 
 the Voluntary and Board schools would become not only 
 schools for the young but colleges for the old pupils, and, 
 in respect to the old pupils, self-supporting centres of 
 popular enlightenment. 
 
 3. We propose that the physical education intro- 
 duced into our schools should be at once of the simplest 
 and best kind, not a system of a particular character, 
 but one which should combine everything that is use- 
 ful in various systems, and which should interest the 
 scholar while it develops his physical life. We agree 
 with an observation made by Mr. Charles Eoberts, in 
 the letter from him already quoted, in which he says : 
 ' I have examined with some care, from a physiological 
 point of view, the various systems of physical education, 
 but I am not satisfied with any of them. The military
 
 152 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 drill in use in many schools puts too great a strain on 
 the lower limbs, and too little on the arms and trunk, 
 and though the exercises are useful for discipline, they 
 are monotonous and wearisome to children, and may be 
 injurious, by inducing flat-foot and other deformities of 
 the body. On the other hand, the exercises hi ordinary 
 German gymnasiums are generally too severe for children, 
 and not sufficiently under the control of the non-medical 
 teacher ; their expense, moreover, places them beyond the 
 reach of elementary schools. The Swedish system, again, 
 as taught in the Board schools, lacks spirit and energy, 
 from the entire absence of apparatus, and therefore of 
 motive, to attempt or complete a definite object, a defect 
 which Miss Chreiman's system has removed to consider- 
 able extent, by the limited use of simple apparatus.' 
 
 4. We propose that there should be introduced into 
 the system what may be shortly explained as systematic 
 training of the senses, so that the senses of the sight, 
 hearing, touch, and even smell, should be brought up to 
 the best standards of perfection. Such training, we are 
 of opinion, could be carried out by means of lessons and 
 use of simple apparatus, and would, in the course of 
 carrying it out, afford facility for practically testing the 
 capacity of every scholar, and his fitness or unfitness for 
 the after duties he may be called upon to undertake. In 
 America they have had appointed tests for the proof of 
 colour-sight, so that it may be determined, when a man 
 applies for duties in which colour-sights are required, 
 whether he can distinguish colours. If our design were 
 in operation, no scholar would leave a school without 
 being made fully acquainted with his particular failure 
 or capacity for any intended occupations.
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 153 
 
 5. We propose, finally, to use the time that we wish 
 to extract from book-learning, in some, and, indeed, in 
 a free degree, to the cultivation of certain of the more 
 refined and pleasure-building arts. First amongst these 
 we would place music as the primitive of recreative 
 pleasures. We observe that our children are well and 
 happy when they can sing; we see men and women 
 gathered together, and find the height of mirth and 
 happiness when somebody gives a song or tune. In the 
 most refined society music is the joy of life ; in the lowest 
 dens men, hardly above animals, when they meet to be 
 amused, sing. It may be that in all these positions the 
 music is bad, but it is there, and the desire for it extends 
 through creation. Here, therefore, is the first recreation 
 to be scientifically studied. Make a nation, we say, a 
 musical nation, and think how we have harmonised it 
 socially, morally, healthfully. We cannot begin to teach 
 this recreation too early or too soundly. We ought to 
 begin by making the learning of notes in succession the 
 scale of musical chords coincident with the learning of 
 the alphabet. The one could be taught as easily as the 
 other, and would be retained as readily, perhaps more 
 agreeably. Next, the intervals should be taught, in a 
 simple but careful way, so that melody may be acquired, 
 and the art of sight-singing attained. From this ele- 
 mentary basis should follow the simplest forms of tune, 
 after which a plain melody could be read with as much 
 ease as the reading of the first story-book. Simple part- 
 songs,leading to endless delight, would succeed, in exercise, 
 and a true and natural language of sweet sounds would 
 be the property, in one generation, of all the nation. 
 
 In addition to music we would, as a matter of course,
 
 154 NATIONAL NECESSITIES AS THE BASES 
 
 introduce other recreations, such as dancing, gymnastics, 
 and all those muscular games and exercises which, by 
 discharging, naturally, the nervous force, relieve the 
 mind of mischievous intents and proclivities to destruc- 
 tive habits. This conclusion, we say again, is supported 
 by experience. Visiting the schools at Anerley two years 
 ago, we learned the fact, which has been so ably dis- 
 played by our learned American confrere above quoted, 
 that the freedom of wholesome play and exercise is the 
 safest of all provisions against what may be called lawless 
 play or irresistible mischief. For purposes of economy, 
 as it was supposed, a certain engaging and popular but 
 rather expensive exercise was set aside there for a 
 period because of the expense entailed. After a time it 
 was discovered that various expensive mischiefs were 
 being carried out, not in retaliation or from any desire 
 to show an insubordinate spirit because the favourite 
 game was withheld, but from actual inability to rest from 
 the exercise which had previously been so healthy and 
 agreeable. Nolens volens the nervous system discharged 
 itself into the muscular, and in the process various sub- 
 stantial articles suffered. In the dormitories, bolstering 
 became the vicarious amusement, and therewith the 
 bedding underwent a destructive course which did not 
 improve it for future wear. In the yards, ball-throwing 
 and other like games assumed ascendency, by which 
 windows were subjected to penalties which were more 
 satisfactory to the glazier than they were to the, manage- 
 ment. Added to these unforeseen extravagances, per- 
 sonal exhibitions of prowess of an irregular kind became 
 eminently fashionable pastimes, under and by which the 
 clothing of the combatants was modified much more to
 
 OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 155 
 
 the gratification of the tailor than the tailor's employers 
 who had to settle with him. In brief, the expenditure 
 incident to the proposed economy was soon found to ex- 
 ceed the expenditure for which the economy was insti- 
 tuted, and the result was a return to the lawful exercise, 
 with every advantage to the children themselves, to 
 those who were set over them, and to those who had to 
 pay the expenses. 
 
 I have now submitted the programme which we who 
 consider national necessities as the bases of national 
 education would put before the nation in support of the 
 grand revolution we suggest. Should it be urged that 
 what we propose is too essentially physical or muscular, 
 we answer that all education is, in the strictest sense, 
 physical and muscular. Speech is muscular, expression 
 is muscular, writingis muscular, composition is muscular, 
 as much as mental. It is as purely a muscular act to 
 decline a Greek verb as to walk across a tight-rope, 
 except that the muscular movement, hardly so refined, 
 is more concealed. We meet two men, one of whom is 
 seen to move with ease and grace, the other with dulness 
 and weight. We say, how accomplished the one, how 
 uncouth the other ! We hear two men discourse, the 
 one with elegance, precision, style, the other with 
 hesitation, blundering, rudeness. We say, how accom- 
 plished the one, how uncouth the other ! In all these 
 cases muscular force has played its equal part with 
 mental aptitude or inaptitude. We see a man who has 
 not been educated to grace of manner, or speech, or 
 thought, assuming the part of a man of grace, manner, 
 and thought, and, by much study, sustaining the cha-
 
 156 NATIONAL NECESSITIES, ETC. 
 
 racter for a short time, as on the stage. But we know 
 that the man only acts ; he is not trained to the muscular 
 skill that can carry him through all parts of life with 
 equal grace, though he may, by intense labour, attain 
 the minor part, and be perfect in it. 
 
 We know that no one who late in life enters a vocation 
 requiring certain qualities, like that of a physician, a 
 surgeon, a preacher, a pleader, a commander, a pilot, 
 an engineer, a player, can gain that full self-possession 
 which comes, as it is said, naturally, to the man who 
 has been from early life trained in the work. Here, 
 again, the failure we affirm is muscular as much as 
 mental. The concealed muscular mechanism is not in 
 working order. The mind may issue its commands, but, 
 if the muscles fail to obey, the mind, like a general whose 
 redcoats are undrilled and impervious, may break itself 
 into imbecility and produce no results beyond hopeless 
 and helpless confusion and defeat. 
 
 So we contend for the physical education of all our 
 young, on the lines I have laid down, as the stirring want 
 in this stirring time. Our intention is to make this 
 nation a nation of heroes as well as scholars ; a nation 
 that the sculptor can describe as well as the historian ; 
 a nation that can hold its own in the scale of vitality, 
 and protect its own by the virtues of courage, physical 
 prowess, and endurance, as ably as by statesmanship and 
 knowledge, more ably than by expediency and craft. In 
 all which efforts we accept and act on the motto which 
 our leader has riveted on our standard 
 
 Primo vivere, deinde philosophari.
 
 157 
 
 DISEASES INCIDENT TO PUBLIC LIFE. 
 
 POLITICAL Niagara now and again coming into full play, 
 with advents of new Parliaments refounded on new lines, 
 is ever giving impulse to all sorts and conditions of men 
 to enter the political arena and seek in new scenes of 
 strife for the bubble reputation. 
 
 Whether this political torrent is to be for good or 
 bad for the country at large, whether it is going to breed 
 statesmen or underbreed statesmanship, are points on 
 which a physician need offer no opinion. For all that, 
 he has a duty which may be conscientiously discharged, 
 which is entirely within his own province of observation, 
 and which, touching as it does the fate of new national 
 experiments in certain of their stages, is in correct place 
 in a volume on the common health. 
 
 To all who have had under their observation the 
 phenomena of motion in the physical and mental life of 
 man until the phenomena have become an open book, it 
 is clear that coming political events will, if they do 
 nothing else, lead to great changes in the health of those 
 who, as legislators, are to play the most important parts, 
 for good or for evil, in the impending revolution. In 
 plain words, some of the men who may succeed in
 
 158 DISEASES INCIDENT TO PUBLIC LIFE. 
 
 entering the House will, of necessity, suffer from diseases 
 which are almost inseparable from public life, and the 
 risks of which they must meet in accepting the so-called 
 honours which their ambition or their desire to serve 
 their country leads them to obtain. 
 
 The character of the diseases that will be manifested 
 will vary with the characteristics of the individual for 
 the nature of the work that has to be done in the parlia- 
 mentary struggle. In this work there are three perils, 
 two of which affect different persons differently, and one 
 of which affects all more or less, as a common peril. 
 The first is the conflict, always in progress, connected 
 with hopes deferred, passions ignited, excitements of 
 victory, depressions of defeat. The second is the out- 
 door work of the parliamentarian ; the preparation for 
 debate or vote ; the perusal of the public opinion ex- 
 pressed outside the House by speeches, leading articles, 
 and correspondence, and the friction of mind and physical 
 labour connected with attendance at public meetings, 
 committees, deputations, dinners, and the various other 
 public entertainments. The third peril which affects all 
 in common is the late sitting, the night work of the 
 legislating labourer, with, on latest nights, the last great 
 excitement of the conclusion of debate at the time of 
 year and at the hours when, under favourable conditions, 
 the human body is at its lowest natural ebb ; the hours 
 of hours in which the stricken to death most frequently 
 yield up their last breath to the eternal space. 
 
 The diseases most commonly incident to the public life 
 are almost entirely those which affect the bodily organi- 
 sation through the mental surface. 
 
 They are the results, either of intense shocks driven
 
 DISEASES INCIDENT TO PUBLIC LIFE 159 
 
 through the senses from without and deranging the 
 molecular or molar construction of surface ; or of per- 
 sistent friction between the immutable spirit flowing in 
 regular tides into the mutable flesh, and preventing its 
 repose for efficient repair of its structure ; or persistent 
 friction on one particular centre of the mental surface, 
 with failure of it and of all parts subordinate to it as a 
 centre of power. 
 
 Thus in the phenomena of disease which we observe 
 in the men unfitted constitutionally for public life, the 
 grand series are diseases of that fleshy physical surface, 
 the nervous system, on which the mind is distributed ; 
 that resident medium of the mental motion derived 
 from outside the organism, which, entering the camera 
 nerrosa by the senses, is reflected back in act, word, 
 deed. 
 
 The diseases incident to the series of induced changes 
 by mental shocks are most developed in emotional and 
 animal emotional men. The shocks tell in them, through 
 the sympathetic nervous organisation, on vital organs, 
 and especially on the heart. The heart is being kept in 
 continual perturbation, its nervous supply irregular, in- 
 termittent, palpitating. Whatever other part of the body 
 may be deprived of power, the regulating heart must 
 never be deprived. ' First come first served ' is the rule 
 of the heart ; and so it takes, literally, for its own use, 
 and for its own special nourishment, the very first drops 
 of blood which it pumps out at each of its strokes. If 
 it fail in this process, through the wrong done to it by its 
 owner, it immediately suffers. The coronary arteries 
 the primary branches of the great arterial tree which 
 rises from the left ventricle of the heart failing to
 
 160 DISEASES INCIDENT TO PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 bring round to the muscular walls of the heart sufficient 
 food for their support, the nutrition of the heart itself 
 is earliest to suffer ; then, as the nervous supply which 
 prompts the muscular action is reduced, there occurs 
 a further failure ; and, lastly, as the nervous surface 
 which is the seat of the nervous power must have its 
 required blood supply reduced when the centre fails, 
 there is a third bad effect telling back upon the central 
 vital organ. The whole leads to a disablement from 
 the centre under which many public men succumb 
 during subjection to excitements they were not able to 
 encounter. 
 
 The illness and death of Mirabeau, as told by his 
 compatriot Cabanis, is a perfect illustration of an emo- 
 tional statesman killed from the heart by excitement, 
 killed as if he had been stabbed to the heart and had 
 died a lingering death from loss of blood. 
 
 In one of our public institutions there is a model 
 likeness of one of the political heroes of the working-men 
 of this country, who died so like Mirabeau that if 
 Cabanis' account of the death of the great statesman 
 were changed by the mere alteration of the names of the 
 sufferers, the clinical record would read for either the 
 one or the other. They were, socially, very different 
 men the one a patrician and scholar, the other a 
 plebeian and a self half-taught. But constitutionally 
 they were the same, in accident of political strife the 
 same, in result of disease the same, in suffering the 
 same, in mode of death the same. At the generous 
 instance of the late Mr. Danby Seymour, I was the con- 
 sultant called to render physician's aid to the English 
 political enthusiast, who was as sincere a man as he was
 
 DISEASES INCIDENT TO PUBLIC LIFE 161 
 
 intense and unselfish. And my return of him in the 
 clinical note-book reads, 'Intermittent circulation and 
 disorganised heart from political excitement and enthu- 
 siastic worry.' This man told me that he dated the 
 knowledge of his symptoms, his breathlessness and 
 failure of central power, to some rough physical usage 
 to which he was subjected while descending from a 
 waggon from which he had been addressing a multitude. 
 I have no doubt that was the turning-point of his 
 failure, but it had been led up to by long previous 
 strain. 
 
 A few professional and political friends, including, 
 on the professional side, the late Dr. Edwin Lankester, 
 and myself, were steaming down the Thames to see the 
 great outfall for the London sewage. We had with us a 
 friend we knew well, as a scholar, a well-known publicist, /; 
 and a vehement emotional politician, with an historical 
 name as such. On the way this enthusiast broke forth 
 into one of his violent political arguments, and while 
 speaking suddenly stopped. He held out his hand for 
 me to feel his pulse, which was intermitting as if it 
 would cease altogether. When he had quite calmed 
 down he took me aside, and described to me his condi- 
 tion, the same, in kind, as told by Cabanis of Mirabeau, 
 but less advanced. I warned him : ' If you repeat these 
 vehement outbursts, you will one day empty your heart 
 into your brain, and then and there end all your fervour.' 
 He called out to Lankester to come, and repeated to 
 him my statement as a saying, pithy, he thought, but 
 rather a play upon words than of serious import. ' I 
 agree,' said Lankester, ' and would advise you to take 
 the hint.' He, however, the man most concerned, treated 
 
 M
 
 162 DISEASES INCIDENT TO PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 the matter as a false alarm, went on in his career 
 unchecked, and one day, not long afterwards, while 
 delivering in public an impassioned speech against 
 American slavery, died on the platform, as we had 
 foretold. He emptied his feeble heart into his powerful 
 brain. These are extreme examples in respect to the 
 sudden endings of public life, but are of great value as 
 lessons. They are the understandable illustrations of 
 a number of other examples, minor in appearance as 
 phenomena, but only just short of seriousness in fact. 
 In the prolonged form in slow collapse from central 
 failure, in breaking down, as it is commonly called, such 
 examples are numerous amongst public men of the 
 emotional type, and if the experience of other physicians 
 be the same as my own, they are, year by year, on the 
 increase. 
 
 Sometimes, especially amongst men of the emotional, 
 and still more amongst men of the animal emotional 
 type, an opposite condition obtains. In their excitement, 
 commenced early in life, their heart becomes too power- 
 ful for their body. It becomes an uncontrollable organ. 
 Its nervous organisation is most impressionable, its own 
 brute power, if I may use the expression, out of balance 
 with the rest of the body. In these cases the mental 
 nervous surface is the sufferer. The man is said to be 
 very excitable, to fire off quickly, to be unmanageable by 
 any authority. For a time this power is long evidenced, 
 and troublesome to all whom it affects ; then it is notice- 
 able as being subject to sudden arrest in him in whom it 
 is manifested. He is violent as ever for a period, but on 
 slight opposition he sits quietly down, reposes a while, 
 and soon gets up again, repeating the act until the
 
 DISEASES INCIDENT TO PUBLIC LIFE 163 
 
 repetition becomes a more serious impediment to business 
 than the former long and vehement harangues. Lookers- 
 on say of the man, ' Let him have it out, and have done 
 with it ; ' they try the experiment, but it does not succeed, 
 for he never has done with it. He has got into the fits 
 and starts stage of emotional disease. He is the irre- 
 sponsible possessor of a strong unbalanced heart ham- 
 mering a feeble brain into illucid intervals of helpless 
 imbecility. Men of this kind sink into disease from the 
 brain. They often die of apoplexy, which in plain English 
 means a blow or stun, as if they were knocked down like 
 oxen by a blow on the head, as in fact they are, except 
 that the last blow is delivered from the inside instead of 
 the outside of the organism. 
 
 In other examples the blow is not sufficient to kill 
 outright ; it is a ' stroke,' a stroke of palsy so it is 
 expressed. One controlling part, and no more, of the 
 nervous surface gives way ; the arm falls, or the lip falls, 
 or the half of the body loses its power, and the correct 
 rendering of words ceases. There is paralysis and 
 aphasia. 
 
 In a third class of this same type the process of 
 change is more gradual. The fire burns lower, but does 
 not die out. The man, advised by his physician and his 
 friends, wisely retires from combat ; he is too easily ex- 
 cited to bear it. Occasionally such a man finds out his 
 peculiar constitution in time to save himself from imme- 
 diate danger. He retires early from the public arena 
 into a calmer sphere, and, by sufficient watchfulness, 
 lives on for many and often useful years. As I write I 
 recall an instance of this kind in a member of my own 
 profession, who discovered his danger early, gave up all 
 
 M2
 
 164 DISEASES INCIDENT TO PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 thought of public conflict, and retired into a quiet 
 medical practice, in which he was both active and 
 successful. By this plan he lived on for over thirty 
 years. Death came, however, at last suddenly, according 
 to the rule so common in such examples. 
 
 In another set of these public men the saving of life 
 is achieved to an extent, but not effectively. Life is pro- 
 longed, but healthy life is lost. The vis nervosa is no 
 more. The need for change, for repose, for freedom from 
 responsibility, is ever the necessity. The life is a 
 penance for ambition, and is always short. 
 
 There are illustrations of another set of phenomena 
 of disease incident to public men, in which the vital 
 failure, springing originally from nervous injury, takes 
 the course of a purely physical wasting malady. One 
 disease of this character stands pre-eminently forward. 
 I mean diabetes. I have myself had under my medical 
 care at least six public men in whom this disease was 
 clearly developed by some mental perturbation or 
 nervous shock. In one of these instances the sufferer, 
 for a short time a well-known and important officer of 
 the State, had come into office at a period of extreme 
 political strain. Solemnest issues were at stake, and 
 momentous duties and decisions rested upon him, a 
 man, of moderate capacity, who, by pure industry and 
 perseverance in a laborious profession, had won an 
 esteemed position, and who, just suiting the master 
 then at the head of affairs, got into an office which he 
 himself said was heavier than he could bear, and yet 
 could not, with honour, leave. Called to question in 
 the House on one of the responsibilities of the century,
 
 DISEASES INCIDENT TO PUBLIC LIFE 165 
 
 this statesman had a sense of faintness while speaking, 
 and from that moment, under the mental strain or 
 shock to which he was subjected, became diabetic, pro- 
 bably from some mechanical accident in his brain, in- 
 volving the parts about the fourth ventricle. Thence- 
 forward he died as straight off as a man can die from 
 diabetic affection in its steadily progressive form. 
 
 The peril which is incurred by all political men in 
 this country when they get a seat in the Commons, the 
 peril of broken rest, has its forthcomings. Strong or 
 weak, the members feel this risk, but not all equally. 
 Some who are sufficiently fortunate to be able to turn 
 day into night and night into day, and who are endowed 
 with the faculty of sleeping at any time, get on very 
 well, by their incessant labour astonish the world, and, 
 unfortunately, often mislead their feebler brethren into 
 attempts of a similar kind. But these are quite excep- 
 tional men. The majority, who are unable to give time 
 for sleep in the day, sink into sleepless decrepitude ; feel, 
 at last, that they cannot sleep w r hen the opportunity 
 offers, and, depending on narcotics for a false repose, 
 become, by a second nature, the slaves of a habit which 
 has but one termination. 
 
 To the list of diseases above rendered as incident to 
 active public life might be added those affections which 
 we physicians call diathetic, and which are hereditary 
 in those who suffer. It is possible that some diathetic 
 diseases are brought out by the wear and tear of public 
 work, but, then, they are also easily brought out by 
 other and opposite influences, like gout when it is ex- 
 cited by luxury and too much rest. Setting one thing
 
 166 DISEASES INCIDENT TO PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 against another, hereditary tendencies, with one grand 
 exception, need not trouble the would-be legislator. 
 
 But there is the one exception, which should never be 
 left out of the reckoning, and that is insanity. The man 
 who knows himself to be afflicted with that taint is doing 
 his first insane act, while yet sane, when he throws 
 himself into the struggles of a political career. This is 
 no paradox ; it is a truth which experience of men and 
 of the proclivities of men teaches with a repetition that 
 admits of no denial. 
 
 To one standing aside and looking on at the political 
 turmoil, it is marvellous that so much risk of life, 
 vehemence of opinion, and utter uselessness of conten- 
 tion and labour should agitate the world. It can only 
 be that political work is utterly wanting in all scientific 
 accuracy that so many men so madly rush into it. 
 Half a dozen great political scholars, working half a 
 dozen months on a text-book of political science for the use 
 of schools, might do more for the world, if their labours 
 were accepted, than half a dozen parliaments, sitting 
 out their full terms, and fighting each other from the 
 beginning to the end of the chapter. Such fighting and 
 killing, however, must be, until the long day when the 
 truth dawns, that in matters where every one thinks he 
 knows more than every one else, only a few know any- 
 thing. But, while that day of light is dawning, let no 
 one rashly believe that, in spite of all constitutional weak- 
 nesses, he can go on the political war-path with safety, 
 either to his physical or to his mental organisation.
 
 167 
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER. 1 
 
 Two of the wisest of men, and by necessity, therefore, both 
 of them Sanitarians, Solomon and Xenophon, have laid 
 dow T n rules bearing on the duties of women who rejoice 
 in being called wives as well as women. ' A good wife,' 
 says Solomon, ' worketh willingly with her hands.' ' She 
 is like the merchants' ships, she bringeth food from afar.' 
 She is an early riser, and sees that every one has an 
 early breakfast. ' She riseth while it is yet night, and 
 giveth meat to her household and a portion to her 
 maidens.' By exercise she strengthens her limbs. She 
 layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the 
 distaff.' She knows that where there is poverty there 
 can be neither health nor happiness. ' She stretcheth out 
 her hands to the poor ; yea, she reacheth forth her 
 hand to the needy.' She provides against the cold. 
 ' She is not afraid of the snow for her household ; for all 
 her household are clothed in scarlet.' In clothing her- 
 self she combines artistic taste with usefulness, as every 
 woman is bound to do. ' She maketh herself coverings 
 of tapestry ; her clothing is silk and purple.' ' She 
 maketh also fine linen and selleth it.' ' Strength and 
 honour are her clothing.' She combines common sense 
 with gentleness. ' She openeth her mouth with wisdom ; 
 
 1 Lecture delivered to the Congress of the Sanitary Institute at 
 Exeter on Thursday, September 23, 1880.
 
 168 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 
 
 and in her tongue is the law of kindness.' She is watchful 
 and busy. ' She looketh well to the ways of her house- 
 hold, and eateth not the bread of idleness.' 
 
 And these, says this wise Sanitarian, are her rewards : 
 ' She shall rejoice in time to come.' ' The heart of her 
 husband doth safely trust in her.' And, light of perfected 
 human happiness ! ' Her children rise up and call her 
 blessed.' 
 
 The second of the wise Sanitarians, Xenophon, tells 
 his story of the good wife in somewhat different terms 
 and manner, and indeed with difference also of detail. 
 He, treating of the household and of the economics of it, 
 invents a dialogue. He makes Socrates and Critobulus 
 hold a discussion which comes to this general understand- 
 ing : that the ordering of a household is the name of a 
 Science, and that the Science becomes the order and the 
 increase of the house. Afterwards, Critobulus asks of 
 the Master why some so use and apply husbandry that 
 they have by it plenty and all the good things that they 
 need, including health and all blessings ; while others so 
 order themselves that every good thing avails them no- 
 thing at all. ' These two things/ says Critobulus, ' would 
 I like to have explained by you, to the intent that I may 
 do that which is good and eschew that which is harmful. 
 Thereupon, Socrates, the Master, recounts to his pupil 
 that he once held a communication with a man who in- 
 deed might be called a good and honest man. He had 
 already seen and studied the works of good carpenters, 
 good joiners, good painters, good sculptors, and had seen 
 how they attained to excellence ; and so he desired to 
 find out how they who had repute for goodness and honour 
 attained their excellency. He looked for such an one
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITAEY REFORMER 169 
 
 first amongst those who were handsome, but it would 
 not do ; for he found that man}' who had goodly bodies 
 and fair visages had ungracious souls. Then he be- 
 thought him to look for a man who by general sentiment 
 was reckoned upon as good, and at last he found Ischo- 
 machus, who was generally, both of man and of woman, 
 of citizen and of stranger, called ' the good.' 
 
 Socrates is made to discover Ischomachus sitting in 
 the porch of a temple, and, discussing with him many 
 subjects, asks him how it is he is called a good and honest 
 man. At this Ischomachus laughs, ' Why,' he replies, 
 ' I am called good when you and others speak of me I 
 cannot say. I only know that when I am required to 
 pay money for taxes, priests, or subsidies, they call me 
 Ischomachus ; and indeed, Socrates, I do not always 
 bide in my house, for my wife can order well enough 
 whatever is wanted there.' ' And did you yourself bring 
 your wife to this perfection,' asks Socrates, ' or did her 
 father and mother teach her ? ' 'As she was but fifteen 
 when I married her,' returns Ischomachus, 'she had 
 seen very little, heard very little, and spoken very little 
 of the world ; and therefore ' he continues some way 
 further on ' I questioned and then instructed her.' 
 
 It is very doubtful whether, in these days of supreme 
 wisdom, the first principles of Ischomachus, as he taught 
 them to his beloved, would be at all permitted. I dare 
 not certainly set them forth on my own account, al- 
 though they bear directly upon the subject of my lecture. 
 I record them, consequently, as I find them, leaving their 
 author, Master Xenophon, who though dead yet speaketh, 
 to assume the responsibility of so flagrant a series of 
 propositions as will follow.
 
 170 WOMAN AS A SANITAKY KEFOKMEK 
 
 'Methinks, then,' says Ischomachus, 'that for the 
 welfare of every household there are things that must 
 be done abroad, and things that must be done within 
 the house, and that require care and discipline.' We 
 shall probably be all of one mind, even now, on that 
 point. The difference of opinion that will rage rests on 
 the succeeding points of argument. ' Methinks also,' he 
 continues, ' that the God hath caused nature to show 
 plainly that a woman is born to take heed of all such 
 things as should be done at home, and these are the 
 reasons for the belief. He, the Maker, hath made man 
 of body, heart, and stomach, strong and mighty to suffer 
 and endure heat and cold, or privation, to journey, and 
 to go to the wars. Wherefore, he hath, in a manner, 
 charged and commanded him with those things that be 
 done abroad and not of the house. He, also, remem- 
 bering that he has ordained the woman to bring up 
 young children, has made her far more tender in love 
 towards her children than the man. And, whereas he has 
 ordained that the woman should keep those things which 
 the man getteth and bringeth home to her, and knowing 
 also that to keep a thing safely it is not the worst point to 
 be doubtful and fearful, he has dealt to her a great deal more 
 fear than he did to man, while to man, who must defend 
 himself and his own, he has dealt out more boldness. But 
 because it behoveth that both man and woman should alike 
 give and receive, he has bestowed on them alike remem- 
 brance and diligence, so that it is hard to discern which 
 of them has most of those qualities. He has, moreover, 
 granted them, indifferently, the power to refrain from 
 doing that which is wrong, so that whatever either of them 
 does better than the other is best for both ; and because
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITARY EEFOEMER 171 
 
 the natures and dispositions of them both are not equally 
 perfect in all these things, they have so much the more 
 need the one of the other ; for that that the one lacketh 
 the other hath. Likewise the law shows, and the God 
 commands, that it is best for each to do their part. It 
 is more correct for a woman to keep house than to walk 
 abroad; and it is more shame for a man to remain 
 skulking at home than to apply his mind to such things 
 as must be done abroad.' 
 
 Ischomachus is next shown as teaching his wife the 
 lessons to be learned from bees in the hive ; and, improving 
 the occasion, he offers certain rules which, with actual 
 reverence, I venture to epitomise. He was, in fact, a 
 grand Sanitarian, this Ischomachus, and I do not think 
 there would have been much sickness now in the world 
 had wives, in general, been after the training of Madam 
 his wife. The million of men of physic might have be- 
 come reduced to thousands. And the women of physic ? 
 Well, I may relieve my mind at once and say it plainly; 
 they might have become housewives of all houses. 
 
 Some lessons of economy are first to hand. The 
 wife is to beware that that which should be spent in a 
 twelvemonth be not spent in a month. The wool that is 
 to be brought in is to be carded and spun that cloth be 
 made of ic ; and the corn that is brought in must be 
 most carefully examined, that none which is musty and 
 dirty be eaten as food. Above all, the same instruction 
 that Solomon insists on is enforced with special fervour. 
 The wife is to be most particular, if any of the servants 
 fall sick, that she endeavour herself to do the best she 
 can, not only to cherish them, but also to assist them that 
 they may have their health restored.
 
 172 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 
 
 A little further on the philosopher touches on the 
 importance of perfect order in the house as connected 
 with the health and wealth of it. He tells how he once 
 went on board a ship of Phoenicia, and wondered that in 
 so small a space such a vast number of things could be 
 stowed away with so much neatness that everything 
 could be found in a moment, even during the confusion 
 of a storm. 
 
 From these lessons he teaches his wife, and thereby 
 all wives, matters that are more particularly of a sanitary 
 kind. A house, he says, has an ordination. It is not 
 ordained to be gorgeously painted with divers fair 
 pictures, though these may be excellent, but it is built for 
 this purpose and consideration, that it should be profit- 
 able and adaptable for those things that are in it, so that, 
 as it were, it bids the owners to lay up everything that 
 is in it in such place as is most meet for the things to be 
 put. Therewith he disposeth of places for things in due 
 form, and assigns the uses of the various parts of the 
 establishment, in such manner that the woman who pre- 
 sides over the whole shall know the parts in a truly 
 scientific way. 
 
 The inner chamber or room, because it stands strong- 
 est of all, is to be the strong-room in which the jewels, 
 plate, and every precious thing in the belongings of the 
 house must be securely located. The driest places are to 
 be places for wheat ; the highest places for such works 
 and things as require light. The parlours and dining 
 places, well trimmed and dressed, are to be cool in 
 summer and in winter warm. The situation of the 
 house is to be towards the south, so that in winter the 
 sun's light may fall favourably upon it, and in summer
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITAKY EEFORMEE 173 
 
 it may be in goodly shadow. The wearing apparel is to 
 be divided into that intended for daily use and that 
 required for special or grand occasions. Everything be- 
 longing to separate service, to the kitchen, the bake- 
 house, the bathroom, is to be assigned to its own place 
 and use. All instruments which the servants use daily 
 are to be shown to the servants in their right places, and 
 are to be kept there when they are not wanted. Such 
 things as should not be made use of except on holy-days 
 and rare occasions are to be left in special charge of an 
 upper servant, who should be instructed beyond the rest 
 of the servants to observe the same rules as the mistress 
 herself would carry out. ' At last, good Socrates,' said 
 Ischomachus, ' I did express to my wife that all these 
 rules availed nothing unless she took diligent heed that 
 everything might remain in perfect order. I taught her 
 how in commonwealths, and in cities that were well 
 ruled and ordered, it was not enough for the dwellers and 
 citizens there to have good laws made for them unless 
 they chose men to have the oversight of those laws. In 
 like manner, then, the woman should be, as it were, the 
 overseer of the laws of the house, as the Senate and the 
 Council of Athens oversee and make proof of the men 
 of arms.' 
 
 Finally Ischomachus touches on the mode by which 
 his wife should maintain her own health. He observed 
 about her, as a very strange habit, that upon a time she 
 had painted her face with a certain unguent that she 
 might seem whiter than she was, and with another 
 unguent that she might seem redder than she w r as ; and 
 that she had a pair of high shoes on her feet to make her 
 seem taller than she was. Whereupon, ' tell me, good
 
 174 WOMAN A3 A SANITARY REFORMER 
 
 wife,' said he, 'whether you would judge me worthier or 
 more beloved if I explained to you what we are precisely 
 worth, keeping nothing secret from you, or if I deceived 
 you by declaring I had more than I really had, showing 
 you false money, chains of brass instead of gold, counter- 
 feit precious stones, red instead of scarlet, and false 
 purple instead of pure and good.' She replies, ' The 
 gods forbid that you should be such an one.' He then 
 recalled to her her own deceptions ; and when she 
 inquired how she should be fairer in reality and not 
 appear so only, he gave her as counsel that she should 
 not sit still like a slave or a bondwoman, but go about the 
 house like a mistress and see how the works of the house 
 go forward, look after all the w r orkers and sometimes 
 work with her own hands, by which exercise she would 
 have a better appetite for food, better health, and better 
 favoured colour of her face. Then, likewise, the sight of 
 the mistress, more cleanlily and far better apparelled, 
 setting her hand to work and, as it were, striving at times 
 with her servants who should do most, would be a great 
 comfort to them by leading them to do their work with a 
 good will instead of doing it against their will. For they 
 that always stand still like queens in their majesty will be 
 only judged of by those women who are triumphantly 
 arrayed. ' And now, good Socrates,' continued Ischoma- 
 chus, in conclusion, ' be you sure that my wife lives even 
 as I have taught her and as I have told to you.' 
 
 Were a modern sanitary scholar, such a one as now 
 speaks to you for example, to presume to lay the basis of 
 sanitary reform, through the influence of woman, on such 
 simple rules as those given above, he might suffer for a 
 trouble, which would, in truth, be called a presumption.
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 175 
 
 Happy, therefore, is it that he finds the basis ready laid 
 by two such masters as Solomon and Xenophon. Their 
 sufferings are over, hidden in the inaccessibility of his- 
 torical distance. Their words alone remain faithful as 
 ever, and as true for to-day and for to-morrow as on the 
 days when they first went forth. They are the basis of 
 modern sanitary law with women as its administrators. 
 I would not dare to add a syllable to their majestic 
 common-sense. Good wives of the type of the wife of 
 Ischomachus would, in one decade, make domestic sani- 
 tation the useful fashion and order of the nation they 
 purified, beautified, and beatified. 
 
 I quote this basis of wifely work and duty because I 
 feel more deeply, day by day, that until it is admitted, 
 and something more built upon it, sanitary progress is a 
 mere conceit, a word and a theory, instead of a thing 
 and a practice. It is in those million centres we call the 
 home that sanitary science must have its true birth. It 
 is from those centres the river of health must rise. We 
 men may hold our Congresses year after year, decade 
 after decade ; we may establish our schools ; we may 
 whip on our lawgivers to action of certain kinds ; we 
 may be ever so earnest, ever so persistent, ever so 
 clever ; but we shall never move a step in a profitable 
 direction until we carey the women with us, heart and 
 soul. Adam had no paradise in Paradise itself until Eve 
 became the helpmeet for him. How then, in a world 
 which is anything but a paradise, shall we transform it 
 into anything like one till the Eves lend us a hand, and, 
 combining their invincible power with ours, give us the 
 help that is essential to success ? We must go entirely
 
 176 WOMAN AS A SANITAEY REFORMER 
 
 with Xenophon in the belief that the human being is not 
 perfected, either in thought or action, until the two 
 natures are blended in thought and action. The man 
 invents, the woman applies the invention; the man 
 conquers nature, the woman makes useful the victory ; 
 the man discovers, the woman turns the discovery to due 
 and faithful account ; the man goes forth to labour, the 
 woman stays at home to watch the centre common to 
 them, and tend the helpless there. Yet both have re- 
 membrance, both have diligence, both have the power to 
 refrain from doing what is wrong, and whatever either 
 of them does better than the other is best for both. 
 And, because the natures and dispositions of both are 
 not equally perfect, they have so much the more need the 
 one of the other, since what one lacketh the other hath. 
 In the art of cultivating Sanitary Science this mutual 
 understanding is necessity itself. 
 
 We ought not to blame womankind because it seems 
 that women are behindhand in the work. They are not, 
 in point of fact, behindhand at all ; they are rather the 
 forerunners in the race. Long before the word Sanita- 
 tion was heard of, or any other word that conveyed the 
 idea of a science of health, the good cleanly thrifty house- 
 wife was a practical sanitary reformer. Nay, if we come to 
 the question of organisation itself, we have in this coun- 
 try, in that admirable institution the Ladies' Sanitary 
 Association, the first of the great sanitary societies 
 which, by its publications, its practical aid to mothers, 
 its outdoor recreative parties to the stived-up children 
 of the metropolis, and by various other means, has set 
 an example that will one day be historical as a part of
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITAKY KEFORMEE 177 
 
 the great movement in the promotion of which we are 
 engaged. 
 
 There is not, therefore, one single difficulty in the 
 way of making the woman the active domestic health- 
 reformer. The only thing that requires to be put for- 
 ward is the method of bringing her universally into the 
 work, and, if I may so express it, making the work a per- 
 manent custom or fashion, to neglect which would be con- 
 sidered a moral defect. There are in England and Wales 
 alone six millions to be influenced. The first suggestion 
 is that the beginning of the crusade shall be a beginning 
 that shall not drive, but lead ; that shall not dictate, but 
 patiently suggest. 
 
 If what Pope said of man be true 
 
 Men should be taught as though you taught them not, 
 And things unknown be told as things forgot, 
 
 in respect to the sex still more susceptible and im- 
 pressionable, especially when those truly feminine duties 
 which are connected with domestic health and happiness 
 form the subject of advancement, it may with equal truth 
 be said 
 
 Women should ne'er be taught a thing unknown, 
 It should be credited as all their own. 
 
 Nor can any finer or nobler occupation be imagined 
 than is implied under this head of domestic care and 
 nourishment of health. There are women who think 
 it the height of human ambition to be considered curers 
 of human maladies ; content at best to take their place 
 with the rank and file of the army of medicine, and not 
 perceiving that the only feature in their career is its
 
 178 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 
 
 singularity, a feature that would itself become lost if the 
 wish of the few became the will of the many. I would 
 not presume to interfere, on this . point, even with the 
 wish of the few. At the same time I would with all my 
 strength suggest to women that, to become practitioners 
 in the preventive art of medicine ; to hold in their hands 
 the key to health ; to stand at the thresholds of their 
 homes and say to disease, ' Into this place you shall not 
 come, it is not fitted to receive you, it is free only to 
 health, it is a barrier to disease ; ' to conjoin in this work 
 so effectually as to be able to say to every curative prac- 
 titioner who invades their cities, ' You may come if you 
 please, and settle down if you please, but there will be 
 nothing for you to do, except to write up, after a time, as 
 a warning to all practitioners of the curative school : 
 " Who enters here leaves hope behind ; " to exercise 
 practical power in such a manner would, I venture to 
 indicate, be as much above the exercise of curative art, 
 as the art of making unsinkable ships would be above the 
 toil of working at the pumps of a sinking vessel, that was 
 only sinking because it had been allowed to fall into a 
 perfectly hopeless state and condition for resisting the 
 strain of the deceitful sea. 
 
 I press this office for the prevention of disease on 
 womankind, not simply because they can carry it out ; not 
 simply because it pertains to what Xenophon describes 
 as their special attributes, their watchfulness and their 
 love ; but because it is an office which man never can 
 carry out ; and because the whole work of prevention 
 waits and waits until the woman takes it up and makes 
 it hers. The man is abroad, the disease threatens the 
 home, and the woman is at the threatened spot. Who is to
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITARY EEFORMER 179 
 
 stop disease at the door, the man or the woman ? What 
 does a man know about a house, about the very house he 
 lives in, if he be a man employed at all ? I asked as 
 good a man of business as ever went on 'Change how 
 many rooms he had in his house. His reply was, 
 ' What an absurd question ! ' ' Why absurd ? the house 
 is your own.' ' Yes, but I have never thought about it. 
 You should ask my wife if you want to know. She will 
 tell you all about it from the butler's pantry to the cock- 
 loft ; but as I only go into two or three rooms myself, 
 how should I be likely to remember ? It is not my de- 
 partment.' That is so generally. The woman knows all 
 about it, or if she does not she ought ; it is in her de- 
 partment to know the whole matter by heart. The house 
 is her citadel. 
 
 There probably is not a person who is given to reflect 
 who will not in the main agree with me in these conclu- 
 sions. The strongest-minded woman, the woman who 
 would assert to her heart's content the right of woman- 
 hood to assume manhood, would, I think, agree with me 
 in the main. She might and possibly would affirm that 
 I do not go far enough ; she might feel the position I 
 have assigned to woman as too feminine in its tender- 
 ness, and as a retrogression from the design of attaining 
 the equality of power which she would consider necessary 
 for the perfect liberty of woman from the bondage 
 imposed by men. At the same time she would agree so 
 far as to admit that, if her fellow-sisters everywhere could 
 claim and hold and maintain such a power of practical 
 knowledge and skill as I have pointed out, their mission 
 in this world would be more greatly advanced and more 
 nobly utilised than it is at this time. Nay, perchance
 
 180 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 
 
 when she has heard me to the end, and has well con- 
 sidered the tremendous power which a completed 
 scheme would give to her sex, she might feel that 
 her ambition would be more than satisfied by its accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 While women in general will, I feel sure, almost 
 think it impossible that so much useful influence could 
 be attainable, the majority will ask, ' By what process of 
 training can we so govern domestic life that diseases 
 may be prevented wholesale ; that life in all its inno- 
 cence and fascination may never, except by the most 
 vulgar accident, be invaded by death ; that adolescence 
 hi all its beauty and unfolding strength may be equally 
 guarded ; that manhood and womanhood may have the 
 same protection ; that middle age may be extended 
 in intellectual and physical perfection into the grand 
 decline ; and that the grand decline itself may be so 
 gentle, so peaceful, so beautiful yes, so beautiful, for 
 there is a beauty in healthful old age that is unsur- 
 passed that life shall be but a dream, and death but a 
 natural sleep ? They will ask, I repeat, the majority of 
 them, by what process of training can we help towards 
 a triumph of science so beneficent ? 
 
 I devote myself from this point of my discourse to 
 give some answer to that question. I state at once that 
 the training required is simple, beyond simple ; that every 
 woman who wills to go through it may go through it 
 and may become mistress by it of the destinies of the 
 world. Not the Fates themselves were more the mis- 
 tresses of the destinies of the race than the women of 
 an educated Commonwealth, who were fully conversant
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITAKY KEPOKMEE 181 
 
 with the art of the prevention of disease and premature 
 decay. 
 
 Ischomachus, content to have his wife taught house- 
 wifery pure and simple, would, I think, in this day be 
 not quite so content. He would wish that she should 
 know everything about the house in which she and he 
 and their family dwelt ; he would wish also that she should 
 know something of that house of life which belongs to her- 
 self and to all hers. He would not desire that she should 
 become a profound anatomist ; he would not care for her to 
 enter on the subject of experimental and practical physio- 
 logy ; he would scarcely aspire that she should try to emu- 
 late Hippocrates in diagnosis, or Dioscorides in therapeutics. 
 But with our modern knowledge in his possession he 
 would, I venture to suggest, have begged of her to learn 
 a few principles which would help her to understand the 
 reasons for the necessity of her domestic cleanliness and 
 wifely care. As he is gone before these desires could be 
 current, I will, with much respect, take his place, and 
 indicate what every woman who aspires to be a wife, a 
 mother, and a practical Sanitarian ought to learn in this 
 particular direction. 
 
 She should master physiology so far as to understand 
 the general construction of the human body. She should 
 know the nine great systems of the body : the digestive, 
 the circulatory, the respiratory, the nervous, the sensory, 
 the absorbent and glandular, the muscular, the osseous 
 or bony, and the membranous. She should be led to 
 comprehend the leading facts bearing on the anatomy 
 and function of these systems. She should understand 
 what part food plays in the economy ; the nature of the
 
 182 - WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFOEMER 
 
 digestive ferments ; the primary and secondary diges- 
 tions ; the method by which the digested aliment finds 
 its way into the blood ; and the specific purpose which 
 is answered by and through the application of foods, 
 proximate and elemental. She should be rendered fully 
 conversant with the different changes of food that are 
 required for the digestive process in different periods of 
 life ; the extent to which the digestive powers should be 
 taxed in infancy, childhood, adolescence, maturity, first 
 and second decline, and old age. She should be made 
 aware what substances, taken as food, are of real and 
 what of spurious quality. She should be taught the 
 relationship which solid foods hold to liquid foods or 
 drinks. She should be told what drinks are foods, and 
 she should specially understand what are the particular 
 foods required for the young during the periods of active 
 growth. In illustration of the value of this last-named 
 fact, it may be stated that if women only knew what 
 foods were requisite to feed the skeleton or bony frame- 
 work of the living body while that skeleton is in the 
 course of growth, and if she w T ould act upon her know- 
 ledge, as she almost certainly would if she possessed it, 
 there would hardly be one deformed child left in the 
 land in one or two generations. Rickets, with all its 
 attendant miseries of bowed legs, crooked spines, and 
 humped backs, would pass away as if by the spell of an 
 invisible enchantress. 
 
 After the understanding of the digestive system, the 
 woman should learn the principal facts relating to the cir- 
 culation of the blood, the organs of the circulation, the 
 heart, the arteries, the capillaries, the veins and the blood 
 itself. She should know completely the mechanical con-
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 183 
 
 struction of the heart, its coverings, its cavities, its lining, 
 its valves, and the uses of the parts. She should under- 
 stand the work of the heart ; how it rests when the body 
 reclines ; how easily its daily tonnage of work can be 
 increased by perfectly unnecessary strains and stimulation 
 until a day and a quarter of hard work may be com- 
 pressed into one day, and a fourth of the vital spring of 
 the heart for that day be lost for ever, as so much taken 
 from the sum total of life. She should know how the 
 heart is sympathetically moved in its action, and may 
 be weak or strong, regular or irregular, calm or excitable, 
 by the influence of external impressions which, in passing, 
 may seem nothing and yet be everything. She should 
 learn that in early days the whole after-life may be 
 shaped, I may say, by the tone that is given to the heart, 
 and that whether in its pilgrimage a Faintheart or a 
 Greatheart shall occupy the stage on which a young life 
 is to enter shall turn absolutely on this one educational 
 fact, the skill of the trainer of that simple and suscep- 
 tible mechanism, the human heart, while yet it is sus- 
 ceptible, fashionable, and undetermined. 
 
 Nor should she, in regard to the healthy organism, 
 be less informed respecting that breath of life which is 
 ever being breathed into the living being by the Eternal 
 Chemist, whose constructions and resolutions are the 
 motions visible and invisible of his eternal universe. 
 The complete structure of those breathing lungs should 
 be as plain before her as the outward form of the things 
 she knows best. The course of the blood, like a curve 
 from one side of the heart to its other side through the 
 maze of spongy ^lung-tissue, should be easily traced. The 
 expansion of the six hundred millions of little vesicles
 
 184 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 
 
 of the lungs, which the air inflates, that it may, over 
 so vast a surface, expose itself to the circulatory blood 
 in its rapid passage over the vesicles ; the change that 
 takes place in the blood during the passage; the gas 
 that is robbed from the air by the lungs ; the gas that 
 is given up to the air by the lungs ; the change in the 
 colour and character of the blood that attends these 
 processes ; the course of the changed blood bearing its 
 vital air or oxygen, in myriads of tiny cells, through the 
 arteries to the body at large ; the spreading out of this 
 blood over the vast sheet of minute vessels which make 
 up the vital expanse, the vital furnace, the vital foundry 
 of the body ; the consumption of vital air there ; the un- 
 loading of new material or pabulum there ; the removal 
 of old and effete structure there ; and the recharge of 
 the blood with the gaseous products of animal combus- 
 tion there : these things ought to be as familiar to the 
 mind of our scholar as the commonest things in life : 
 the letting in of air to feed the fire, the entrance of the 
 servant with coals, the burning of the fire in the grate, 
 the use of the fire for various domestic purposes, the 
 opening of the ventilator to allow the smoke to ascend 
 the chimney, and the removal of the ashes and debris 
 that more new fuel may be supplied to keep the fire 
 alive. 
 
 Equally clear to her should be the leading facts 
 bearing on that receptive system of the body into which 
 the external universe transports itself, and from which, 
 in reflex response, the acts of life, the expressions, the 
 movements, the thoughts, return in wavelike repetition 
 back again, to become themselves external phenomena, 
 linked, as such, with all the visible universe. Those
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 185 
 
 nervous centres, locked up in the skull and spinal cord, 
 to receive and retain and remit; those doubly-acting 
 nervous cords, bearing the impressions to the centres 
 and bringing them back again ; those exquisite nerves, 
 so finely set and balanced and distributed for play of 
 reason and volition ; and those sympathetic, nervous 
 centres in the trunk of the body, allied to the viscera, 
 which they serve, and governing the automatic motions 
 on which the volition has but indirect control, centres 
 of emotional and what is commonly understood as in- 
 stinctive faculties ; these parts, these systems, in re- 
 spect to general function and vital value, should all be as 
 familiar as the course of the sun, from whom, in essence, 
 they spring. And with these nervous organisms the 
 fields of the senses, too, should be made clear ; the out- 
 lines of the plan of an organ of sense being as simply 
 comprehended as the plan of a camera or other well- 
 known human instrument. 
 
 Let me interpose one practical illustration here of the 
 value of knowledge bearing on the organs of the senses. 
 Recall how many young people and middle-aged people 
 are going about in spectacles, unable to see any object 
 with the naked eye that is not uncomfortably near! 
 Recall how many of these have also their backs distorted ! 
 Why this strange combination of deformity? Mr. 
 Liebreich tells us : ' The greater part of it is induced 
 while acquiring the art of writing. When the body is 
 still being formed and is unconsolidated, the child is per- 
 mitted to sit with the chest and back bent forward, and 
 with the eyes close to the paper. Thus the natural re- 
 fraction of the lenses of the eyeball is permanently pre- 
 vented ; the parallel rays of light are brought to a focus
 
 186 WOMAN AS A SANITAEY EEFOKMER 
 
 before they reach the retina, and there is produced the 
 deformity of short sight, for the correction of which an 
 artificial lens or glass is required. At the same time the 
 back abnormally bent retains its abnormality, and short 
 sight and curved spine go together, twin defects of one 
 error which ignorance of the simplest principles permits 
 the devoted and affectionate parent to overlook, as if 
 it were a necessary and therefore irrepressible and irre- 
 mediable evil. Let us suppose the women of our country 
 trained to a knowledge of the first and elementary truths 
 about visual function, and guided by them, is it not 
 all but certain that another deformity would in a genera- 
 tion become virtually a physical misdemeanour of the 
 past? 
 
 To this knowledge of nervous function it would be ad- 
 visable to add to the store of elementary principles a few 
 facts respecting the great glandular system of the body ; 
 that system which produces the digestive and other active 
 secretions, the saliva, the bile, the pancreatic juice ; which 
 absorbs food ; which takes up and, as it were, drams 
 the tissues and eliminates those fluids and excretions by 
 which the effete and useless animal material is removed 
 from the body. 
 
 Of those little fleshy engines which clothe the skele- 
 ton, which are the active organs in animal motion, and 
 which, impelled and directed by the nervous system, are 
 the active workers, the night and day labourers of the 
 body, the muscles, the woman should learn sufficient to 
 be made aware of the advantages of so training the 
 muscles to work that they shall be daily exercised, shall 
 not be subjected to overstrain, shall be equally subjected 
 as far as possible to healthful labour, and, by good and
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITAKY REFORMER 187 
 
 simple and systematic culture, form that external build 
 of man and woman which the classic ancients of the 
 classic age would accept as the model of the most power- 
 ful, the most symmetrical, the most beautiful of the types 
 of the genus honw. 
 
 And of the bony skeleton, on which the muscular 
 engines are laid, which forms the passive framework 
 and supplies levers of the engine, she should gather enough 
 information to be conversant with all its outlines of form 
 and chemical construction. She should ascertain from 
 her teacher that the bone, made up of two parts, an 
 organic gelatinous part for shape and basis of support, 
 and an earthy part for strength and durability, cannot 
 be supplied with material for construction in unequal 
 portions without yielding a deformed skeleton. That, 
 deprived of its organic gelatinous part, it will become 
 brittle and easily broken; that, deprived of its earthy 
 part, it will be distorted, bent under the weight of the 
 body, and yield bended limb, crooked spine, and diminu- 
 tive form as the result of this one and serious depriva- 
 tion of constructive material. The educated woman who 
 has seen the exquisite build and symmetry of the 
 skeleton ; who has taken measurement of the cavities in 
 which such vital organs as the lungs and heart are 
 placed ; who has fixed in her mind's eye the graceful 
 curve of the spinal column ; who has gathered the main 
 facts about the sustaining parts of the skeleton ; would, 
 moreover, collect, from the physical demonstration, a 
 series of inferences which would make her turn pale with 
 dread and disgust whenever she detected one of her 
 foolish sisters strangling her body in tight corset and 
 murderous belt, to make herself hideous as well as useless,
 
 188 WOMAN AS A SANITAEY REFORMER 
 
 or destroying the perfect arch of her foot in a contracted 
 foot-vice elevated on a pegtop. 
 
 Lastly, the woman should attain so much instruction 
 in reference to the great membranous expanses as to 
 know them also. She should study with special care that 
 extended membranous expanse the skin. She should 
 learn how sensitive that surface is to heat and cold, and 
 how, as a grand breathing surface, it gives up from its 
 host of little sweat-glands volumes of invisible water, 
 vapour, and gases, which, left in the body, must either 
 be expelled by the lungs or remain to dull the sensorium 
 and weaken the physical activity. She should learn from 
 this the necessity of keeping the functions of the skin in 
 due cleanliness and condition for work, so that the bath, 
 seen to be more than a luxury, should be considered as one 
 of the necessities of the daily life, like a daily meal of 
 cleanly substance. 
 
 The living house thus generally learned, the Sani- 
 tarian helpmate, for us who can do so little beyond 
 suggestion, should be tempted to study, until she com- 
 pletely mastered it, the mysterious construction of that 
 deadly-lively house, which until lately the architect and 
 builder have pitchforked into street and square with 
 facile and contented wisdom of wigwam descent. She 
 would require here, like Madam Ischomachus, to grasp 
 all the details with as much precision as the old Phoeni- 
 cian merchant, or the modern yachtsman who knows the 
 details of his immaculate craft so well, that even in 
 storm, hurricane, fire or disease, all resources are ready 
 at hand. She would require in these days to know this 
 and something more. She would want to learn how the 
 immaculate house is in every room provided with at least
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 189 
 
 moderate ventilation. She would require to find out how 
 most effectively and economically she can maintain in 
 the varying seasons an even and equable temperature. 
 She would aim to consider in what way she could keep 
 the air of the house free of that most objectionable of 
 mischiefs, dust. She would demand to have marked for 
 her on a map or plan the precise position of every drain- 
 pipe in the establishment, and would insist, with intelli- 
 gent skill, on having every drain kept as systematically 
 clean as the china in the housemaid's cupboard or the 
 metal covers that make so many bright and effective 
 pictures over the dresser of the well-arranged kitchen. 
 She would see, not trusting to the mere word of any one, 
 that those drains were properly ventilated, so that sewer 
 air could never enter the domain except as a burglar 
 might enter by special skill and violence, against which 
 there is no absolute protection. She would learn enough 
 of the chemistry of water to enable her to determine, with 
 as much facility as she could tell whether a looking- 
 glass is clear enough to reflect back without fault the 
 image of her face, when a water is wholesome and 
 drinkable ; and she would have a sufficient amount of 
 skill to direct how an impure water might be purified and 
 made safe for her and hers to drink and use for all 
 domestic requirements. She would see to it that sun- 
 light found its way as freely as possible into every apart- 
 ment. She would see that damp had no place in any 
 apartment. She would insist that where any living 
 thing that ought not to be present in a house exists in 
 it, that house is unclean, and in some way uninhabitable 
 for health; since health will not abide with anything 
 that is uncleanly. She would see to the biennial purifi-
 
 190 WOMAN AS A SANITARY KEFOEMER 
 
 cation of the dwelling, as though a Passover were still the 
 universal belief and practice. She would make the very 
 act of cleaning and cleansing clean ; she would make the 
 very places for cleaning and cleansing the scullery, the 
 landing, the bathroom, the laundry the cynosures of 
 the household. 
 
 In the art of perfection or towards perfection of 
 health the educated woman would in her domestic 
 sphere bring her best energies to understand the selec- 
 tion, the purification, the preparation, and the adminis- 
 tration of foods and drinks. I have shown in two 
 striking examples how, by a simple application of know- 
 ledge, she might prevent two great national disfigurements 
 and disgraces of ignorance. She may go far beyond that 
 advancement, great as it is. As she would keep seeds of 
 certain pestilence from her fold, or vulgar poisons that 
 kill outright, and proclaim at once with loud voice 
 against disease, or murder, so would she do her best 
 to keep out those refined and subtle poisons which, in 
 and under the name of strong drinks, bring silently 
 more accident, disease, and murder into this inscrutable 
 world than all the other poisons put together, unlicensed 
 though they be and so little liked by the exciseman that 
 he would fly them any distance, the De'il himself in 
 company, rather than so much as touch them with his 
 divining rule. 
 
 I think, too, that in regard to foods an intelligent 
 study based on a knowledge of the natures and uses of 
 foods would enable her, not merely to carry out the best 
 selections and preparations now known, but would lead 
 her to introduce certain new and much improved methods
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 191 
 
 of feeding. That she would acquire a thorough know- 
 ledge of the best art of cookery I take for granted ; that 
 she would acquire a good knowledge in choosing foods in 
 season I take for granted ; that she would become an 
 adept in detecting actual wholesome from actual un- 
 wholesome foods I take for granted ; that she would find 
 out what foods are most suitable for persons of different 
 age and constitution I take for granted ; and that she 
 would distribute food with well-balanced hand, neither 
 feeding over-indulgently nor parsimoniously, that also I 
 take for granted. But I expect she would learn to do 
 more than all these things in relation to food, and would 
 help, perhaps lead, in a work of the future that is in the 
 truest sense universal hi its objects. She would be able 
 better than any one to put to the test the experience 
 whether it is good or necessary to go to the living animal 
 creation at all for human food. I do not wish to intro- 
 duce any false sentiment into this question. It is un- 
 necessary for me to say that every cultivated mind revolts 
 at the sight of the shambles, and that our inner conscious- 
 ness shudders when the veil is lifted which conceals the 
 processes through which the animalised meal passes before 
 it reaches the table. More to the point is it for me to 
 wish to know whether it is philosophical, that is to say, 
 truly physiological, for us to go to the inert and dead to 
 get the best sustainment for the quick and the living. 
 I am in doubt. It does not seem to me that man is 
 constructed so as to be of necessity a carnivorous animal. 
 It does not seem clear, putting the anatomical argument 
 aside, that it can be good to go to secondary sources of 
 supply for our food when nature bountifully presents 
 them to us from her prime source. It does not seem
 
 192 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 
 
 reasonable that we should employ millions of living 
 laboratories for our daily food, and take the risks of disease 
 which they in endless forms produce and propagate for 
 us, when we can get all that is necessary without the 
 chance of such production and of such propagation. It 
 does not seem certain, when we know that the vegetable 
 world is the original source of every particle of living 
 food, and that carnivorous animals have to depend on 
 the herbivorous for their supplies so that carnivorous 
 feeding is an anomaly rather than a basic principle of 
 nature it does not, I repeat, knowing these things, 
 seem certain that the cost of the support of the living 
 laboratories is justifiable on any ground except the 
 extravagant process of making work that work may be 
 at hand and employment procurable. In old and bar- 
 barous times, when implements were few and animals 
 were plentiful, it is easy to see why men should feed by 
 hunting and by slaying ; and it is easy to understand 
 why in a becalmed sea a vigilant captain should set his 
 restless crew to the employment of polishing an anchor. 
 It is not so easy to see why in this day, when the great 
 question of peace is food, cheap food, good food, healthy 
 food, and when means for endless, refined, and ennobling 
 employments are open, we should still maintain the 
 practices of a barbaric era. Still I confess I am in doubt. 
 I am not sure whether the necessity for the secondary 
 supplies of food for man, from the animal world, are or 
 are not necessary, and that doubt it is in the role of the 
 educated woman to solve. Her discernment, properly 
 and eagerly directed, would soon settle whether those 
 about her were injured or benefited by an exclusive 
 vegetable and fruit diet. The very timorousness which
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITAKY EEFOEMEE 193 
 
 Xenophon describes would make her study the more 
 watchful and her experience the more definite. 
 
 However she might solve this grand enigma, sure I 
 am that in watching carefully over food and feeding the 
 educated woman would quickly discover a world of facts 
 that would be of unspeakable value. It has been one of 
 the endeavours of my life to show that we living men and 
 women make in our own corporeal structures a refined 
 atmosphere, which I have called a nervous atmosphere, 
 or ether : an atmosphere which, present in due tension, 
 distinguishes life : which absorbed or condensed dis- 
 tinguishes death: an atmosphere through which the 
 external world vibrates and pierces us to the soul : an 
 atmosphere which pure and clear brings us peace and 
 power, and judgment and joy : an atmosphere which 
 impure and clouded brings us unrest and weakness, and 
 instability and misery. A physical atmosphere lying 
 intermediate to the physical and metaphysical life : an 
 atmosphere which our great colleague, William Crookes, 
 might call radiant. 
 
 That atmosphere, serene or troublous, light or gross, 
 bright or gloomy, we make in ourselves, not from ourselves, 
 but from what we take into ourselves and transmute there. 
 We make it from foods and drinks, and as we make it it 
 makes us. Go into the wards of a lunatic asylum and 
 notice amongst the most troubled there the odour of the 
 gases and the vapours they emit by the skin and breath. 
 That odour is from their internal atmosphere, their nerv- 
 ous ethereal emanation. They are mad : mad, we say, up 
 to suicide or murder or any criminal folly. Can it be 
 otherwise ? They have secreted the madness ; they are 
 filled with it ; it exhales from them. Catch it, condense 
 
 o
 
 194 WOMAN AS A SANITARY EEFOKMER 
 
 it, imbibe it, and in like manner it would madden 
 any one ! In one experiment of mine I have shown 
 that a common product, a food if we like to call it so, a 
 thing that can be made from food-stuff, an alcohol, will 
 by its mere artificial temporary diffusion through the 
 healthy body bring on, for the time it is acting as a false 
 atmosphere, such awful despair that the experimentalist 
 can barely avoid destroying his own life. 
 
 See, from the study of foods, out of which the radiant 
 or deadly atmosphere is made, what fields of discovery 
 open to the mind. A mother, watching the effect of 
 food on her gloomy saturnine child, may detect how she 
 can so feed it that the cloud shall pass away. Happy 
 mother of a child ! Far, far happier mother, perchance, 
 of science and hope. In some great establishments for 
 the insane so much gloom is secreted in the nervous 
 recesses of human frames that many times a day, but 
 for excessive vigilance, some terrible hand would raise 
 itself against itself, to kill itself. What if in a wiser day, 
 however far off, the removal of that little cloud from 
 a troubled child should show the way to the removal 
 of those denser, blacker clouds which lower and create 
 storms in human breasts, overpowering altogether the 
 radiant nervous ether ! What if from that minor event 
 this greater one should follow ! What nobler accomplish- 
 ment of noble deed could woman perform, save and except 
 when she is the mother of her kind ? 
 
 Referring back to our friend Ischomachus, and 
 Madam his lady, I said he would probably not wish that 
 she, like Hippocrates, should be learned in diagnosis. 
 Neither in this day should I press that as a part of the
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 195 
 
 education of the sanitary female scholar. I do not say 
 this as if to frighten any one away from an art too obscure 
 to be thought of, for diagnosis is one of the easiest and 
 most commonplace of human acquirements when the 
 superstitious mystery that is made to surround it is 
 cleared away. But I say it for the reason that the art 
 is not necessary for women except in a limited degree. 
 I would claim, however, that to this extent it should be 
 cultivated by women. They should know the correct 
 names and characters of the more common diseases, and 
 they should know, by sight, the everyday contagious or 
 communicable diseases. To this knowledge of the com- 
 municable affections they should add a few facts bearing 
 upon the periods of incubation of these diseases, the 
 periods, that is to say, between the time when they are 
 what is vulgarly called ' caught,' and the time when they 
 are developed and in turn communicable, or, again to use 
 a common term, ' catchable.' Thus, to know that scarlet 
 fever may be incubated in a few hours, while small pox 
 takes twelve days, measles twelve to fourteen days, and 
 so on, is very useful knowledge. It enables the question 
 of isolation of the unaffected or the removal of the sick 
 to be rationally considered ; it suggests inquiry as to the 
 origin of the infection or contagion ; and it gives reliance 
 to those who are attending to the wants of the affected. 
 In like manner it is well for women to know the critical 
 periods, special dangers, and ordinary modes of termina- 
 tion of diseases. Beyond this, diagnostic skill, on their 
 part, needs little further development. 
 
 At the same time all the best known methods of pre- 
 venting disease should be at their fingers' ends, and the 
 
 o 2
 
 196 WOMAN AS A SANITARY KEFOEMER 
 
 rule of the sick-room should be their faithful care. The 
 woman should know everything about registering the 
 temperature of the sick-room and degree of humidity ; 
 the mode of ventilation ; the different special methods 
 of feeding, washing, and changing the sick; the most 
 efficient means of disinfecting, and of removing or de- 
 stroying the poisons of the communicable diseases. How, 
 in this way, the woman could help the physician none 
 but the physician can understand. I have said it many 
 times, and, on the principle that 
 
 ' Truth can never be confirmed enough, 
 
 Though doubt should ever sleep,' 
 
 I declare it again, that if, in the management and 
 treatment of any of the acute and of many of the chronic 
 diseases, you gave me, in this climate, absolute control 
 of the fire and the window of the sick-room, I could 
 determine the course of the illness. As many as you 
 like of my learned brethren might come and go, and 
 consult and prescribe ; let me have exclusive right to 
 those two influences, the fire and the window, and the 
 fate of the sick man is in my hands, the best other efforts 
 all but void and vain. How vital, therefore, the influence 
 of the woman, educated to sanitary work, in the sick 
 room. What an aid to the physician ! Nor to the sick 
 alone should this systematic care of the woman be 
 directed. It should extend, more carefully than it has 
 ever yet done, to the very young, to those who are in the 
 first weeks and months of life ; so that they be saved 
 pains and impressions, which received and registered, 
 if not remembered, may be penalties of after days. I 
 conceive, in fact, there is no department of practice more
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITAKY KEFOKMEB, 197 
 
 neglected, in respect to principles, than the management 
 of offspring in its earliest youth. Love there is plenty 
 of; admiration unbounded; rational systematic training, 
 the poorest that can be described. 
 
 I fear I am keeping you too long ; let me then be 
 content to point out but one more lesson for the modern 
 edition of Madam, the wife of Ischomachus. She should 
 have, in addition to instruction on all the points above 
 named, a good training also on some subjects which 
 refer to mental as well as physical education, and to 
 some qualities that lie somewhat out of the way of what 
 is purely physical, and which yet obscurely lean towards 
 it. In these directions she should understand the little 
 appreciated law of temperaments : the nervous, the bili- 
 ous, the sanguine, and the lymphatic. She should study 
 the combinations of these, and she should observe how 
 temperament influences health, taste, activity, and disease. 
 From this she would learn how different natures would 
 intermix in work or play, and what work, what play, 
 would suit the nature. The sanguine ruddy child, with 
 blue eyes, red hair, strong muscle, quick movement, rest- 
 less limb, she may set to study at books while she curbs 
 exercise, with no fear that books will kill, for that child 
 will outlive any book. The bilious child, with dark eyes, 
 dark skin, black hair, stolid expression, thoughtful brow, 
 she will not set to the study of books as the work of life ; 
 for books may kill, while physical exercise may save, 
 and will never be carried, voluntarily, to injury. The 
 nervous child, with fair skin, light hair, blue eye, quick 
 but feeble movement, timid glance, yet perhaps unbounded 
 ambition, she will spirit gently ; will balance between
 
 198 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 
 
 physical and mental labour ; will apportion excess of 
 neither, and will never urge unduly to any effort. The 
 lymphatic child, large of body, pale, with grey or blue 
 eyes, brown hair, shambling step, watery lip, and slow 
 determination, she will rouse to action both physical and 
 mental, with the full assurance that neither effort will 
 do anything but good. 
 
 Beyond the study of the temperaments and the 
 special dangers connected with them, she should devote 
 her mind to the consideration of what the learned 
 D'Espine has designated the mental contagions. She 
 should study emotional contagion with special care, and 
 on one emotion, that of fear, she should keep the most 
 watchful observation, because she will discover it to be 
 the most common and disastrous of all contagions. She 
 will never excite it for a moment by story of superstition 
 or dread. She will never suggest it. To tell a fainting 
 or feeble person, ' You look weak, you look pale,' is, as 
 she will learn, to add weakness to weakness, pallor to 
 pallor, and ashes to ashes. She will lift up ; disperse 
 moral contagions wherever they are found ; isolate the 
 susceptible to them, as far as it is possible, from the 
 centres of them ; and through the windows of the mind 
 let nothing pass but the sunshine of mirth and strength 
 and beauty. 
 
 Finally, in physical psychological training there would 
 stand out for contemplation, and action founded upon it, 
 one more subject : that marvel of the marvellous in 
 living phenomena, heredity of type and action, extending 
 to health, and extending, alas ! to disease in its deepest 
 foundations. A little aid from books of learned men, of
 
 WOMAN AS A SANITAKY KEFOEMEK 199 
 
 the learned man of this branch of knowledge especially 
 you know I can only mean Darwin would help the 
 scholar much ; but the aid she will soon be led to find in 
 the yet higher authority of nature will help her most. 
 She will see the descents from good to good, and even 
 though fortunately with decreasing ratio from evil to 
 evil. She will see the conquest of death as a natural con- 
 quest over evil, and, being now in the groove of nature, she 
 will detect how even she may availingly help nature. One 
 effort here as a Sanitarian would call forth her strongest 
 powers. She will stand to resist with her full persuasive 
 might that process which I have elsewhere called the 
 intermarriage of disease. She will tell her sisters what 
 that terrible process means. She will tell that diseased 
 heredity united in marriage means the continuance of 
 the heredity as certainly as that two and two make four ; 
 that madness, consumption, cancer, scrofula, yes, and 
 certain of the contagious diseases too, may be perpetuated 
 from the altar ; and that the first responsibilities of 
 parents towards the offspring they expect ought to be not 
 how to provide for wealth and position, over which they 
 have no control, but for that preliminary wholesome 
 parentage, which is the foundation of health, and without 
 which position and wealth are shadowy legacies indeed. 
 Delicate ground, you may say. I admit the fact. But in 
 a world in which they who study the living and the dead 
 most carefully rarely see a man or woman hereditarily 
 free from disease, even this ground must be entered on 
 by the enlightened scholar. I touch on it here for the 
 best of all reasons, that the subject it includes, affecting 
 deeply the human heart in its sympathies and affections, 
 is one on which the influence of woman the arbitress of
 
 200 WOMAN AS A SANITARY REFORMER 
 
 the natures that are to be is all potent for good or for 
 evil. 
 
 To know the first principles of animal physics and life ; 
 to learn the house and its perfect management ; to learn 
 the elementary problems relating to the fatal diseases ; 
 to ordain the training of the young ; to grasp the ele- 
 ments of the three psycho-physical problems, the human 
 temperaments, the moral contagions with their preven- 
 tions, and the heredities of disease with their prevention, 
 these, in all respect and earnestness, I set before this 
 Congress as the heads of the 'educational programme for 
 our modern woman in her sphere of life and duty. Let 
 these studies be hers, and once more may be applied to 
 her the promise of that wisest of men, with whose words 
 I opened this discourse : ' She shall rejoice in time to 
 come. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in 
 her.' And sun and sum of all hopes, ambitions, happi- 
 ness ! ' Her children shall rise up and call her blessed.'
 
 201 
 
 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH. 1 
 
 THE character of the dress of a person stands so near to 
 the character of the person who is the wearer of it, that 
 it is difficult to touch on one without introducing the 
 other. All sorts of sympathies are evoked by dress. 
 Political sympathies are in the most intimate of relation- 
 ships with dress ; social sympathies are indexed by it ; 
 artistic sympathies are of necessity a part of it. In a 
 word, the dress is the outward and visible skin of the 
 mortal who carries it. 
 
 A charming and at the same time a very useful 
 lecture might be written on the metaphysics of dress ; 
 but in this practical day, when the useful only is tole- 
 rated and the charming is considered superfluous I 
 mean, of course, in a lecture I must let all attempt at 
 such a combination fall to the ground. I must deal only 
 with what is purely physical : the physical body and the 
 physical stuff that is put on it : Dress in relation to 
 health. 
 
 In studying this subject I will consider the following 
 topics : 
 
 1 Lecture delivered at the London Institution on Monday, March 
 1880.
 
 202 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 Dress in relation to its mechanical adaptation to the 
 
 body. 
 Dress in relation to season. I mean, the amount of 
 
 clothing that should be worn at different periods 
 
 of the year according to seasonal changes, in this 
 
 English climate. 
 Dress in respect to the admission of atmospheric air 
 
 through it or beneath it to the surface of the 
 
 body. 
 Dress in relation to the colour of the material of 
 
 which it is composed. 
 Dress in relation to the action of colouring substances 
 
 which are introduced into its fabric and which 
 
 come into contact with the surface of the body. 
 Cleanliness in dress. 
 
 These are all very serious subjects in respect to dress. 
 If it were on the fashion of dress I had to treat, if I might 
 have permission to lead you, as at a fancy-dress ball, 
 through the historical domain of costume, then I might 
 try to fascinate the most fastidious, and to make the 
 time pass like a dream, in a promenade. Confined to 
 health and dress, I can commit no ecstasy. I must be 
 allowed to criticise, if not to scold, and rarely indeed to 
 find one passing word that stands for commendation. 
 
 Let me, nevertheless, at once state that I have not 
 a syllable of expression to bring forward against good 
 fashion, and good changing fashion in dress. There is 
 nothing whatever incompatible between good fashion and 
 good health; they may always go well together, and 
 they ought to go together. Naturally, I believe, they 
 would always go together, because they are both good,
 
 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 203 
 
 and two goods can never make a bad. In like manner, 
 bad fashion in dress and bad health go together very 
 often, because two bads cannot make a good. For my 
 part, I have never seen a good fashion of dress that was 
 not a healthy fashion, and the world has only been led 
 astray on this matter by the unfortunate circumstance 
 that it has allowed its tastes to be directed by the child- 
 ishness of ignorance. In early times costume, naturally 
 enough, sprang out of innocence. Scientific rules were 
 unknown, and, if we may take the history of primitive 
 nations as true, artistic rules were not supremely de- 
 veloped or carried out. Through long ages fashions varied, 
 mainly on the artistic side, approaching only towards 
 scientific necessity in cases where arctic cold or tropical 
 heat enforced some kind of consideration for the person 
 who had to be clothed. Later, in more modern and 
 scientific times, fashion has been governed by the most 
 superficial, vain, and imprudent of so-called artistes and 
 fashion-leaders, who have invented modes out of their 
 own little heads, and have set Nature at defiance, as if 
 they were Nature, and she were an idiot, thereby chang- 
 ing places with her in the most complacent manner. 
 
 Let me say further even than this. I commend 
 good fashion and fine, nay exquisite, taste in dress as a 
 good thing of itself, independently of health. I agree 
 entirely with Mrs. Haweis that it is the bounden duty 
 of every woman to make herself look as handsome as 
 ever she can. If she have natural beauty, she ought to 
 study how to maintain it in and through every period of 
 her life yes to the last; for there is nothing more 
 beautiful than beauty in old age. If she have moderate 
 beauty, she should do her utmost to make the best of it.
 
 204 DKESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 If she have no beauty, she ought to impart all that is 
 possibly near to it, by every kind of justifiable supplement. 
 If she be positively ugly, the more is it her duty to use 
 every legitimate art to hide the fact, and to transform 
 even ugliness into passable presentation. Look at an 
 ugly woman badly attired, and showing all the lines that 
 offend taste. Look at the same woman gracefully attired 
 and fairly, artistically, got up, with some approach to- 
 wards the beautiful, and who would hesitate to pro- 
 nounce in favour of a longer tete-a-tete with the last of 
 that woman as compared with the first ? Why ! we 
 blockheads of men are sometimes entirely taken in by 
 skilful ugly women. We look upon them as handsome. 
 The deception is justifiable, and our satisfaction is more 
 than a recompense for our stupidity. 
 
 What is good for women is not worse for men, but I 
 am sorry to say that men are far behind women in their 
 endeavours to assume the beautiful. In my time I have 
 never, off the stage, seen a man dressed many removes 
 from the hideous. When I first began to look at my 
 male seniors, universal black was the rage, black from 
 head to foot ; the very head, which was the only part of 
 the animal that emerged out of darkness, rising from a 
 broad black ring called a stock, into which the chin 
 sometimes dropped. A little later, and an extremely tight 
 mode of dress came into fashion, a mode which is not 
 yet entirely discarded, but which still fits closely to those 
 strangely occupied individuals called ' copers,' about 
 whom there is a mystery as to whether their clothes were 
 not originally and permanently modelled to their bodies. 
 Eecently there has been some attempt at improve- 
 ment in English male attire. The surtout coat, rather
 
 DKESS IN EELATION TO HEALTH 205 
 
 loosely fitting, and cut so as to hang well from the 
 shoulders, has imported a modest but good change in 
 fashion, while the looser and better shaped nether habili- 
 ments have so improved in design that even the sculptors 
 have at last, with much compunction of conscience, ven- 
 tured to reproduce them in marble. 
 
 Still, in the attire of men, and I think I must say in 
 the attire of women also, a great deal is wanting in 
 taste, and the most bigoted Darwinian would hardly, I 
 think, dare to declare the doctrine of ' the survival of 
 the fittest' in respect of modern clothes, whatever he 
 might say of the wearers of them. 
 
 I name these points that I may not be accused of 
 feeling no care for the fashion connected with dress. I 
 would have good fashion go with every hygienic improve- 
 ment in clothes and clothing, and I know it would be 
 easy to prove that hygiene of dress could always be com- 
 bined with the most artistic and perfect of fashionable 
 designings, by which combination health, comfort, and 
 elegance would all be insured. 
 
 Such combination set forth as a national fashion 
 should pass, as I think, through all classes of the com- 
 munity, for assuredly, even at this time, though it be 
 better than it once was, few things designate classes and 
 keep up distinctions of classes so much as the clothes 
 that are worn, as badges, I had almost said, of the 
 wearers. The costumes of the trim shopman, the slovenly 
 mechanic, the country labourer, the flourishing squire, 
 the tight-laced soldier, the club exquisite, the lugubrious 
 doctor, the devil-may-care artist, and the awful ecclesi- 
 astic in his demented hat and sacred pinafore these 
 costumes and others betray a want of national taste and
 
 206 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 national unity which I for one, health-seeker as I would 
 be, utterly repudiate. There can be no amalgamation of 
 mind and heart while these distinctive outside declara- 
 tions exist amongst us. In robes of office, during periods 
 of office, men may well be distinctively clad. On the 
 bench, at the bar, in the pulpit, in the professor's chair, 
 such costumes are classically graceful and usefully distinc- 
 tive, while in the workshop or other place of business a 
 particular outer dress suited to the occupation is no doubt 
 necessary; but for ordinary intercourse something in 
 common in the way of dress were surely, in these ad- 
 vanced days, the thing to cultivate. 
 
 I pass now to the first head of my subject : Dress in 
 relation to its mechanical adaptation to the body. 
 
 DRESS AND ITS MECHANICAL ADAPTATION. 
 
 The first and most serious mechanical error com- 
 mitted on the body by dress is that of tightness, by 
 which pressure is brought to bear upon some particular 
 part. Presuming that an equable general pressure, not 
 extreme in its character, and including the whole body, 
 were applied for a fitting purpose, that is to say, for 
 the purpose of indicating outline, no great evil pro- 
 bably would follow from the application of such pressure, 
 provided that it were so adapted as to give with the 
 growth, to yield a certain measure of elasticity, and to 
 permit perfect freedom of motion. A little more, perhaps, 
 may be admitted even than this. In advanced life, when 
 the shape of the body becomes irregular, and when the 
 weight of pendent parts drags on the rest of the body, 
 clothing specially adapted to those parts, and surrounding
 
 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 207 
 
 them with close and even pressure, gives useful and ef- 
 fective support, adding greatly at the same time, it may 
 be, to the appearance of the body. These are excep- 
 tional conditions requiring exceptional management. 
 
 That kind of pressure to which objection must be 
 most determinately taken is where the pressure is used, 
 not for giving support to the body, nor for sustaining 
 natural outline, but for the express purpose of producing 
 an entirely artificial shape and outline. It is astonish- 
 ing how resolutely the advanced professors of medicine, 
 in all times in which they have written, have denounced 
 the practice of compressing the body in the stages of its 
 growth for the purpose of moulding it into some un- 
 natural form incident to fashion. It is equally astonish- 
 ing to find how resolutely the votaries of the fashion have 
 resisted the teachings of science, which may be said 
 never to have made a single point in advance towards a 
 practical victory ; for although fashion has, now and then, 
 given way for a short time, it seems always to have gone 
 back into its old place. 
 
 For my part, I can do no more than earnestly follow 
 my predecessors and compeers in their crusade against 
 unnatural practice in dress, and especially against it as it 
 affects the female part of the community. The corset and 
 the waist-belt I must once more condemn as opposed to 
 all that is healthful and all that is beautiful. By these 
 appliances, through which an unequal pressure is exerted 
 on one part of the body, the functions of the lungs, of 
 the heart, and of the digestive organs are all kept under 
 imperfect condition. The breathing is suppressed, the 
 heart-beat is suppressed, the digestive power is suppressed. 
 In this way the tripod of life for life rests on the diges-
 
 208 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 tion, the respiration, and circulation is made imperfect, 
 and with that imperfection every other part of the body 
 sympathises. Of late years women have raised the cry, 
 and I think quite properly, that they are too much 
 subjected to the will of men, that they have not the 
 privileges which should belong to them as fellow human 
 beings. But, in fact, no subjection to which they have 
 ever submitted can be greater than this to which they 
 have subjected themselves ; and I would venture to say 
 that, while they continue this self-infliction, they can 
 never, under any improved system of social freedom, ex- 
 perience the benefit of the change. If to-morrow women 
 were placed in all respects on an equality with men, if 
 they were permitted to sit in Parliament, enter the jury- 
 box, or ascend the Bench itself, they would remain under 
 subjection to superior mental and physical force so long 
 as they crippled their physical, vital, and mental constitu- 
 tions by this one practice of cultivating, under an atro- 
 cious view of what is beautiful, a form of body which is de- 
 structive of development of body, which reduces physical 
 power, and which thereby deadens mental capability. 
 
 Of the two evil practices to which I refer, the tight 
 waist-belt is, I think, worse than the tight corset, except 
 where the corset is so adapted that it acts at one and 
 the same time as belt and compressor general. The 
 effect of either is to press down upon the liver and 
 stomach, to prevent the free circulation of blood through 
 these organs, to diminish their active physiological func- 
 tion, to make them descend and compress the vital 
 organs that lie beneath them, and so to impair the 
 growth and action of all the great secreting structures. 
 The effect, again, is to interfere with the great breathing
 
 DEESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 209 
 
 muscle, the diaphragm or midriff, which divides the chest 
 from the abdomen, and which, by its descent, causes the 
 lungs to fill in breathing. Lastly, the effect is to press 
 upwards, and so to interfere with the heart and lungs 
 themselves. An eminent Parisian physician, M. Breschet, 
 recorded many years ago the facts relating to a woman, 
 who, on the right side of her throat, had a swelling which 
 reached from the collar-bone to the level of the thyroid 
 cartilage, and which, when the chest was tightly laced 
 in corsets, was enlarged to its fullest. In the swelling 
 the murmur of respiration could be heard when a stetho- 
 scope was applied over it ; but when the chest was set 
 at liberty and the swelling was gently pressed downwards, 
 it disappeared. In this instance, a portion of the right 
 lung had actually been forced behind the collar-bone out 
 of the cavity of the chest altogether, into the loose tissue 
 of the neck. 
 
 Here was a very exceptional experience, no doubt 
 one I have not myself seen nor found record of in this 
 country. At the same time, I have seen very close 
 approaches to it. I have several times known the lungs 
 to be pushed quite out of place and compressed towards 
 the upper part of the thorax, and I have known the 
 heart extremely displaced by the same pressure. 
 
 That which mothers and the guardians of youth 
 ought to know is, not only the fact of displacement of 
 organs under pressure, not only the fact of the temporary 
 derangement of the function of the organs, but the 
 further and more important fact of all, as affecting the 
 future life of the person most concerned, that under the 
 pressure the organs implicated cannot grow so as to 
 attain their full and complete development within the 
 
 p
 
 210 DEESS IN EELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 period that marks the outline of growth. It is impossible, 
 therefore, that those who are imprisoned in growth can 
 attain full development of body. The folly they pay for 
 in youth extends through middle age, and expedites the 
 decline. 
 
 The evils arising from compression of the chest, as 
 above mentioned, are not confined altogether to the female 
 sex. They are brought about in boys and in men. It 
 often becomes a habit in schools and colleges for youths to 
 employ a strap or other form of belt for holding up their 
 trousers ; one boy sets the example, and the others think 
 it right to follow ; so the practice becomes general, and 
 you find a tight line indicating pressure marked round 
 the bodies of these youths. Fortunately, in their case, 
 as they emerge into life, and before great mischief is 
 done, they give up the strap and take to supporting the 
 clothes from the shoulders, by the brace, and so they 
 escape further injury; but, while it lasted, the injury 
 was undoubtedly severe. 
 
 There is another and more permanent injury of this 
 kind, however, carried out by boys, and even by men, which 
 consists in wearing a belt for the purpose of giving what 
 is called support. Boys who are about to run in races, 
 or to leap, put on the belt and strap it tightly, in order, 
 as they say, to hold in their wind or breath. Working- 
 men who are about to lift weights or carry heavy burdens 
 put on a belt for the same purpose, their declaration 
 being that it gives support. Actually there is not a fig- 
 ment of truth in this belief. It is the expression of a 
 fashion, and nothing more. The belt impedes respira- 
 tion, compresses the abdominal muscles, compresses the 
 muscles of the back, subjecting them to unnecessary
 
 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 211 
 
 friction, and seriously impedes motion. No boy would 
 think of putting a belt tightly round the body of his pony 
 if he wished it to win a race or to leap a hurdle ; no 
 working-man would put a belt tightly round the body of 
 a horse to make it pull with greater facility a load which 
 it was drawing. On themselves they commence the 
 practice because somebody has set the example, then they 
 get accustomed to the impediment, and think they cannot 
 get on without it. Drinking is learned by just the same 
 absurd process. 
 
 I had a good working-man in my employ who would 
 undertake no vigorous effort until he had tightened his 
 belt. Once I got him to test what he could lift with and 
 without the belt, and he was obliged himself to admit 
 that he could do more without it than with it ; but, he 
 argued, he could not get on without it. That is what 
 ladies say about corsets. 
 
 Respecting this belt for boys and men there is a 
 word more I must say which is of serious import. When 
 they put on the belt for the sake of performing some feat 
 of strength, they effect another dangerous mischief. 
 Compressing the abdomen, they force, during the exer- 
 tion, the contents of the abdominal cavity downwards 
 under pressure, giving no chance to resilience back again 
 after the exertion or shock. In this way they frequently 
 cause hernia or rupture. I have seen, professionally, 
 several instances of this occurrence in boys, and amongst 
 workmen who wear belts this accidental disease is so 
 common that it is the rule rather than the exception to 
 find it present. 
 
 Other forms of tight pressure upon the body are open 
 to serious, if not to equal objection. The wearing of
 
 212 DKESS IN EELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 shoes which compress and distort the feet is a singularly 
 injurious custom. Suppose I said that nine-tenths of 
 the feet of the members of an English community were 
 rendered misshapen by the boots and shoes worn, the 
 statement would seem extreme, but it would be within 
 the truth. The pointed shoe or boot is the most signal 
 instance of a mischievous instrument designed for the 
 torture of feet. In this shoe the great toe is forced out 
 of its natural line towards the other toes, giving a reverse 
 curve from what is natural to the terminal part of the 
 inner side of the foot, while all the other toes are com- 
 pressed together towards the great toe, the whole pro- 
 ducing a wedge-like form of foot which is altogether 
 apart from the natural. Such a foot has lost its expanse 
 of tread ; such a foot has lost its elastic resistance ; such 
 a foot has lost the strength of its arch to a very con- 
 siderable degree ; such a foot, by the irregular and 
 unusual pressure on certain points of its surface, has 
 become hard at those points, and is easily affected with 
 corns and bunions. Lastly, such a foot becomes badly 
 nourished, and the pressure exerted upon it interferes 
 with its circulation and nutrition. It ceases to be an 
 instrument upon which the body can sustain itself with 
 grace and with easiness of movement, even in early life ; 
 while in mature life, and in old age, it becomes a foot 
 which is absolutely unsafe, and which causes much of 
 that irregular, hobbling tread which often renders so 
 peculiar the gait of persons who have passed their 
 meridian. 
 
 It sometimes happens for a time that these mistakes 
 in regard to the boot and shoe are increased by the plan 
 of raising the heel and letting it rest on a raised impedi-
 
 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 213 
 
 ment of a pointed shape. Anything more barbarous can 
 scarcely be conceived. By this means, the body, which 
 should naturally be balanced on a most beautiful arch, 
 is placed on an inclined plane, and is only prevented 
 from falling forwards by the action of the muscles which 
 counterbalance the mechanical error. But all this is at 
 the expense of lost muscular effort along the whole line 
 of the muscular track, from the heels actually to the 
 back of the head ; a loss of force which is absolutely 
 useless, and, as I have known in several cases, exhaust- 
 ing and painful. In addition to these evils arising from 
 the pointed and heeled boot, there are yet two more. In 
 the first place, the elastic spring of the arch being broken 
 by the heel, the vibration produced by its contact with 
 the earth, at every step, causes a concussion which 
 extends along the whole of the spinal column, and is 
 sometimes very acutely felt. In the second place, the 
 expanse of the foot being limited, the seizure of the earth 
 by the foot is incomplete both in standing and in walking, 
 so that it becomes a new art to learn how to stand erect 
 or to walk with safety. 
 
 Another form of constriction in dress is that produced 
 by the garter. By this pressure a line of depression is 
 often produced quite round the limb below the knee, and 
 the course of blood through the veins from the foot and 
 leg, into the body, is seriously impeded. This is one 
 cause of varicose veins, sometimes an original cause, and 
 always a serious impediment to recovery when, from any 
 other reason, the enlarged or varicose vein is already 
 present. The ligature or band called the garter is bad 
 in any way, but is far worse when it is worn below than 
 above the knee, for above the knee the two tendons,
 
 214 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 commonly called ham-strings, receive the pressure of a 
 great portion of the bandage, and act as bridges to the 
 veins which pass beneath. 
 
 In men I have seen mischief from the tight cravat 
 and collar, the pressure caused by the same leading to an 
 obstruction to the due return of the blood from the brain. 
 This, in persons of plethoric habits especially, is a danger 
 not to be disregarded, and, though it may be of compara- 
 tively rare occurrence, it is worth mentioning. I have 
 more than once in my life had occasion to see the 
 injurious results produced by it. 
 
 I have now referred to the four varieties of pressure 
 which are the most injurious in dress : pressure at the 
 waist ; pressure at the foot ; pressure round the leg ; and 
 pressure round the neck. I place them in the order of 
 their importance, but the first undoubtedly outweighs 
 the others altogether. 
 
 It is actually impossible to overstate the physical in- 
 juries which result from these mistakes in bodily attire. 
 I have told some of them. I reserve one which I will 
 state before I pass to a new section. It will perhaps in- 
 fluence some who are comparatively thoughtless on this 
 subject ; it will, I am sure, influence all sensible and 
 thoughtful people. It is this observation, that the mis- 
 chiefs inflicted by mode of dress become hereditary in 
 character. I do not mean to say that because a person 
 produces hi himself or herself a deformed waist, or foot, 
 by dress, that therefore that particular deformity will be 
 physically hereditary in the offspring of such person. I 
 think the evidence is rather against that view, because it 
 would seem that the Chinese children, born of mothers 
 whose feet have been mechanically distorted, are born
 
 DEESS IN EELATION TO HEALTH 215 
 
 with feet which would come to a natural condition if 
 they were not bandaged in infancy in the same manner 
 as the mothers' were. But of this I am sure, that 
 the tendency to commit these deforming acts is often 
 hereditarily received and hereditarily transmitted, and 
 that the sense of desire for the performance of the act is 
 also transmissible. This, in fact, is one of the great 
 difficulties which we teachers have to overcome. We 
 have to fight against inbred proclivities, which are so 
 deep rooted that if all the women of England at this 
 time could, by a voluntary act of education, be led to 
 give up tight-lacing, another generation, perhaps two 
 generations, would have to live before the practice was 
 entirely abolished. 
 
 The lesson we have to learn and practise in respect 
 to the mechanical arrangements of dress so far is that 
 every plan which leads to irregular tightening of the body 
 should be given up. The corset and waist strap should 
 especially be abandoned, and our young girls should be 
 taught to grow up just as their brothers grow, without 
 ever learning the sense of false support which the corset 
 soon suggests as a necessity. With the members of both 
 sexes a reform should be introduced in the matter of 
 boots and shoes. The tight boot should be entirely dis- 
 carded, and that boot preferred which approaches nearest 
 in form to the natural foot. Mrs. Haweis and others 
 have insisted on the removal of the raised heel altogether 
 from the boot, with which I entirely agree. Anatomically 
 and physiologically it is a complete mistake to have the 
 heel raised from the ground beyond the level of the 
 palm of the foot. The moment the heel is raised, the 
 plan of the arch is deranged, and the elastic wave-like
 
 216 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 motion of the foot impeded. The arch ought always 
 to have full play, and Mr. Dowie's plan of introducing 
 an elastic connection or band across the arch, so as to 
 allow it freedom, is an admirable device. 
 
 The method by which clothes should be supported on 
 the body is another extremely important subject in con- 
 nection with dress, and especially in relation to the 
 dresses worn by women. Copying probably from an 
 Eastern custom, and from the primitive method of wear- 
 ing a girdle, it has become a habit endorsed by long 
 centuries of use for women to carry all their long flowing 
 robes from the waist. These, tied one over the other, 
 layer upon layer, and with sufficient tightness to enable 
 the garments to be borne by the actual pressure upon the 
 waist, are as great an encumbrance to the wearer as the 
 corset. Indeed, it is sometimes argued that the corset is 
 necessary in order that the pressure may be sustained, 
 the corset itself acting as a kind of shield between the 
 body and the bands, and acting also in some way like a 
 shoulder for supporting the bands. When the dresses 
 which are thus sustained are short and of light texture, 
 the weight and encumbrance are considerable ; but when 
 the dresses are long, when they trail on the ground, and 
 when they are made of heavy material, the weight and 
 encumbrance are drags on the life, which I suspect the 
 strongest man could not sustain while engaged in his 
 ordinary avocations. 
 
 I am rejoiced to see that ladies themselves, who are 
 writing intelligently on this topic, are earnestly teaching 
 in respect to it what is both common sense and common 
 humanity. I agree with these that the tax of carrying 
 clothes from the waist is utterly unjustifiable, and that
 
 DKESS IN EELATION TO HEALTH 217 
 
 the parts that should bear the burden are the shoulders, 
 and none other. In this regard women ought to be 
 placed under just the same favourable conditions for move- 
 ment of the body as men, and the greatest emancipation 
 that woman will ever have achieved will have arrived 
 when she has discovered and carried out this practical 
 improvement. 
 
 In saying this I do not for a moment wish to suggest 
 that the outward appearance of the feminine dress should 
 be like that of the masculine dress. To the woman, the 
 flowing robe which even trespasses a little on the ground 
 is most graceful, and is signally characteristic of femi- 
 nine beauty. I would, therefore, that it should remain 
 in all its gracefulness ; but in so far as everything else 
 is concerned, for every circumstance in which health is 
 involved, for warmth, for freedom of movement, for mode 
 by which the dress is carried from the shoulders, I 
 would say, Let the women have all the advantages 
 which now belong to men. 
 
 For any one who will for a moment think candidly 
 must admit that the dress of men, however bad it may 
 be in taste, or in whatever bad taste it may have been 
 conceived, is, in respect to health, infinitely superior to 
 that of women. In the dress of the man every part of 
 the body is equally covered. The middle of the body is 
 not enveloped in a number of close layers, while the 
 lower limbs are left without close clothing altogether. 
 The centre of the body is not strained with a weight 
 which almost drags down the lower limbs and back. 
 The chest is not exposed to every wind that blows, and 
 the feet are not bewildered with heavy garments which 
 they have to kick forward or drag from behind with
 
 218 DEESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 every advancing step. The body is clothed equally. 
 The clothing is borne by the shoulders ; it gives free 
 motion to breathing ; it gives freedom of motion to the 
 circulation ; it makes no undue pressure on the digestive 
 organs ; it leaves the limbs free ; it is easily put on and 
 off; and it allows of ready change in vicissitudes of 
 weather. These are the advantages of modern attire for 
 the man, and all I claim is that they should, by faithful 
 copy, be extended to the woman, with the one exception 
 of the graceful outer gown or robe, as a supplement to her 
 own superior grace and beauty. 
 
 It is reported of the eminent surgeon Mr. Cline, the 
 teacher of Sir Astley Cooper, that when he was consulted 
 by a lady on the question how she should prevent a girl 
 from growing up misshapen, he replied, ' Let her have 
 no stays and let her run about like the boys.' I gladly 
 re-echo this wise advice of the great surgeon ; and I 
 would venture to add to it another suggestion. I would 
 say to the mothers of England, Let your girls dress 
 just like your boys, make no difference whatever in 
 respect to them give them knickerbockers, if you like 
 with these exceptions : that the under garments be of a 
 little lighter material, and that they be supplemented by 
 an outer gown or robe which shall take the place of the 
 outer coat of the boys, and shall make them look 
 distinctively what they are girls clothed cap-a-pie, and 
 well clothed from head to foot. 
 
 In speaking of these mechanical arrangements of 
 dress I have as yet made no mention of the throat and 
 the head as parts requiring to be clothed. In suggesting 
 that girls should be clothed as fully as boys i have 
 incidentally conveyed that the chest of the girl should 
 be covered, and I would add that in both sexes the
 
 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 219 
 
 throat should be covered also during the period extending 
 from October to April. The throat is one of the most 
 important parts to protect, and it is, as is well known, 
 one of the most common parts of the body to become 
 affected during cold weather. In this past bad weather 
 it has been my constant I had nearly said, daily 
 observation to see some affection of the throat, attended 
 with cold, and so often has this occurred in those whose 
 throats have been uncovered as compared with those 
 who have used careful moderate covering, I cannot doubt 
 that the absence of such covering has had a very 
 deleterious effect. 
 
 Of coverings for the head, I should say that they 
 should be always light and free, whether a bonnet, or a 
 cap, or a hat be the subject under dispute. I think the 
 gipsy hat beats the quaker bonnet for the fairer sex ; 
 and although for men I cannot say anything in favour 
 of the tall chimney-pot that will redeem it from its 
 ugliness, I must claim for it that, when it is light and 
 well ventilated, it is healthy. The felt hats are too 
 closely-fitting, though some are becoming. The stiff felt 
 hat, with narrow turned-up brim, and which looks like a 
 Koundhead's helmet without the metal, is in respect to 
 health miserable, and in respect to appearance simply 
 hideous. The most graceful of all head-dresses for 
 either sex and it suits either is the fine old Geneva 
 cap, sometimes called the ' Leonardo da Vinci,' which I 
 wear on occasions, by right, as the doctor's cap of the 
 old University of St. Andrews. It is not merely a 
 handsome head-dress, it is healthy also, and adapts 
 itself to heat and cold. I, for one, would willingly give 
 up the particular privilege of wearing it to see it more 
 widely adopted.
 
 220 DKESS IN EELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 DRESS IN EELATION TO SEASON. 
 
 From the subject of mechanical adaptations of dress 
 I pass to the amount and kind of clothing that should 
 be worn at different periods of the year. 
 
 On this subject there is great contrariety of opinion, 
 and perhaps still greater contrariety of practice. There 
 are those who maintain that to be healthy the body 
 should be hardened by exposure to cold, and that to 
 wrap up and coddle is the weakest and worst of all plans. 
 It must be admitted that there are some persons who 
 seem to flourish under this regime, and who live to 
 advanced age without suffering from cold even when 
 lightly clad. I have known myself three men who have 
 approached their ninetieth year, and who always 
 vigorously refused to wrap up at all. Such persons are 
 great examples, but they are too exceptional to be counted 
 as safe ones. The majority of the aged die, as a rule, 
 rapidly during cold weather. I have known children 
 who have lived through their childhood half clothed in 
 coldest seasons ; and these are great examples, but they 
 also are too exceptional to be accepted as safe examples. 
 As a rule, ill- clad children suffer intensely in cold weather, 
 and often die, from cold as the indirect cause. 
 
 On the other hand, no doubt, some persons do greatly 
 over-encumber themselves with clothes ; and it is curious 
 to observe that stout persons, who are wrapped and 
 thoroughly lapped in their own subcutaneous non-con- 
 ducting layer of fat, and who are generally feeble, en- 
 cumber themselves with more clothes than their lithe 
 and spare-ribbed friends, who really require most pro- 
 tection.
 
 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 221 
 
 The truth is, that extremes on both sides are bad, 
 and that a dash of good common-sense is required to 
 equalise them. 
 
 In this climate the regulation of dress in relation to 
 health is an actual necessity during the varied seasons 
 that prevail. We may take it as a general rule that 
 when the body requires more food and more sleep to 
 meet the cold, it requires also more clothes than it does 
 at times when sleep and food are also less wanted. There 
 is a very remarkable physiological truth bearing on this 
 point which every one ought to know, inasmuch as a 
 knowledge of it becomes a guide to us in our daily life, 
 not only in relation to dress, but to food, exercise, labour, 
 and repose. The truth is so practical, that I dwell upon 
 it with some detail. It is this. There are certain periods 
 of the year, in this climate, during which, independently 
 of our wills or our actions, we are gaining in bodily weight, 
 while there are other periods when we are losing, both 
 periods showing a regularity which is as singularly 
 correct as it is singularly interesting. This truth was 
 first discovered by my late friend, Mr. W. E. Milner, for 
 many years medical superintendent of the large prison 
 at Wakeneld. His discovery was elicited by the laborious 
 process of weighing, daily, immense numbers of prisoners 
 through various seasons for a long series of years. I 
 give his results as he himself has stated them. 
 
 The prisoners were all males between the ages of 
 sixteen and fifty, and were presumed to be in good health 
 when committed. The cells in which they were confined 
 had a cubic capacity of about nine hundred feet, and from 
 thirty to thirty-five cubic feet of air were passed through 
 each cell per minute. The mean temperature of the
 
 222 DEESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 cells for the entire year was 61; the highest monthly 
 mean, 66*5, occurred in August ; the lowest, 56 - 9, in 
 March. 
 
 The diet was uniform, with the exception of the altera- 
 tions ordered by the medical officer in individual cases, 
 and consisted of the following articles daily: Bread, 
 twenty ounces ; meat without bone, four ounces ; soup, 
 half a pint these are equivalent to about seven ounces 
 and three-quarters of butcher's meat ; potatoes, one 
 pound ; skimmed milk, three-quarters of a pint ; gruel, 
 one pint, containing two ounces of oatmeal. 
 
 The dress was a cloth jacket, waistcoat, and trousers ; 
 cap and stock ; linen shirt ; woollen stockings ; drawers, 
 and under-shirt. 
 
 The prisoners were sent out to exercise in the open 
 air nine hours a week ; the exercise was for one hour at 
 a time ; the men walked in circles, and every ten minutes 
 they ran for a hundred and fifty yards. They were all 
 supplied with work, and were for the most part employed 
 in making mats and matting of cocoa-fibre and other 
 materials ; some worked at tailoring and shoemaking, 
 and a few had other work to perform. 
 
 All the prisoners were weighed on admission, and at 
 the latter end of every calendar month during their stay. 
 
 The number of prisoners over whom these observa- 
 tions extended was four thousand ; the period of time 
 occupied, ten years ; the average number weighed 
 monthly, three hundred and seventy-two ; and the total 
 number of weighings, forty-four thousand and four. 
 
 The men had all been weighed by Mr. Milner or 
 under his superintendence, and the series of observations 
 were unbroken.
 
 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 223 
 
 The results of these weighings were tabulated on 
 various bases, with a view to isolate the effect of a certain 
 number of variable bases on the gain or loss of weight 
 among these prisoners, and to determine the amount of 
 influence exerted by each of these conditions. 
 
 The conditions selected for investigation were : 
 
 1. The season of the year. 
 
 2. The period of imprisonment. 
 
 3. The employment in prison. 
 
 4. The age of the prisoners on admission. 
 
 5. The height of prisoners on admission. 
 
 The influence exerted by each of these conditions was 
 well marked, and, with one exception, viz. the influence 
 of season, the deductions were such as would have been 
 anticipated. 
 
 The first showed the influence of the season of the 
 year on the weight of a number of men placed during 
 the entire year under circumstances of food, clothing, 
 and work which did not differ, and who, for the greater 
 part of the day, were in a temperature which did not 
 vary greatly between the hottest and the coldest months. 
 Under such circumstances it might be expected that the 
 weight of the men, taken as a whole, would remain 
 sensibly the same ; and that the numbers losing or 
 gaining, as well as the quantities lost or gained, would 
 vary little month by month ; or that, if any marked 
 variation occurred, it would be of an accidental character, 
 depending on the greater or lesser amount of sickness 
 during any particular month. The results, however, 
 showed that a marked periodicity existed, and that, 
 taking an average of years, there were two distinct 
 series of months, during the one of which there was a
 
 224 DKESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 constant loss of weight, and during the other a constant 
 gain, so that, if the year were divided into quarters, there 
 was a loss during the first and fourth quarters, and a 
 gain during the second and third. 
 
 The two series of gaining and losing months were 
 unbroken, except in one instance. On reference to the 
 results it was found that in November, which was in the 
 losing series, a gain occurred. The amount gained was 
 very small, and the discrepancy was caused by the arrival 
 of large numbers of prisoners in September and October, 
 who usually gained weight for a short time after they 
 were received, so that probably this break in the series 
 resulted from the influence of the stage of imprisonment, 
 which rather more than balanced the influence of season. 
 On estimating carefully the facts which showed the 
 average gain or loss per prisoner weighed, it was seen 
 that, beginning at December, the amount lost per man 
 increased rapidly, and very steadily till March, but that 
 between March and April there was a very abrupt transi- 
 tion from loss to gain. The gains then continued till 
 August, the amount gained increasing on the whole by 
 a series of jerks, each alternate month presenting a 
 larger and a smaller gain respectively ; so that, to obtain 
 a steadily increasing series, it was necessary to couple 
 the summer months in pairs. Between August and 
 September a change of weight occurred, about equal in 
 amount, but in the opposite direction, to that which took 
 place between March and April. The changes between 
 March- April and August- September were far greater in 
 amount than the changes which took place between any 
 other pairs of consecutive months ; and this remark 
 applied with greater force to the percentages of men
 
 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 225 
 
 gaining or losing, and to the net gains and losses per 
 man. 
 
 The inferences which may be fairly drawn from these 
 observations are : 1. The body becomes heavier during 
 the summer months, and the gain varies in an increasing 
 ratio. 2. The body becomes lighter during the winter 
 months, and the loss varies in an increasing ratio. 
 3. The changes from gain to loss, and the reverse, are 
 abrupt, and take place about the end of March and the 
 beginning of September. 
 
 The results, which were thus gathered from the study 
 of a large number of periodical weighings, presented 
 a remarkable relation to the facts obtained by Dr. 
 Edward Smith from a series of most valuable and 
 elaborate experiments which he made on the quantities 
 of carbonic dioxide thrown off by the lungs at various 
 seasons of the year. For instance, Dr. Smith found that 
 the quantity of carbonic dioxide thrown off was much 
 greater in winter than in summer. Milner's weighings 
 showed that the prisoners lost weight in winter, when 
 the evolution of carbonic dioxide was great, and gained 
 weight in summer, when less of that gas was exhaled. 
 
 This in itself would be a striking coincidence ; but it 
 was clearly detected that a sudden change took place 
 between March and April, and at the same time of the 
 year Dr. Smith found that a similar change took place in 
 the amount of carbonic dioxide thrown off, and that the 
 amount of the change was much greater at that period 
 than at any other time ; and so much greater, that the 
 alteration struck him as being a very remarkable circum- 
 stance. Dr. Smith's observations corroborate those of 
 Mr. Milner by shewing that a more active combustion 
 
 Q
 
 226 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 takes place in the body with consequent increased waste 
 in winter than in summer. There can be little doubt 
 that variations of temperature, and of light, are the 
 principal agents in causing these changes; but it will 
 probably be found that, in addition to the direct influ- 
 ence of these physical agencies, a periodic action in the 
 system adds to or diminishes the effect. 
 
 From the consideration of the facts collected we may 
 fairly infer that there is a periodic variation in the 
 weight of man during the year, the six summer months 
 being gaining and the six winter months being losing 
 months. The amounts gained or lost gradually increase 
 from the commencement till the termination of each 
 period respectively ; the change from the gaining to the 
 losing period, and the converse, is, however, abrupt, and 
 these changes take place at times not very distant from 
 the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. 
 
 Bearing on the question thus raised by Mr. Milner, I 
 myself, from the Eegistrar-General's returns, made an 
 analysis of 139,318 deaths occurring, from 1838 to 1853, 
 in London, Devonshire, and Cornwall, with a view of 
 determining what causes of death were connected with 
 the varying seasons of the year ; and the result was to 
 dissever that during the wasting season, which was by 
 far the most fatal, those diseases were most rife which 
 spring from exposure to cold, and which are extremely 
 fatal under that condition. I have since then many 
 times drawn special attention to the importance of regu- 
 lating clothing so as to meet the emergency to which the 
 body is exposed during the wasting period ; and the 
 rules I had then in my mind I would enforce now. It 
 should be a settled practice with all persons in these
 
 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 227 
 
 islands that they commence to put on warmer clothing a 
 little before the wasting period begins, and that they con- 
 tinue it considerably beyond the time when the balance 
 turns, and the period of increasing weight commences. 
 
 Bearing on this important point, I have received a 
 most practical note from the Eev. B. A. Irving, M.A., 
 head master of the College, Windermere, in which the 
 argument set forth above is fully confirmed. Mr. Irving 
 indicates, from meteorological data, that about the 10th 
 of May and about the 10th of November there is a 
 remarkable fall in the mean temperature. The fall, 
 commencing in November, continues to increase until 
 the end of February. The pinch of cold in May is 
 followed by warmth, which continues through the 
 summer. The rule Mr. Irving deduces from these 
 physical facts is that we should be warmly clothed from 
 the end of January to the end of February, and that 
 summer clothing should on no account be assumed until 
 the cold pinch about the 10th of May is well passed say 
 about the 15th of May. The summer dress may then 
 be continued until the end of September ; but winter 
 clothing should be most carefully assumed before the 
 cold pinch of November 10th say by the 1st of 
 November. With this sound advice I entirely agree. 
 
 Need I hesitate to say how dangerously these simple 
 rules are ignored, and that, too, by those to whom they 
 most solemnly apply ! The delicate girl invited to the 
 ball or evening party, in the winter season, goes there 
 with a throat and chest exposed or partly covered, and 
 with all her garments as light as fashion will permit 
 them. She goes into a close room, heated to 65, or it 
 may be 70. She dances herself into a glow, and then, 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 exhausted, excited, and breathless, she passes out of the 
 room, to exchange its warmth for a temperature of 35, 
 or lower perhaps below freezing point. She takes cold, 
 she suffers from congestion of the lungs, and, if her 
 tendencies are in that direction, she passes into consump- 
 tion. And who shall wonder ? 
 
 As spring advances, dangers increase to everybody. 
 The weather is treacherous ; a bright day or two in 
 March seems to herald summer, and the warm clothing 
 is cast aside. Suddenly, there is a fall of temperature 
 with a bitter east wind, and the unprepared are caught 
 as if in a trap. They have passed the long wintry ordeal 
 before which so many have succumbed, and they are re- 
 viving, but have not revived. In this condition they are 
 stricken with disease, often fatally. If we study the 
 Registrar-General's returns through the month of March, 
 April, and the early part of May for a few years, we 
 see how solemnly correct is the history I am now bring- 
 ing under notice. 
 
 You will ask, What kind of clothing is best to meet 
 the varying changes ? I answer, That which combines 
 lightness with warmth, and which absorbs the watery 
 secretion from the body without retaining it. For 
 under-clothing I give a decided preference to silk, basing 
 this preference entirely on practical grounds. Knitted 
 or woven silk is at once the material which best main- 
 tains warmth, affords lightness, and transmits perspira- 
 tion. If the expense of it be urged on one side, its 
 extraordinary durability may be named as a set-off. 
 The silk should be worn next to the skin. Over the silk, 
 for nine months in the year at least, there should be a 
 woollen covering which should include the whole body.
 
 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 229 
 
 This should not be made of thick, heavy flannel, for 
 thickness and weight contribute little to warmth, but of 
 soft, light, fleecy material, or of that thin flannel which 
 somewhat resembles silk in structure. The feet coverings 
 within the shoes should be of the same character, and 
 long socks should be preferred to stockings. The upper 
 clothing, like the under, should be of light and, at the 
 same time, warm character, and the overcoat or cloak 
 should vary with the season. In coldest weather a fur 
 coat fitting loosely to the body is the best. 
 
 VENTILATION OF CLOTHING. 
 
 Connected with this part of my discourse, there 
 comes in naturally the ventilation of clothes on the body, 
 to which I referred in the opening paragraphs. I cannot 
 too seriously express the necessity of maintaining a free 
 ventilation. Whatever impedes the evaporation of water 
 from the body leads, of necessity, to some derangement 
 of the body, if not to disease ; for the retained moisture, 
 saturating the garments, produces chilliness of surface, 
 and checks the action of the skin. Then follow cold, 
 dyspepsia, and, in those who are disposed to it, rheuma- 
 tism. For these reasons I always hold that the so-called 
 waterproofs are sources of great danger, unless they are 
 used with much discrimination. It is true they keep the 
 body dry in wet weather, but they wet it through from 
 its own rain ; and when the body is freely exercised and 
 perspires copiously during rain, shut up with its own 
 watery secretion on one side of the waterproof covering, 
 and chilled by the water that falls on the other, it is in a 
 poor plight indeed. It had better be wet to the skin in
 
 230 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 a porous clothing. Hence, I would advise that the 
 waterproof should only be used when the body is at rest, 
 as when standing or sitting in the rain. During active 
 exercise a large, strong umbrella, not a finikin parasol 
 pretence is worth any number of waterproofs. 
 
 COLOUR OF DRESS. 
 
 The colour of the dress is another practical point 
 of considerable moment. The Lancet, a few years ago, 
 was very much criticised for suggesting that in the cold, 
 dark weather dresses of light colour should be worn. 
 The Lancet, nevertheless, was right. The light-coloured 
 dress is at once the warmest and the healthiest. In the 
 arctic regions white is the prevailing colour of the 
 animal that most requires warmth. The same colour 
 is also best adapted for summer wear, for that which is 
 negative to cold does not absorb heat. The objection 
 made to white clothing is that it soon becomes dirty, 
 or, correctly speaking, that it shows the presence of dirt 
 more quickly than darker fabrics. This might be an 
 advantage in many cases, but I think it is fair to admit 
 that white out and out, for all times and seasons, is not 
 practical. The best compromise is grey, and I wonder 
 that in our climate that practical fact, which was once 
 known and acted upon, has ever been allowed to die out. 
 Those wise and discerning forefathers of ours, who 
 utilised the serviceable grey suits, were best informed 
 after all in the matter of colour of dress, for health as 
 well as for service. 
 
 Fashion, in these later times, has misled once more, 
 by the introduction of the incorrigible black clothing for
 
 DKESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 231 
 
 the outer suits of men and women. The inconvenience 
 of this selection reaches its height in the infliction it 
 imposes on those poor ladies who, after bereavement, 
 think it necessary to clothe themselves in unwholesome 
 folds of inky crape. Next to the Suttee, this seems to 
 me the most painful of miseries inflicted on the miser- 
 able. Happily, it is, I think, in its last days. 
 
 COLOUKING SUBSTANCES OR DYES. 
 
 I would make, in one or two sentences, an obser- 
 vation on the colouring substances that are sometimes 
 introduced into dress, and their relation to health. When 
 the aniline colour stuffs were brought in for dyeing 
 under- garments of red or yellow colour, the dyes caused, 
 sometimes, where they came into contact with the skin, 
 a local irritation, and now and then even some constitu- 
 tional derangement. The agents which were at work to 
 produce these conditions were the poisonous dyes called 
 red or yellow coralline. The local action of both these 
 poisons is sharp, and they bring upon the skin a raised 
 eruption of minute round pimples, which I have known 
 to be mistaken for the eruption of measles by the un- 
 skilled in diagnosis. The irritation which attends the 
 rash is painful, and if there be much rubbing of the 
 part little vesicles may form and give out a watery dis- 
 charge. Once I knew an eruption on the chest, attended 
 with much nervous prostration, caused by a red woollen 
 comforter ; but, as a rule, the evil is purely local, the 
 colouring matter being not readily absorbed by the skin. 
 This is fortunate, for the poison would be intense if it 
 were to enter the blood.
 
 232 DRESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 It is necessary at once to remove all coloured gar- 
 ments when they are causing local mischief, and such 
 garments should never be worn until they have been 
 many times rinsed in boiling water. As a general rule 
 coloured clothing should never be worn next to the skin. 
 
 CLEANLINESS IN DKESS. 
 
 Cleanliness in dress, the last passage in my pro- 
 gramme, is one on which, to an educated audience, I 
 need not dwell. Health will not be clad in dirty raiment, 
 and those who think it will very soon find themselves 
 subjected to various minor ailments oppression, dulness, 
 headache, nausea which in themselves and singly seem 
 of little moment, but which affect materially that standard 
 of perfect health by which life is blithely and usefully 
 manifested. The want now most felt amongst the 
 educated, in our large centres, is the means for getting 
 a due supply of well-washed clean clothes. The laundry 
 is still up a tree, and when you climb to it, it is rarely 
 found worth the labour of the ascent. In London, at 
 this moment, a thousand public laundries are wanted, 
 before that cleanliness which is next to godliness can 
 ever be recognised by those apostles of health who feel 
 that their mission in the world stands on the first list 
 of goodly and godly labours for mankind.
 
 233 
 
 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH. 
 
 Two events in my life have suggested the title and 
 subject of this essay. 
 
 In 1855, in a printing-office in Great Queen Street, 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields No. 37, to be very precise the 
 cover, in proof, of the first English journal on sanitation 
 lay before me for revision. In the lower part of the 
 page a picture of Hygeia, the goddess of health, was 
 drawn ; and the picture, looking very weird and lonely 
 by itself, wanted a motto. I invented several, but not 
 one to my taste. At last there flashed across my mind 
 the original and happy one : National health is national 
 wealth. I fixed on this at once, and in a few days it 
 came forth as the motto of the ' Journal of Public Health 
 and Sanitary Eeview.' 
 
 The motto from the first took well with the public, 
 and it was no slight gratification to see it pass, as it 
 soon did, into one of our best-known and most frequently 
 repeated proverbs. I have been led since, nevertheless, 
 to look upon it as an inverted proverb, and to give it an 
 entirely different meaning from that which was passing 
 in my mind when the idea, expressed originally in the 
 five short words, presented itself. How this change 
 came about may best be described in the narrative of 
 another incident.
 
 234 THE POVEKTY OF WEALTH 
 
 One day, long after the period named above, I was 
 entering for professional duty the house, or mansion, of 
 a very wealthy person. It was on a Sunday afternoon 
 of a damp and cheerless London day. On the steps 
 leading to the house there sat a man in the lowest 
 possible stage and state of destitution. He craved of me 
 that I would give him a trifle to enable him to break his 
 fast. He had walked, he said, from Northampton on 
 one meal and no bed. He entered into his many 
 grievances, without any reference to misfortunes or to 
 opportunities. His mind was a scene of complaint 
 against home, country, friends, himself, life. He wanted 
 food ; he wanted drink still more urgently ; but he did 
 not pity himself nor bemoan his fate. He had come to 
 a point of poverty when he did not care what happened 
 to him. He could not be worse whatever might occur ; 
 if the world itself came to an end next minute, it would 
 not ' sinnify ' to him ; it would be rather just the thing 
 most likely to wake him up and give him something to 
 look at that was worth seeing. As that grand event was 
 not likely to occur, the next best luck was a copper or 
 two and direction to the nearest workhouse. In both the 
 last particulars I gratified him, and bidding him good- 
 day, saw him slink off without a word of thanks, and 
 without exciting any feeling on my part that the thanks 
 were either desirable or needful. 
 
 I next entered the house at the door of which I had 
 stayed. It was one of those dark, richly furnished, warm, 
 silent, snug, and tasteless sepulchral mansions in which 
 the envied rich so often loves to dwell. The staircases 
 had their steps so thickly carpeted, not a footstep on 
 them could be heard, and through the whole place there
 
 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 235 
 
 was no sound save that of the timepieces on each landing, 
 which ticked away in melancholy measured vibrations, 
 as if they were everlastingly saying, one after another, 
 ' Keep quiet,' ' Keep quiet.' ' Great wealth,' ' Great 
 wealth.' ' Don't laugh,' ' Don't laugh.' 
 
 I entered a big saloon chamber, with that last 
 ticking in my ear, to discover, at the far end, sitting on 
 the window seat, another man, so entirely like the man 
 I had met on the doorstep, that if there had been time 
 for the transformation I should have felt sure that the 
 man had got into the house before me, made a slight 
 change of raiment by putting on a rich dressing robe 
 and a pair of furred slippers, and had reappeared. 
 The expression was the same ; the dreary sound of the 
 voice the same ; the first exclamation, ( What can you 
 do for me ? ' without a previous word of ceremony or 
 greeting, was all but the same. I was literally startled. 
 I stood before a man so wealthy that the golden calf 
 itself might have called him brother, and I found a 
 repetition of what I had left on the step of his door. 
 Strangely, too, to some, but not to me, I listened to the 
 same story of grievances, to the same views about life 
 and its utter worthlessness ; the same absolute reckless- 
 ness in respect to the future ; the same desire, if such it 
 may be called, for some impossible gigantic event to 
 bring a moment's wonder ; the same dull, thankless 
 expression for the receipt of an assistance equivalent, in 
 its way, no more, no less, to two poor coppers and a 
 direction to the workhouse. 
 
 Then I left, having discovered, as honest John Bun- 
 yan says, that there is a bye-way to hell even from the 
 gates of heaven.
 
 236 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 
 
 Henceforward, from that time I have felt that my 
 original proverb was inverted. In that saying I treated 
 wealth as if it was the source of health. The mistake 
 was basic : the proverb should be, National wealth is 
 national health, and there is no other. 
 
 From that time forward, too, I began to conceive the 
 idea, from nature, of the poverty of wealth, which is 
 my text of to-day. I descried that wealth, in the full sor- 
 did sense of that term, must lead to poverty, as day 
 leads to night ; and that if mankind, struggling at the 
 present in the throes of socialistic revolution, would 
 learn the right way to avoid catastrophe of revolution, 
 it must learn the natural law which reduces extremes 
 of poverty and wealth to synonymous terms and equal 
 qualities, and shun both with equal determination. 
 
 The social student will say at once that this is no 
 new conception. It does not pretend to be: there is 
 nothing new under the sun, and never can be. Because 
 all that is under the sun is of it, and even the sun itself 
 may not be new. 
 
 More than that, it is all epitomised in the Book of 
 Wisdom : 
 
 ' There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, 
 namely riches kept for the owners thereof, to their hurt. 
 
 ' But those riches perish by evil travail, and he be- 
 getteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand. 
 
 ' As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked 
 shall he return, to go as he came, and shall take nothing 
 of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand. 
 
 ' And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he 
 came, so shall he go, and what profit hath he that has 
 laboured for the winds ?
 
 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 237 
 
 ' All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath 
 much sorrow and wrath in his sickness.' 
 
 These reasonings, thus familiar, support generally 
 the truth of the paradox set forth in the words, the 
 poverty of wealth. I wish now to treat of this truth, 
 not as a new subject, but from a different side of 
 an old subject, on what may be called a physician's side, 
 by which it is argued that health of body and of mind 
 is the only true standard of wealth, and that as there can 
 be no health in the lap of poverty or in the lap of luxury, 
 so wealth is poverty and leads, as in the two cases cited 
 above, to the same condition. 
 
 Let me, before proceeding further, be explicit as to 
 terms. By wealth I mean great possession, beyond all 
 the possible wants of the possessor, and so much beyond 
 his wants that if he wishes to apply that which he holds 
 as surplus over his own most liberal requirements, he 
 must make a study and labour of the distribution in 
 order to be so much as moderately sure that he is doing 
 good. I do not, therefore, include under the term wealth 
 what may be called a fair competency, or such possession 
 as shall place a man and his family above the risk of 
 want. On the contrary, I rather hold with the witty 
 Eochester, that every man should save a competency in 
 order that he may remain honest. Again, by poverty I 
 do not mean frugality, or any simple and inexpensive 
 mode of living, by which a man can live by his own 
 exertions or savings. I cease to include poverty until 
 it becomes so extreme that the assistance of others than 
 the man himself is called for in order that he may be 
 able to live. 
 
 In a word, I define a wealthy man as one above the
 
 238 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 
 
 line of highest competency, and a poor man, or rather a 
 poverty-stricken man, as one below the line of lowest 
 competency. None within those lines concern us now. 
 
 With these definitions, I proceed to show, as I feel 
 from natural observation of natural fact, that wealth 
 and poverty are, in effect, the same ; I mean in respect 
 to the fruits they bear, their practical results on the 
 every-day life, and their influence on the history of a 
 nation such as ours. 
 
 I. By the common voice of mankind the word poor 
 is applied under similar circumstances to poverty and 
 wealth alike : we say a poor creature when we are 
 speaking of any one who is out of means or estate. In 
 like manner of a man, however rich he may be, we also 
 speak if he be low in mind or body. We never speak 
 of a rich creature. That man on the doorstep of the 
 house I referred to, and that man in the mansion, were 
 alike poor to the common observation in this sense: 
 they were both poor creatures. Their poverty was, 
 moreover, largely of the same kind : poverty of mind 
 and body. So the term is quite correct. 
 
 II. Poverty causes poverty. ' If thou art poor, thou 
 wilt always be poor ; riches are only given to the rich,' 
 is one of the old Latin proverbs. The poor man drags 
 down the poor man. To him it becomes certain that, 
 as he cannot live on his own industry, he must live on 
 that of others. From this natural fact springs the 
 further fact, so often commented on, that charity to 
 the poor, misapplied, is an evil rather than a good. 
 From this also springs the equal fact that not to 
 help the helpless poor is heartless. In these matters 
 the reason and sympathy of our common nature come
 
 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 239 
 
 into conflict. Eeason says, 'The charity is thrown 
 away: the help had better be bestowed on worthier 
 objects.' Sympathy says, 'Not help the poor creature? 
 Why, what then is he to do but steal or starve, for see, 
 he has no capacity for labour ? ' Thus the brain contends 
 with the heart, and the necessary end of the contest 
 varies according as the person in whom it occurs is most 
 potential in brain or in heart ; and as sympathy forms 
 the foundation of all initiative action, poverty by its 
 claims on all above it, and most upon those nearest it, 
 leads to poverty and feeds it. In like manner, wealth 
 makes poverty. The physiological influences at work 
 are precisely the same. Why should poverty labour if 
 it can be sustained without labour ? Why should 
 w r ealth labour when it gets all it wants, and more than 
 it wants, without labour ? So springs forth the help- 
 lessness of wealth. Why go to the absurd trouble of 
 spending when you have all you want without the 
 trouble ? Let the treasure take its own course and 
 accumulate ; in that there is the silent pleasure of the 
 accumulation without exertion. Thus wealth, which 
 should cease to be wealth, by being distributed largely 
 for general competency to the many, becomes poverty to 
 all whom it does not assist to competency, and to none 
 so much as to those who hold it, and in turn are held 
 by it in hopeless bondage. 
 
 III. It is one of the outcomes of poverty to lead its 
 victim to low pursuits, and to wean him from all noble 
 and great objects. There is a poverty so extreme that 
 into the mind of its holder nothing whatever can be 
 instilled that is intellectual or progressive. The brain is 
 too apathetic to receive ; the senses are too restless and
 
 240 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 
 
 indolent to focus or concentrate. Whatever, therefore, 
 most pleases, must be something easy and light, such as 
 an animal might take delight in. The lower organisa- 
 tions proclaim themselves dominant. To eat! yes, 
 ravenously ; to drink ! yes, to any degree ; to smoke ! 
 yes ; to look listlessly over some remarkable sight ! yes ; 
 to hear or read some story that costs no tension of 
 mind ! yes ; to repeat the same stories over and over ! 
 yes ; to find the warmest and cosiest place in which 
 to sleep, and to sleep on as long as possible, without 
 disturbance ! yes. All this is the luxury of life. Poverty 
 of poverties ! 
 
 But wealth leads to the same poverty : to eat, to 
 drink, to smoke, to revel in inane pleasures ; to turn 
 listlessly from one thing to another ; to repeat the same 
 old stories and fooleries ; to speak in an idle drawl ; to 
 sleep in the warmest and cosiest quarters ; to indulge in 
 sleep for the longest of possible times, these are the 
 poverties of wealth, in the full exercise of the faculties of 
 poverty. 
 
 IV. We are constantly reminded that poverty presses 
 men into dishonesty. It is the fact, and in certain ex- 
 amples of the extremest kind it presses with such pres- 
 sure that the natural sentiment expressed in the words 
 ' Necessity knows no law ' overcomes and even vindicates 
 itself against the commandment, ' Thou shall not steal.' 
 In the poverty of wealth we read, too often, the same in- 
 dictment. ' Crescit amor nummi, quantum ipsa pecunia 
 crescit." The love of money increases as much as the 
 money itself increases, until positively the wealthiest 
 man may come to the insane conception that he is abso- 
 lutely penniless. I have known such a person, and have
 
 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 241 
 
 seen in that person every habit and form of penury as- 
 sumed up to the positive act of theft for supposed neces- 
 sity. Insanity, some one will say. Yes, relatively, poverty 
 is insanity under which to steal is an act of forced in- 
 sanity, aberration from sane law. But both the insani- 
 ties, the insanity of the starving pauper and of the 
 grasping millionaire, have the same origin in the mental 
 physical life. 
 
 The parallel runs further. By the extreme extension 
 of poverty the right to take without lawful possession 
 becomes an idea which covers the conscientious doubt 
 that ought to exist as to the taking. Wealth leads to the 
 same moral blindness. This great estate which the 
 wealthy man owns, near other estates loosely guarded, 
 tempts to extension. This fence, or wall, or landmark, 
 is the fence, or wall, or landmark of the great owner. 
 Why should it remain there ? In so great an estate a 
 little more added to it will never be recognised, and that 
 unguarded no-man's land will be better cared for under 
 better protection. Extend, therefore, the fence, the wall, 
 or the landmark. Who shall calculate what theft of 
 wealth, in the very form and pressure and excuse 
 common to poverty, has thus been perpetrated all the 
 world over ? 
 
 V. I have said that poverty leads to poorness in 
 mental attribute. It leads also to lowness of pursuit. 
 The men who live in poverty and these are my men 
 now if they must have what is commonly called re- 
 creation, seek it in the lowest depths of human activity. 
 To them the forms of sport which are attended with 
 hazard, excitement, cruelty, are the delights of life. 
 They frequent in their miserable way the shooting match
 
 242 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 
 
 for pigeon sport, the race-course, the betting ring, the 
 fancy ; and as they cannot go out shooting in accordance 
 with the law, they go out without legal protection, and 
 add the game-keeper, if necessary, to their game-bag. 
 Some, and not a few of them, take to a vagabond life on 
 the sea, get cast off in fashionable foreign watering-places 
 and become the begging outcasts there, revelling in their 
 way in foreign bedevilment. 
 
 Wealth follows the same course for its unwholesome 
 recreations. It goes in for sport, for hazard, for the 
 chase, for the betting ring, for the fancy, for the field, 
 for the yachting wandering sea life, for the foreign loiter- 
 ing and polite vagabondage. The parallel is perfect. 
 
 I was visiting a neighbouring country. At the hotel 
 I rested at there was staying, at the time, a rich noble, 
 young, handsome, profuse animal to the core, animal 
 from head to foot. He had a retinue like himself at his 
 table. In the yard and stables outside he had another 
 retinue, a ragged, jagged, clothes-torn, flesh-torn crew, 
 who waited for their elegant brethren within to come 
 out and play with them. The game they were both at 
 was badger-hunting. The delight of wealth was to follow 
 ' the wretched badger into the most secret place it could 
 find for protection from the animals that pursued it. 
 The delight of poverty was to get ahead of wealth in 
 the game, and to show its own animal nature as the best 
 and fiercest. I made inquiry, and if I were to tell the 
 whole story of that wealth and that poverty, I should 
 have to tell a history of poverty and wealth stronger in 
 outline than the first history I have related. I should 
 show that the wealth of that rich animal did nothing 
 and went for nothing else but to feed poverty : to make
 
 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 243 
 
 its owner and all under his fatal ban the possessors of 
 that destitution of mind, body, and estate, which is the 
 very acme of the combined evils of poverty in its most 
 degraded caste. 
 
 So true is this aspect of the poverty of wealth, in so 
 many and staring forms does it present itself daily for 
 observation, that, if a man of wealth, for any happy 
 reason, devotes his wealth to some useful and noble 
 purpose, he presents so strange and improbable a picture 
 that he is actually glorified for having done a common 
 and commonplace right thing. He can become, in this 
 way, cheaply, an important and great man, a benefactor, 
 a munificent patron. How he got the wealth will then 
 never be inquired into too nicely. It may have been 
 by fraud, quackery, gambling, sin of any dye. Never 
 mind. He has applied it usefully. He is a great patron. 
 Marvellous ! Marvellous ! He has held great wealth 
 and has not squandered it. Oh, the princely virtue ! 
 
 VI. We know of poverty that it leads men to deficiency 
 of self-respect. 
 
 ' My poverty and not my will consents,' says the poor 
 apothecary. 
 
 ' I pay thy poverty and not thy will,' retorts the 
 tempter, as he throws in the gold. 
 
 How true a picture of the poverty of wealth, and to 
 this day real as in the time when the real story was 
 enacted. 
 
 We are certain always, when and wherever a man's 
 poverty is paid and not his will, how bad a bargain and 
 how low a bargain is being struck. Neither receiver nor 
 giver have anything to lose, and so they barter. It is 
 one poor creature helping another poor creature to 
 
 B 2
 
 
 244 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 
 
 stagger before the world in an imposing attitude. The 
 mental attributes are in both cases the same to the 
 letter. 
 
 I have money, you have skill, 
 
 Of my money take your fill. 
 
 Of my skill, for your fine gold, 
 
 Take as much as you can hold. 
 
 Thus they barter, nothing loath, 
 
 Till the Devil buys them both. 
 
 By which is meant that each of the two high and mighty 
 contracting parties are equally empty and equally ready 
 to be easily caught in the devil's net. 
 
 The most debasing thing of all things human is, in 
 fact, poverty selling its soul. No, there is one thing 
 worse, and that is wealth making the purchase. Yet 
 even in the present day, this low and heathenish thing, 
 this barter of the highest gift of man, is one of the 
 common stocks of the market-place, and one of the 
 commonest causes of abject poverty. 
 
 And a further evil in this transfer of soul for money , 
 this barter between poverty and wealth is, that vanity is 
 fed by both. There is a vanity of poverty as of wealth ; 
 a pretence, on each side, of humility by the poor, of 
 condescension by the rich, which goes to the root of good 
 morals and tears the root up, root and branch. The 
 obsequious bend of body is reflected in the rich man's 
 complaisant nod ; the low curtsy is the mother of the 
 great lady's sweet smile. Both sets of acts supply mere 
 food to vanity, and are both wrong, because both are 
 false. In the one there is no real respect, in the other 
 no real feeling, no sweetness ; but barter, backwards and 
 forwards. The nod, the sweet smile, are bought as much
 
 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 245 
 
 as the bow and the curtsy ; each is the automatic de- 
 claration of poverty the one of the soul, the other of 
 the body. 
 
 VII. The effect of poverty is to lead to bad training 
 of the young. Why should the young be trained to 
 anything more than their like ? Who shall take care of 
 a child that cannot take care of itself? Who shall 
 take up the trouble of parentage when there are public 
 institutions, from the workhouse upwards, ready to do 
 the work ? So the young poor of the lowest class are 
 left to their fate : they go their own way, and unless 
 caught by some intermediate hand in their earliest and 
 most impressionable days, and put to useful, honest work, 
 they follow in their parents' career, like breeding like, 
 and the child becoming the father of the man. The 
 same extends to wealth. After the child of the poorest, 
 there is no object of humanity, as a rule, more neglected 
 than the child of the richest. Thus it has become 
 almost a byeword to look upon the children of the im- 
 mensely rich as the ne'er-do-weels of the community. 
 We were trying, a short time ago, at a literary table to 
 discover if there were any or many instances of a man 
 enormously rich leaving a child of any mark of character 
 or name. We could find plenty of illustrations on the 
 other side : plenty of instances of poverty of character 
 begotten of riches, but not one example of nobility of 
 nature so begotten. ' It is,' as the wise man said, ' a 
 sore evil ; namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to 
 their own hurt. But those riches perish by evil travail ; 
 and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.' 
 
 VIII. So far I have traced the poverty of wealth by 
 two parallels of what may be designated the moral side
 
 246 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 
 
 of the question. I reserve to the last the purely physi- 
 cal side, that which relates to failure of mental and 
 bodily health, to disease, and to reduced value of life by 
 poverty and wealth alike. 
 
 The mental qualities of the untrained illiterate poor 
 and the untrained illiterate wealthy are so alike, that but 
 for surroundings it were impossible to tell the difference. 
 Each set entertain similar superstitions, fancies, and 
 follies. In sickness they are caught by the same sounds, 
 the same pretensions, the same hopes, the same fears. 
 They require to be directed as to what they shall do, 
 without any exercise of their own judgment or discre- 
 tion, and they accept the value of professional advice to 
 the letter so long as they have faith in it. But as the 
 trust is on faith alone, it is of little worth, the merest 
 change or caprice having the tendency to upset it alto- 
 gether. For this reason they are ready in illness to run 
 to any man who, as they have been told, has effected 
 a cure in the same case as their own. The professed 
 and open charlatan lives, in fact, on the very poor and 
 the very rich. I have for some years past presided over 
 a society that has done an immense deal for clearing the 
 moral atmosphere of some of the worst characters of ihe 
 outrageous charlatan fraternity ; and the conclusion I 
 have been obliged to come to, from the direct observation 
 of what I have observed, is that these harpies have no 
 classes of society upon whom they can firmly rely except 
 the two that are most separated the lowest poor and 
 the leisured wealthy. The poor are the decoys of these 
 persons ; the rich are the dupes. This is probably the 
 case in regard to all professions ; it is certainly so in 
 regard to that profession which has to treat disease ;
 
 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 247 
 
 and what the luxuriously wealthy, as well as the poor, 
 will believe from the charlatan, what they will undergo, 
 surpasses any descriptive tsaching I have either time or 
 inclination for setting forth. 
 
 The two classes. resemble each other in the nature of 
 many diseases from particular causes under which they 
 suffer. We are constantly speaking of the poverty- 
 stricken as an intemperate class. Sometimes we hear 
 them pitied in regard to intemperance, sometimes blamed. 
 ' Give them good and comfortable homes,' says one man, 
 ' and they would not be intemperate.' ' Take from them 
 the drink,' says another, ' and the good homes would 
 follow as a matter of course.' 1 do not discuss this 
 question here, because I am treating of results, and the 
 results are, without any doubt, a large mortality, pre- 
 ceded by an unnecessary amount of sickness and pain, 
 from drink as the cause. These poor resort to drink as 
 a shroud from their misery. ' Let us eat and drink, for 
 to-morrow we die.' 
 
 Amongst the leisured and luxurious rich the same 
 rule obtains so closely that we may, as it were, step 
 over the great intermediate classes, from one class to 
 another, just as in a large hospital we may walk across 
 a corridor from one ward to another. The total of 
 disease from strong drink amongst the wealthy unem- 
 ployed, appearing under all forms of cunningly devised 
 fables as to its nature and name, would require a volume 
 of no mean size to interpret honestly ; a course of lec- 
 tures, not a sentence or two in one essay. Education, 
 warning, proofs of danger of the most practical kind, 
 seem to have no effect. Quite recently I have had 
 brought before me the very painful picture of four
 
 248 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 
 
 youths, all of highest class in regard to education, killed 
 by wealth, three actually, one morally, all from this 
 cause, and all within a period of six years. Here edu- 
 cation utterly failed. But not long since I saw wealth 
 reduce to poverty of death the last of seven members of 
 a family who had received no education. These were 
 competent, frugal, comparatively happy working people, 
 living in sufficiency by the work of their hands. Sud- 
 denly they get what is styled a windfall, but which I 
 would rather call a whirlwind fall. They wake one 
 morning to find themselves rich. They must, after the 
 bad fashion of the bad wealthy, signalise the event by a 
 family banquet, with friends invited from all quarters. 
 It must be a grand affair. They must, for the first time 
 in their lives, taste rich wines, costly withal ; manufac- 
 tured champagnes, bearing cabalistic names, made at 
 tenpence a bottle and sold at ten shillings. Now the 
 poverty of wealth begins. ' Let us eat and drink, for 
 to-morrow we die.' And the whole proverb is realised 
 to the letter. I have seen that unfortunate family die 
 off from the poverty of intemperance, enkindled by 
 wealth, until not one remains of all who laid the table 
 immediately after the whirlwind of their fortune and 
 their mortality. 
 
 From poverty and from wealth there occur degene- 
 rations of the organs of the body which lead to loss of 
 physical power, feebleness of mental power, ready lassi- 
 tude, indifference as to external surroundings, careless- 
 ness as to the sufferings of others, and sentiments for 
 self which absorb all other. These qualities of mind 
 and body, although looked upon as faults, are really and 
 truly results of organic failures dependent upon degene-
 
 THE POVEKTY OF WEALTH 249 
 
 rative modifications of the vital structures. It is a part 
 of the healthy bodily life that the food, or force-making 
 substance, that is put into it shall produce, or yield, or 
 give out all that is put in, in the form of work done by 
 the body. If sufficient be not supplied, then follows the 
 change or degeneration due to want ; if too much be put 
 in, then follows oppression, laying by of matter that 
 cannot be used, and the same kind of enfeeblement as 
 that which springs from want. Between the action of a 
 heart under-nourished and of a heart overburthened, 
 there is practically no distinction of impairment, and so 
 we get similar phenomena from what seem to be quite 
 opposing causes. 
 
 Under both circumstances we obtain shortened life 
 from impaired function. The muscles lose their activity, 
 their willingness to work, their readiness for labour, 
 their powers of endurance. The brain, in like manner, 
 grows dull, and the mind inadequate for duty. Thus 
 arises that misery which marks the face of common 
 poverty, and that melancholy which so often settles in 
 the expression of the wealthy poor. The expression 
 tells the common story of the unfavourable course of the 
 illnesses from which they suffer. Of all the sick, they 
 are amongst the saddest and are most sensitive of danger. 
 Of all the mentally afflicted, they are amongst the most 
 prone to melancholy. 
 
 And from this source of degeneration follows, in 
 certain turn, that failure of heredity upon which the 
 stamina of nations becomes so faulty. The children of 
 wealth, the golden children, as the sycophants to wealth 
 designate them, are, as the children of the poor, the 
 frequent inheritors of the feeblenesses of their progeni-
 
 250 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 
 
 tors, until at last they fall into the same category and, 
 by the rule of the decadence of the unfittest, speedily 
 join the veritable ranks of the poverty-stricken, to sink 
 with them. We have in the world now thousands, per- 
 haps millions, of poor who are by this reason the last 
 remaining links of once great and powerful, because 
 healthy families, whom wealth had not yet blasted, or 
 whose fragments poverty had not yet attracted unto 
 itself. By careful research we might find in every large 
 workhouse in this kingdom the proof direct of this 
 natural law of denudation of wealth. The geologist's 
 denuded mountain is not more distinctive, and is cer- 
 tainly not a more common or striking phenomenon. 
 
 Perchance the reader, recognising the comparisons 
 and contrasts which I have drawn, will see also the 
 current dangers incident to the extremes of poverty and 
 wealth, and will realise the fact that wealth arid poverty 
 in the same sphere are like two electric clouds, safe 
 enough so long as a friendly and sufficiently wide dis- 
 tance separates them, but certain as death to explode in 
 revolution if they too nearly approach to each other. 
 Let the poverty of Eastern London come too near the 
 wealth of Western London. Let some moral disturb- 
 ance, some panic respecting supplies of food, some want 
 of work, disturb the equilibrium of wealth, and a mightier 
 consternation than Imperial Eome herself ever witnessed 
 were easily at our doors.* 
 
 True ! But some one may exclaim, ' Tell us, 
 physician of health, what is the remedy. You have laid 
 
 * Since this address was publicly delivered on January 16th, 1886, we 
 have had a first taste of this danger in the West End riots.
 
 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 251 
 
 out the diagnosis, you have detailed the symptoms, you 
 have declared the danger ; tell us the mode of prevention.' 
 There is a theory on this subject now very widely spread- 
 ing, which I cannot endorse. This theory in various 
 guises is covered by the term Socialistic Development, or 
 Socialism. Mr. Fox Bourne, in his late article in the 
 ' Gentleman's Magazine,' has most ably explained all 
 the four quarters of this ideal reforming method. He 
 has described the Scientific form of it, the Anarchic, the 
 Christian, and the ^Esthetic ; and he has laid bare, with 
 almost poetic fervour, the hopes and expectations of 
 multitudes who see in their dreams of the future the 
 millennium of their desires. 
 
 There is much in the picture which he has drawn 
 with which I sincerely sympathise ; there is much which, 
 in my outline of a model health land, I have myself con- 
 ceived and proposed. But with the mode of reaching 
 what is yearned for in the socialistic propagandas of all 
 quarters there is presented to my mind that very poverty 
 of wealth which ought of all things to be most avoided. 
 It is as though the propounders of these theories, having 
 their gaze fixed on the poor wealthy creatures, were 
 striving after the self-same poor wealthiness, or self- 
 same luxury of indolence. Take, for example, an 
 illustration. It is made an argument that if all labour 
 were equally divided, two hours per day is all the 
 labour that need be thrown on any man, woman, or 
 child ; so that out of twenty-four hours, if eight went 
 for sleeping, two for feeding, and two for working, there 
 would be twelve hours left for pleasure, or for such 
 work as should exactly please the owner of the happy 
 time. This division of time is just about that which
 
 252 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 
 
 the wealthy man obtains, and what is the result ? It is 
 not health, it is not strength, it is not happiness ; it is 
 ennui, despair, poverty of mind, body, and life, in which 
 the mind is no longer a kingdom, but a prisoner in a 
 golden castle. 
 
 The error might be pointed out as extending to all 
 the mischiefs personal and general of wealth, to feeding 
 and feasting, to bad sports, to low habits, to indifference, 
 to the whole moral of the practice, ' Let us eat and 
 drink, for to-morrow we die.' 
 
 No ! in this crave for happiness by the luxury of 
 wealth I, for my part, see no millennium. I cannot see 
 that we are constructed for any such millennium. As 
 long as we have to live by eating we must live by work- 
 ing: we are as yet too gross to subsist on ethereal 
 nothings as the angels do. So every violent measure 
 for passing from the poverty of poverty to the poverty 
 of wealth is certain failure. 
 
 The reformation, as I venture to argue, is the same 
 as that which Joseph Mazzini applied to the perfection 
 of democracy. It is ' an educational problem ; it is the 
 eternal problem of human nature,' in which the idea of 
 wealthy leisure and miserly rest plays no part whatso- 
 ever. The true reforming method is to instil into the 
 minds of all men and all women the correct relationships 
 of wealth and poverty ; to exalt labour as the foundation 
 of health and wealth ; to expel the idea of rest on 
 wealth ; to teach the emptiness of the fallacy that it is 
 either good or reasonable to provide for generations of 
 unborn idleness ; to show that all attempt to base the 
 continuance of family name and fame on worldly pos- 
 sessions, mapped out from the dead earth by so much
 
 THE POVERTY OF WEALTH 253 
 
 poor parchment covered with legal hieroglyphics, is but 
 the insanity of vanity ; and to impress on all minds, but 
 on the minds of the young especially, the vital truths : 
 that the family which shall live longest in its units, 
 and in its membership, is the family that leaves the 
 healthiest progeny : and that the nation which shall live 
 longest is the nation which, being healthiest, is by 
 'necessity strongest, most active, and nearest to that 
 eternal energy which would itself be dead if the atoms it 
 animates were to fall into repose.
 
 254 
 
 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON. 
 
 A PKOJECT FOR RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION.* 
 
 A CLEAR sky in a place like London ; clearer and cleaner 
 streets ; the emancipation in close places of one person 
 from the empoisoned breaths and emanations of another ; 
 room to breathe. These are the blessings the people 
 are looking for from their sanitary deliverers. 
 
 NEW UPPER LONDON. 
 
 If I were going to be one of the competitors for the 
 munificent Westgarth prize on the purification of London, 
 through the reconstruction of it, I should propose such 
 a reconstruction as would be, in an architectural sense, 
 perfectly revolutionary. I should propose to go upstairs 
 to the tops of the houses to do it, and should indicate the 
 construction of a new London, overhead, Upper London. 
 
 To convey what I mean, let us move to the best 
 constructed, as well as the most beautiful street of this 
 metropolis, if not of the world Eegent Street in the 
 part called the Crescent. That is laid out for such a 
 design as if it had been prepared for the experiment. 
 All the houses are of the same height, and the height 
 
 * From an Address delivered before the Society of Arts on Wednes- 
 day, March 26th, 1884.
 
 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 255 
 
 throughout is just right for a city like ours. It is 
 sufficient to be handsome and commodious without being 
 overwhelming, and without excluding the light from the 
 streets. The roofs of Eegent-street, at this part, are 
 flat in comparison with other roofs. They are utilised 
 here and there by the photographers for their studios, 
 which, although temporary structures, stand firmly and 
 well, in ready communication with the houses on which 
 they are placed. The studio, where it exists, seems, 
 naturally, to form and become a part of the house. 
 
 "When we glance along the line of roofs, as on a 
 level terrace, the idea of reconstruction of all roofs, and 
 of the re-adaptation of them, becomes very distinct and 
 suggestive. The width of most London houses averages, 
 as near as I can estimate, about twenty-five feet from 
 front to rear. Here, then, is good space for a terrace 
 for foot-passage. Imagine along two lines of long 
 streets a terrace of this kind, with a handsome 
 railing on each side, a perfectly level floor surface 
 of wood, and, at intervals, light bridges spanning from 
 one terrace to another, and you have an upper-day 
 London which might almost relieve all the pressure from 
 foot traffic in the streets below. Each house would 
 have its own exit, or door, at the upper as well as at 
 the lower parts ; and at convenient spaces, each terrace 
 would be accessible from the street, as the Holborn 
 Viaduct is at the present time. 
 
 It suggests, at first, a revolution of ideas to conceive 
 such a change. It suggests much out of which a 
 humourist can for a moment make capital. I know 
 all this very well. But there is, in point of fact, nothing 
 more in it than in the first idea of making a tunnel
 
 256 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 
 
 under the streets or under a river. When the suggestion 
 is looked at bit by bit, without prejudice, it offers more 
 of sanitary advantage for the purification of the atmo- 
 sphere, the protection of property, the comfort of the 
 people in transit, the lodging of the people, the exercise 
 of the young, and the beautifying of the whole city, than 
 could be entertained on a mere general statement of the 
 proposition. 
 
 In the first place, for every house in connection with 
 an upper terrace there would be the most perfect through 
 and through ventilation of air. The staircase would no 
 longer be a closed cupola for holding and storing all the 
 emanations from the basement upwards. 
 
 In the second place, the fact of having terraces on 
 the upper surface of London would lead to immediate 
 arrangements for the purification of the air from smoke. 
 So soon as the roofage was accessible as a terrace, the 
 plan which Mr. (now Sir) Spencer Wells projected for 
 the removal of smoke from every house, by laying down 
 horizontal conducting tubes with central exits and smoke- 
 consuming furnaces would be easily practicable, pre- 
 suming always that some smokeless fire be not invented, 
 or that coal gas do not become the fuel of the people. 
 These terraces would then be the healthiest parts of 
 London ; charged with flowers and trailing evergreens, 
 they would be the empyrean gardens of the great city. 
 
 The terraces, with their light intercommunicating 
 cross-bridges in the long thoroughfares, would be more 
 than pleasant footways and shady lanes for the foot 
 travellers, or for travellers in light noiseless vehicles, 
 like tricycles; they would be most useful for other 
 purposes. Along them the electric lines would pass and
 
 UPPEK AND LOWER LONDON 257 
 
 enter the houses direct ; and from them the letter-carriers 
 would most easily deliver their letters. 
 
 These terraces, while relieving the traffic in the 
 streets below, would remove all necessity for the fire- 
 engine, and would make London practically safe from 
 fire. From them water would be supplied readily, a 
 trained police for this upper London being ready at 
 every moment to go down and extinguish fire in every 
 domicile, carrying the hose with them, or plying it from 
 above. 
 
 I think that no one who reflects will fail to see that 
 all these changes would be advancements of great 
 value for the health of a city like ours. They are, 
 however, not the chiefest advantages. If any one will 
 take the trouble to go, observingly, through the busy 
 parts of London, where there are long miles of road- 
 wayalong Whitechapel and Mile-end, for example 
 he will see the most jagged, hideous lines of roofage. 
 Here a line of houses two stories high ; there a row of 
 three or four stories ; then a single house of five or six 
 stories ; and so on, over and over again, like a set of 
 bad teeth. 
 
 If the plan here suggested were carried out, all 
 this would be rectified. A street like Eegent-street 
 expanded into a straight line would extend from the 
 Marble-arch to the City, and from the City to the extreme 
 East-end. The line of terrace pitched at five stories 
 would necessitate the building up to the same level all 
 the houses in that line, by which at least one-fourth 
 more houseage would be supplied, with arrangements for 
 giving comfortable and healthy homes, beyond what 
 now exist, to a fourth of the present population. The 
 
 s
 
 258 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 
 
 suspension cross-bridges would not be without their 
 compound service. They would be the bearers of elec- 
 tric lines along their side-ways, and would probably 
 soon be utilised as centres from which electric beacons 
 would be suspended to light the streets beneath. 
 
 Imagine the metropolis turned into a fairy land by 
 this adventure of science into the domain of art, and 
 art reciprocating the idea, with all her rich resources, 
 and we see in our mind's eye what our children, when 
 we are all of us gone, may really see, and perhaps thank 
 us for proposing for their benefit. 
 
 Objections may be made about mechanical and archi- 
 tectural difficulties. I heard them all made when the 
 Holborn Viaduct was projected ; I saw them all melt 
 away as Colonel Hay wood's practical mind came into 
 work, and as his unthanked skill and industry, and 
 responsibility and genius carried all before him. 
 
 It will be objected that flat -roofed houses are not 
 weather-tight. In the year 1825, the then Parisian 
 Asphalte Company roofed two houses with asphalte 
 in Hinde Street, Manchester Square. I lived in one of 
 those houses for twenty-eight years, and a better roof 
 I never knew ; but for the London smoke it would have 
 been made into a garden. Men working upon it, walk- 
 ing over it, communicated no sound whatever into the 
 rooms immediately below. 
 
 It will be objected that houses will not bear the 
 weight of superimposed suspended terraces for foot- 
 walks. If they will not, they ought. In no direction 
 would the sanitary improvement for the purification of 
 a great city be more useful as a side improvement 
 than in so reconstructing defective houses as to make
 
 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 259 
 
 them capable of bearing an equalised weight, which, 
 carried by many, would, as we know from the bearing 
 of ice, be comparatively light and practicable. 
 
 It is not to be disputed that in many instances 
 dilapidated houses would have to be razed to the 
 ground for the purpose of obtaining, sound and safe 
 foundations, and to those who maintain house properties 
 in a condition requiring such an extreme measure, the 
 idea suggested in this paper would, naturally enough, be 
 objectionable. With the artist and sanitarian such an 
 objection could not, however, carry much weight, be- 
 cause we are all agreed that for the health and beauty 
 of the metropolis no reform is so much needed as that 
 one which should be based on the demolition of old and 
 dangerous tenements. In the course of such demolition 
 and reconstruction, owners of property would them- 
 selves, in due course, be amongst the most fortunate, as 
 sharers in the improvements. 
 
 Of the many plans which have been suggested for 
 giving space to crowded cities, such as terraces in the 
 streets opposite to first-floor windows, or tunnels sub- 
 terranean, none seem to me to be half so practical, half 
 so likely to secure the purification of the atmosphere as 
 this, which I have now for the first time, after some 
 years' hesitation, ventured to sketch out, not as expect- 
 ing ever to see such a project realised in my own time, 
 but foreseeing the necessity and applicability in times to 
 come. 
 
 The project here described, to which Mr. Westgarth 
 has, in more than one paper, given his powerful commen- 
 dation, has taken well with large numbers of the com- 
 munity, and many an inquiry is made of me when the 
 
 8 2
 
 260 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 
 
 pleasant and, as most people admit, easy reform is about 
 to be set on foot. I answer always, wait, and little by 
 little it is sure not only to be commenced, but to be 
 carried out to the fullest extent. For the day is not far 
 distant when, from sheer necessity, traffic through the 
 streets of London must be relieved by the introduction of 
 some new plan ; and, when that necessity comes under 
 discussion, then the Upper-London project will naturally 
 force, and probably soon win, its way. 
 
 NEW UNDEK LONDON. 
 
 While Upper London is waiting there lies before us 
 another, and, indeed, more pressing need, having relation 
 to the London under the feet of Londoners, and having 
 reference to the regular and effective removal of the most 
 dangerous refuse of the household, with the utilisation of 
 that refuse for the benefit of the human family. 
 
 What millions of money have been spent in the effort 
 to purify Under London we all know. What have been 
 the results of that expenditure not to use the word 
 success few know. Some of us, of the Society of Arts, 
 at the instance of Mr. Edwin Chadwick, whose name as 
 a sanitarian is a name of the century, did, some time 
 ago, commence an inquiry bearing upon the important 
 point now under consideration. We opened, or, more 
 correctly speaking, we reopened, the question prac- 
 tically, and we discerned all at once although our in- 
 quiries were entirely confined to limited areas of London 
 so much evil, that we rather abruptly closed the evil 
 up again as one we were not prepared to remove. But 
 sewage, like murder, will out, and enquiry must proceed.
 
 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 261 
 
 What we did discover was in truth so serious, that 
 the wonder we laboured under was how London can be 
 so healthy as it is. We found that London is still honey- 
 combed with what are not in name cesspools, but are, in 
 fact, sewers of deposits ; a truth we all practically re- 
 cognise by the second-hand measures we take to meet the 
 primary blunder. For example : from the window at 
 which these remarks are written I ' see that one of my 
 neighbours, the owner of a large house, has carried out 
 of his house, from the basement, a three-inch tube far 
 above the level of the parapet, in order to deliver into 
 the air any gases that may accumulate in the main drain 
 of his residence. 
 
 It is not good for the air which I and many others 
 have to live upon, that it should receive the foul gas from 
 the decomposition of my neighbour's organic excreta ; 
 and if everybody's neighbours did what he has done, it 
 would be detected, in some weathers, that the process 
 must be stopped, as it was in a former day on a recom- 
 mendation of the Eoyal College of Physicians. I do not, 
 however, blame my neighbour for what he has done, 
 because I have done it myself. It is a natural method 
 of self-protection amongst those who know best how to 
 protect themselves. My contention is, that the neces- 
 sity for any such method is proof demonstrative of the 
 rottenness of the primary system which causes the ne- 
 cessity, and which keeping us foul beneath our houses, 
 makes the air, at its best, foul also above them. My 
 contention is, that the decomposition which gives origin 
 to the gases that are let out by thousands upon thousands 
 of channels by tubes from houses, by soil-pipes within 
 houses, by accidental openings and pores in all directions,
 
 2G2 UPPER AND LOWEK LONDON 
 
 by gullies in streets, and by great outlets of sewers 
 from accumulations of sewage ought never to have been 
 permitted at all. My contention is that the sewage, 
 removed clean away, unintermittingly, many miles from 
 the community, without having decomposed either above 
 or below the living-place, need never pollute any place 
 nor have any destination except the land which is calling 
 for it, and which dies if its demands be not naturally 
 supplied. 
 
 The complete removal, at every moment, of all the 
 organic excreta is, however, still an unsolved difficulty, 
 which, remaining unsolved, is a block to every step to- 
 wards perfect purification. 
 
 Combined and Separate Seiverage. 
 
 We are yet distracted with the debate ever going on 
 between the advocates of the combined and the separate 
 system of drainage. Shall all our organic excreta go 
 with the storm-water into the river and sea the combined 
 system ; or shall the water go to the river and sea, the 
 sewage to the land the separate system ? 
 
 Unlike our neighbours on the other side of the 
 Channel, we have agreed to give up the cesspool, and have 
 not agreed, as they have, that all disposal of sewage in run- 
 ning streams shall be legally prohibited. But, in giving 
 up the cesspool, have we greatly advanced, so long as 
 we pollute the running stream and lose the natural fer- 
 tiliser of the land ? Looking back on all the controversy 
 for the last thirty years, and reading back still further, 
 I feel we have not advanced. I do not think it would 
 be wise to return to the most scientific system of cess-
 
 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 263 
 
 poolage, but I cannot conceive any next worse plan than 
 the plan of passing the sewage with storm-water, even 
 on the most scientific system, into running streams, and 
 of robbing the land of its greatest requirement, the 
 fertilising treasure which is so systematically and reck- 
 lessly cast away from day to day. 
 
 In London the combined system having obtained 
 most favour, and the people having without stint poured 
 their wealth, as well as their sewage, into it, the system 
 has had its best days and its best chances. Everything 
 has been said and done for it that could be said and 
 done for it. Time has been given to the trial of it with 
 a patience unexampled. The advocates of it, the sus- 
 tainers of it and let all credit be given to them in these 
 respects have laboured for it with a perseverance, a 
 skill, and an enthusiasm worthy of a dozen better causes. 
 But what has been their success ? Let the great Outfall 
 failure tell its own story. It will be most interesting 
 at the close of each year to see what has been the ex- 
 pense for outside deodorisation alone in twelve months. 
 What has been the cost for the material alone of the 
 thousands upon thousands of tons of so-called disinfec- 
 tants poured out to purify what ought never to have 
 demanded purification ! Mr. Chadwick says 200,000. ; 
 and every penny of this cost a penny's worth of proof of 
 the radical mistake which has been committed, and 
 which, by the natural force of example, has been ex- 
 tended from the metropolis into other great centres. 
 
 Since the gigantic difficulties in respect to the great 
 outfall, the pollution of the river at the outfall, and the 
 loss of the most valuable product which London supplies, 
 have become fully recognised truths, the people generally
 
 264 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 
 
 are asking what is to be done. Then comes the scare of 
 approaching cholera, and loud outcry and busy fussation 
 of tentative schemes, and serious complaints of heavy 
 tentative expenditures, with a happy subsidence of the 
 scare, followed by an unhappy subsidence of complaint. 
 A period, in short, of waiting for another scare, and of 
 waiting longer still for the verification of the bona fides 
 of the scare in a grand epidemic and a hasty resolution 
 to make some change for better or for worse. 
 
 The true sanitarian does not acknowledge the sound- 
 ness of this principle of waiting to be forced to do. He 
 wishes the best thing to be done at the best time, that is 
 to say, at the time when the mind of the community is 
 free from all excitement, and when the mind of men of 
 science is open to work without pressure, and with the 
 feeling of perfect freedom from all haste and worry. The 
 work that is required to be done should be done now 
 while there is pause ; and it should be done so effectively, 
 that it will not require to be recast for a century at least, 
 unless some new and radical discovery should be advanced 
 that will provide a radically better principle and practice. 
 If our engineers had kept to their own splendid depart- 
 ment of science, instead of assuming the position of 
 doctors of health, or if the doctors had been stauncher at 
 the first, all the present trouble might have been saved. 
 By reverting to their true positions and functions, both 
 can still make a magnificent amend. 
 
 THE WOKE TO BE DONE. 
 
 What it is requisite now to do for Under London is 
 so obvious, and, in fact, so simple, that it may be told
 
 UPPER AND LOWEE LONDON 265 
 
 in a few minutes. If I am correct, moreover, in what I 
 have learned, the prime cost of the doing would be 
 comparatively small, while the returns would rapidly 
 repay all the original outlay. 
 
 The first thing to be done is to come direct to the 
 natural and only common-sense principle, the separate 
 system of disposal of the sewage. ' The sewage to the 
 land, the storm-water to the river,' is a proverb which 
 every boy and girl at school should learn, and every man 
 and woman who has influence should enforce. It is 
 the basis of all true and safe sanitation. It is obviously 
 the method of nature herself, when she is left to her 
 own devices : and where could we find a better teacher ? 
 If, indeed, her scheme for this purpose were not so grand 
 that our worst ignorances cannot thwart it, all vital 
 motion on the earth would cease, for it is her plan, out 
 of the very womb of death to bring forth the most 
 perfect forms of life. She builds up the earth and all 
 that is earthy by primary burial of the earthy ; she 
 vitalises by the living waters moved by the sun and the 
 moon. Were she to drop all her treasures into the sea, 
 as some of her children do, there would soon be no land 
 on which things of life could live. 
 
 We Londoners, therefore, must, if we would do the 
 best thing in the best way and for the best purpose, 
 follow our mistress and guide, in her mighty cleansings 
 of the dead from the living. 
 
 When we have once got this principle in our minds and 
 are brought to the application of it, we may look at what 
 it is we have got already, before we determine what it is 
 we have to change. Fortunately, we may discover by 
 this inquiry that what we have got, faulty as it is, admits
 
 266 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 
 
 of being utilised, to which utilisation we should direct 
 all our efforts. 
 
 A system of sewers within the present sewers is the 
 project we ought to insist on ; of sewers limited and perfect 
 for conveying from every house its own seivage together 
 with the water used in the house for its own purposes no 
 more, no less. 
 
 And for the storm-water, a system for its escape as 
 storm-water into the river through the existing channels, 
 outside the true sewers, and absolutely separate and dis- 
 tinct from them. 
 
 Towards the attainment of these objects there is no 
 difficulty that cannot be overcome. All is laid out for 
 the work. Whether the inner sewers should run along 
 the floors of the existing sewers, or be raised above those 
 floors, or be suspended from their roofs, is a point of 
 detail that may have to be studied and experimented on 
 in order to prove which position is most convenient. 
 This detail does not affect the method. 
 
 The material for the construction of the inner or 
 true sewer might probably be settled on at once, because 
 on this matter there is experience for a guide. In 
 some American cities, and in some English places, iron 
 tubes are found effective, and nothing could be better 
 here. Such tubes are already constructed for convey- 
 ance of water and coal gas ; they can be perfectly closed 
 throughout, so that no sewer gas need escape from them, 
 and they can most readily be made to communicate 
 with the main drain of each house. 
 
 The size of the true sewer may be a subject for 
 consideration, but the question can easily be solved 
 from existing data. My own view would be for small
 
 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 267 
 
 sewers, a four-inch drain for a house of twenty rooms, 
 with the sewer in proportion, as Mr. Chad wick has 
 suggested, and planned according to the oval shape 
 which he also has described so convincingly. 
 
 Taken systematically from one district to another, 
 London might, in this manner, be sewered throughout, 
 without the change being known by the masses of its 
 great community. There need be no opening of streets 
 to lay down new lines of sewers, no important stoppages 
 of existing outflows from the houses. As the inner 
 sewers were laid down within the existing ones, the 
 connection from house to house could be laid until all 
 was complete. Moreover, the connection between one 
 house and another, now so very imperfect, could, during 
 the change, be rendered absolutely perfect. 
 
 As a method of conveyance of the sewage of every 
 house away to some common escape from the town or 
 city altogether, this plan admits of the application of 
 yet another advantage. By the addition of an exhaust 
 pumping system at various sumps or stations for bring- 
 ing the sewage -freely and regularly out of the houses 
 from which it flows and on to its final destinations, the 
 houses themselves, ventilated with the best obtainable 
 outside air, might have the air carried away through 
 every outlet from them into the central sewer. The 
 water-closet, instead of being charged with the emana- 
 tions from the closet, would be flooded with air from 
 without, which air would flow down the closet, and 
 away by the main drain, as the water from the closet 
 flows into the drain. The same with the sinks and 
 every other of the openings, where there is an exit for 
 the contents from the dwelling. The bad air from
 
 268 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 
 
 slums, mews, shambles, vegetable markets, dust-bins, 
 and all repositories of objectionable matters, solid, fluid, 
 aerial, could also be carried off by properly constructed 
 communications through the exhausting central sewer. 
 
 THE DESTINATION or THE SEWAGE. 
 
 It will, I doubt not, be admitted freely that the 
 attainment of such a system as is above contemplated 
 would be a result satisfactory beyond expectation. But 
 what, it will be asked, is to be the destination of the 
 sewage flowing through the central sewer, and what of 
 the storm-water flowing by it, but unmixed with it ? 
 
 Let us take the disposal of the sewage first, as the 
 most important and difficult question. 
 
 It will be seen at once that the enormous difficulties 
 at present existing would be exceedingly reduced under 
 the system above proposed, by two changes the 
 tremendous reduction in the volume of material that 
 has to be disposed of, and the condensed character of 
 the sewerage itself. We should be dealing, not with 
 diluted decomposing material, but with a substance 
 undecomposed and ready for application, as required 
 for purposes of cultivation. This reduction in volume, 
 which might be still further promoted by a reduction 
 of the water supply to the extent of ninety million of 
 gallons per day, would render the fluid manageable both 
 for collection and transportation. 
 
 The plan I suggest for direct disposal of the separated 
 fluid is that there should be constructed at, or near to, 
 the present outfall, or at any better place on the river, a 
 series of vast covered docks or reservoirs, into which the
 
 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 269 
 
 fluid from the prime sewer should be pumped, and in 
 which it should be retained for brief periods until its 
 removal. To effect removal from the reservoirs, I should 
 suggest floating barges or tanks, which, loaded with the 
 product, should steam away with it and carry it wherever 
 it was destined to be borne to the sea, if it must needs 
 be thrown adrift ; or to some point of land for utilisation. 
 
 Whenever it was made known that material of such 
 value for the land, as the contents of these floating gal- 
 leons of wealth, was in the market, we cannot but suppose 
 that the demand for it would be instant. There are men 
 living who can remember the time when the Bristol barrel 
 filled with the same kind of product went from the Bel- 
 gravian fields to the West Indies, and tell it not in our 
 sanitarian Gath came back loaded with the same pro- 
 duct transmuted, in the laboratory of nature, into sugar ! 
 Why not in a better form, in these better days, transmit 
 the same kind of substance to different parts of the earth, 
 or to barren portions of our own- islands, and there let 
 nature transmute it into fruit, sugar, or other useful 
 substance, in such a way that it shall administer its full 
 benefits to mankind ? Barren portions of our sea-coasts 
 could, by these modifications of the separate system, be 
 made the most fertile and beautiful of all our tracts of 
 vegetation. 
 
 To the engineer, when once a system were decided on 
 and declared, these modes of transit, with many improve- 
 ments, would speedily occur. With the engineers it is 
 not my province to interfere. They exist to carry out 
 what has been determined on, and when they know what 
 the people want, they will do what is wanted, as surely 
 as they will lay down, after the country has said they
 
 270 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 
 
 must, a new railway or a telegraph. We have but to 
 declare the principle, and get it declared, that every town 
 in England must be cleansed of its organic excreta out 
 and out, day by day, as certainly as it is supplied with 
 the food brought into it, and the thing were done. 
 
 Toward such perfection any powerful movement 
 steadily and resolutely devoting itself would soon be 
 backed up by the common sense of the people, who 
 require nothing more than a competent authority to 
 settle the subject determinately. The utter failure of the 
 combined system as a permanent solution of the drainage 
 difficulty, and as a mere transition from the cesspool to 
 the method of separate removal with immediate and 
 fruitful utilisation, is becoming apparent with such swift 
 conviction, that there will soon be an outcry, unless, 
 irrespective of all interests except the true ones, our 
 authorities will undertake the necessary radical reforma- 
 tion. 
 
 The moment we can, by the skill of our engineers, 
 get our in- and out-going drainage system as good as 
 our railway system, as true in its working, as continuous 
 and systematic, the most important of all our basic 
 sanitary reforms will have been introduced ; while until 
 this basic reform is carried out there can be no sound 
 sanitation at all. I have asked many times, sought 
 many times, for so much as one instance in which the 
 combined system of sewerage, apart altogether from its 
 loss and extravagance, which might be tolerated if its 
 results were good has proved a sanitary success. I can 
 find no instance of the kind. 
 
 The towns which depend, as London does, on storm- 
 water to flush and inundate their sewers, are like the
 
 UPPER AND LOWER LONDON 271 
 
 old mariners who depended on favourable weather for a 
 favourable voyage. The clay has passed for that hazard. 
 
 The last difficulty that has to be met relates to the 
 disposal of the storm-water, and that is solved, or may 
 be solved, in the one sentence, ' the water to the river.' 
 In some places, where the river is small, it might be well 
 to let the proverb have its full play ; in London it might 
 or might not, for the Thames is large enough either to 
 receive the storm-water or to do without it. In London, 
 consequently, we might catch the storm-water, if that 
 were desirable, in separate reservoirs, and use it for 
 laundry work and many other valuable purposes. 
 
 Thus on all sides the advantage of the separate system 
 would turn to good account in the mighty Babylon which 
 we have reared to-day. By it, our Babylon, in its worst 
 quarters, would be ventilated ; would at every minute 
 of its life be scoured, cleansed, and purged ; would 
 send forth its dead and dangerous refuse for living and 
 useful purposes ; and would insure to itself good and pure 
 water, for that cleanliness which is next to godliness, and 
 without which godliness itself were a rare virtue. 
 
 Upper London a garden of terraces and flowers, 
 beneath a smokeless canopy. Under London a double 
 river, one of dead wealth, the other of living water. 
 This would indeed be London.
 
 272 
 
 ' FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH: ' 
 
 OUR Congress this year has been ringing peals of con- 
 gratulations, and the peals are deserved. Sanitary 
 science, in some simple directions, has won triumphs 
 such as have never been won before, and its advocates, 
 once called enthusiasts, dreamers, visionaries, and other 
 poetical names, are now, in respect to enthusiasms, 
 dreams, visions, looked upon as commonplace observers. 
 The miracles they declared possible are performed so 
 regularly that wonder and doubt have ceased. 
 
 We sanitarians declared that it would be a compara- 
 tively easy task to find out the courses and, at least, the 
 proximate causes of the great pestilences, and that, with 
 a fair knowledge on these subjects, combined with a 
 comparative ready assistance by the public, we could 
 control both the courses and the causes. The work has 
 not been done so thoroughly as we could have wished, 
 because the public has not come up, as yet, to our views ; 
 but the work is progressing, and sufficient is already 
 done to prove the truth of our position. 
 
 We said that the once current rates of mortality 
 were deathly of deathly; that they represented a low 
 civilisation ; that they might, in these countries, be 
 
 1 An address delivered to the Congress of the Sanitary Institute, held 
 at Glasgow, on Thursday evening, September 27, 1883.
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 273 
 
 reduced generally to a mean of fifteen in the thousand 
 per annum, and, in favoured localities, to a lower figure 
 still. We were taunted with the rejoinder that if such 
 were accomplished men and women would live a hundred 
 and fifty years. We replied, Let them live two hundred 
 years if they like, but let us, any way, reduce the huge 
 mortalities which are considered natural. 
 
 The result of our work is that there are towns where 
 the average mortality is actually lower than fifteen in the 
 thousand. Strangely, too, the popular cry is not now 
 against us as enthusiasts, but against towns which do 
 not follow up our enthusiasm. Towns, therefore, in this 
 day, compete with towns for a low death-rate, knowing 
 well that should mortality from temporary and as yet 
 accidental causes rise to what was considered the mere 
 natural a quarter of a century ago, they are temporarily 
 ruined if they depend upon outside popular favour for 
 existence. 
 
 All this is most satisfactory, and would afford a fruit- 
 ful theme of discourse. But what I want to-night to 
 rivet on the memory is a new thought for new work. I 
 want to put the following few questions and to endeavour 
 to answer them. 
 
 Can we honestly believe that these triumphs of ours, 
 which have so far ended in a certain victory over death, 
 have introduced any fraction of triumph over misery ? 
 
 Have we by our labours assisted to make men, 
 women, and children happier as well as longer-lived ? 
 
 Have we tried to effect anything in that way ; or have 
 we, aiming at nothing more than the promotion of a 
 longer life, left the rest to chance, as if it were not our 
 duty to include human felicity in our design of labour ?
 
 274 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 .Can we effect anything to ensure felicity as well as 
 length of days? In other words, is felicity a subject 
 open to sanitary research, and if so, in what directions 
 shall we labour for it ? 
 
 These questions are momentous, because if we are 
 aiding in the art of adding to length of life and in 
 developing population without giving to an extended 
 and universal life felicity, or the enjoyment of that 
 which is given, we may in the long run be working 
 evil rather than good for the human race. 
 
 A race unhappy lives too long to live. 
 
 Surveying the questions I have submitted, I do not 
 think that we have, so far, done anything to add to human 
 felicity. In the first stages of our labours that, indeed, 
 were impossible. We have had to deal with very un- 
 popular, and some think unsavoury, subjects. We have 
 had to be excessively personal. We have been obliged to 
 tell people to be clean both at home and abroad. We 
 have been forced to be fault-finders all round. We have 
 even had to frighten the masses and fear is a terrible 
 foe to felicity both in the house and out of it; and until 
 I, one day, ventured to show, by an allegory, a pleasant 
 side-station on our steep and narrow road, we seemed to 
 conceal the destinies we had in view, or to leave them 
 for anybody to discover, an almost hopeless leaving. 
 
 We have not tried, therefore, in any direct manner 
 to teach the way to felicity. We may, like the rest of 
 the world, have spoken of health and happiness. We 
 may have commented on the sound mind in the sound 
 body ; but we have not tried to systematise effort to- 
 wards the attainment of felicity as we have towards the 
 attainment of length of days.
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 275 
 
 I may make these admissions without the slightest 
 compunction or regret. If we have done no good in the 
 direction I have referred to we have certainly done no 
 wrong. There has not been sufficient time for a de- 
 velopment of infelicity from extension of life, so we 
 need not ourselves be unhappy. 
 
 But now comes the last question. 
 
 Can we by any future effort advance human felicity 
 by a scientific research into the sources of it and the 
 impediments to it? Can we, scientifically, connect 
 health with happiness ? If we cannot we had better 
 never have been born. We are like preachers of mercy 
 who are empty of charity. We are mere sounding brass 
 and tinkling cymbal. 
 
 I do not, for my part, believe that we are in this 
 plight. I hope it is all right that we were born. I 
 believe that we have the moral as well as the physical 
 health in plain subject before us for study, and that we, 
 of all men, ought to see how to combine the physical 
 with the moral, and to understand the relationships of 
 the one to the other and the interdependence of the one 
 on the other. I trust, therefore, that from this present 
 Glasgow Congress we may take a new departure by 
 inaugurating a new school of sanitary students and 
 scholars, whose interests it shall be to learn the physical 
 and moral art of living well, so that bodily health shall, 
 of a truth, be mental felicity. A dream, do I hear it 
 said ? If I do, I hesitate not. It was a dream a quarter 
 of a century ago that men could touch death-rates and 
 reduce them to order. To-day the dream is a fact. 
 
 I see no reason why we should not, by patient 
 research, know all that pertains to our own lower 
 
 T2
 
 276 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 natures at least. I can feel the astronomer overwhelmed 
 with the sublime story that lies before him. I can see 
 the metaphysical philosopher overwhelmed as he ques- 
 tions the illimitable destinies and the sources of illimit- 
 able power and will and being. But we sanitarians, 
 dealing with secondary phenomena; with phenomena 
 repeating at every moment ; with our timepiece selves 
 going through regular courses of eating, drinking, breath- 
 ing, thinking, working, wearing, sleeping ; with me- 
 chanism that can be counted, measured, weighed, and 
 calculated on commercial values ; we surely have no 
 insurmountable difficulties to get over in determining 
 what are the conditions under which human felicity is 
 possible, and what are the conditions which prevent the 
 accomplishment of felicity. The hardness of the task 
 Ires, at the outset, in getting a good view of the actual 
 meaning of felicity. 
 
 Felicity is contrast to misery. To many minds it is 
 no more than a fancy, an invisible breath of some poet 
 who writes what he has never known, and has never ex- 
 pected to know ; or a laugh of some cynic who, tired of 
 life and its vanities, declares that ' all things are alike 
 to all,' and that man, with the beasts, neither goes 
 upwards nor downwards, but dies. 
 
 To men who, like myself, are engaged for ten to 
 eleven months each year listening to the sorrows which 
 the sick are forced to tell and the healthy are forced to 
 confirm, it would not be difficult to conclude that there 
 is in the human world no such thing as felicity. There 
 was a noted physician I once knew well, who told me at 
 the close of a career of fifty years of active practice, 
 during whicL few men had seen more of his fellow-men
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 277 
 
 or had observed more keenly, that he never had met a 
 perfectly or indeed a comparatively happy human being. 
 His view was not altogether peculiar. The professors of 
 medicine generally are felt by many to be stoically 
 indifferent to sorrow, as compared with other persons. 
 They are not so at heart, but, knowing the smallness of 
 human felicity, they are less oppressed than others by 
 the extreme and tenderly acute occurrences of sorrow. 
 They read the Book of Wisdom every day from nature, 
 as the Chaldaic writer of it did ; and so, in the everlasting 
 presence of nature, they become possessed of a demeanour 
 which seems to separate them from the individual life ; 
 and as in that presence felicity is not the feature they 
 are most wont to recognise, they give it wings to fly. 
 
 PROOFS OF FELICITY. 
 
 By the hard and fast scientific mode of looking at 
 the phenomena of nature, it might seem, then, at first 
 view, that human felicity had no proofs of existence. 
 There are, fortunately, other evidences which give posi- 
 tive proofs in characters as purely scientific as any in 
 the observation of science. Granting that these are 
 exceptional evidences, they are still in proof. 
 
 I notice four of these evidences as all-sufficient. 
 
 1. In perfect childhood, uncrossed by perverse and 
 chilling influences, and blessed by health, felicity exists 
 not, perchance, universally, but as a rule. I remember 
 some few pages of my own childhood which were filled 
 with an unbounded felicity, a felicity to be remembered, 
 although it cannot be again realised or explained in
 
 278 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 relation to the precise causes that led to it. I have 
 questioned others on the same point ; and although the 
 response was much more frequently in the negative than 
 I expected to find it, and although the inquiry has often 
 laid bare a recollection of misery rather than of felicity 
 in childhood, it has yielded, certainly, a majority on the 
 affirmative side. The evidence is sufficient to prove the 
 reality of the phenomenon in at least one stage of life. 
 
 2. There are, again, men and women who, by some 
 fortunate heredity of constitution, go through long, 
 trying, and eventful careers with perfection of felicity. 
 Dr. Joseph Priestley was one of these fortunates. ' I 
 was born,' he says, ' of a happy disposition.' And so 
 this man, through a life of struggle and tempest such 
 as few men have known, was ever in felicity. In his 
 child life he loses his mother. He leaves his home, and 
 is domiciled with an aunt, whose gloomy tenets would 
 drive some natures to the deepest melancholy. He 
 passes through severe changes of thought on solemnest 
 subjects. He becomes a preacher, but, owing to a defect 
 of speech, cannot display an eloquence he knows is in 
 him, and, tossed from pulpit to pulpit, penniless, is 
 forced to teach that he may live. He becomes half 
 friend, half librarian of a nobleman, by whom he is 
 petted at first, and then, with the capriciousness of 
 power, is turned off, as a once-favoured dog might be, 
 without a word of explanation. He makes one of the 
 grandest discoveries of the century, and lives to see the 
 discovery accredited to another man, to whom he com- 
 municated it in the most open manner. Suspected of 
 sympathising with children of liberty, he is made, under
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 279 
 
 the instigation of a rival preacher, the victim of a furious 
 rnob, which burns his house, and all his precious papers 
 and treasures, wishing him heartily the same fate. 
 Escaping to London, he is obliged to hide from enmity, 
 and, cruelest cut of all, is disowned by and cast out of 
 the learned society whose work he has helped to immor- 
 talise. At last, driven in his old age from his native 
 country, he goes, forgiving every one, to a foreign and 
 distant land, to die there in perfect peace. 
 
 Such changes as these, such oppressions through 
 every stage of life, would kill a multitude of ordinary 
 men. Yet here was one who went through every phase 
 of suffering with felicity. His friends, one and all, bear 
 witness to this fact from their objective side. He per- 
 sonally testifies to the same, and explains the reason : 
 ' I was born of a happy disposition.' 
 
 We gather from such instances as these rare, it is 
 true, but reliable that in the range of physical life there 
 is a felicity due to heredity ; to some combinations of 
 ancestry, which, being repeated, would lead to the birth 
 of an almost new race amongst which Priestley's own 
 maxim, 'the greatest good for the greatest number,' 
 would be the common blessing. For, that which has 
 once been born may be born again, and by birth become 
 universal as a progress. If one man can hold felicity in 
 his hand all his life and under all adversities, why not 
 all men ? 
 
 3. There is a third proof of felicity which comes 
 within the knowledge of the majority of mankind 
 although it is not universal, for I have known a few 
 who have afforded no evidence of it. This proof consists
 
 280 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 of the sensation felt, I repeat, by most persons of a sense 
 of peace, tranquillity, and, in a word, felicity, which, in 
 consequence of its abruptness and the sharp contrast 
 between what has gone before, is a cause of extreme 
 surprise. In such moments the actual cares of the 
 world, cares heavy and sorrowful, sit lightly ; the im- 
 possible a short time before becomes the possible or 
 the easy. Dark forebodings which have pressed almost 
 to despair pass away, and the future is roseate with pro- 
 spect. 
 
 There are few now present who have not experienced 
 this curious change towards felicity. They may say 
 that it is a fleeting change, and that may be so ; but 
 the fact is certain, and is also immeasurably instructive ; 
 for if felicity can be obtained for one day, for one hour, 
 why not for all days, for all hours ? 
 
 These flashes of felicity are, I have said, sometimes 
 startling from their abruptness. They are at other 
 times equally startling from their intensity, and from 
 the relief they give to the opposite depression, from 
 which they stand out in contrast. 
 
 In speaking of this contrast, and of the advent of 
 felicity after extreme depression, the common terms 
 used to express the conditions are singular. The de- 
 pression is almost invariably described as a physical 
 weight, and felicity as the removal of a weight which, 
 like a physical burthen, has oppressed the body, and, 
 in extreme instances, has bent it low. 'He is bowed 
 down with sorrow ' is an expression as true as it is 
 striking. Bunyan seizes on this physical truth. His 
 pilgrim, while yet wanting felicity, is troubled with a 
 burthen which weighs upon his back night and day,
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 281 
 
 felicity coming when that burthen falls from his 
 shoulders. The illusionist has here denned what he 
 himself had felt, and hence the force of a description 
 which every man and woman who has read Bunyan has, 
 with very few exceptions, recognised. Felicity is light- 
 ness from burthen. The common folk call it lightness 
 of spirit, light-heartedness, as being lifted up above the 
 common fate of daily oppression and daily sorrow. The 
 terms define the state. 
 
 When felicity is most absent, the sense of depression 
 shows itself in other ways, which indicate the physical 
 process, and suggest the ponderable nature of something 
 that tells on the body and on the mind. In worst states 
 of depression the faculty of memory is often overbur- 
 thened with labour of details, long stored up, which are 
 remembered, re-arranged, and re-conjectured upon with 
 painful and accurate precision. The thoughts undulate, 
 and great waves seem to overwhelm another organisa- 
 tion belonging to the man himself, yet lying afar back, 
 and obscured by these rolling tides, dark, dense, mate- 
 rial, weighty. With felicity all these waves of deathly 
 pressure pass away. The memory is charged with no 
 recurring scene of sadness. The calculated difficulties do 
 not appear. The organisation which lies in the shade 
 becomes brilliant, and the future is charged with hope. 
 
 These phenomena constitute both by reality and 
 contrast what may be called the full-grown subjective 
 proofs of felicity. 
 
 4. Lastly, there are certain objective proofs which 
 lookers-on may observe if they will notice others, and 
 which, as independent evidences, are perhaps the most
 
 282 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 reliable^ A good perception of character and, if I may 
 say, diagnosis, leads the looker-on to note and know 
 the symptoms of felicity in others, for the symptoms 
 are clear. In the wake of felicity the pulses are regular, 
 tonic, free: The breathing is natural. The eye is bright 
 and clear. The countenance, even in age, is youthful. 
 The appetites are keen but orderly. The judgment 
 is sound and joyous. The muscular bearing is firm, 
 co-ordinate, steady ; there is no indication of carrying 
 a load on the back, nor of oppressive sinking exhaustion. 
 In the above few passages I have sketched out, as 
 far as I dare in the allotted time, the phenomena of the 
 felicity we are now considering. I have entered into no 
 metaphysical subtleties in definition, but have rested 
 on every-day experience ; and having thereby, I think, 
 afforded evidence of the fact of felicity, I pass to the 
 thought how to extend this state a thought which, ac- 
 cording to my view, is eminently sanitary and practical. 
 
 PHYSICAL CONDITIONS INFLUENCING FELICITY. 
 
 To arrive at the true mode of working for this object 
 we cannot do better than survey, in the first place, the 
 conditions under which the phenomena of felicity, and 
 of its opposite, depression or infelicity, are manifested. 
 
 Atmospherical Conditions. 
 
 By a sort of general impression the weather is 
 believed to exert a peculiar influence for and against the 
 phenomena of felicity. In this view there is undoubted 
 truth. An increase of the atmospheric pressure or a 
 decrease may be a cause of felicity. In ascending from
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY EESEAECH 283 
 
 valleys to moderate heights there is, up to a certain dis- 
 tance, a distinct effect of the kind. So definite is this 
 action that I know of one person who, under some con- 
 ditions, feels life is a load too hard to bear, but who, in 
 a dry bright mountain region, to which resort is often 
 had, throws off the despair altogether and lives a new 
 life. In the nicely-adjusted balance of atmospheric 
 pressure against animal circulation of blood, the circula- 
 tion is relieved by a moderate removal of pressure. But 
 if such removal be too great, if the organs of the body 
 become congested from the removal, as they may be, the 
 spell is broken. 
 
 The brightness of mind induced by removal of pres- 
 sure and freer circulation is, however, bound by other 
 conditions. Dryness must accompany lightness of air 
 to produce the state favourable to felicity. 
 
 There may, again, be conditions in which a slight 
 excess of pressure may be conducive to felicity. In 
 regions where the land is low, compared with the sea 
 level, a slight atmospheric pressure may be advantageous. 
 The air is usually drier under pressure, the wind bracing, 
 and the vital organs charged with blood conditions 
 essentially favourable in low-lying districts to the whole 
 of the communities that occupy them. 
 
 There are electrical conditions of the atmosphere 
 during which felicity contrasts strongly and strangely 
 with the depression incident to other conditions. My 
 friend Mr. Hingeston, of Brighton, has very beautifully 
 connected these varying states of atmosphere from 
 electrical influences, and these varying states of mind 
 with cloudland. He reads in the clouds the outward 
 and visible signs of the mental state. The large white-
 
 284 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 headed cumuli that collect in clear bright days are rotary 
 storms of hail, rain, or thunder, gyrating from left to 
 right. Several of these gyrating storms keep marching 
 onwards in alternate spaces, marshalled in vast circular 
 array, and rolling round a circumference of bright trans- 
 lucent calm. 
 
 On the approach of one of these masses of vapour 
 the mercury of the barometer first falls, and then rises 
 with great rapidity. 
 
 The accompanying and residual state of the at- 
 mosphere is congenial to health. Now the debilitated 
 experience favourable reaction, and the mind is serene 
 and happy. The air in these moments is antagonistic 
 of disease. 
 
 With the breaking- up and dissolving of these large 
 cumuli there is electric action, and most likely explo- 
 sion, just as the vapour is being condensed into water. 
 The entire atmosphere now changes ; everything is dull 
 and grey ; the so-called dyspepsia prevails ; the acid 
 indigestion of gouty habits ; the scrofulous, indolent, and 
 pitiable host of ' never- wells.' 
 
 Thus, continues my friend, the sensorial effects of the 
 electrical fluid are proof paramount of its pathological, 
 physiological energy, and the various forms assumed by 
 the vapours condensing or dissolving in the air clouds 
 may be considered not only as picturesque beauties in 
 the landscape, but also as criteria for judging of some of 
 the most potent effects resulting from the operation of 
 an experiment, silently and delicately performed upon 
 the functions and sensations of animated beings. 
 
 Cold and heat each play different parts in production 
 and reduction of felicity. A dry and sharp cold what
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 285 
 
 is called a bracing cold exerts a gentle pressure on the 
 surface of the body, which fills the nervous centres with 
 blood, and helps to felicity of mind. A long and piercing 
 easterly chilling cold checks circulation, robs heat, and 
 produces even melancholic sadness. A dry genial warmth 
 acts like a bracing cold ; a long warmth with moisture 
 checks the vital action, and produces a degree of de- 
 pression which may be as intense as that which is induced 
 by prolonged exposure to cold. 
 
 The seasons of the year which are attended with least 
 exhaustion of the body are those which favour felicity. 
 When the exhaustion of the winter and depressing spring 
 months has been removed by the warmth of a genial 
 summer and autumn, the time is most favourable for 
 serenity of mind. On the other hand, the exhaustion of 
 winter and spring induces depression, and is no doubt 
 the cause of that melancholy which renders the months 
 of April, May, and June the maximum period of deaths 
 by suicide. 
 
 Purity of the atmosphere is an unquestionable aid to 
 felicity. The comparison of children living under differ- 
 ing circumstances is sufficient proof of this fact. Children 
 in an open well-ventilated schoolroom, how different are 
 they from those who are immured in the close over- 
 packed dens which are miscalled schoolrooms ! The 
 felicity of the children of the well-to-do who live out-of- 
 doors, and even of the children of the fields and open 
 streets, compared with the felicity of those of the small 
 trader whose back parlour is living-room and playground ; 
 the felicity of the man or woman who leads an outdoor 
 life, compared with the felicity of those who live in the 
 close office or workroom, how entirely different !
 
 286 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 Foods, Drinks, Narcotics. 
 
 There are still other agencies which bring or which 
 check human felicity, and which are as purely physical 
 in character as those above recorded. 
 
 There are substances which taken into the body 
 produce strange contrasts in respect to felicity and de- 
 pression. Foods well cooked, foods carefully selected, 
 foods supplied in sufficient quantity to sustain the body 
 equably in all its parts, but so moderately as never to 
 oppress the nervous digestive powers, conduce to felicity 
 in the most telling manner. As a rule all agents which 
 stimulate that is to say, relax the arterial tension, and 
 so allow the blood a freer course through the organs, 
 promote, for a time, felicity, but in the reaction leave 
 depression. The alkaloid in tea, theine, has this effect. 
 It causes a short and slight felicity. It causes, in a 
 large number of persons, a long and severe and even 
 painful sadness. There are many who never knpw_ a 
 day of felicity owing to this one destroying cause. In 
 our poorer districts, amongst the poor women of our in- 
 dustrial populations our spinning, our stocking-weaving 
 women the misery incident to their lot is often doubled 
 by the use of this one agent. 
 
 There is another agent more determinate in its 
 effects and contrasts than tea, and that is wine. I am 
 a total abstainer, but I am, I trust, an honest observer 
 also, and I confirm from direct observation the old 
 saying that ' wine maketh glad the heart of man.' If 
 it did this and no more, I should say, Let the felicity of 
 wine remain to the world. Wine, like the alkaloid in 
 tea, relaxes, lets loose the channels of the blood ; gladdens
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 287 
 
 like the ascent of the mountain side ; gladdens like the 
 gentle atmospheric pressure which forces more blood on 
 to the internal parts. But and here, alas ! is the rub ; 
 carried a little beyond the right mark, the felicity from 
 wine passes into folly, the folly into feebleness, the feeble- 
 ness into stupor, and the stupor into a depression the 
 reaction from which is the bitterest, the most persistent. 
 Tobacco is another of the substances used to produce 
 abeyance of anxiety. Tobacco is said to soothe irritability 
 without stimulation ; but it leaves in many persons long 
 depression, coupled, generally, with an appetite for a 
 renewed indulgence in it, which becomes intense. The 
 confirmed smoker, who can stand out against indirect 
 effects, whose taste for food and whose digestive en- 
 durance are little injured, is kept during the whole time 
 he indulges, in the state of suspension. He does not 
 enjoy felicity, but for the time experiences a relief from 
 infelicity. My own experience, on the whole, is opposed to 
 the indulgence, for I tasted it for a long period of my life, 
 and have long observed the effect of it on others. To the 
 aged it gives, I confess, a negative existence, which, when 
 the mind is not filled with choice or refined or cultivated 
 pleasures, makes time less wearisome. To the man who 
 engages in work of great excitement and of a mental kind 
 it brings a joyless repose. But, on the whole, it is a bad, 
 and sometimes a fatally bad, indulgence. I have once 
 known a man die directly from its effects; and how 
 many I have seen injured I cannot say, but a large 
 number. Again, I have seen many much depressed by 
 it ; so that I dare not put it forward, at its best, as a 
 promoter of felicity. The world, I must conclude, would 
 be happier if tobacco were unknown or unemployed.
 
 288 FELICITY AS A SANITARY EESEARCH 
 
 The habitual use of opium for the obtainment of 
 felicity is of the same erroneous character. The opium- 
 smoker, the opium-eater, tells us of certain dreams and 
 phantasies which are, for a moment, felicitous wander- 
 ings of the mind. I have visited the opium-dens to see 
 the effects ; and whatever the dream may be, subjectively, 
 it presents to the observer no sign of felicity. The ex- 
 pression of the opium-smoker is one of restless and 
 intense anxiety. He looks like a man in a dream of 
 misery. His eyes are joyless, his features contorted, 
 his skin colourless or dark, his pulse slow and labouring, 
 his breathing hard and heavy ; and when from the half- 
 struggling consciousness he wakes to reason, the dream 
 he describes is too confused to be accepted as a dream 
 of felicity. Then he falls into dejection, which deepens 
 and deepens, until the desire to return to the cause of 
 the dejection is too overpowering to be resisted. To 
 opium-eating and to the subcutaneous injection of mor- 
 phia the same description, with some modifications, on 
 which I need not dwell, is perfectly applicable. From 
 the use of such an agent as opium there can be no result 
 of human felicity. There could soon be produced by an 
 extension of the use a madder world than now exists and 
 a more miserable ; a happier, never ! 
 
 And this saying, according to my knowledge, extends 
 to all narcotic substances. There are some, like methylic 
 ether and nitrous oxide gas, which produce for the 
 moment infinitely more refined felicity than those I 
 have specifically named ; but in the end the results are 
 the same. They all create a craving for themselves in 
 those who become habituated to their use, and engender 
 a new and unnatural constitution.
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEAECH 289 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL INFLUENCES. 
 
 I have dwelt thus far on influences of a purely 
 physical kind in their relation to felicity. I have put 
 these influences in contrast as affecting the state of 
 felicity, and I have touched on some agencies which are 
 used to produce a rnock felicity. I must move from 
 these to a brief consideration of certain influences of a 
 different nature which affect us for or against our happy 
 or felicitous existence. 
 
 Temperaments and Heredities. 
 
 There are some constitutional differences determined 
 by temperaments which are of first importance. Of the 
 four primary temperaments the sanguine, the nervous, 
 the bilious, the lymphatic and of their relation to felicity, 
 a volume might be written ; and I have collected the 
 facts relating to the temperaments of over a thousand 
 persons towards such a work. I must not here touch, 
 however, on any detail. I must be content to record as 
 a general fact that the sanguine is altogether the hap- 
 piest temperament, but not always the most sustained ; 
 that the dark or bilious is the least happy in early life, 
 but is often, in later life, more serene ; that the nervous 
 is a varying condition full of ups and downs ; that the 
 lymphatic is, by a negative effect, the most even ; that 
 amongst the twenty-four combinations of temperaments 
 the sanguine lymphatic is the most felicitous in respect 
 to physical pleasures, and the bilious sanguine and the 
 bilious lymphatic in respect to intellectual ; that the 
 
 u
 
 290 FELICITY AS A SANITAEY EESEARCH 
 
 nervous sanguine is the most irritable, and the nervous 
 lymphatic the most helpless and miserable. 
 
 The moral influences and impressions affecting these 
 natures are, from first to last, potent for good or for 
 evil. In childhood the future history of the felicitous or 
 infelicitous after-life is usually written. A few, born, 
 like Dr. Priestley, of a happy disposition, fight through all 
 adversity, filled with a magic soul of felicity ; but they 
 are very few and are commonly, though I dare not, in 
 the face of natural truth, say always, good. They, even 
 in childhood, are not affected as others are. In the 
 schoolroom or playground they are comparatively happy. 
 
 FELICITY AS A PHYSIOLOGICAL QUALITY. 
 
 As a rule, the tendency to felicity or its opposite is 
 planted in childhood. The parent, the schoolmaster, 
 the schoolmistress, hold the book not of learning simply, 
 but of fate. To the imitative mind of the young, ab- 
 sorbing all that the senses can carry to it and the nervous 
 centres can retain, the character of the presiding mind, 
 ever present with joy or sorrow, justice or injustice, love 
 or hate, cruelty or mercy as its qualities, is the beginning 
 of the end. 
 
 Let me, as bearing on these matters of thought, not 
 diverge from, but converge to, our present study, by a 
 reference to felicity as a physiological quality. 
 
 Of the two living natures with which man is endowed, 
 and which distinguish him from the lower creation, 
 the pure animal and the pure intellectual natures, 
 felicity belongs to the animal nature. An intellectuality 
 that would separate man from the animal would leave 
 him beyond either felicity or infelicity.
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 291 
 
 Felicity, in fact, is not an intellectual quality : it is 
 not centred in the brain. It is not a quality which a 
 man can think himself into, or reason himself into, or 
 directly will himself into. It is, like the beating of his 
 heart and the circulation of his blood, a vital process 
 going on independently of his volition. He can by rude 
 process destroy it for himself as he can for others. He 
 can kill it for himself as he can stop the motion of his 
 blood by stabbing himself to the heart ; but still the 
 quality is so independent of himself that he is often forced 
 to be in felicity by things and acts and circumstances 
 which his reason scorns. ' Why does this fool of a book / 
 make me happy ? ' said a hard and suffering and miser- 
 able patient once to me as he pitched his ' Pickwick ' to 
 the foot of the bed. ' Yet it is the only thing that does, 
 while all the time I know that such a set of asses as 
 these Pickwickians could never possibly have existed. 1 
 
 By experience of what seems to increase felicity, to 
 lighten misery, to make misery, we often confound felicity 
 and sorrow with intellect. This is merely our own ex- 
 ternal looking upon external manifestations of internal 
 phenomena which we know we cannot influence in the 
 same way as we can teach a lesson or convey a fact, but 
 which we strive to control because we think we must do 
 something, even for the uncontrollable. 
 
 Felicity and infelicity are not intellectual faculties ; 
 neither are they passions ; neither have they any direct 
 relationship to physical pain. They are the only true 
 emotions. The man who is destitute altogether of felicity 
 is not, of necessity, intellectual, passionate, destitute of 
 passion, or more or less sensitive to pain than any one 
 else. The most intellectual may be the most miserable ;
 
 292 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 the most silly and inconsequent may be the most blest 
 with felicity. The worst instance of extreme, I may truly 
 say harrowing, misery I ever knew was in one whose 
 clearness and calmness of judgment was a subject of 
 general admiration, but who had never, he told me, 
 known in all his life an hour of felicity. The man most 
 replete with felicity I ever knew was one endowed with 
 no intellectual supremacy at all, and who was all through 
 a long life a veritable child. 
 
 The centre of the emotion of felicity is not in the 
 brain. The centre is in the vital nervous system, in the 
 great ganglia of the sympathetic ; lying not in the cerebro- 
 spinal cavities, but in the cavities of the body itself, near 
 the stomach and on the heart. We know where the glow 
 which indicates felicity is felt ; our poets have ever 
 described it with perfect truthfulness as in the breast. 
 It comes as a fire kindling there. No living being ever 
 felt happy in the head. Everybody who has felt felicity 
 has felt it as from within the body. We know, again, 
 where the depression of misery is located ; our physicians 
 of all time have defined that, and have named the disease 
 of misery from its local seat. The man who is always 
 miserable is a ' hypochondriac ' ; his affection is seated 
 under the lower ribs. No man ever felt misery in the 
 head. Every man who has felt misery knows that 
 it springs from the body, speaks of it as an exhaus- 
 tion, a sinking there. He is broken-hearted ; he is failing 
 at the centre of life ; he is bent down because of the 
 central failure, and his own shoulders, too heavy to be 
 borne, feel as if oppressed by an added weight or burthen, 
 under which he bends as though all the cares of the 
 world were upon him to bear him down.
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 293 
 
 HABITUAL, SENSATIONAL, AND MORAL INFLUENCES. 
 
 There are numerous influences which in an indirect 
 way tell upon felicity, for it or against it, as distinctly 
 as those grosser agencies of which I spoke in the earlier 
 part of this section of my address. To these I would 
 now invite attention. 
 
 The influences to which I am about to refer are, in 
 reality, purely physical in their action ; although they 
 are commonly known as habitual, sensational, moral, or 
 mental influences. 
 
 I notice, in the first place, that felicity is always 
 favoured by sufficiency of rest and sleep. Bad sleepers 
 know no felicity ; but they who in childhood and old age 
 sleep ten hours, in adolescence nine, and in full age eight 
 hours out of the twenty-four, and that soundly, are mostly 
 well favoured with felicity. They may be exposed to 
 causes which are opposed to felicity, but even then the 
 causes are feebler in action than they otherwise would 
 be. I put sleep in the first place as an aid to felicity be- 
 cause it comes first. I have no knowledge of any instance 
 in which a person who slept well was altogether devoid 
 of felicity. The beneficent action of sleep is, however, 
 indirect. It is due to the physical and mental strength 
 which it confers on its favoured child. 
 
 Strength of body secures felicity. Persons com- 
 paratively weak of mind may, with a good physique, be 
 happy ; but very few who are weak of body have any 
 long tastes of felicity. We may take it all round that 
 the feeble of all ages are unhappy. It is a matter of 
 common observation that persons who are so unfortunate
 
 294 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 as to be born deformed of body, though the defect be con- 
 cealed or hidden, are not blessed with felicity. It need 
 not be the deformity that causes the infelicity, for the 
 deformity may be concealed ; the bad health is the rooted 
 cause. Let the defect be from accident happening to a 
 body born of good stamina, and felicity may be the same 
 as in others, despite the acquired defect. 
 
 Any sign of inherited weakness is an equal sign of 
 lessened felicity, though it be marked by no physical 
 defect. It has been long observed by physicians that 
 persons who from early life show very large and promi- 
 nent veins, and thereby a languid circulation of the blood, 
 are never happy, while those of well-knit body are. The 
 observation is true as steel. We physicians know that 
 a sluggish circulation is incompatible with felicity, and 
 that they who show this indication by such local diseases 
 as haemorrhoids, for example are amongst the most de- 
 pressed of those who consult us. We say of them that 
 they suffer from arrested circulation through the liver, 
 and, doubtless, such arrest is depressing ; but the arrest 
 means physical exhaustion, and physical exhaustion is 
 the root of the evil. When the circulation is sluggish 
 the liver is sluggish, the brain is sluggish, and the 
 nervous centres are depressed. In a sentence, whatever 
 prevents physical exhaustion and sustains physical 
 strength sustains felicity; whatever exhausts sustains 
 
 infelicity. 
 
 When the sun of life is high 
 
 All is bright. 
 When the sun of life is low 
 
 All is night. 
 
 Thus we laugh and thus we sigh, 
 Light and shade where'er we go.
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 295 
 
 Physical ivork, when it is carried short of exhaustion, 
 keeps up felicity ; and sloth destroys it. But the phy- 
 sical work that exhausts kills felicity. The argument 
 extends to mental work. Moderate wholesome mental 
 work is the best .of all aids to felicity next to sleep : it 
 strengthens the mind ; it softens grief ; it lessens care. 
 Carried to excess, it is pernicious and destroys all 
 felicity. Cowper, the poet, was wont to say that no 
 labour is so wearying as composition, and few men pos- 
 sibly felt more unhappiness as the result of mental 
 exhaustion than he. But his was the fate of all 
 who force the brain to daily or nightly repeated weari- 
 ness. 
 
 The influences derivable from sleep and bodily power 
 are purely physical influences ; but there are others, called 
 sensational, which, through the physical power, have a 
 potent effect for or against felicity. The sense of hearing 
 has the most intimate connection with the vital 01 
 animal nervous system. The auditory nerve, as Dr. 
 Bucke has shown, possesses many of the characteristics 
 of an organic or sympathetic nerve ; and we all know 
 how many external vibrations which reach the ear affect 
 the digestive system, producing sense of warmth in the 
 body, appetite for food, and feeling of felicity ; or, on the 
 other hand, setting the teeth on edge, destroying appe- 
 tite, and giving rise to gloom. Thus things told affect 
 quickly, often permanently, for good or bad. The sense 
 of sight influences also, but less intensely, and after a 
 different manner. Sights gladden or dazzle, or pall or 
 sicken. 
 
 Not to extend an argument which admits of any ex- 
 tension, the senses, as doors and windows through which
 
 296 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 influences vibrate into the animal organisation, can 
 scarcely be touched by external phenomena without con- 
 veying some influence that shall make, or disturb, or 
 prevent felicity. When they convey beauty hi sound or 
 picture ; when they convey variety ; when they convey 
 cheerfulness of act, and manner, and voice, and feeling ; 
 when they convey to the soul the idea or story of gene- 
 rosity, of courage, of purity of life and character, of 
 prosperity : then they convey felicity, which, passing 
 through the brain on its way, finds its seat in the vital 
 centres on and near the heart. 
 
 With felicity as a sanitary research for my theme, I 
 have striven so far to indicate what may be called the 
 physiological bearings of the subject. I have endeavoured 
 to show that felicity is something that is of hereditary 
 quality ; that it is something made or not made by 
 external agencies over which we have little control ; that 
 it is something made or not made by many agencies 
 which we have directly under our control. 
 
 In these respects felicity stands precisely in the same 
 position as health ; in the widest sense it means health, 
 is another word for health. Health is born, and is made 
 and unmade by external agencies which as yet are out of 
 human control. Health is made and unmade by nume- 
 rous influences which are under human control. Felicity 
 similarly influenced, depends on the good working of the 
 animal or organic systems of life. 
 
 I could enter here into one of the most absorbing 
 questions relating to the connections which exist between 
 the lower and the higher human faculties. I could indi- 
 cate how the lower and higher nervous centres, charged
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 297 
 
 during life with a subtle ethereal medium, communicate 
 with each other and with the outer universe ; and how, 
 by the states of this refined intercommunicating bond 
 or sphere, both health and felicity are moved by external 
 pressures, by external vibrations, by external agents 
 taken into the living organism, and by products generated 
 within the organism and diffused through its own atmo- 
 sphere. But I leave this inviting subject for a more 
 immediately practical application of the few minutes 
 which remain for discourse. 
 
 PKACTICAL DESIGN FOE FUTUKE WORK. 
 
 Over those atmospherical causes which have been 
 noticed as influencing felicity we can exercise as yet no 
 direct action. At the same time, just as we can now 
 divert the lightning from its fatal course, we can indi- 
 rectly effect good. We can prevent, as far as our teach- 
 ing is effective, the erection of human habitations in 
 dank and humid places, below the sea-level, or in dry 
 and arid spots. We can protest, and if we are clear 
 and reasonable in our demands we can successfully pro- 
 test, against the construction of new towns on melan- 
 cholic foundations, and can explain the choicest places for 
 felicitous existence in so far as foundation is concerned. 
 
 A report from such an institution as ours, or from 
 any learned sanitarian, on this one subject, addressed to 
 those children of enterprise who are colonising the worlds 
 that are to come, would affect, if it took root at all, all the 
 generations of the men to come in those new regions, 
 and to a large extent the felicity of the whole future hu- 
 man family. In Africa at this moment the seed of new
 
 298 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEAECH 
 
 life that is being sown will largely be seed of felicity or 
 seed of sorrow, according to the selection of the sites on 
 which the new and great centres of life are constructed. 
 Nay, in this direction man himself may divert the 
 operations of nature herself. He may change her sur- 
 faces as he cuts down her forests, or plants new forests, 
 or alters the courses of rivers, or makes new courses, or 
 fills up valleys, or lowers or raises 'mountains, or con- 
 nects or disconnects oceans. With the mastery of the 
 surface of the planet in his power, man may, in fact, 
 make what regions he pleases for good or for evil. 
 
 The earth is the freehold of man. 
 
 If the natural air which man makes not and invented 
 not may be to a large extent utilised for felicity, how 
 much more easy is it for him to remove the unnatural 
 which he himself makes, so that instant advantage of 
 what is provided for good may be rendered serviceable ! 
 
 Here our voices should be heard in a tone not to be 
 mistaken. We shut up our young in closest rooms of close 
 towns ; we shut up our men and women by the millions in 
 close shops and factories. Some one million of us in these 
 islands who call ourselves, with ignorant irony, the ruling 
 classes, shut up some twenty-five millions of the people, 
 including wives and children, in walled-up atmospheres, 
 where atmospheric purity is unknown ; where cold and 
 heat oppress, where food is whatever can be got ; where 
 drink is what can supply a false delight for a certain 
 sorrow ; where marriages re-establish misery ; where good 
 sleep is impossible, where physical strength is so impaired 
 that a perfect body is not to be found ; where exhaustion 
 from work is the daily cross ; where things and objects of
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 299 
 
 beauty are rare as angels' visits ; where in the selfish race 
 to barely live generosity is impossible ; where in com- 
 pressed homes purity of mind is a thing the purest can 
 scarcely maintain ; where variety is replaced by the dead 
 monotony of unchanging sounds for the ear to hear and 
 of scenes for the eye to see ; where fear dominates over 
 courage ; where hope has no chance ; where prosperity is 
 so little known that the worn-out life has no expectation 
 this side of the grave ; and, where death is so busy that 
 three die to one of the more favoured communities. We, 
 one million, I repeat, shut up our twenty-five millions 
 under these conditions, and wonder why those millions 
 know nothing of felicity ; why they are peevish, reckless, 
 melancholy, sometimes drunken, sometimes rebellious 
 and ready to run after any leader who shall promise to 
 guide them into a happier sphere, however little removed 
 from that in which they are. Wonder ! The wonder is 
 how human nature can bear such a famine of felicity 
 and live as if it only lived to die. 
 
 To give the boon of felicity to these masses, we, not as 
 revolutionaries, but as laborious workers for them and 
 the thing most wanted, have, I trust, come into existence, 
 and not in vain. 
 
 It is better for this work that we should be as we are 
 men of science rather than men of politics. We are, 
 then, in the first and true place. We are educating 
 politics as well as men by what we teach an education 
 which, in the present dense state of political darkness, is 
 the noblest work we can possibly execute, until those who 
 rule understand common human nature. 
 
 In the direction of education the sanitarian teacher 
 should, I think, begin to study this psychological side of
 
 300 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 humanity : what human nature can and cannot bear ; 
 how much pressure can safely be put on humanity with- 
 out danger of explosion ; how much felicity can be 
 secured by removing that danger. 
 
 Beyond the task of inculcating what are the neces- 
 sities calling for pure atmospheres within and without 
 the body, we can, most appropriately, explain what 
 agents taken into the body are for felicity. We can 
 teach what temperance in all things effects in this direc- 
 tion. We can use our earnest will in declaring for absti- 
 nence where nothing but abstinence is the safe line of 
 conduct. We can denounce every indulgence that under- 
 mines and mocks and destroys the blessing. We can 
 insist on cleanliness cleanliness of body, cleanliness of 
 mind. We can show how flowers and plants grow for 
 health as well as beauty, and why for both health and 
 beauty they must join the home circle if felicity is to 
 enter it. 
 
 These are all sanitary questions, and they all, as one, 
 bear on felicity. 
 
 W T e may educate again in another direction. It has 
 been shown that some exceptional men are born of a 
 happy disposition ; and it might have been shown, on 
 the clearest evidence, tHat multitudes are born of an 
 unhappy, nay, miserable, disposition. We could easily 
 by our researches describe what are the lines of heredity 
 for the happy and for the unhappy dispositions. We 
 could, with this discovery in our hand, with certainty of 
 being listened to and attended to, impress on the people 
 the truth that marriages ought neither to be matters of 
 chance, nor matters of mere monetary convenience, nor,
 
 FELICITY AS A SANITAEY RESEARCH 301 
 
 indeed, matters of mere insane so-called love; but that 
 the marriage tie, extending its influence into the future, 
 and being no bond and seal of diseased heredities, should 
 be the bond and seal of a healthier and happier racial 
 progress in every succeeding generation. Now that our 
 women are, by good fortune as well as good policy, made 
 legally masters of their own property, this sanitary ques- 
 tion involved in marriage was never so likely to be one 
 of scientific value as it is at this moment, and as it will 
 be in coming days. 
 
 We can teach forcibly and faithfully on a different 
 topic regarding which we have a large amount of infor- 
 mation collected. We can adopt and urge with all our 
 power our veteran Chadwick's advice to those who are 
 wanting to instruct the young, that it is the perfection 
 of prudence first to live, then to learn. We can insist 
 that, inasmuch as felicity is impossible under mental 
 strain, it is fatal work to press on the young mind the 
 excessive labour which is now in all departments making 
 cram, cram, cram the footing for knowledge. We can 
 also tell the adult man struggling for the bubble re- 
 putation that broken sleep, and disturbed brain, and 
 wearied muscle, and labouring heart can never exist 
 with felicity : that sanitas and vanitas, separated by one 
 letter only, are as the poles, apart from each other ; and 
 that Sanitas sanitatis, omnia sanitas will never be esta- 
 blished until Vanitas vanitatis, omnia vanitas is blotted 
 out. 
 
 We can instil yet one other lesson, last but not the 
 least, into those foolishest of the foolish of the world who
 
 302 FELICITY AS A SANITARY RESEARCH 
 
 think that riches and repose and power are synonymous 
 with felicity. We who have read the human heart, and 
 have learned, by closest observation of fact, the lives of 
 men, can tell these that no success, no wealth, no power, 
 gained by torture of effort for it, ever brings felicity, 
 and that the Horatian verse : 
 
 He who would hold the golden mean 
 
 And live contentedly, between 
 
 The poor man and the great, 
 
 Ne'er feels the wants that pinch the poor, 
 
 Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door, 
 
 Embittering all his state ; 
 
 is as true in these days as it was in the days of the 
 philosopher who wrote it. 
 
 Felicity as a sanitary research. With all respectful 
 thought I leave it on your memories. You may per- 
 chance think of the idea as an enthusiasm, a vision. 
 Never mind, so long as you think of it. It will grow 
 upon you as a study and flow from you as a project if 
 it once take root. It will strike you, in time, as the 
 summum bonum of sanitary labour a re-echo of the 
 Divine declaration, ' On earth peace, and good will 
 towards men.'
 
 303 
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT- 
 PHYSICAL AND MENTAL. 
 
 To the human family the art of cycling is the bestowal 
 of a new faculty. I am not an accomplished cyclist, yet 
 I find that by means of the simple machine, the tricycle, 
 facility of progression by my own muscular powers is 
 fairly doubled, while half the weariness incident to 
 progression on foot is saved. If I walk ten miles in 
 three hours a fair pace I am tired ; my ankles feel 
 weak, my feet sore, my muscles weary; so that after 
 the effort I am unfitted for any mental work until re- 
 cruited by a long rest. If I go the same distance on the 
 tricycle on the same kind of road, I find that an hour 
 and a half is the fullest time required for that journey, 
 and when the task is finished, instead of feeling a sense 
 of fatigue, instead of being ankle- wearied and footsore, 
 I am agreeably refreshed by the exercise, and ready 
 for study or other mental occupation. 
 
 In the earlier periods of my professional career 
 riding on horseback was a necessary part of the daily 
 life. I had learned before then to ride without a saddle 
 and to become habituated to all paces ; and, until very 
 lately, I have kept up horse exercise from the love of it ; 
 BO that still, with a little renewed training, I can take 
 a ride on horseback of five-and-twenty miles without
 
 304 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 excessive fatigue. But I would much rather be forced 
 to ride forty miles on a tricycle, if the riding were 
 a matter of choice, and the question of fatigue the 
 point that determined the choice. This personal know- 
 ledge is tendered because it is the most practical, in 
 support of the statement that the art of cycling confers 
 on those who learn it a new faculty of locomotion. It is 
 also intended to be a moderate proof in point; for, if 
 I were to follow it up by the record of what accomplished 
 cyclists have achieved, it might be proved that two or 
 more faculties had been added, and that when a man 
 can wheel himself at the rate of twenty miles an hour, 
 and a woman can wheel herself a hundred miles a day, 
 there is found a new machinery in the human body 
 itself, a new set of muscles almost, a new skeleton 
 leverage, a new kind of volition. 
 
 We are entering on a new era in locomotion. To those 
 of us who have studied the question of muscular motion 
 physiologically, it is quite clear that concentration of 
 power in great engines is not the ultimate, as it is not 
 the natural, design for progression, because it is not 
 primary. It seems a wonderful thing and an easy thing 
 for hundreds of persons to be moved by one steam- 
 engine. It seems like starting and moving from a 
 beginning if we shut our eyes to everything until we see 
 the engine and train before us. But let us go back. 
 Let us think of the enormous amount of muscular power 
 that has been employed to extract the materials out of 
 which that engine is made, to construct the engine, and 
 to dig out from the earth the coal that feeds the furnace ; 
 and all by living power. Then the questions spring up, 
 how much human labour is actually saved, how much of
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 305 
 
 the severest labour is added to mankind by the engine ? 
 And soon another question springs up namely, how 
 long will men consent to be engines for engines ? It is 
 hardly in human nature to suppose that men will long 
 continue to hold such a position. Will they hold to it 
 in these islands for another fifty years ? I very much 
 misunderstand our rising countrymen if they will. Sir 
 Humphrey Davy, in the later part of his life, said that 
 long before coal was used up men would know how to 
 burn water. That is probably true ; but what about 
 coal- working ? Long before coal ceases the coal- worker 
 will cease, perchance before men learn to burn water. 
 
 We want, therefore, to return quickly to first prin- 
 ciples : every one his own locomotor against time. 
 
 By the simple machines, bicycles and tricycles, we are 
 returning to first principles. We are endowing every 
 person who can use these machines with a new and 
 independent gift of progression ; and to what extent this 
 art will proceed in a quarter of a century, if it makes the 
 same progress that it has made in the past twentieth 
 part of a century, he were indeed a bold man who should 
 venture to predict. I have already said, what I now 
 take occasion to repeat, that the art of flight will be the 
 practical outcome of the grand experiment which is now 
 going on ; for, when a machine can be reduced in weight 
 to thirty- six pounds, and when such a machine can be 
 propelled on a good track twenty miles within the hour 
 by human limbs, carrying the man who propels it, there 
 are not many removes to the capacity of driving- wings 
 or air- screws at a sufficient rate to afford support to a 
 machine on the air. I think many persons will, indeed, 
 live to see a partial development at least of this kind. 
 
 x
 
 306 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 They will, I mean, see constructed a machine which will 
 be partly sustained by the air and partly by surface of 
 water sea, or lake, or river and which will skim over 
 such surface with just sufficient friction for steera'ge 
 power and no more ; in short, a flying canoe or boat 
 which, elegant and useful, will at one moment, like a 
 nautilus, run with the wind, and at another skim the 
 water, independently of wind, like a sea-bird. 
 
 As we stand at present, we have, then, to recognise 
 firstly, an accomplished fact, namely, that men and women 
 can do such remarkable feats in progression, that they 
 are now the swiftest and most enduring of all land 
 animals; and secondly, a possible advancement, namely, 
 that men and women may soon rival in locomotion ani- 
 mals which speed on their way through the air. These 
 thoughts suggest that the time has come when an in- 
 quiry is demanded on the questions whether we are now 
 employing what has been done to the best of purposes, 
 and whether the future outlook is in every sense satis- 
 factory. It appears to me, as one of those who take part 
 in the development of this great movement, that the 
 best is not being done, and that a new departure is 
 immediately demanded in order to keep the progress of 
 the art of cycling in a proper position in respect to its 
 advancement and its usefulness. 
 
 If you ask a cyclist why he takes part in the move- 
 ment, and what his interest in it means, his answer in 
 nine cases out of ten is conveyed in the word ' sport.' 
 So cycling is called by its advocates ' the sport ' ; so the 
 ambition of cyclists is to appear in the sporting columns 
 of the newspapers as winners in the different compe- 
 titions ; so the men, and for that matter the women too,
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PUESUIT 307 
 
 who have made what is called the best ' record ' are 
 thought to be the choicest representatives of the cycling 
 community. 
 
 I do not write these lines to complain against what 
 has occurred in this way up to the present time. I am 
 perfectly aware that the restless activity of those who 
 have made cycling a sport has stirred up manufacturers 
 to the exercise of their finest skill and choicest work in 
 the matter of construction, and that the registry of the 
 ' record ' has produced not only the registry of the best 
 riders but of the best machines. This is all right in its 
 way, and it may fairly be urged by the friends of the 
 sport that but for it none of the grand mechanical suc- 
 cesses would have been brought forth. In like manner 
 the gentlemen of the turf argue that horse-racing keeps 
 up the breed of the horses and the skill of the riders. 
 
 It is fair to go still further in concession to the 
 modern cycling fraternity. It may and ought to be 
 admitted that the racing they have encouraged has had 
 in it no gambling characteristics ; that the rewards for 
 winning have been of the simplest kind ; that money- 
 racing has been generally discouraged, and that men 
 who would make a living by competition, and who come, 
 inconsequence, under the name of 'professionals,' are 
 excluded from clubs and from competitions in which the 
 amateur, as distinct from the professional, sentiment 
 prevails. 
 
 These acknowledgments are as frankly as they are 
 necessarily made. I would not for a moment wish to 
 interfere with that competitive sport which, in a natural 
 and healthy form, would keep healthy improvement at 
 all times in its place ; but I and many others think that, 
 
 x 2
 
 308 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 if the art of cycling is to run altogether into ' sport ' and 
 into a matter of comparative excellence of speed and 
 endurance in other words, into pace and pluck it will 
 of necessity lead to results which will ruin it in regard to 
 its health-giving quality, its tone, and its usefulness. 
 
 Let me deal with the first of these points as the chief 
 one, and as governing the rest. 
 
 The greatest benefit hitherto that has sprung from 
 the art of cycling has been the good it has effected on 
 the health of those who have practised the art. I really 
 know of nothing that has been BO good for health. Men 
 and women who, ten or fifteen years ago, were immured 
 from one year's end to another in close towns, and who 
 had little experience of country air and country land- 
 scapes, are now seen rushing by thousands out of the 
 towns into the country, and enjoying all the natural 
 advantages resultant from so important a change. By 
 this course they have also made their own houses in the 
 towns healthier, because they have left the confined 
 intra-mural spaces in which they existed to be ventilated 
 and recharged with fresher, if not with fresh, air. They 
 have learned how to ventilate their own bodies, and to 
 imbibe an air free of injurious vapours and particles, 
 while they have developed a freedom and a strength of 
 limb, and a mental pleasure and escape from care, which 
 have been useful alike to mind and body. In addition, 
 they have been gainers of many good and serviceable 
 mental qualities. The little bit of risk or danger which 
 attends the expedition has called up courage, attention, 
 decision, and presence of mind ; while the desire to per- 
 form some predetermined task has taught them how to 
 keep up endurance. The true cockney has been quite
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PUKSUIT 309 
 
 transformed by the art of cycling, and in a very few years 
 will be unknown even in Cockaigne. 
 
 We must accept this growing change, however, with 
 all its drawbacks, and with no drawback more conspicuous 
 than the fever and strain of competitive struggle. It 
 seems to me that young and old, male and female, weak 
 and strong, are all going wrong on this mania about 
 records. If I could publish the letters that are sent to 
 me making inquiries on the question, and what can and 
 what cannot be undertaken by particular persons under 
 particular circumstances, of what persons are wishing to 
 attempt, and of what persons have attempted to do or at 
 all risks have done, the reader would not wonder that I 
 am getting a little anxious about the future of what 
 might be one of the most valuable of all the physical 
 exercises ever invented. 
 
 The following are fair specimens of the dangers in 
 view : 
 
 A gentleman seventy-eight years of age has started a 
 tricycle. He finds, to his intense surprise, that he can 
 ride from Brighton to Lewes without fatigue. That is 
 about eleven miles. In a few days he discovers he can 
 go there and back in the day without fatigue. A few 
 days later he tries to do the same distance against time. 
 He can do it in four hours. But there is a young fellow 
 he knows who, by the way, is only sixty years younger 
 who can do it in a little over two hours ; and, why should 
 he not come near to that mark also ? It is a mere matter 
 of practice and skill. So he does his best ; and having 
 little elastic tissue left in him fitted to give his lungs and 
 blood-vessels due elasticity, he finds himself jarring all 
 over like a ramshackle old bone-shaking bicycle. In
 
 310 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 fact he cannot get over the 'jolting,' and dates a good 
 deal of mischief from the jolting, as if the machine, and 
 not his ancient human machine, were the thing at fault. 
 
 Here let me, in parenthesis, put in a word before I 
 forget it. Whenever a middle-aged rider, mounted on a 
 good machine and riding on a good or fair road, feels 
 jolting, it is the rider that is jolting, and he has ridden 
 enough for that time. If he continues to oppose this 
 admonition, he will be shaky and uncertain in move- 
 ments and resolution for many after hours or days. 
 
 Another gentleman, not quite so old as the last-named, 
 makes up his mind against distance. It is his firm deter- 
 mination to ride from London to Bath, one hundred miles, 
 in a day. It is merely a matter of starting in good time 
 in the morning, and taking the journey in easy stages. 
 He does thirty-three miles as a trial right off, and feels 
 ' as fresh as a daisy.' After a little rest he is surprised 
 to find he has a curious sinking at his stomach and can 
 take no food. He says he was stopped in his effort by a 
 bad fit of indigestion, which spoiled his riding for a fort- 
 night, and rather set him against it altogether, because 
 he could not go from London to Bath in a day like other 
 people. 
 
 This suggests another mem. of much practical im- 
 portance. Whenever a rider feels a sense of stomach- 
 exhaustion from riding, is unable to take food with 
 appetite after a ride, or digests his food slowly after a 
 ride, he is told as plainly as these words can tell him that 
 his nervous tone at the centre of life, the stomach, is ex- 
 hausted, and that he had better do no more until he has 
 rested completely and restudied the fable of ' The Belly 
 and the Members.'
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PUESU1T 311 
 
 A middle-aged gentleman, who is engaged in seden- 
 tary occupation, and who is subject to occasional attacks 
 of rheumatic gout, is advised, very properly, to take to 
 the tricycle. He takes to it, and, learning to do eight to 
 ten miles per day, is quite astonished at the result. He 
 feels like a new man. His spirits are so light, he walks 
 so well, he sleeps so well ! He could not have believed 
 that such a change for the better could have been effected. 
 He waits for a holiday that he may get over a good deal 
 more ground. Previous to the holiday, and indeed pre- 
 paratory to it, he keeps close to office-work, and then, 
 getting clear, he starts off for a tour. The first day he 
 gets over his thirty to forty miles, perspiring very freely. 
 The next day he tries to repeat the experiment, and 
 then, strangely enough, as he thinks, he is visited with 
 a smart touch of his old enemy the rheumatic gout, and 
 is obliged to give up. 
 
 A third mem. of much practical meaning is suggested 
 by the above-named experience. Whenever a man of 
 sedentary habits who is greatly benefited by the tricycle 
 exercise, taken in moderate and regular efforts, finds 
 that he is getting premonitions of rheumatic affection 
 pains in his wrists and in other joints, feverishness, acidity, 
 and restless desire for rest while cycling he has an in- 
 timation of having done too much. He has produced a 
 degree of waste of his own muscular fibre, beyond that 
 which he can freely eliminate, and has made himself 
 rheumatic by his experiment. 
 
 These admonitions, which are drawn from direct ob- 
 servation of natural occurrences, in respect to persons 
 who are of or beyond middle age, extend in another direc- 
 tion to the younger members of the cycling fraternity.
 
 312 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 Cycling, as an exercise and a sport, has not been in 
 fashion long enough' to enable us to see what may be the 
 effects of it on the young who practise it excessively, 
 and under special circumstances of strain and fatigue. 
 What has been made out so far is beyond any expectation 
 in its favour. No other mode of progression at the same 
 rate and for the same distance has ever been accom- 
 plished with the like freedom from actual exhaustion. 
 To make a hundred miles a day on ordinary roads on a 
 bicycle is now considered commonplace amongst practised 
 riders, some of whom indeed smile at two hundred as no- 
 thing very particular. One hundred miles hi the twenty- 
 four hours on the tricycle was once looked upon as re- 
 markable ; but in time Mr. Marriott rode one hundred 
 and eighty-three miles, and he has since beaten his own 
 record by a ride of two hundred and nineteen. Even ladies 
 have cast in their skill for these sharp and long tricycle 
 rides ; and one of them, Mrs. Allen, has accomplished one 
 hundred and fifty-three miles within twenty-four hours. 
 
 These results of a single day's work take us fairly 
 by a surprise, which is only overmatched by what has 
 been effected in short runs against time. 
 
 In short runs against time on the track, over twenty 
 miles an hour have been made on the bicycle, over six- 
 teen miles on the tricycle. In short runs against time 
 on a level road, eighteen miles an hour have been made 
 on the bicycle, sixteen on the tricycle. I have been a 
 witness of the fact of twenty-five miles being accom- 
 plished on the bicycle on a hilly road, within one hour 
 and three-quarters, namely, at a rate of fourteen miles 
 an hour, by a rider who had not yet reached his twenty- 
 first year.
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PUESUIT 313 
 
 The above two results admit of being compared with 
 efforts made in endurance through long journeys, over 
 the track or prepared firm level surface, and over 
 common roads extending from one part of the country 
 to the other, and of the most varied kinds of surface. 
 In some of these efforts on tricycles distances of seventy 
 miles a day have been kept up for thirteen days, and 
 John o' Groat's to Land's End has been traversed at this 
 rate. On the bicycle the same journey has been accom- 
 plished at the rate of over a hundred miles per day. 
 
 It took the famous anatomist John Hunter four- 
 teen days to ride from Edinburgh to London on a fairly 
 good horse. A modern bicylist in good training would 
 do the same journey in four days. It was considered a 
 wonderful feat that Mrs. Siddons should one night play 
 in London and the next night appear, thanks to the post- 
 chaise, on the stage of the theatre at Bath. In these 
 days a trained lady tricylist might perform the same 
 feat by her own unaided muscular efforts. 
 
 It is only fair to give due and proper praise to labours 
 which have made these changes possible. I am quite 
 aware, from having watched the course of improvements 
 throughout, that the success has been attained by the 
 courage and what I may call the sport industry of those 
 who have ridden the machine. I am quite aware that 
 these enthusiasts have been obliged to carry out their 
 work under extreme disadvantages. I well -remember 
 reading a calculation from a man of science, who was 
 thought to be by no means a contemptible reasoner, 
 that it was positively impossible for any person to propel 
 himself on the best road at a greater pace and for a longer 
 period than was attainable by the simple act of walking.
 
 314 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PUKSUIT 
 
 I also remember what a machine it was that the early 
 bicyclist, and still more the tricyclist, had to begin upon 
 in the early days of the art. I have seen how all these 
 difficulties have been met one by one ; and how the riders 
 of machines, by their contests against time, distance, 
 and endurance, have made the mechanical geniuses keep 
 up with them. I thank those who have effected so much 
 in the way of progress as sincerely as any one of their 
 most ardent admirers. 
 
 There is, however, a danger of enthusiasm turned in 
 one direction alone ; and this enthusiasm is, I am sure, 
 carrying the young cycling fraternity too fast and too 
 furiously in what they call their sport. It is true that 
 in cycling there is an immense saving in vital organs, as 
 compared with the strain which is put on those organs 
 by other exercises, such as walking, running, climbing, 
 and rowing. In cycling the whole weight of the trunk of 
 the body is taken off the lower limbs, while the concus- 
 sion produced by the descent of the foot on the ground is 
 saved a great saving. In cycling there is no strain on 
 the muscles of respiration in any ordinary effort, and 
 therefore the lower limbs do the greater part of the work, 
 and that without strain of tendon or friction on the sole 
 of the foot or weariness felt at the ankle and knee. 
 
 Were there not these savings there could be no ac- 
 complishment of a tithe of what is commonly performed 
 even by common riders. At the same time it is not all 
 safe. Putting altogether aside the dangers which are apt 
 to occur from falls and other physical accidents, there is 
 in extreme competitive strife a strain which is, I am 
 quite sure, most injurious to the organism, and which 
 will, I confidently predict, tell seriously on the lives of
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 315 
 
 several cyclists who are now carrying their exertions to an 
 extreme length in respect to strength, pace, and length 
 of effort. In one man I can see the clear evidence of 
 premature age, induced solely by over-taxation and per- 
 sistent training. In another I observe the excessive 
 muscular growth in the muscles of the leg, like that 
 which has been observed in the opera-dancer a sign 
 which, local though it may be, is a bad sign, as indicating 
 an unequal development of the body, and what we doc- 
 tors term hypertrophy of muscle, which will in the end 
 lead to loss of balance of power in the affected parts. 
 In a third I notice a pallor and vibration which indicates 
 a disturbance that ought not to exist between the vascular 
 and nervous systems. In a fourth I detect a restlessness 
 and feverish anxiety which bodes no future good. And 
 in many we are beginning to recognise a too nervous in- 
 terest to everything that pertains to the sport to mean 
 success to the maker of it or to the sport itself. 
 
 Most fortunately it has been discovered by the com- 
 petitors themselves that a perfectly temperate habit, in 
 winch the use of alcoholic poisons is excluded, is neces- 
 sary for the best competition; and in this discovery 
 there lies a vein of safety which is largely assuring. 
 Hard-drinking cyclists would go to the hospital, the 
 asylum, and the grave as fast as their machines could 
 be made to carry them. 
 
 CYCLING FOB MENTAL HEALTH. A PROJECT. 
 
 INFLUENCED by the facts and observations recorded above, 
 I endeavoured three years ago, through the pages of 
 ' Longman's Magazine,' to indicate that there are other
 
 316 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PUESUIT 
 
 contests and other conquests to be won by the cyclist 
 than those which are intended to develop his physical 
 strength, skill, and endurance. There were, I ventured 
 to intimate, some mental contests connected with the 
 art which might call forth powers and abilities of a 
 different order. 
 
 The suggestion thus offered was, that the ladies and 
 gentlemen who had time to make cycling a pastime and 
 a healthy exercise should form themselves into an asso- 
 ciation, society, or institute, for collecting various kinds 
 of information while they were carrying on their excur- 
 sions in this and in other countries. The head-quarters 
 of such an association should be in London ; but there 
 should be local organisations or branches in all the 
 country towns, and a local secretary or honorary secre- 
 tary in or near each country town, who should be so 
 well versed in local knowledge that he could give every 
 information that might be desired by those who were 
 passing into or through his district. I thought also that 
 such a society should issue a series of short historical or 
 scientific abstracts conveying to inquirers the leading 
 facts that might be wanted. 
 
 The parent society or association here suggested 
 ought, I conceived, to be divided into four sections, which 
 should be designated as follows : 
 
 1. The Archaeological. 
 
 2. The Geographical. 
 
 3. The Natural Historical. 
 
 4. The Mechanical and Constructive. 
 
 In the society as a whole there should be a president, 
 who should hold office for one year, subject to re-election 
 for two or three years, but not for a longer term con-
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 317 
 
 secutively; a general secretary; a treasurer; and a 
 council of, say, twenty-four, who should conduct the 
 business of the society between the general meetings at 
 which they were elected. 
 
 To the branches of the society there should be the 
 same arrangement a local president, secretary, trea- 
 surer, and council, who should conduct, subject to the 
 central authority on matters of principle, the local 
 organisations. 
 
 In the metropolis the society should have its own 
 house or institution, which should be fitted up with all 
 conveniences as a centre to which every member, metro- 
 politan and local, could repair for reference and guidance. 
 There should be in such an institution a good and care- 
 fully selected library relating particularly to the subjects 
 that are included in the objects of the association. 
 
 This central house might in course of time become 
 the grand centre of the cycling community from all parts 
 of the world. It might be a public treasury of informa- 
 tion which would have few rivals, since it would soon 
 receive additions of information and collections of curious 
 treasures illustrative both of the immediate present and 
 of the past and remote past. In the central society as 
 well as in the local there should be held each month, 
 excepting during holiday months, an open meeting of 
 members of the four different sections, which meetings 
 should be presided over either by the general or local 
 president, or by a vice-president, who was eminent for 
 his archaeological, geographical, natural-historical, or 
 mechanical learning. At such meetings papers should 
 be read by the fellows after the manner pursued at the 
 different learned societies, and discussions should follow
 
 318 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 the readings without voting, unless there were any special 
 occasion when the record of the vote was considered 
 absolutely necessary. 
 
 The papers read at each successive meeting should, I 
 suggested, follow the order of division of sections. At one 
 meeting the subject should be antiquarian or archaeolo- 
 gical or historical. At another meeting geographical 
 topics should be introduced on the physical states and 
 peculiarities of places in different parts of the world that 
 have been visited by the reader. At a third meeting the 
 subject should be natural-historical, introducing various 
 observations in natural history, relating to geology, 
 botany, zoology, meteorology, including information on 
 weather and climate, and most importantly, anthropo- 
 logy in its widest sense, man in respect to his different 
 characteristics, modes of life, learning, physical culture, 
 health, in various parts of the globe. At a fourth meet- 
 ing the matters read and discussed should have reference 
 to mechanics, and especially to those mechanical inven- 
 tions which are connected directly with the art of cycling. 
 At such meetings the latest kinds of machines should be 
 described, and the merits of whatever was new should be 
 canvassed. At such meetings projects of a reasonable and 
 practical kind for every improvement should be brought 
 under notice. At such meetings a special report might 
 from time to time be brought up indicating in what 
 directions developments of sound advances and improve- 
 ments had progressed, or conveying what was being 
 attempted and effected in different parts of the world. 
 
 The outline of work here suggested gave scope, I 
 believed, for one of the most active and varied societies, 
 and afforded an opening for talent and industry, through
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 319 
 
 what might be called a pleasure or pastime, which need 
 not, I thought, be described in any but the most plain 
 and unaffected language to win its way. Ladies as well 
 as gentlemen could take a share in adding to the pleasant 
 and useful knowledge which would be collected by the 
 new society. The antiquarians, owing to the rapidity 
 with which they could move from place to place, would 
 very quickly bring into the records of the institution a 
 description of many things of historical interest in these 
 islands. They could furnish reports of every battlefield 
 as it at present exists, every monument, every ruin, every 
 ancient house. They could afford a still more important 
 service. Throughout the country there are scattered in 
 various local museums and libraries, public and private, 
 an immense number of written and printed treasures of 
 which the best scholars have no information, and which, 
 hunted up by members of the energetic cycling fraternity 
 who were devoted to such inquiry, would quickly yield a 
 rich harvest of results. There would, I supposed, be 
 no lack of recruits in this service if the pursuit were but 
 commenced; for, as a matter of experience, we know that 
 researches of this nature soon become fascinating to an 
 extreme degree. One or two good ' finds ' of a book or 
 manuscript would stimulate to more exertion, and would 
 reflect such literary credit on the fortunate finder, that the 
 desire to discover would rather have to be kept in bounds 
 than to be eagerly encouraged ; because nearly all' men 
 and most women love the perusal of the past, and if they 
 have the slightest pretence to culture always listen to 
 history when it is new to them and connected with events 
 affecting the living interests and actions of mankind. 
 The geographers, who would form the second sec-
 
 320 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 tion of the society, would I presumed be equally well 
 placed in regard to the work they might accomplish. 
 There is not a feature in our islands relating to the sur- 
 face, the culture, the distinctions of counties, not to name 
 other countries, which would not afford them opportuni- 
 ties of observation and record. On one subject alone they 
 might perform a service which to the geographical survey 
 itself would well form a useful supplement, and which 
 could not fail to be appreciated by all governing adminis- 
 trative bodies, local and central. They might in a few 
 months make a report on the state of the roadways, 
 public or private, the highways and byways of the 
 country, the like of which has never existed. They could 
 illustrate what are the best and what are the worst 
 roads ; what are safe, what dangerous. They could show 
 what sideways and narrow roads ought to be made for 
 the sake of saving distances when travelling from the 
 great highways to the surrounding towns and villages. 
 They could supply excellent information as to the 
 present state of the old turnpike and the much older 
 Eoman roads. They could prepare an admirable chapter 
 on old milestones, and on a number of stone records 
 which have been planted to mark out distances or local 
 peculiarities. By means of their cyclometers they could 
 correct an immense number of errors, which the ' sign- 
 posts ' almost invariably make respecting distances. They 
 could 'indicate how many ' drift roads ' there are in the 
 islands, where these are situated, and what is their ex- 
 tent. They could show what is the best basis of a road, 
 and what upper dressing is most even, most dry and 
 most enduring. They could suggest the parts where, 
 owing to excessive steepness of ascent or descent of
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 321 
 
 surface, it would be proper to set the engineer to work 
 to improve the course by levelling it or diverting the 
 line. They could gather up the very best information 
 on the matter of waste wayside lands and moors. They 
 could map out the parts of the country which are still 
 unenclosed, and record the local usages common in such 
 places for marking out boundaries and for denning 
 public and private rights of property. They could define 
 the lines of rivers and canals, and in so doing could 
 perform what might in future become a most essential 
 service to the commonwealth, by showing where in the 
 course of flowing streams best and steadiest force could 
 be supplied for working the dynamos which must some 
 day be set up on a large scale for producing heat and 
 light for human habitations. They could show w r hat are 
 the best sources of fish-supply, and the readiest means 
 by which stores of fish could be conveyed to the great 
 centres of population. They could discover what parts 
 of the land were most productive of different fruits and 
 vegetables, and indicate the encouragement that ought to 
 be given for the development or sustainment of those 
 cultivations. They could observe what lands were out 
 of cultivation, and what necessity did or did not exist for 
 loss of culture in waste places. They could do all this 
 hi reference to our own country ; and if they extended 
 their expeditions, as they would be sure to do, to foreign 
 countries to France, to Spain, to Germany, to Greece, 
 to Italy, and other parts of the continent of Europe, 
 and to other continents they would become the carriers 
 of as sound and valuable information as any messengers 
 of civilisation and progress who have at any time gone 
 forth to explore and report.
 
 322 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 I dwelt at length on the possible work of this section 
 of the proposed society of cyclists because it served con- 
 veniently for illustrating the plan that was submitted in 
 its full extent and bearing. I dwelt on it also because 
 it would probably be at first the most popular, as it 
 would certainly be the readiest, section of work. At this 
 moment there are at least a thousand intelligent cyclists, 
 all furnished with machines, all ready equipped for the 
 adventure, all capable of travelling their twenty-five to 
 fifty miles a day, and each one fully capable of adding 
 something to the general stock of information on the 
 topics referred to. If such a corps were duly organised, 
 and if competition went ever so little in comparison with 
 competition for the present ' record,' then in twenty 
 years England might possess from these inquirers a new 
 library of the world, making the planet so well known 
 to our people and other people that all scholars would 
 look upon us as the final conquerors of the geographical 
 sphere a pre-eminence which England, the parent of 
 the cyclist art and skill, ought assuredly to seize and 
 retain. 
 
 There would be equal scope for work in the two other 
 departments which were suggested as parts of the con- 
 stitution of the new society, namely, natural science, 
 especially natural history and mechanics. Those ladies 
 and gentlemen who are fond of natural history in the 
 various branches to which attention has been drawn would 
 very quickly become mistresses and masters of numerous 
 facts, out of which essays and papers of perfectly original 
 character would be produced. The study of clouds and 
 of weather portents ; of dialects of different countries and 
 tracts of country ; of prehistoric implements ; of remains
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 323 
 
 of extinct animals ; of various peculiarities of race ; with 
 other subjects allied in character, would be at command, 
 and would yield profitable results to the collectors them- 
 selves, as well as to those to whom the knowledge they 
 had acquired would be imparted. 
 
 Those, again, who were earnest in following up the 
 improvements of a mechanical kind in cycling machines 
 would find constant opportunity for testing the quality 
 and applicability of assumed advancements, with or 
 without the test now almost entirely relied upon, the 
 long or short race on the track or the road. 
 
 To make the new society complete in its working, 
 one special event in its history each year would be the 
 holding of a general conference, with an exhibition of new 
 and improved machines and appliances for cycling pur- 
 poses. The conference, held in the spring months in one 
 of our large towns in England, Scotland, or Ireland, or 
 even in some continental town, would be, if properly 
 carried out, as good a conference as any of the other 
 great meetings to which the older members of society 
 are wont to repair. It would bring together youth as 
 well as mature age for discussion of subjects the advance- 
 ment of which are both agreeable to the mind and advan- 
 tageous to the community. Its organisation, framed on 
 the model of the parent society, would give times for 
 meetings, during which, in the divisions of archaeology, 
 geography, natural history, and applied mechanics, there 
 would be opportunity for lively debate, and for compari- 
 son from year to year of the progress that was being 
 accomplished in all departments, not excluding a final 
 series of contests for records of the old type, in which 
 ' the sport ' need not for any reason be forgotten. 
 
 r 2
 
 324 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 This design, at first sight difficult and improbable, 
 would, I felt confident, be ere long carried out from 
 necessity, unless the art which should give origin to it 
 were permitted to become a mere racing amusement, 
 passing, naturally, and as a matter of course, into dis- 
 favour, and falling into the hands of a limited clique 
 bent on keeping it in force for sport alone, and making 
 it thereby unpopular amongst the sedate and intellectual 
 classes of society, whose views and opinions always 
 rule the majority in the long run. 
 
 The difficulty of carrying out the design was shown 
 to be at the beginning. The first question that had to 
 be answered was, how shall the start be made. Should 
 some one of the present existing clubs or unions or 
 associations take the lead, and by a modification of its 
 rules be transformed into the new body? Or should 
 there be a new society altogether, starting from its 
 origin with the several objects which had been pro- 
 jected ? Or should there be a combination of the existing 
 organisations ; and from a central council, formed by 
 them in union, should a new association be founded ? 
 
 I did not think it signified materially which of the 
 three courses were taken. I believed that the last- 
 named a combined council of existing bodies would 
 be the most likely to succeed rapidly. But there were 
 so many obstacles in the way of making a commence- 
 ment on this basis, and so many contending interests to 
 be taken into account, that probably a new society, start- 
 ing entirely on new foundations, would be accepted as the 
 fittest mode of -development, notwithstanding a certain 
 slowness of growth in the early stages. My task was 
 accomplished in throwing out the idea and in formu-
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 325 
 
 lating the programme which seemed at the moment to 
 promise the richest results. 
 
 THE PKOJECT IN FULFILMENT. 
 
 In the year 1885 the projected scheme of a society on 
 the lines laid down above was brought into existence, 
 and under the name suggested, 'The Society of Cyclists,' 
 has been in operation for nearly two years. Founded 
 on a new basis, the society has had to contend with all 
 the difficulties which were foretold for it, but in so far 
 as it has progressed it has proved of the greatest 
 benefit to the mental as well as the physical health of 
 those who have taken part in its development. Papers 
 of a valuable kind in all the four subjects, antiquities, 
 natural history, geography, and mechanics, have been 
 read and discussed at the meetings and excursions, and 
 have afforded great pleasure as well as instruction. On 
 one of these occasions a paper read by the honorary 
 secretary of the society, Mr. A. Wynter Blyth, on the 
 subject of ' Cycling in relation to health and beauty,' led 
 to a long and interesting debate bearing on the influence 
 of cycling upon the shape and condition of the body. In 
 this discussion a member of the society, Major Knox- 
 Holmes, who, although he has passed his eightieth year, 
 is still a skilful and enthusiastic rider, submitted many 
 details of evidence of the good effect of the exercise 
 on persons who, like himself, had approached to what 
 are commonly thought to be the confines of a healthy 
 and enduring human existence. His experiences went 
 clearly to show that persons of his own age may, if 
 they are prudent in the way they go to work, receive
 
 326 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 quite a renewed term of pleasurable activity. He had 
 himself ridden from London to Northampton in one 
 night's ride, and felt no bad effects whatever from the 
 effort. 
 
 PRACTICAL HINTS FOR HEALTH- SEEKING TOURISTS. 
 
 Let me before I bring this essay to a close dwell very 
 briefly on the points of practice that should always be 
 observed by those persons of sedate natures who really 
 wish to make cycling a healthy exercise for the mind as 
 well as the body. 
 
 Let such learners of the art be careful not to carry 
 their first attempts to an extreme. I recommended in 
 one of the earliest papers I wrote on this subject that 
 the beginner should limit his first rides to three or four 
 miles daily. A much esteemed clerical friend of mine 
 told me as a result of his experience that this recom- 
 mendation was over -cautious. ' I,' said he, ' got on a 
 tricycle for the first time in my life, rode with a friend 
 straight off the reel twenty-seven miles, and from the 
 work felt no unusual fatigue whatever.' The statement 
 naturally enough led me to think that I had been 
 putting too fine a point on distance, and so I ventured 
 to suggest to persons of the same age as my friend, who 
 was a middle-aged man, to begin with six or eight mile 
 rides until they felt fairly at home in the saddle. The 
 advice was followed in several instances, but it did not 
 turn out well. Some quite exceptional faculty of endu- 
 rance belonged to my critic, or if that were not the case
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 327 
 
 some extreme error was made as to the distance which 
 he had traversed. In brief, I soon became so dissatisfied 
 with the results of the change that I have gone back to 
 the original suggestion. I again recommend riders to 
 be content, at the beginning, to let a ride of three or four 
 miles be all they try to accomplish. At a second ride 
 they can, if they wish, double the distance, and in a 
 few days they may get up to twenty, thirty, and even 
 forty miles a day, the last-named distance being, accord- 
 ing to my view, fully sufficient for a long-sustained 
 effort. 
 
 For a tour, six hours' work a day at the rate of six 
 miles an hour is sufficient for a person in good condition. 
 For thorough enjoyment on the tour, this may be brought 
 down to five miles an hour continued for five hours each 
 day. 
 
 n. 
 
 A similar rule as to first ridings should also be re- 
 commended to those who have become practised riders 
 but who have got out of condition from want of practice. 
 A busy man leading an in-door life practises the tricycle 
 exercise through the summer months, and during the 
 autumnal vacation finds that five or six hours' ride is a 
 mere pastime and pleasure. He returns to his business 
 and lays by his machine for the winter months. The 
 bright days of spring, always dangerous and critical days, 
 tempt him to sally forth for a ride. He dashes out, runs 
 over four or five miles, forgetting he has to come back. 
 At last, before what seems to him a moderate ride, he 
 feels unusually tired, and turns homeward. Now his 
 weariness soon increases, and by the time he has got
 
 328 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 home he is thoroughly pumped out. His muscles are 
 stiff and painful ; he feels cramps in the calves of his 
 legs the next day; and, do what he will, nay even if 
 he sleep through all the succeeding night, he is ex- 
 hausted on the following two or three days. To those, 
 then, who are riders I should say again, recommence as 
 you first commenced, and steadily work up to condition 
 if you mean to make the exercise a profit and a pleasure. 
 
 ni. 
 
 It is assumed by some that if walking exercise be 
 maintained, daily cycling exercise can be picked up again 
 at any time. The idea is quite erroneous. Walking exer- 
 cise and cycling exercise are two perfectly distinct things 
 in their effects on the body and, indirectly, that is 
 through the body, on the mind. The best walkers are 
 not by any necessity the best cyclists, and certainly the 
 best cyclists are not the best walkers. In the long run 
 some men would cover more ground in a given time on 
 a tricycle than on foot ; but the reverse may be equally 
 true. Mr. Weston, the famous pedestrian, assured me 
 that he could do a long tour on foot better than on 
 wheels. He had just gone through the remarkable effort 
 of walking fifty miles a day for one hundred days, and 
 he had completed the task by walking the last fifty 
 miles, from Brighton to London, without once sitting 
 down. He said in reference to that memorable feat 
 that he could not have kept it up so well and steadily 
 through all weathers and on all kinds of roads on either 
 a bicycle or a tricycle, and I am quite inclined to believe 
 that he was right, in so far as he himself was concerned.
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 329 
 
 We must not, therefore, compare the two exercises 
 together, because they admit of contrasts, and these 
 contrasts should be kept in mind in speaking of the 
 exercises of walking and cycling. They are varied exer- 
 cises. The muscles called into full activity by the one 
 are not the same as are called into exercise by the other. 
 In walking the great extensor muscles in the front part 
 of the thigh, the muscles which extend the leg upon the 
 thigh, are not called into more than ordinary action, 
 because the body being erect they lift the leg forward as 
 on a swing. But in cycling these muscles are brought 
 into great activity, amounting even to strain, the leg 
 being at an angle to the thigh, and so, as every rider 
 learns at first, they are soon painfully wearied. A little 
 walking exercise, however, will remove this strain, and 
 is even better than rest as a means of relief. After a 
 time, in walking, the great muscles of the calf of the leg, 
 which raise the heel, begin early to experience a fatigue, 
 from which in cycling they are very largely saved. Thus 
 in getting down from the machine to walk, the tired 
 muscles of the forepart of the thigh are partially rested ; 
 and as on re-mounting and continuing to ride the 
 muscles of the calf of the leg are rested, the fatigue 
 of the limb is equally balanced. The motion of all 
 muscles engaged in cycling is quicker than in walking ; 
 and for both these reasons, fatigue when it does occur in 
 cycling is much more sharply developed, is more deter- 
 minate, and is more prolonged by the act of cycling than 
 by walking. In plain words, only so much work can be 
 got out of a human body in a given time, and if rapidity 
 is to be the first consideration, rapid exhaustion must 
 be submitted to as the necessary consequence.
 
 330 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 I do not mention these points in order to run down 
 cycling against walking as an exercise. It is my wish 
 to indicate only that the two exercises are distinct, and 
 that the training for the one is not the training for the 
 other. At the same time one exercise should not exclude 
 the other, and it is quite possible to keep up the training 
 for both with equal success. In this statement there is 
 no paradox, but there is sound argument. The cyclist 
 who is out on tour does well to walk at intervals during 
 the journey, for by that means he not only brings a new 
 set of muscles into play, but he maintains intact the 
 natural muscular activity, so that when he lies down to 
 rest the muscular mechanism is equally exhausted, a 
 condition which is followed by far more equable and 
 refreshing sleep than if one set of muscular organs were 
 utterly worn out, and other sets were under no weari- 
 ness, or under so little as to require a minimum of rest. 
 The jerks in the limbs, the frequent desire to turn over 
 in bed, the unequal refreshment in the morning which 
 many cyclists complain of after a previous day of heavy 
 riding are due simply to irregular distribution of muscu- 
 lar exhaustion. 
 
 So in a tour of thirty-six miles in a day it is healthier 
 to walk one-sixth of the distance, six miles, than to ride 
 the whole distance, even if the road be fairly level. And 
 here is another very good reason for walking up hills 
 instead of climbing them, with infinite labour, on the 
 machine, since in walking and pushing the machine, 
 new sets of muscles are brought into activity, and, as 
 explained above, the equilibrium of muscular work is 
 secured.
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 331 
 
 IV. 
 
 A word was said, in the second paragraph of this resume, 
 about cycling in the spring months after the winter's 
 rest. There is opened up in that reflection a rather 
 important question on the subject of resting from riding 
 and of resuming it. On the whole, it is best for health to 
 keep up moderate cycling, where the practice has once 
 been thoroughly established, and to lose no available 
 opportunity of sustaining the practice in all seasons. 
 What are called regular riders are most favoured riders. 
 Of this I cannot entertain a doubt, and I would add that 
 it is better not to ride at all than to ride excessively in 
 fits and starts. In cases when a rider has to give up the 
 exercise for a long time, he must resume it always with 
 caution, and as it is usually in the spring months that 
 he re-opens his campaign, he should then be more than 
 usually careful in all that he does. Why this should be 
 so is explained in the essay on Dress in Eelation to Health. 
 The spring months are of all others the months of waste 
 and feebleness. It is not merely that the weather is 
 most treacherous, but that the body is least able to 
 undergo fatigue and to undertake exhausting trials. 
 Precaution is also necessary now in respect to dress. 
 If the dress be insufficient and in the transitory warmth 
 of the days of early spring there is the greatest tempta- 
 tion to go out with insufficient dress the body is liable 
 to exposure to sudden falls of temperature, of an extreme 
 degree, when it is warmest and just when it is becoming 
 fatigued. Under these untoward circumstances the danger 
 of sudden chill and cold is always imminent, and I have
 
 332 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 known disastrous results to accrue from this kind of 
 exposure. 
 
 The lessons derivable from the above observations 
 are: 1. That after a long rest from it, cycling should 
 always be resumed with care and moderation, so as to 
 train towards longer and harder exercise. 2. That when 
 the weather is unsettled and great extremes of heat and 
 cold are apt to replace each other suddenly, provision 
 should be made for carrying an extra covering of cloth- 
 ing to meet the transition from heat to cold. 
 
 In order to keep up the muscular training of the 
 cyclist during extremely hard weather, some use at home 
 and indoors what is called the ' home trainer.' This is 
 a fixed machine on which the rider can mount, and by 
 which he can go through any degree of what may be 
 called dummy riding at any speed and under any re- 
 sistance. I have had one of these machines in my 
 dressing-room for three years, and I find it is really a 
 very good help. They who have not a ' home trainer,' 
 but who have a tricycle, may turn their tricycle into a 
 home trainer by having it raised upon two supports so 
 that its wheels, just clear of the floor, can be made to 
 revolve by working them from the pedals as in riding 
 ordinarily. Then the brake being put on so as to get 
 resistance, the exercise is as good as riding itself, less 
 the advantage of the fresh open air. The distance 
 worked over can be measured by the cyclometer as if th* 
 journey were being made on the road. 
 
 v. 
 
 On alighting from a long ride after free action of 
 the skin, it is proper practice for health's sake to get a
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT ^33 
 
 change of clothing as quickly as possible after a good 
 cleansing of the skin. Most riders effect the cleansing 
 process by free ablution from head to foot, or, if they can 
 get it, by taking a plunge bath. I am not quite sure 
 whether this is quite the best practice. It seems to me 
 to be always a good plan to subject the skin, in the first 
 instance at any rate, to a good rubbing down with a 
 rough dry towel, and to follow this up with a brisk 
 application of the flesh-brush. After dry scrubbing is 
 actively and effectively done, it is quite sufficient to give 
 the body a sponge over with clean water and dry it again 
 thoroughly with the towel. A bath is a luxury in place 
 of sponging, but is not necessary. The simpler method is 
 equally as good, and it has the great advantage that it 
 can be carried out everywhere. There is no respectable 
 country inn, however simple, that will not afford all the 
 requirements for this method of outward purification, with 
 the exception of the flesh-brush, which the tourist should 
 carry as systematically as he carries his hair-brush. 
 The flesh-brush should not be particularly hard ; for a 
 soft brush cleanses best. 
 
 After the ablution and rehabiliment in clean dry 
 clothes, a short period of walking exercise is good previous 
 to taking a meal. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The times of the day that are most fitted for riding, 
 a point often asked, vary with the season. During 
 summer and the early part of autumn, there cannot 
 be much difference of opinion on the subject. The early 
 morning and the late afternoon are unquestionably the 
 two best periods. To be precise I should say, selecting
 
 334 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 six hours for the touring work of the day, that three hours 
 immediately after sunrise and three hours before sunset 
 form the very best working times. At the end of the first 
 period the rider finds himself ready for a good breakfast, 
 and has then the whole of a long day in his possession 
 for resting, dining, making local excursions in the place 
 he may be visiting, and an hour or two, if he likes, for 
 writing or note-taking. At the end of the second period 
 he finds himself equally ready, after ablution, for a light 
 supper, as preliminary to a sound night's rest. If, 
 however, he be a lazy cyclist, and prefers to remain in 
 bed later than the sun, the next best plan is to get an 
 early breakfast, start on the journey at eight in the 
 morning, continue till ten, then take the day's rest or 
 amusement, recommence the further journey three 
 hours before sunset, and run on an hour after sun- 
 set. At times when the moon supplements well the 
 light of the sun, a run of an hour or two is one of 
 the most luxurious enjoyments. For the moment all 
 idea of fatigue seems to vanish, and the knowledge 
 that the journey is about to cease is accompanied with 
 an actual sense of regret. The temptation to go on is 
 indeed too seductive, and requires to be guarded against 
 in order to save the strength of the body for the work of 
 the coming day. The extremest fatigue I ever under- 
 went myself was induced by the seductiveness of a 
 moonlight ride. The muscles being in full activity, and 
 the pleasure of the motion overcoming the idea of 
 weariness, I and my companions sped along for three or 
 four hours at quick pace, after a previous fair day's 
 work. I got off the machine feeling, at the moment, 
 as free from fatigue as when I first mounted it ; but this
 
 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 335 
 
 impression was very deceptive. Before going to bed my 
 exhausted muscles were unduly stiffening, I was too 
 wearied to sleep, and was not good for further exercise 
 during the three following days. 
 
 VII. 
 
 To those cych'sts who wish to combine literary work 
 with their exercise I may give a word of information 
 from direct experience which will, I conceive, be a source 
 of pleasure and satisfaction. The exercise of cycling 
 goes excellently well with the exercise of the pen, pre- 
 suming always that the two exertions, the mental and 
 the physical, are properly balanced, and that neither 
 the one nor the other is carried out to extremes. Cycling 
 exercise, moderately employed and combined with the 
 change of air which is connected with it, makes the mind 
 extremely buoyant, refreshes the memory, and renders 
 literary labour peculiarly pleasant, rapid, and steady. 
 But just the same precaution in reference to literary 
 exertion as that which has been mentioned in relation to 
 the labour of cycling itself is required. The ease with 
 which composition is carried on for a short time is 
 seductive towards undue continuance of it, and where 
 from indulgence in the temptation the mind becomes 
 imperceptibly weary, the body as imperceptibly falls in 
 turn into the train of weariness. I have made here a 
 physiological observation which is very curious simply 
 as an observation, and is useful in the light of practical 
 experience. The observation is this : that mental 
 exhaustion leads much more quickly to physical exhaus- 
 tion than physical leads to mental. From moderate
 
 336 CYCLING AS A HEALTH PURSUIT 
 
 physical exhaustion, presuming that the mental faculties 
 have not been imposed upon too severely, recuperation 
 is very rapid and complete ; but if the mind has been 
 previously tired the same degree of physical exhaustion 
 leads to a much more prolonged state of comparative 
 helplessness both of body and of mind. For now the 
 fatigue of body keeps up the fatigue of mind, and the 
 whole organisation, mental and physical, must rest in 
 order to obtain perfected, re-created activity. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 Orerton's Lite in the English Church (1860-1 714). STO, 14*. 
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 Younghusband's Tho Story of Our Lord told in Simple lAnguajre for Ohildw. 
 
 Illnstrated. Crown 8vo. 2*. M. cloth plain ; 8*. 6.*. cloth extra, gilt *dg*s. 
 
 TRAVELS, ADVENTURES, &c. 
 Alpine Club (The) Map of Switzerland. In Four Sheets. iS* 
 Baker*! Bight Years in Ceylon. Crown tWk 8* 
 
 Rifle and Hound in Ceylon. OrownSro,*!. 
 Ball's Alpine Guide. 8 vols. post Sro, with Maps and Illustrations :-!. Western 
 
 Al^. 6x. W. 11. tVntral %.. 7* W. III. Eastern Alps, 10*. W. 
 Ball on Alpine Trarelling, and on the Geology of the Alps, 1*. 
 Bnvrt BuddM taa Mam la ^ ' ..-: j 8g l* W* O*M< 
 
 JMitu.u.onwnSvi>.7*.6,f. \\VtiH MittoB, ltO.M 
 
 - Voyag in the Yacht ' Sunbeam.' Libmrv Kdition, 8ro. 81*. Cabinet 
 
 kditiou. worn SN,-. ft, M, School NtttQB.fltv.lfO.li. Poph 
 Edition, 4to. 64. 
 
 - In ttxe Trades, the Tropic*, and the 'Roaring Forties.' Library Editioo, 
 
 STO. S l*. CabtnetfiSltion, orown 8ro. 17*. M. Populw BdtUon, 
 
 .>. ,!. 
 Fronde's Oceana ; or, England and her Colonies. Crown Svo. 8*. boards ; 2*. 6.1. 
 
 I'loth. 
 
 Howitt's Visits to Remarkable Place*. Grown STO. 7*. 64, 
 Three in Norway. By Two of Them. Crown 8vo. IllustraUons, 6*. 
 
 London: LONGMANS, GREEN, ft 00.
 
 12 General Lists of Works. 
 
 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. 
 
 The Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes. Edited by the Duke of Beaufort 
 and A. E. T. Watson. With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 10*. 6d. 
 each. 
 
 Hunting, by the Duke of Beaufort, &c. 
 
 Fishing, by H. Chohnondeley-Pennell, &c. 2 vols. 
 
 Racing, by the Earl of Suffolk, &c. 
 
 Shooting, by Lord Walsingham, &c. 2 vols. 
 
 Cycling. By Viscount Bury. 
 
 ** Other Volumes in preparation. 
 
 Campbell-Walker's Correct Card, or How to Play at Whist. Pep. 8vo. 2*. 6d. 
 Dead Shot (The) by Marksman. Crown 8vo. 10*. 6d. 
 Pranci' Treatise on Fishing in all its Branches. Post 8vo. 15*. 
 Longman's Chess Openings. Fcp. 8vo. 2t. 6d. 
 
 Pease's The Cleveland Hounds as a Trencher-Fed Pack. Royal 8vo. 18*. 
 Pole's Theory of the Modern Scientific Game of Whist. Fcp. 8vo. 2*. 6d. 
 Proctor's How to Play Whist. Crown 8vo. 6*. 
 RonaldYs Fly-Fisher's Entomology. 8vo. 14*. 
 Verney's Chess Eccentricities. Crown 8vo. 10*. 6d. 
 Wilcocks's Sea-Fisherman. Post 8vo. 6s. 
 
 EN CYC LOP/ED I AS, DICTIONARIES, AND BOOKS OF 
 REFERENCE. 
 
 Acton's Modern Cookery for Private Families. Fcp. 8vo. 4*. 6d. 
 
 Ayre's Treasury of Bible Knowledge. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Brande's Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art. 3 vols. medium 8vo. 63*. 
 
 Cabinet Lawyer (The), a Popular Digest of the Laws of England. Fcp. 8vo. 9*. 
 
 Cates's Dictionary of General Biography. Medium 8vo. 28*. 
 
 Doyle's The Official Baronage of England. Vols. I.-III. 3 vols. 4to. 5. 5*. 
 
 Gwilt's Encyclopaedia of Architecture. 8vo. 82*. Cd. 
 
 Keith Johnston's Dictionary of Geography, or General Gazetteer. 8vo. 42*. 
 
 M'Culloch'a Dictionary of Commerce and Commercial Navigation. 8vo. 63*. 
 
 Mannder's Biographical Treasury. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Historical Treasury. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Scientific and Literary Treasury. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Treasury of Bible Knowledge, edited by Ayre. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Treasury of Botany, edited by Lindley & Moore. Two Parts, 12*. 
 
 Treasury of Geography. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Treasury of Knowledge and Library of Reference. Pop. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Treasury of Natural History. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Quain's Dictionary of Medicine. Medium 8vo. 31*. 6d., or in 2 vols. 34*. 
 
 Reeve'i Cookery and Housekeeping. Crown 8vo. 7*. 6d. 
 
 Rich's Dictionary of Roman and Greek Antiquities. Crown 8vo. 7*. Gd. 
 
 Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. Crown 8vo. 10*. 6d. 
 
 Tire's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines. 4 vols. medium 8vo. 7. 7*. 
 
 Willich's Popular Tables, by Marriott. Crown 8vo. 10*. 6d. 
 
 London : LONGMANS, GKREEN, & CO.
 
 A SELECTION 
 EDUCATIONAL WOBKS. 
 
 TEXT BOOKS OF SCIENCE 
 
 FUULT ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 Abney'u Treatise on Photography. Fcp. 8vo. 3. 6d. 
 Anderson's Strength of Materials. 3*. 6d. 
 Armstrong's Organic Chemistry. 3*. 6d. 
 Ball's Element! of Astronomy. 6t. 
 Barry's Railway Appliances. 3*. Sd, 
 Bauerman's Systematic Mineralogy. 6*. 
 Descriptive Mineralogy. 6*. 
 Blozam and Huntington's Metals. 5*. 
 Glazebrook'* Physical Optics. 6*. 
 Glazebrook and Shaw's Practical Physics. Oi. 
 Gore's Art of Electro-Metallurgy. 6*. 
 
 Griffin's Algebra and Trigonometry. 3*. Sd. Notes and Solutions, 3*. 6d. 
 Holmes's The Steam Engine. 6*. 
 Jenkin's Electricity and Magnetism. a. 6d. 
 Maxwell's Theory of Heat. 3*. 6d. 
 
 Merrifield's Technical Arithmetic and Mensuration. 3*. 8d. Key, 3*. 6d. 
 Miller's Inorganic Chemistry. 3*. M. 
 Preece and Sivewright's Telegraphy. 5*. 
 Rntley's Study of Rocks, a Text-Book of Petrology. 4. 6d. 
 SheUey's Workshop Appliances. 4*. 6d. 
 Thome's Structural and Physiological Botany. 6*. 
 Thorpe's Quantitative Chemical Analysis. 4*. 6d. 
 Thorpe and Muir's Qualitative Analysis. 3i. 6d. 
 
 Tilden's Chemical Philosophy. 3t. 6d. With Anrwen to Problems. 4*. 64. 
 Unwin's Elements of Machine Design. 6*. 
 Watson's Plane and Solid Geometry. 3. 6d. 
 
 THE GREEK LANGUAGE 
 
 Bloomfield's College and School Greek Testament. Fcp. 8vo. St. 
 Bolland & Lang's Politics of Aristotle. Post 8vo. 1i. 6d. 
 CoUis's Chief Tenses of the Greek Irregular Verbs. 8vo. 1*. 
 
 Pontes Graeci, Stepping-Stone to Greek Grammar. 12mo. 3*. M. 
 
 Praxis Grseca, Etymology. 12mo. 2*. 6d. 
 
 Greek Verse-Book, Praxis lambica. 12mo. 4*. 6d. 
 Parrar's Brief Greek Syntax and Accidence. 1 2mo. 4*. 6d. 
 
 Greek Grammar Rules for Harrow School. 12mo. It. 6<1. 
 Geare's Notes on Thucydides. Book I. Fcp. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 Hewitt's Greek Examination-Papers. 12mo. 1*. 6d. 
 
 Isbister's Xenophon's Anabasis, Books I. to III. with Notei. 12mo. 3*. Cd. 
 Jerram's Graeoe Reddenda. Crown 8vo. 1*. 6d. 
 
 London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.
 
 14 A Selection of Educational Works. 
 
 Kennedy's Greek Grammar. 12mo. it. fat. 
 
 Liddell & Scott's English-Greek Lexicon. 4to. 36*. ; Square 12mo. It. 6d. 
 
 Mahaffy's Classical Greek Literature. Crown 8vo. Poets, 7s. Gd. Prose Writers, 
 
 Morris's Greek Lessons. Square 18mo. Part I. 2s. 6d. ; Part H. I*. 
 Parry's Elementary Greek Grammar. 12mo. Si. 6d. 
 
 Plato's Republic, Book I. Greek Text, English Notes by Hardy. Crown 8vo. 3*. 
 Sheppard and Evans's Notes on Thucydides. Crown 8vo. 7*. 6d. 
 Thucydides, Book IT. with Notes by Barton and Chavasse. Crown 8vo. 5*. 
 Valpy's Greek Delectus, improved by White. 12mo. 2t. 6d. Key, 2*. 6rf. 
 White's Xenophon's Expedition of Cyrus, with English Notes. 12mo. 7s. 6d. 
 Wilkins's Manual of Greek Prose Composition. Crown 8vo. 5t. Key, 5s. 
 
 Exercises in Greek Prose Composition. Crown 8vo. 4*. 6d. Key, 2*. 6d. 
 
 New Greek Delectus. Crown 8vo. 3*. 6d. Key,2j.6<*. 
 
 Progressive Greek Delectus. 12mo. is. Key, 2*. 6d. 
 
 Progressive Greek Anthology. 12mo. St. 
 
 Scriptorei Attici, Excerpts with English Notes. Crown 8vo. 7t. 6<f. 
 
 Speeches from Thucydides translated. Post 8vo. 6*. 
 Yonga'i English-Greek Lexicon. 4to. 21*. ; Square 12mo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 THE LATIN LANGUAGE. 
 
 Bradley'* Latin Prose Exercises. 12mo.3j.6d. Key, 5*. 
 
 Continuous Lessons in Latin Prose. 12mo. 5*. Key, 5*. 6d. 
 
 Cornelius Nepos, improved by White. 12mo. 3*. 6d. 
 
 Eutropins, improved by White. 12mo. 2*. 6d. 
 
 Ovid's Metamorphoses, improved by White. 12mo. 4*. 6rf. 
 
 Select Fables of Phaedrus, improved by White. 12mo. 2s. 6d. 
 CoUis's Chief Tenses of Latin Irregular Verbs. 8vo. 1*. 
 
 Pontes Latini, Stepping-Stone to Latin Grammar. 12mo. 3*. 6<J. 
 Hewitt's Latin Examination-Papers. 12mo. 1*. 6d. 
 Isbister's Caesar, Books I.- VII. 12mo. 4*. ; or with Reading Lessons, 4*. 6<J. 
 
 Caesar's Commentaries, Books I.-V. 12mo. 3*. 6d. 
 
 First Book of Caesar's Gallic War. 12mo. 1*. 6d. 
 Jerram's Latine Reddenda. Crown 8vo. l. 6d. 
 
 Kennedy's Child's Latin Primer, or First Latin Lessons. 12mo. 2*. 
 
 Child's Latin Accidence. 12mo. Is. 
 
 Elementary Latin Grammar. 12mo. Ss. 6d. 
 
 Elementary Latin Reading Book, or Tirocinium Latinum. 12mo. 2*. 
 
 Latin Prose, Palaestra Stili Latini. 12mo. 6. 
 
 Latin Vocabulary. 12mo. 2s. 6<f. 
 
 Subsidia Primaria, Exercise Books to the Public School Latin Primer. 
 
 I. Accidence and Simple Construction, 2s. 6d. II. Syntax, 3*. 6<J. 
 
 Key to the Exercises in Subsidia Primaria, Parts I. and;il. price 5s. 
 
 Subsidia Primaria, HI. the Latin Compound Sentence. 12mo. Is. 
 
 Curriculum Stili Latini. 12mo. 4*. 6rf. Key, ^^. 6d. 
 
 Patestra Latina, or Second Latin Reading Book. 12mo. 5. 
 
 London : LONGMANS, GKEEN, & CO.
 
 A Selection of Educational Works. 
 
 15 
 
 MUUngton's Latin Prose Composition. Crown 8vo. 3*. 6d. 
 
 Selections from Latin Prose. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d . 
 
 Moody's Eton Latin Grammar. 12mo. 2s. 6d. The Accidence separately, 1*. 
 Morris's Elementa Latina. Fcp. 8vo. 1*. 6d. Key, 2*. 6d. 
 Parry's Origines Romanse, from Livy, with English Note*. Crown 8vo. 4*. 
 The Public School Latin Primer. 12mo. 2t. 6d. 
 
 Grammar, by Rev. Dr. Kennedy. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 Prendergast's Mastery Series, Manual of Latin. 12mo. 2s. M. 
 Rapier's Introduction to Composition of Latin Verse. 12mo. 3*. 6d. Key, 2s. Gd. 
 Sheppard and Turner's Aids to Classical Study. 12mo. 5s. Key, 6s. 
 Valpy's Latin Delectus, improved by White. 12ma 2s. 6d. Key, 3*. 6d. 
 Virgil's .ffineid, translated into English Verse by Conington. Crown 8vo. 9i. 
 
 Works, edited by Kennedy. Crown 8vo. 10*. 6d. 
 
 - translated into English Prose by Conington. Crown 8ro. 9*. 
 Walford's Progressive Exercises in Latin Elegiac Verse. 12mo. 'it. 6d. Key, 5*. 
 White and Riddle's Large Latin-English Dictionary. 1 vol. 4to. 21*. 
 White's Concise Latin-Eng. Dictionary for University Students. Royal 8vo. 12*. j 
 
 Junior Students' Eng.-Lat. & Lat.-Eng. Dictionary. Square 12mo. 5*. 
 
 SOTirit,Piv / The I^tin-English Dictionary, price 3*. 
 separately j The English . Latin Dictionary, price 3s. 
 
 Yoage's Latin Gradus. Post 8vo. 9*. ; or with Appendix, 12*. 
 
 WHITE'S GRAMMAR-SCHOOL GREEK TEXTS. 
 
 ^sop (Fables) & Patephatus (Myths). 
 
 32mo. Is. 
 
 Euripides, Hecuba. 2*. 
 Homer, Iliad, Book I. 1*. 
 
 Odyssey, Book I. 1*. 
 Lucian, Select Dialogues. It. 
 Xenophon, Anabasis, Books I. ILL IV. 
 
 V. & VI. 1*. 6d. each ; Book II. Is. ; 
 
 Book VII. 2*. 
 
 Xenophon, Book I. without Vocabu- 
 
 lary. 3d. 
 St. Matthew's and St. Luke's Gospels. 
 
 2j. Rd. each. 
 St. Mark's and St. John's Gospels. 
 
 1*. 6d. each. 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles. 2*. 6d. 
 St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. l*.6<f. 
 
 The Four Gospels in Greek, with Greek-English Lexicon. Edited by John T. 
 White, D.D. Oxon. Square 32mo. price 5*. 
 
 WHITE'S GRAMMAR-SCHOOL LATIN TEXTS. 
 
 Csesar. Gallic War, Books I. & II. V. 
 
 & VI. 1*. each. Book I. without 
 
 Vocabulary, 3d. 
 Csesar, Gallic War, Books HI. & IV. 
 
 9d. each. 
 
 Cffisar, Gallic War, Book VII. It. Gd. 
 Cicero, Cato Major (Old Age). 1*. 6d. 
 Cicero, Lselins (Friendship). 1*. 6<J. 
 Butropins, Roman History, Books I. 
 
 & n. 1*. Books III. & IV. 1*. 
 Horace.Odes, Books I.II.& IV. Ueach. 
 Horace, Odes, Book III. 1*. 6d. 
 Horace, Epodes and Carmen Seculare. 
 
 1*. 
 
 Nepos, Miltiadeg, Simon, Pausaniai, 
 Aristides. 9d. 
 
 Ovid. Selections from Epistles and 
 Fasti. 1*. 
 
 Ovid, Select Myths from Metamor- 
 phoses. 9d. 
 
 Phaedrus, Select Easy Fables, 
 
 PhzBdrns, Fables, Books I. fi H. 1*. 
 
 Sallust, Bellum Catilinarinm. 1*. 6d. 
 
 Virgil, Georgics, Book IV. 1*. 
 
 Virgil, ^Bneid. Books I. to VI. 1*. each. 
 Book I. without Vocabulary, 3d. 
 
 Virgil, ^neid, Books VII. VIII. X. 
 XI. XII. 1*. M.each. 
 
 London : LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.
 
 16 A Selection of Educational Works. 
 
 THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Albites's How to Speak French. Fop. 8vo. 5s. 6d. 
 
 Instantaneous French Exercises. Fcp. 2s. Key, Is. 
 Cassal's French Genders. Crown 8vo. 3*. 6d. 
 Oassal & Karcher's Graduated French Translation Book. Part I. 3*. 6d. 
 
 Part II. 5i. Key to Part I. by Professor Cassal, price 53. 
 Contanseau's Practical French and English Dictionary. Post 8vo. 3*. 6<J. 
 
 Pocket French and English Dictionary. Square 18mo. 1*. 6<f. 
 
 Premieres Lectures. 12mo. 2*. 6d. 
 
 First Step in French. 12mo. 2s. 6d. Key, 3t. 
 
 French Accidence. 12mo. 2*. 6d. 
 
 Grammar. 12mo. 4. Key, 8s. 
 Contanseau's Middle-Class French Course. Fcp. 8vo. ; 
 
 Accidence, Sd. 
 
 Syntax, Sd. 
 
 French Conversation-Book, Sd. 
 
 First French Exercise-Book, Sd. 
 
 Second French Exercise-Book, Sd . 
 
 French Translation-Book, Sd. 
 Easy French Delectus, Sd. 
 First French Header, Sd. 
 Second French Reader, Sd. 
 French and English Dialogues, Sd. 
 
 Contanseau's Guide to French Translation. 12mo. 3*. 6d. Key 3*. 6d. 
 
 Prosateurs et Poetes Francais. 12mo. 5*. 
 
 Precis de la Litterature Francaise. 12mo. 3,>. 6d. 
 
 Abrege de 1'Histoire de France. 12mo. 2*. 6d. 
 
 Feval's Chouans et Bleus, with Notes by C. Sankey, M.A. Fcp. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Jerram's Sentences for Translation into French. Cr. 8vo. Is. Key, 2*. 6d. 
 
 Prendergast's Mastery Series, French. 12mo. 2*. 6d. 
 
 Souvestre's Philosophe sous les Toits, by Stievenard. Square 18mo. 1*. 6d. 
 
 Stepping -Stone to French Pronunciation. 18mo. 1*. 
 
 Stievenard's Lectures Fran?aises from Modern Authors. 12mo. 4s. Gd. 
 
 Rules and Exercises on the French Language. 12mo. 3.J. 6d. 
 
 Tarver's Eton French Grammar. 12mo. 6*. 6d. 
 
 THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 Blackley's Practical German and English Dictionary. Post 8vo. 8*. 6d. 
 Bnchheim's German Poetry, for Repetition. 18mo. 1*. 6d. 
 Collis's Card of German Irregular Verbs. 8vo. 2*. 
 Fischer-Fischart's Elementary German Grammar. Fcp. 8vo. 3i. 6d. 
 Just's German Grammar. 12mo. 1*. 6d. 
 
 German Reading Book. 12mo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Longman's Pocket German and English Dictionary. Square 18mo. 2t. M. 
 Naftel's Elementary German Course for Public Schools. Fcp. 8vo. 
 
 German Accidence. 9d. 
 
 German Syntax. Sd. 
 
 First German Exercise-Book. Sd. 
 
 Second German Exercise-Book. 9d. 
 Prendergast's Mastery Series, German. 12mo. 2*. 6d. 
 Quick's Essentials of German. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 Selss's School Edition of Goethe's Faust. Crown 8vo. 5*. 
 Outline of German Literature. Crown 8vo. 4*. 6d. 
 Wirth's German Chit-Chat. Crown 8vo. 2s. M. 
 
 German Prose Composition Book. 9A 
 First German Reader. 9<f . 
 Second German Reader. 9<f . 
 
 London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
 Spottiswoode <fc Co. Printers, New-street Square, London.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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