To the importance of bodily exercise most people are in some degree awake.  Perhaps less needs saying on this requisite of physical education than on most others:  at any rate, in so far as boys are concerned.  Public schools and private schools alike furnish tolerably adequate play-grounds; and there is usually a fair share of time for out-door games, and a recognition of them as needful.  In this, if in no other direction, it seems admitted that the promptings of boyish instinct may advantageously be followed; and, indeed, in the modern practice of breaking the prolonged morning’s and afternoon’s lessons by a few minutes’ open-air recreation, we see an increasing tendency to conform school-regulations to the bodily sensations of the pupils.  Here, then, little needs be said in the way of expostulation or suggestion.

But we have been obliged to qualify this admission by inserting the clause “in so far as boys are concerned.”  Unfortunately the fact is quite otherwise with girls.  It chances, somewhat strangely, that we have daily opportunity of drawing a comparison.  We have both a boys’ school and a girls’ school within view; and the contrast between them is remarkable.  In the one case, nearly the whole of a large garden is turned into an open, gravelled space, affording ample scope for games, and supplied with poles and horizontal bars for gymnastic exercises.  Every day before breakfast, again towards eleven o’clock, again at mid-day, again in the afternoon, and once more after school is over, the neighbourhood is awakened by a chorus of shouts and laughter as the boys rush out to play; and for as long as they remain, both eyes and ears give proof that they are absorbed in that enjoyable activity which makes the pulse bound and ensures the healthful activity of every organ.  How unlike is the picture offered by the “Establishment for Young Ladies!” Until the fact was pointed out, we actually did not know that we had a girl’s school as close to us as the school for boys.  The garden, equally large with the other, affords no sign whatever of any provision for juvenile recreation; but is entirely laid out with prim grass-plots, gravel-walks, shrubs, and flowers, after the usual suburban style.  During five months we have not once had our attention drawn to the premises by a shout or a laugh.  Occasionally girls may be observed sauntering along the paths with lesson-books in their hands, or else walking arm-in-arm.  Once indeed, we saw one chase another round the garden; but, with this exception, nothing like vigorous exertion has been visible.

Why this astounding difference?  Is it that the constitution of a girl differs so entirely from that of a boy as not to need these active exercises?  Is it that a girl has none of the promptings to vociferous play by which boys are impelled?  Or is it that, while in boys these promptings are to be regarded as stimuli to a bodily activity without which there cannot be adequate development, to their sisters, Nature