their mother tongue with a commendable degree of accuracy, or that they learn to train future families in consonance with the laws of nature, and save to health the time spent in poorly-ventilated rooms, where, under the pressure of the modern school system, everything valuable and practical seems sacrificed to the ephemeral and non-essential.  We do not underrate the good our schools accomplish, not at all; on the other hand, we feel a just pride in the liberality of the country, and realize that in them lies the only security for a Republican form of government, and, indeed, our opinions go further in this direction than that of most persons, for we would make it obligatory on the part of parents to school their children to a certain degree, and that no one should be eligible to vote who could not read and write in the common language of the country.

It is the administration of the school system which we deprecate.  Hear what the famous Dr. Bowditch of Boston says upon this question, namely:—­“* * * Not only does our school system, in its practical operation, entirely ignore the necessity for physical culture, but it at times goes farther, and actually, as we believe, becomes the slayer of our people. * * * We appeal to every physician of ten or twenty years’ practice, and feel sure that in reviewing his cases of consumption he will find not a few of them in which he will trace to overwork in our schools the first springs of the malady.

“The result of all this school training is as certain as the day.  Every child who goes through these modern processes must inevitably suffer, but not all alike.  Some have one complaint, some another, and some, doubtless, finally escape unharmed.  At times they only grow pale and thin under the process.  But not a few go through to the exhibition, and, after working harder than ever for the two or three last weeks of the term, they gain the much-coveted prize only to break wholly down when it is taken.  The stimulus of desire for success is gone.  That has sustained them up to the last moment.  Success having been accomplished, the victim finds, too late, that what he has been striving for is nothing, now that it is won, compared with the vitality lost and the seeds of disease sown.”

It is true that there are a very few schools in the country where physical culture receives, in connection with other duties, its due share of attention.  We know, personally, of but one—­the Howland Ladies’ Seminary, at Union Springs, New York, and we understand, on the authority quoted above, that the Latin and High Schools of Boston are of this class.  Our colleges, however, as a rule, seem as bad as the schools.  Half the students who complete their course come out broken in health, and those who do not are about the toughest “horned cattle,” as Horace Greeley says, that can be found.

Another important item involving the economy of life is the

LOCATION OF OUR HOMES,