not hurt himself.  Nor will, during mere childhood, his little sister experience anything but benefit, under the same circumstances.  But at the epoch of womanhood, precisely when the constitution should be acquiring robust strength, her perils begin; she then needs not merely to be allured to exertion, but to be protected against over-exertion; experience shows that she cannot be turned loose, cannot be safely left with boyish freedom to take her fill of running, rowing, riding, swimming, skating,—­because life-long injury may be the penalty of a single excess.  This necessity for caution cannot be the normal condition, for such caution cannot be exerted for the female peasant or savage, but it seems the necessary condition for American young women.  It is a fact not to be ignored, that some of the strongest and most athletic girls among us have lost their health and become invalids for years, simply by being allowed to live the robust, careless, indiscreet life on which boys thrive so wonderfully.  It is fatal, if they do too little, and disastrous, if they do too much; and between these two opposing perils the process of steering is so difficult that the majority of parents end in letting go the helm and leaving the fragile vessel to steer itself.

Everything that follows in these pages must therefore be construed in the light of this admitted difficulty.  The health of boys is a matter not hard to treat, on purely physiological grounds; but in dealing with that of girls caution is necessary.  Yet, after all, the perplexities can only obscure the details of the prescription, while the main substance is unquestionable.  Nowhere in the universe, save in improved habits, can we ever find health for our girls.  Special delicacy in the conditions of the problem only implies more sedulous care in the solution.  The great laws of exercise, of respiration, of digestion are essentially the same for all human beings; and greater sensitiveness in the patient should not relax, but only stimulate, our efforts after cure.  And the unquestionable fact that there are among us, after the worst is said, large numbers of robust and healthy women, should keep up our courage until we can apply their standard to the whole sex.

In presence of an evil so great, it is inevitable that there should be some fantastic theories of cure.  But extremes are quite pardonable, where it is so important to explore all the sources of danger.  Special ills should have special assailants, at whatever risk of exaggeration.  As water-cures and vegetarian boarding-houses are the necessary defence of humanity against dirt and over-eating, so is the most ungainly Bloomer that ever drifted on bare poles across the continent a providential protest against the fashion-plates.  It is probable, that, on the whole, there is a gradual amelioration in female costume.  These hooded water-proof cloaks, equalizing all womankind,—­these thick soles and heavy heels, proclaiming themselves with such masculine emphasis on the pavement,—­these priceless india-rubber boots, emancipating all juvenile femineity from the terrors of mud and snow,—­all these indicate an approaching era of good sense; for they are the requisite machinery of air, exercise, and health, so far as they go.