GIRLS’ DORMITORIES.

At the head of all the means for preserving beauty are cleanliness, frequent ablutions, and a habit of early rising.  In these girls of all ranks are well schooled, and to show you that in their education we do not neglect what are erroneously called trifles, I will tell you of one of the modes of treatment commonly employed in connexion with such matters.

In the colleges each girl has a separate sleeping-room, as we have a great objection to young girls sleeping together in one room, and inhaling each other’s peculiar gas thrown off in the form of breath during their slumbers.  Besides, when that practice prevailed, as it did formerly, the girls were in the habit of talking to each other upon subjects which often suggested inconvenient thoughts, even to the best disposed, and confirmed others in tendencies which eventually grew into confirmed vices.

On the pupil’s retiring to rest, the door of her sleeping-room is fastened from the outside by one of the matrons.  The girl has no means of opening it herself, but by touching a little spring at the head of her couch she can at any moment communicate with the matron night-watchers.  These matron night-watchers—­two for a certain number of girls—­are on the alert during the night, remaining in a place called the “watch,” where are suspended the electric bells, underneath each of which is the name of the girl occupying the room to which it corresponds.

Light is supplied to every dormitory by means of a lamp inserted in the wall, and opening from the outside.  Half an hour after the door has been closed the matron extinguishes the light, without entering the room.  The external red light of night is also excluded; for, as with you, darkness is thought much more conducive to refreshing sleep.

In consequence of the warmth of our climate, girls, being naturally rather luxurious, are not inclined to rise early.  They are, however, all required to rise at the same hour, and this is the mode adopted for rousing them.  At the end of each room, opposite to the sleeping-couch, is a kind of gong made of metal and formed like a pair of cymbals, united at the base by a hinge, and kept together by a bolt at the top.

At the hour of rising these cymbals are set in motion by the matron in the watch room, who touches a spring by which the bolt fastening the cymbals together is removed.  Thereupon the cymbals immediately clash together, and produce loud discordant sounds.  The girl, not liking the discordant noise, loses no time in stopping it, which is beyond her power unless she leaves her bed and fixes the bolt that keeps the two cymbals together.

This done, she goes into an adjoining room, in which are a bath and other preparations for her ablutions.  The door communicating with the sleeping-room closes of itself, whereupon the matron enters the apartment, pulls off the bed-clothes, and opens a large skylight at the top, to admit the fresh air.