Really, if you would open a school, every truant would delight in you.

MRS. F.

Yes; I would do away with the feeling that education is like a dose of physic-the more nauseous, the more efficacious.

EDITH.

But lessons are dreadful things, Aunt Ellen, when one is very young. And does not Solomon say, Spare the rod, and spoil the child ?"

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MRS. F.

We will take the man of wisdom's proverb not exactly "au pied de la lettre," for a child is not a dog or a horse, that we should beat it for its misdemeanours, but a reasonable animal, whose sense of justice is often as great as that of its teachers.

GRACE.

I have always thought that Solomon's "rod" was not a real tangible rod of birch, but a metaphorical weapon, in the shape of reproof and advice.

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MRS. F.

The noise which boys and girls make in play is strictly in accordance with this third requisite for the health of the lungs for the exercise of the voice is another mode of expanding and strengthening the chest and lungs. Moreover, the excitement of the social and moral feelings which children should experience in their play, is a most useful stimulus to their lungs as well as to their muscles. Grief has been known to cause consumption.

EDITH.

As Shakspeare says:—

"He made her melancholy, sad and heavy,
And so she died."

MRS. F.

Great depression of mind causes imperfect respiration, a sluggish flow of blood, and nervous energy and inactivity of the muscles.

GRACE.

Then "laugh and grow fat," is a proverb founded on Physiology?

Yes.

MRS. F.

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones," is one of Solomon's proverbs.

CONVERSATION X.

MRS. F.

I told you yesterday how necessary oxygen, or, as it is often called, vital air, is to life and respiration. It has been ascertained that a person breathes from 14 to 20 times in a minute, and inhales from 15 to 40 cubic inches of air at each breath!

GRACE.

Then every minute of our lives we are taking in from 15 to 40 cubic inches of oxygen, or vital air, and giving back to the atmosphere an equal portion of carbonic acid gas and waste matter?

EDITH.

But why do you say that we breathe from 14 to 20 times in a minute? do some breathe only 14, whilst others breathe 20?

MRS. F.

Different lungs have different powers. Large, welldeveloped lungs of course take in more air than those which are small and feeble, and respiration is different at different times. We breathe faster when we are taking exercise than when quite still. We will rate the general number of inspirations at 15 every minute (which is a very low estimate), and take the consumption at 20 cubic inches each breath. At this rate, in the space of one minute, we each require 300 cubic inches of air. In one minute it is found

that 24 cubic inches of oxygen disappear, and are replaced by an equal quantity of carbonic acid; so that, in the course of an hour, one pair of lungs will, at a low estimate, vitiate the air, by taking from it no less than 1,440 cubic inches of oxygen, and adding 1,440 of carbonic acid gas!

GRACE.

Really this is a source of impurity which ought not to be overlooked; and yet how few people give a thought to this subject, but, on the contrary, how many contentedly breathe over and over again the same vitiated air.

MRS. F.

Still, breathing highly vitiated air causes death. A mouse, put under a tight glass jar full of air, seems at first to feel no inconvenience; but in time, as it consumes the oxygen, and gives out carbonic acid gas, it begins to show uneasiness, and pants, as it were, for breath, or rather air, and in a few hours it dies. Have you never heard of the Black Hole at Calcutta, and that shocking history of the fate of one hundred and forty-six Englishmen, who were shut up in it in 1756? They were all thrust into a confined space of 18 feet square. There were only two small windows, and both of these were on one side, so that ventilation was impossible. Hardly was the door shut upon them ere their sufferings commenced, and soon a delirious and deadly struggle began, to get near the windows. Within four hours, those who were not dead lay in an apoplectic stupor. At the end of six hours, ninety-six were relieved by death; and, in the morning, when the door was opened, only twenty-three were found alive out of the one hundred and forty-six, and many of those died afterwards from putrid fever, caused by the dreadful effluvia and corruption of the air.

EDITH.

How very dreadful! But this could only happen among a barbarous and ignorant people?

I

MRS. F.

So one might think; but there is another instance very like this, which happened to Crabbe, the poet, when he was at school. It is thus recorded in his

Life by his son :- "He and several of his schoolfellows were punished by being put into a large dogkennel, known by the name of the Black Hole. George was the first that entered, and the place being crammed with offenders, the atmosphere soon became pestilentially close. The poor boy in vain shrieked that he was about to be suffocated. At last, in despair, he bit the lad next him violently on the hand. Crabbe, is dying! Crabbe is dying!' roared the sufferer, and the sentinel at length opened the door, and allowed the boys to rush into the air. My father said, 'A minute more, and I must have died.'" Such examples ought not to be unheeded; for if such are the effects of highly vitiated air, it must be very hurtful to health, even in a minor degree, since the lungs require a large supply of fresh pure air. It was proved, in the History of the Late War, that " more human life was destroyed by accumulating sick men in low and ill-ventilated apartments, than by leaving them exposed, in severe and inclement weather, at the side of a hedge or common dyke."

GRACE.

I have heard people joke you for your love of air; though I now see the reason why you seldom leave the room, even in winter, for five minutes, without opening the windows.

MRS. F.

I am so convinced of its importance, especially to the young, that I never allowed you to sit too long in your school-room, which was rather small and confined, but every two or three hours sent you out, and threw open the windows. Dr. Combe mentions an intelligent teacher in Edinburgh who pays much