would require a new house or a reduction in
the number of pupils—sweeping alterations
which might not prosper, and which, we are
pretty sure, Miss Thompson will not, at
present, carry into effect.

The illustration will be found in the very
common, perhaps universal custom, of
furnishing a school with stools and forms in lieu
of ordinary chairs. This is a direct sacrifice
of health to parsimony. The stools cost little,
and are conveniently moved from one room
to another. All mistresses know, however,
that the spine of a growing girl is unable to
support constantly the weight of her head
and shoulders. Nature teaches leaning as a
means of relief, by which the weight is
lessened, and the free action of the chest not
impeded. But a girl who sits on a stool cannot
lean, and her spine bends. The resulting
deformity may be permanent or temporary;
an abiding curvature to one or other side, or
a mere rounding of the back removable at
will. But all such distortions, while they last,
if only for five minutes, have a bad effect that
is commonly forgotten. They confine the
chest and hinder respiration, limiting the
quantity of air admitted into the lungs, and
producing effects similar to those of a vitiated
atmosphere. This is no light thing. To place
a girl in such a position, for several hours
daily, that her chest cannot expand with freedom,
is to subject her to a kind of slow
poisoning. Those who have narrow chests
become, under such treatment, pallid and
listless, their hearts beat violently on
exertion, and they are rendered dangerously
prone to lung diseases. The majority show
little amiss, and Miss Thompson speaks of
the excellent health of the girls under her
care. But to all of them a little mischief is
done every day, their standard of health is
lowered, and their power to resist hurtful
influences is diminished. Schoolmistresses
cannot be ignorant that they do wrong in
using these stools, but they seldom know how
wrong: they believe, perhaps, that the evil
cannot be great, as the public appear
neither to perceive it, nor to apply any
pressure for its removal. Many ladies are
content if their pupils escape being
permanently crooked, not reflecting that the last
straw is required to break even the camel's
back. Young ladies will forgive us the implied
analogy, when they remember that all backs
are the handiwork of one Great Artificer.

School-keeping is regarded somewhat in
the same light as needlework; or as an art
which all women are competent to practise.
Captain Brown, of the service of the Honourable
Company, falls an early victim to the
insalubrity of the Indian climate; and his
widow thinks that a school would be of
material assistance in proyiding for her own
little ones. Or the Reverend Jonas Smith
is removed from the weary labours of an ill-
paid curacy; and his death leaves a delicately
nurtured lady to struggle alone with the hard
and bitter world. Or the Misses Thompson
themselves, after years of patient drudgery
as hired teachers, think to end their days in
comfort by hiring others. So, through the
fine Indian connection, or through the
sympathising parishioners, or through the grateful
efforts of former pupils, the lease and good-
will of Prospect Villa are obtained, the last
proprietress retires to spend the evening of
her life in peace, and the new school is
commenced, with all usual assistance from skilful
resident and visiting teachers. Let us hope
that it will be crowned with success. Who
does not honour the brave women who enter
upon its duties? Who does not know the
ever-widening circle of charity and kindness
that will result from their prosperity; the
relatives that they will support; the feebler
friends that they will assist with timely
hand; the good deeds that they will do in
secret, hereafter to be proclaimed and rewarded
in the sight of men and angels. Let us not
say one word to diminish their hard-earned
gains, or to curtail their noble usefulness; but
we would advise them, then, to seek, and
we would advise their clients strictly to
require from them, some knowledge of the
laws which govern the well-being of the
human body, and the operations of the human
mind. Physiology and psychology, in spite of
their hard-sounding names, have long ceased
to be abstruse mysteries; and may be understood,
sufficiently for the management of a
school on enlightened principles, by a course
of accessible and not lengthy reading. They
would teach how to strengthen those weak
points of character, which are, in some degree,
inevitable as results of the female constitution;
but which are often morbidly and
unnaturally defenceless. We complain with
reason that the teachers of girls' schools are
seldom guided by any definite principles in
educating the feelings and the intellect of
their pupils; but expect what is good and
right to come of itself as a result of teaching:
much as if a watch could be set in accurate
movement by labour spent upon the polishing
and decoration of its dial plate. The
power of self control is seldom diligently
exercised; the power of reflection, of looking
inwards, of gaining self-knowledge in its true
sense, is left to be the growth of chance: and
the purely intellectual faculty, the power of
comprehension, instead of being constantly
employed upon objects within its grasp, is
neglected, in order to overload the memory.
Often joined to all this is a forcing system
which encourages over-exertion of the
growing brain, with all its concomitant
and attendant evils; and which, among
the elder girls, or among pupil teachers, who
are excited by emulation or necessity to
neglect the friendly warnings of fatigue, is
often a source of lamentable bodily and mental
failure. The young lady who springs upon
the nearest chair at the sight of a mouse or
a spider, is perhaps a greater curiosity now