If, however, a child is delicate and strumous, and too feeble to take sufficient exercise on foot,—­and to such a constitution the respiration of a pure air and exercise are indispensable for the improvement of health, and without them all other efforts will fail,—­riding on a donkey or pony forms the best substitute.  This kind of exercise will always be found of infinite service to delicate children; it amuses the mind, and exercises the muscles of the whole body, and yet in so gentle a manner as to induce little fatigue.

The exercises of horseback, however, are most particularly useful where there is a tendency in the constitution to pulmonary consumption, either from hereditary or accidental causes.  It is here beneficial, as well through its influence on the general health, as more directly on the lungs themselves.  There can be no doubt that the lungs, like the muscles of the body, acquire power and health of function by exercise.  Now during a ride this is obtained, and without much fatigue to the body.  The free and equable expansion of the lungs by full inspiration, necessarily takes place; this maintains their healthy structure, by keeping all the air-passages open and pervious; it prevents congestion in the pulmonary circulation, and at the same time provides more completely for the necessary chemical action on the blood, by changing, at each act of respiration, a sufficient proportion of the whole air contained in the lungs,—­all objects of great importance, and all capable of being promoted, more or less, by the means in question.

And be it remembered that these remarks apply with equal force to the girl as to the boy.  She should be allowed, and even encouraged, to take the same active exercise.  Fortunately, this course is followed during childhood; not so, unfortunately (in the majority of cases, at least), after this period.  Young females are then subjected to those unnatural restraints, both in exercise and dress, which fashion and vanity impose, to be followed by effects which, though not immediately obvious, are capable of laying the foundation of evils that cannot afterwards be remedied.

A good carriage is the point aimed at (and to which I particularly refer), and the means adopted for its cultivation fail, after all, in their end, just in proportion to their rigid employment.  For this purpose the head is kept erect, and the shoulders drawn back, and they are to be kept in this position not for an hour or so, but continually.  To preserve, however, this unnatural and constrained position, requires considerable muscular powers, such as no girl can exercise without long, painful, and injurious training; nor even by this, unless other measures be resorted to in aid of her direct endeavours.  For instead of the muscles obtaining increased power and strength by these efforts (to enforce a good carriage), they are enfeebled, and soon become more and more incapable of performing what is required of them.  This fact