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    264 PHYSICAL TRAILING.

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    « Miss Nightingale, Who Began Iier Caree...

    tendedbetter lnental acconrplishnient is connniuiicated in half the common , school hours . Thus the old paradox is realized , that the

    half is better than the whole . To some extent the aggravation of children ' s ailments , by the

    forced inactivity of ordinary school , is mitigated as respects boys by their greater freedom and opportunities of exercise at play . It is the

    c g ourse irls , on of whom school the and most other grievous bodily suffering restraints is . entailed So grievous by the had present the

    evils entailed by the cloister system of early training become for middle class females , that for their protection in Sweden a special

    system of school gymnastics , formed by a celebrated medical professor of the name of Ling , has been long introduced into

    practiceand is spreading in Prussia , and in other parts of Europe . daug In , Eng hters land into , mothers the towns of the to middle receive and dancing higher lessons classes . In take Sweden their ,

    mothers of the same class take their daughters into Stockholm to receive gymnastic training . So important are the effects

    produced , as I learn from Sweden , that they are now adding , as means of bodilwhich really includes mental trainingswimming schools

    for girls y as , well as for boys . The gymnastics are , systematised into two divisions—Sickness gymnasticsfor retrieving bodily defects

    , and ailments ; and Health gymnastics , for bodily development . In some of our best managed district pauper schools in England ,

    and also in the Hoyal Military Asylum at Chelsea , for the training of the children of soldiers , we have proximate experience of the

    working of less systematised sanitary exercises , combining the military , and in some cases most advantageously a naval , drill

    with swimming , and other bodily exercises , together with a reduced amount of sedentary application in school , generally half school

    timewith very high success both in the correction of the bodily defects , abounding in that classand in strengthening them

    physi-, cally for the future service of the world , as also in strengthening them morally by discipline , and mentally by a brighter voluntary

    attention during reduced , as well as less wearisome , hours of school instruction . The half school time children of this class , having

    eighteen hours of book instruction weekly , proved upon examination to be even superior in book attainments to those of the same classes ,

    under the same system of school instruction and under the same teacherswho are kept altogether in school thirty-six hours weekly .

    I also find , it a fact generally acknowledged by school teachers , that in the mixed schools of the lower classesthe book attainments of

    the girls , who are employed one half of the , school time in sewing and in other industrial occupations , are fully equal to those of the

    boys in the same schools , who are exclusively occupied in book learning . It is common to hear the manly education of English youth ,

    and the healthy exercise they have received in boat racing and cricket , made matter of boast ; but what class of youth is it , and what

    proportion of the population do they form who receive these advan-

    264 Physical Trailing.

    264 PHYSICAL _TRAILING .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1860, page 264, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121860/page/48/