your mind, and preserves them long from decay; makes your wit active, and your memory retentive. 'Tis that which supports the fragility of a corruptible body, and préserves the verdure, vigor, and beauty of youth. 'Tis that which makes the soul take delight in her mansion, sporting herself at the casements of your eyes! 'Tis that which makes pleasure to be pleasure, and delights delightful.” 4. Let it once become a part of ordinary schooltraining to acquire a knowledge of the laws of health, and instead of going through life with vague ideas of the right way,-vague notions of the importance of exercise, circulation, pure air, and diet,-- our youth would grow up with sound opinions; they would perceive not only why exercise is conducive to health, but why without due exercise the main'tenance of health is impossible. 5. All those to whom the training of children is intrusted would perceive that, so often as they permit those children to pass one single day without due muscular exercise, so often do they permit them to inflict an irreparable wrong upon their systems. The omission of a single day's due muscular exercise, even though it occasion no feeling of discomfort, is a wrong inflicted on the growing system which can never be expiated; for a day's development is sacrificed. 6. The Creator, be it remembered, has designed the first thirty-five years of human life for the development of the system. For thirty-five years the creative power exceeds the disorganizing power. Day by day, during the whole of that period, man might, by constant obedience to the Creator's laws, be growing stronger and stronger, throughout his entire organization. Let these facts be considered, and then reflect what man's prime might be, and what it too frequently is. 7. The benefits of exercise, to those whose occupa tion does not require physical exertion, can not be too highly estimated. The body must undergo a certain amount of fatigue, to preserve its natural strength, and maintain all the muscles and organs in proper.vigor. This activity equalizes the circulation, and distributes the blood more effectually through every part. Cold feet, or a chill any where, shows that the circulation is languid. The muscles, during exercise, press on the veins, and help forward the currents of blood by quickening every vessel into activity. The valves of the heart are in this way aided in the work of sending on this stream, and relieved of a certain amount of labor. 8. When exercise is neglected, the blood gathers too much about this central region, and the oppression about the heart, difficulty of breathing, lowness of spirits, anxiety and heaviness, numerous aches and stitches, are evidences of this stagnation. People are afraid to take exercise, because they fancy they want breath, and feel weak. But the very effort would free the heart from this burden, by urging the blood forward to the extremities; it would ease their breathing, by liberating the lungs from the same superabundance; it would make the frame feel active and light, as the effect of equalized circulation and free action. 9. The important position which physical education should occupy, in the education of youth, has attracted the attention of philosophers and lawgivers from the earliest ages. It was provided by one of the laws of So'lon that every Athenian should be taught to read and to swim. The regular liberal education of a Greek youth consisted of three parts, grammar, music, and gymnastics; but the latter occupied as much attention as all the others put together. 10. From the age of sixteen to eighteen, the youth of ancient Greece devoted themselves exclusively to gymnastics. The academy and the ly-ce'um- names which among us are associated with intellectual culture were originally gymnasia, theaters of strenuous bodily discipline, as well as scenes of mental exercise. 11. In modern times, physical training has been strangely neglected. It is erroneously assumed that the natural instincts of the young will lead them to take as much exercise as they require. If they dwelt out of doors, like wild animals, this might be true; but how often do the more studious allow themselves to be detained by an entertaining book, or some other in-door attraction, from taking the proper amount of exercise in the open air! 12. Excessive exercise should always be avoided. Instances are not uncommon in which undue exertion has produced effects scarcely less injurious than those which result from inactivity. The existence of either class of evils is sufficient to prove that some general system of physical teaching and training should be established in all schools, by which one sex may be preserved from the evils of deficiency, and the other from those of excess, in exertion. CXXXVII. THE CHILD OF EARTH. GLIMPSE, n., a momentary light. SLANT, v. i., to turn aslant. LATTICE, n., a window made by crossing latns or bars. FAINTER her slow step falls from day to day; "I am content to die,-but, O! not now!Not while the blossoms of the joyous spring Make the warm air such luxury to breathe; Not while the birds such lays of gladness sing; Not while bright flowers around my footsteps wreathe; Spare me, great God! lift up my drooping brow; The spring hath ripened into summer time; The season's viewless boundary is past; Greets my dull ear with music in its tone! Summer is gone; and autumn's soberer hues Shouts the halloo! and winds the eager horn.→→ I am content to die,-- but, O! not now!" The bleak wind whistles; snow-showers, far and near, The spring is come again-the joyful spring! Again the banks with clustering flowers are spread: The wild bird dips upon its wanton wing; The child of earth is numbered with the dead! "Thee never more the sunshine shall awake, Beaming all redly through the lattice-pane; Death's silent shadow veils thy darkened brow: CXXXVIII.-GO TO WORK. Do-MAIN', n., estate; dominion. common rule; irregularity. DUCTILE, a., easily led; pliable. OR-GAN'IC, a., consisting of organs UN-SEN'TIENT (-sen'shent), a., not hav- Avoid saying wust for worst; noo, constitootion, &c., for new, con-sti-tu'tion, &c. 1. "Go to work." Such is the brief but significant admonition which Nature utters aloud in every human ear; an admonition, in fact, which the God of Nature has put into her mouth, and which she is ever and anon repeating to all the dwellers upon earth. She reminds us, by a thousand plain signs, that every thing within her domain is at work, and that therefore we have no right to stand still. She shows us that every atom and particle of the material world is in a state of constant activity, -that change and modification, of some sort or other, are going on unceasingly, and that nothing does or can remain at rest. 2. The ground we tread; the air we breathe; every thing we touch, taste, or handle; the very bōnes, mus cles, and fluids, which make up our frames, — all are passing in an unceasing progression to a new organic condition. Action, action! is the living voice of unsentient matter. There is not even a possibility of standing still each passing moment contributes some、 thing toward a new complexion to the face of the |