HEAD-DRESS FOR CHILDREN. 83 head, it is apt to occasion pains and inflammation of these organs, or a disgusting and sometimes dangerous soreness and running behind the external ears. As soon as the head has become well covered with hair the cap may be dispensed with during the day, as well as at night; and when the child is taken out a very light and easy hat may be worn, rather, however, in compliance with the customs of society than as a necessary protection. CHAPTER VI. EXERCISE. "Begin with gentle toils, and, as your nerves "To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen, ARMSTRONG. GREEN. THERE is not a single power of the body or the mind which inaction does not enfeeble or destroy. The lameness of gouty feet, for instance, is often owing to their not having been sufficiently used. It is but a fair retribution that we should be deprived of a faculty which we have not enough valued or employed. Between the two principal causes of gout there is a natural alliance. Men are apt to indulge to excess in the luxuries of the table from a deficiency of other occupation; and there is a tendency, on the other hand, in gluttonous indulgence, to induce sluggishness and a disposition to intemperate repose. It is upon exercise, associated with regularity and moderation of living, and not upon drugs, that health depends. Posture is nearly connected with the subject of bodily exercise. The usual attitude of a person occupied in reading or writing tends to obstruct the passage of VARYING OF OCCUPATIONS ESSENTIAL. 85 the blood through the pulmonary and abdominal vessels. Nothing is more important than frequently varying our active occupations, so that every portion of the body may be duly and equally exercised. If any particular limb or set of muscles be habitually called into action, while the others are allowed to remain in a state of comparative rest, it will require a disproportionate degree of development and strength, by which means the symmetry of the body is destroyed, its vigour is impaired, and the foundation laid for diseases of a very serious character. This tendency of partial exercise to produce an unequal growth of the body is, to a certain degree, evinced in almost every individual. The limbs of the right side being those most constantly called into action acquire, in general, a marked superiority in bulk and strength over those of the left. In certain mechanics this circumstance is exhibited to a much greater extent; thus the muscles of the arms of the blacksmith, the weaver, and numerous others, will be found, in the majority of cases, to be much larger, and possessed of greater strength, than those of the inferior extremities. An instance of this is exhibited by the watermen of London, engaged almost constantly in rowing. From the partial manner in which their limbs are necessarily exerted their figure becomes ungraceful in the extreme: the chest is broad, it is true, but the shoulders are high and square, the neck thick and short, and the back rounded, giving the appearance of a stoop; in consequence of the great size of the muscles upon the shoulders and upper part of the back, while the inferior half of the body would seem almost emaciated. Their chest and arms are almost herculean, while their legs are miserably small. Such a form, though it gives precisely that degree of strength requisite for the mere handling of the oar, and for certain other mechanical employments, to say nothing of its positive deformity, incapacitates its possessor almost entirely from any occupation in which the legs and feet are actively engaged. A contrast to these watermen is often exhibited in the professional pedestrian and public dancer, in whom the legs are large and fleshy, and the upper parts of the body disproportionately small. In order correctly to understand this subject it is necessary to remark, that exercise consists strictly in the alternate flexion and extension of the limbs; in other words, in the quick succession of muscular action and repose. Permanent contraction of the muscles, however powerful or long-continued, produces scarcely any of those good effects which are to be anticipated from exercise. Thus, while sitting or standing, a numerous set of muscles are in action, but in neither of these positions can the body be said to be in exercise. The latter is, therefore, always partial, even in the labourer who, in a standing posture, exerts to their utmost the muscles of his arms. Such a one avoids, it is true, the constrained and injurious position of the body which occurs in the sedentary mechanic, but so far merely as regards exercise he has but little advantage over the latter. It is on this account that walking is a means of recreation admirably adapted to almost every individual of the working classes, as it tends to produce an equal degree of development in the lower parts of the body with that which is produced by their daily avocations in the upper. Those, however, on the other hand, who are obliged to walk, or in any other manner exert their inferior extremities for the greater part of the day, will find in certain mechanical employments in which the arms chiefly are engaged, while the rest of the body is allowed to remain in a state of repose, the kind of exercise they require in order to balance the effects of that to which they are ordinarily subject. The following advice on this subject may be useful:Your amusements should be adapted to the nature of your employment through the day. Thus, should you be exhausted by toil, choose some amusement in which ARTIFICIAL DISCIPLINE OF FEMALES. 87 skill and dexterity are required rather than labour; but if your employment during the day should have been accompanied with but little exertion, choose those sports which call the various muscles into play. Take care, however, that your amusements and your sports bear not on the limbs which work has wearied. Let him whose arms are fatigued with wielding the pickaxe or the ponderous hammer amuse himself, when his task is over, with a rural walk; whilst he whose occupations weary his legs and feet should rather seek amusement in those sports in which the arms are chiefly concerned. If an attention to a proper variety in bodily exercises be important in the adult, it is so in a tenfold degree in respect to children. Boys, it is true, unless unwisely thwarted in their natural inclinations, will most generally be found to engage in those sports calculated to call equally into action almost every muscle of the body; but in the case of girls it is different. Subjected from an early period to an artificial discipline and a thousand injudicious restraints, they are very apt to be debarred active exercises of almost every kind, or, when these are permitted, they are partial, and have, therefore, a tendency to produce deformity and disease. Females, both by constitution and education, are par ticularly liable to suffer from the passive state induced by over-refinement. So much is present to captivate their native delicacy and timidity, that they overlook the danger arising from these being morbidly increased. Ever busied with unnumbered details, they have frequently no one engrossing occupation. Leaning for support on some loved relative, and deluded by the hope that they may so continue secure and blameless, they are too often unprepared for the disappointments and the duties of real life. The willing homage of the protecting sex raises them above the thoughts and the cares of the busy world. They are seldom if ever told of the uncertain tenure of sickly beauty's "frail and feverish being," and they hear not the still small |